Part 14

Smith was then under sentence of death at Jackson, Breathitt County, for the murder of Dr. John E. Rader. As is usual with doomed felons, he became converted and sought to wash his sin-stained soul whiter than snow by a confession. It set forth that he had been present at the home of Jesse Fields on Buckhorn Creek, Breathitt County, at a time when French, Adkins and Fields discussed and perfected plans for the assassination of Judge Combs; that he, Smith, would have assisted in the dastardly murder but for a wound which he had a short time before received in a pistol duel with Town Marshal Mann on the streets of Jackson.

This confession resulted in French also being indicted.

The confession itself was of no importance from a legal standpoint. It, however, materially assisted and strengthened the prosecution by uncovering certain circumstances of which it might otherwise have remained in ignorance. The friends of the murdered judge pointed out with emphasis and logic that Smith had always been a French confederate, had fought for him, taken life for him; that he had told the truth about his participation in the murders of Joe Eversole, Nick Combs, Shade Combs, Cornett, McKnight and Doctor Rader. Was there any reason, they asked, why Smith should have lied in regard to French's complicity in the murder of Judge Combs, yet had told the truth concerning all things else. Why, they argued, should Smith desire the ruin of his friend, his companion in arms, his chieftain, and accomplish it by false statements, when the truth would save him?

French was indicted, tried and acquitted. On the first trial of Adkins and Fields both received life sentences. The cases were taken to the Court of Appeals and there, in an exhaustive opinion, reversed.

The second trial resulted in a life sentence for Adkins and the acquittal of Jesse Fields. Adkins, however, has been a free man again, lo--these many years. A life sentence in Kentucky is not what it seems.

Thus ended the last act of the bloody drama--the assassination of Judge Combs. He was murdered because he had espoused the cause of Joe Eversole at the breaking out of the war. Joe was his kinsman. As has been said, Judge Combs undoubtedly contributed to the state of anarchy which continued for so long in Perry County and disgraced American civilization. As a sworn officer he had no right to permit love for his kinsman, his friendship and affection for Eversole, to swerve him from plain duty. Judge Combs' partiality in the discharge of his duties as judge of the county doubtlessly hastened the conflict, for while it protected one faction, it furnished good and sufficient reasons to the other side to place no confidence in his administration of the law, and roused them to savage, retaliatory crimes. Notwithstanding all this, this last assassination was cowardly, as all the others, for that matter. If Judge Combs deserved death, we may well ask how many of the other participants in this feud ought to have shared a similar fate at the hands of the law?

BLOODY BREATHITT.

Several bloody feuds, innumerable assassinations, demoralized courts, the purchase with money of slayers, anarchy in its most atrocious and hideous forms--such has been the history of Breathitt County since the days of the Civil War.

Breathitt County is not a remote section, out of touch with civilization, where ignorance might be pleaded in extenuation of the shameful lawlessness. Breathitt County has furnished men of brains, of power, and of the highest integrity.

In Breathitt County, as well as in all the other feud-ridden sections, the good citizens are in the majority.

Yet there, as in the other lawless communities of which this history treats, the good element suffered itself to become intimidated to such an extent as to eliminate it as a factor to be employed and relied upon in restoring order.

It may also be stated that Breathitt's chief feudists, murderers, conspirators and perjurers have counted men of brains among them, who, however, delegated their work of bloody revenge for real or fancied injuries to persons of a lower degree of mentality. Ignorant, half-savage tools serve better.

The murder lust has been rampant there for many years, and it is there yet. The outside world has heard only of the most important tragedies, that is, tragedies which involved men "of brains and power." The "little fellow" is murdered without much attention being paid to it.

Within eleven months during the years 1901 and 1902, nearly forty men had been slain in cold blood, and for which crimes not one has suffered the extreme penalty of the law.

Why is it, then, that since the good citizens are in the majority, they are willing to submit to terrorization by a few? Why do they stand idly by instead of rising in their might and punish?

Will the reader answer another question: Why is it that an entire train load of men will tremble and shake in their shoes, throw up their hands, and allow one or two bandits to take possession of their property?

It has happened in a few instances that bandits have come to grief through the intrepidity of an individual who acted in spite of any fear of impending death. We remember an incident of that kind during a hold-up on a western road a few years back. The engineer, fireman, conductor and brakesmen were lined up and held under the guns of one of the bandits. Two of his confederates went through the coaches.

The engineer, a small but determined man, watched his chance, made a sudden lurch forward, with his head butted the bandit in the stomach, crumpled him up and put him out of commission. The train crew then possessed itself of the guns and started for the coaches, firing a few shots as they went. This disconcerted the robbers within. They made for the doors to see what the shooting outside meant. It was their finish. Several of the passengers who had been standing, trembling, with their hands in the air, believing help had come, regained their courage, sprang upon the outlaws, disarmed and securely tied them. No one was hurt.

It is the fear of the bushwhacker that prevents concerted action of the law-abiding element in a community where assassinations from ambush are the common methods employed to rid one's self of an enemy. And it is no idle fear. For one man to set himself up as the champion of law and order and to defy the outlaws to do their worst, is equivalent to signing his own death-warrant. He is liable to be picked off as an undesirable citizen.

Assassinations from ambush are always difficult to prove and alibis are manufactured at small cost. Perjury, too, is common. It is the favorite weapon of the defense in such cases.

Then the successful assassin is shrewd enough to conduct himself usually, though not always, in such manner as to have friends among all classes of people, even among the best.

Many of the worst men have used the cloak of religion, or church-membership, to hide their black hearts. The masonic lodge has been prostituted by such men of shrewd deceit.

It is no assurance of a man's goodness to find him sitting in a church pew on a Sunday, with the Bible in his hand, for even within the holy sanctum of the Lord the foulest conspiracies and crimes have been hatched in the brains of men. This does not apply to Breathitt County or Kentucky alone.

Some of the most noted feudists never fired a gun themselves, but in their daily intercourse kept themselves unspotted before the world, and used willing, paid tools to accomplish their bloody ends. Such men always indignantly deny any imputation of wrong-doing. They have been known to condemn in the loudest and the most emphatic terms outrages against the peace and dignity of the State, the result of their own planning.

The writer once pointed out to a gentleman from another state a certain chieftain of murderers. He shook his head. "That man a murderer?" he said. "Why, he is the most amiable person with whom I have come in contact with in a long time. That man has brains, he has education. That man is wrongfully accused, I know. No red-handed murderer could look you in the eye like that, or counterfeit the innocence imprinted upon his countenance."

The truth was, this particular outlaw had never murdered any one with his own hands, but he had been the directing, managing spirit of foul conspiracies and of wholesale assassinations.

This adoption of the mask of deceit serves another purpose. Since you can never tell by a man's looks what is in his heart, citizens grow suspicious of one another, and fear to express their opinions. That this vastly increases the difficulty of concerted action looking toward the eradication of crime, is apparent.

Reverting again to the murder lust: What is it's origin? What keeps it aflame? What inspires it? Is it that the savage of the stone age is not yet dead? That the veneer of civilization has in all those thousands of years not become thick enough to prevent its wearing off so readily? Perhaps. At least, it seems so.

Let us quote a recent example of this fearful blood lust:--

Jackson, Ky., Aug. 29, 1916.

"Don't you want to see a nigger die," witnesses report were the introductory remarks offered by Breck Little, who Sunday shot and killed Henry Crawford, colored, 17 years old, on Old Buck Creek in Breathitt County. The shots were fired from a barn door which Crawford was passing while going up the road, and the victim fell dead in the road.

This illustrates the lust for blood. "Don't you want to see a man killed?" If you do, say so and you may be accommodated.

We have pointed out heretofore in a former history that there is much similarity between the old Scottish feuds and those of Kentucky; that the clan spirit is yet alive; that Kentucky feuds are nothing more nor less than transplanted Scottish feuds. This view has been adopted by other writers and sociologists as furnishing the solution of the riddle: What is the cause of these feuds?

But can such incidents as the one cited above be attributed to the clannishness of the people. No. Such individual acts of savage ferocity can have but one source--an inborn, natal craving for blood. This and this alone can furnish us any sort of explanation why men slay without provocation or purpose.

Bad Tom Smith, of Perry County feud fame, slew to satisfy this craving for blood. According to his own admission, it had made itself felt when he was a mere youth. He was a degenerate pure and simple. His last murder, that of Dr. Rader, was committed without any motive whatever. "I just raised up and killed him while he was asleep!" That was the only statement he would ever make concerning that bloody deed.

Environment has, of course, much to do with it. Yet if we look about us, we find that counties in the very midst of feud-ridden sections have remained free of the murder craze.

Many years ago Breathitt, along with practically all the other mountain counties of the State, decided to abolish the saloon. Local option has been in force there now for years. It was hoped that the elimination of the legalized liquor traffic would eradicate crime, or, at least, enormously diminish it. Prohibition is supposed to exist in Jackson and the county at large. It will not do to say that notwithstanding the local option law is in operation, liquor is still at the root of the evil. We must presume that the prohibition of the sale of liquor is enforced. To presume otherwise would be to acknowledge the inefficacy of prohibition laws. Doubtless the local option law is enforced in Breathitt as much so as anywhere else where similar laws prevail, or, better said, the laws in this respect are enforced as far as is possible with interstate shipment of whiskey into local option territory remaining unobstructed.

The "liquor argument" is no solution of the sociological question in hand. During all those years that prohibition has existed in Breathitt, ostensibly so, at least, without apparent diminution of crime, without any receding of the murder wave, other counties, neighbors to it, we might say, have rejected local option laws, and permitted saloons without any apparent increase in the crime rate.

Reverting again to the spirit of the Scottish Highlander as responsible in part for the murder lust: Nearly all of southeastern Kentucky is peopled by the same stock. Jackson and Laurel counties have never been contaminated with the feuds which have raged on their very borders. Jackson County in all its history has not seen as many murders committed as have stained the soil of Breathitt in less than one year. Jackson County has never had a feud; its chief lawlessness has been the promiscuous sale of whiskey, illicitly, of course.

The argument has been advanced that the lawlessness which has disgraced Breathitt and other mountain counties is directly traceable to the contempt for law instilled in the growing up generations during the period immediately following the Civil War.

It doubtless furnished the foundation for the deadly feuds which have in times passed ravaged the border counties of Bell and Harlan. These counties were frequently subjected to invasion by rebel and Union troops, with their attendant elements of lawless camp followers, deserters and guerillas.

Kentucky attempted to remain neutral at the outbreak of the war. But the people divided sharply. The State Guards and Home Guards frequently clashed. They ravaged the country without regard to military proprieties or discipline. The civil authorities had been superseded by military courts which often dealt more harshly than wisely with the people they attempted to govern. In Harlan and Bell Counties bad blood was caused by these retaliatory invasions of rebels and Home Guards. Many men took advantage of the opportunity to wreak vengeance upon an enemy they had feared to attack single-handed and did so under the protection of the mass. Crimes went unpunished because committed under the guise of military operations. But in Breathitt County there did not exist a border war.

After all the matter sifts itself down to what has been pointed out in the introduction: Lawlessness can exist only so long as the good element of a community refuses to rise up against it, and suffers itself to be intimidated.

It should be needless to say that in a republic the people must rule supreme. By their formation of republican form of government they have declared themselves capable and willing to govern themselves, and to enforce the laws they have themselves made. If a people fails to discharge the duty of properly governing themselves, they forfeit their right of citizenship.

If a community persists in its refusal to avail itself of the right of self-government, that right should be abrogated until such time as it shall be able to guarantee not only willingness, but capability for self-government. Where anarchy exists, government has fled. Where a people supinely lay upon their backs and permit anarchy, are they longer entitled to the citizenship of a great state and of a greater nation?

The people of Breathitt County, by their long years of inaction and submission to terrorization by a few, have shown that they do not or did not consider themselves longer the most potent factor in the conservation of order in society. Public sentiment had lost its health. The people of Breathitt County owe it to their manhood, their county, their state, to the nation, to redeem themselves. For the horrors of strife there have been published broadcast to the world. "Breathitt" has become synonymous with blood, murder, anarchy, the world over. We have read of it in foreign newspapers.

The United States only recently demanded of Mexico that the disorders there, especially along the borders, must cease. The Federal government threatened that republic with war even, unless citizens of this country and their property are protected. Government might have found as good grounds for intervention in Breathitt during the past, and may yet--if the murder mills there do not some of these days shut up shop.

America demands of foreign governments protection of the lives and property of our citizens. Yet, owing to the complexity of our governmental structure, it may not extend that protection to its citizens within her own territory.

The outlawry along the Mexican border within the last three years has not been as great in proportion to size of territory and population involved as has been the destruction of lives in Breathitt County at intervals for years. Yet with regard to Mexico this government has seen fit to say that conditions along the border had become "intolerant" and must cease even at the risk of war.

The people of Breathitt County are citizens of the United States, as well as of their State and county. As such they ought to hasten to restore the good name and the honor of the country to which they belong, and of which they should be proud. The murderous, lawless Mexican bandit is no more a knave than the American guilty of similar atrocities.

There did come, a few years ago, a wave of reaction, an upheaval which brought into the limelight of publicity the fearful state of affairs existing there. Murders in the streets of the county seat and throughout the county had occurred with such frequency and boldness as to at last attract the attention of the press of the entire country. At last a man of wide prominence in the State was struck down. This man was J. B. Marcum, a United States Commissioner, and a trustee of Kentucky State College, as well as lawyer of prominence and a leading Republican.

The circumstances attending this murder and the prominence of the man slain aroused at last a storm of indignation throughout the land. Newspapers of other States condemned Kentucky so severely that public sentiment within the State itself became aroused and forced the investigations which revealed Breathitt County's history of blood and crime.

In spite of the most strenuous efforts from certain quarters to hush the matter up and to block investigations of the damnable plots and murderous conspiracies by men entrusted with the enforcement of the law, the public was at last made acquainted with conditions of affairs in Breathitt County, which presented a picture so harrowing and degrading that the civilized world stood aghast and for a time refused to believe.

* * * * *

Breathitt is a beautiful mountain county along the Kentucky River, scarcely forty miles distant from Lexington, the metropolis of the Kentucky Bluegrass, famous the world over for the refinement of her people.

Jackson is the county seat, a small but thriving town on the Kentucky River, built upon numerous hills, which give it an irregular, though by no means displeasing appearance.

Commercially, Jackson is prosperous, surprisingly so under the circumstances. How much more rapid and greater might have been its progress but for the deplorable epidemics of murder, none can tell.

Jackson is also the terminus of three railroads. The town has good schools and several churches, but church-going, schools and trading were sadly interrupted and at times completely stopped during the reign of terror which held Breathitt in its bloody clutches during the first decade of the present century.

It is impossible in a limited space to give more than passing notice to all of the feudal wars which have been fought from time to time in Breathitt County. To do so would fill a volume. What the reader finds detailed in this chapter relates principally to the Hargis-Cockrell-Marcum-Callahan vendetta. It is the most recent feud. What transpired during it is but a repetition of what had occurred in others.

The first widespread feud in Breathitt County originated immediately after the Civil War. In that national conflict the county furnished soldiers to the South and to the Union. John Amis and William (Bill) Strong raised a company for the Federal cause. It became a part of the so-called "Greasy Fourteenth," and was commanded by Col. H. C. Little.

It was in this regiment that the noted Amis-Strong feud arose. It was the first of a series of bloody internecine strifes in that county.

The hatred engendered during the Amis-Strong feud was more bitter than the sectional strife between the armies of the North and of the South. A feud between the two factions was not recognized to have existed, however, until about 1878.

In that year open and serious hostilities were precipitated by a fight during Circuit Court. In the battle Bob Little, a nephew of Captain Strong, was killed, and an Amis seriously wounded.

From that time on fights grew more numerous. Charges and countercharges were made on both sides. The county was in a ferment. Finally, nearly every family became involved in one way or another.

How many men were killed in this feud will, perhaps, never be known, but many graves were filled. In this connection it may be well to state that the county has rarely had a coroner and no records were kept of deaths. It is thus an impossibility to ascertain the number of violent deaths which have occurred in the past.

John Amis himself, the head of the faction of that name, was killed in 1873. The feud finally "burned itself out."

A few years after the termination of this one another started, under the name of the Strong-Callahan feud. Some of the members of the factions in the Strong-Amis feud also participated in this one. In this war Capt. Bill Strong headed his faction. Wilson Callahan, the father of Ed. Callahan, who figures so prominently in the Hargis-Cockrell feud, commanded the opposing forces.

A number of men were killed off before Wilson Callahan's death by assassination put an end to it.

The Jett-Little feud next stained the history of Breathitt County. It was brought to a close about fifteen years ago, and after the principal participants therein had all been killed off. As bad as conditions had been prior to 1878, they grew decidedly worse in that year, when Judge William Randall, the presiding judge of the Criminal Court of the district, was compelled to desert the bench in the midst of a court session to seek safety in flight. The county was in a state of revolution brought about by the assassination of Judge John Burnett, then the county judge. This crime was laid at the door of the Gambles and Littles. The uprising of the factions was precipitated by Judge Randall's declaration that his court would see to it that the criminals were punished. Judge Randall never returned to Breathitt County during his term of office.

During the latter part of the eighties another reign of terror was initiated, and continued until the close of the decade.

Lest we might be accused of exaggeration and sensationalism, we insert here the acrimonious, bitter correspondence between Governor Buckner and Judge Lilly, the presiding judge of the Criminal Court of the district which included Breathitt.

The letters are a matter of public record, and are instructive, interesting, and will no doubt materially aid the reader to understand the nature of frequent clashes between state, district and county authorities.

_Judge Lilly to Governor Buckner._

Frankfort, Ky., Dec. 5, 1888.

To his Excellency, the Governor of Kentucky.