Decades of Discord, 1875-1900 in Kentucky's History PDF

Chapter Title: Decades of Discord, 1875–1900 Book Title: A New History of Kentucky Book Author(s): JAMES C. KLOTTER and CRAIG THOMPSON FRIEND Published by: University Press of Kentucky Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv5npjz4.16 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, r...

Chapter Book Title: A New History of Kentucky Book Author(s): JAMES C. KLOTTER and Published by: University Press of Kentucky Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ct JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that range of content in a trusted digital facilitate new forms of scholarship. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates https://about.jstor.org/terms University Press of Kentucky access to A New History Decades of Discord, 1875–1900 Politically and socially, the first fifteen years of the last quarter of the nineteenth century were relatively static, save for a scandal here and there. But the last decade of the era proved to be one of the most turbulent in the state’s history. Throughout the period from 1875 to 1900, Kentucky unfortunately developed a reputation as one of the most violent places in the United States. Feuds grew almost common- place, and an Appalachian stereotype entered the American consciousness. Despite the decades of discord, the state’s political order displayed the characteristics that would form the core of the system for many de- cades into the twentieth century. It was a world of patronage and personal politics, localism and sectionalism, lobbies and little kingdoms, voting blocs and bosses. The Political System In a general sense, party affiliation defined how people voted more than anything else. On oc- casion it ruled individual lives, for some fami- lies simply did not associate much with other families of a different political faith. Yet at the local level, when it came to specifics, politics was first and foremost personal. The Henderson Journal remarked, “No people in the world are more given to confidence in the value of fam- ily strains than our people.” While an exaggera- tion, the comment did indicate the importance of family to voting. Past leaders tended to per- petuate their families in office; families often voted as a bloc. Winning candidates combined as many of those families as possible. Kinship ties remained a key to political success. Rewards were expected for political sup- port. Voters did not cast their ballots necessar- 128.163.2.206 All A NEW HISTORY OF KENTUCKY the officials they elected in the state’s 120 coun- ties. Elections became even more personal and important. As a minister wrote in 1886: “Poli- tics is the all absorbing question.” Some questions transcended local is- sues, however. Race could always be pulled out as an issue at election time, for example. But more than that, the state’s growing sur- render to a pro-southern memory proved po- tent. The trickle of monuments that arose after 1866 became a flood between 1895 and 1925. Some twenty-three Confederate monuments were erected: only three Union ones went up. In 1901, the Lexington chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy placed pictures of Robert E. Lee in each Lexington school. A year later, the legislature funded a home for ex- Confederates at Pewee Valley, then four years after that, prohibited the showing of any play that showed “antagonism... between master and slave.” By contrast, during the same time, support for a monument to Abraham Lincoln at Hodgenville came mostly from outside the state. Only slowly would Kentuckians belat- edly reclaim Lincoln. But Confederate presi- dent Jefferson Davis’s monument received four times the state support as the meager aid given the Lincoln one, and his birthday would long be a state holiday. Many still worshipped the civil religion of the Lost Cause. But other, less issue-oriented political forc- es operated on a somewhat different stage. In Louisville, for instance, “Papa John” Whallen, and to a lesser degree his brother James, built a powerful machine by the 1880s, one based in the Catholic and Irish population centers of the Falls City. By providing jobs, particular- ly in the police force and city government, as- sisting those in need with rent or meals, and giving baskets of food and clothes on special occasions, the Whallens built a supportive network, one whose votes they could control. Their Buckingham Burlesque Theater offered scantily clad showgirls and a popular saloon, but behind those areas, in the green room of “the Buck,” political careers could be made or broken by the “Buckingham Bosses.” In Lex- ington, Irish immigrant Dennis Mulligan sim- ilarly dominated government into the 1880s. 238 128.163.2.206 All use votes in the average Kentucky county could be purchased. Two years later a gubernatorial can- didate suggested that seventy thousand ballots were bought each year. The practice went on far into the twenti- eth century. One county judge recalled that in his mountain county, up to half of the votes would have to be paid for, usually for a dol- lar or some whiskey. His counterpart in anoth- er area recalled voting before friendly election officials when he was but fifteen. Later, he re- ported, he would pay black transient miners to vote for his party, then would take them en masse to another precinct and have them vote a second time. After that he would have them change their clothes and vote a third time else- where. A white voter in another eastern locale remembered selling his vote for four dollars, but, he said, “I was thoroughly rebuked by my father... for not holding out for the going rate of seven dollars and a half pint of Heaven Hill bourbon.” Fraudulent activity did not end with the buying of votes. Until 1936, the prac- tice of counting the ballots at 10:00 a.m., the next weekday after the election, gave time for returns to be “fixed.” As one county judge not- ed, it was standard practice to call party head- quarters to see if the election was tight “and ask them how many they need.” In close races, each party held back local totals as long as pos- sible to counter suspicious late results favorable to the other party. Democracy in Kentucky of- ten had several helping hands on election day. General Violence Elections took place in a state plagued by vio- lence. Reports make it appear that almost ev- ery voting area featured fights and gunplay on the day the votes were cast. The common- wealth seemed immersed in a culture of vio- lence. Once unleashed, the violence that had become so prevalent in the immediate postwar period would not go away. Formally constitut- ed lawless groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, did not long survive the time when black rights were under debate. The Klan’s name, however, often would be attached to more informally or- ganized, self-styled “Regulators,” who operated 128.163.2.206 All A NEW HISTORY OF KENTUCKY vidual acts of retributive violence. If a gentle- man’s honor and reputation were challenged, deadly responses seemed acceptable. In April 1883, for example, Congressman Philip B. Thompson Jr. of Harrodsburg killed a man he claimed had “debauched” his wife. A jury eas- ily acquitted him. A few years later, Louisville Times journalist Charles E. Kincaid report- ed that married congressman William P. Taul- bee of Magoffin County had been found “in a compromising way” with a young woman in the US Patent Office. The story ended Taul- bee’s career, and when he encountered Kin- caid in Washington, DC, in 1890, the two ar- gued, and threats were made. Two hours later they met again, and a shot rang out in the halls of the US Capitol. The unarmed Taulbee had been wounded, and he died some days after- ward. Kincaid confessed but was found not guilty in a District of Columbia court on the grounds that he had reacted to threats as a gen- tleman would. In a similar instance, an irate husband discovered his wife with the son of former governor John Young Brown in Lou- isville in the 1890s. He killed both of them but was acquitted under the “unwritten law” that in essence permitted personal revenge in such cases. Many elements of Kentucky society seemed, then, to approve of individual retribu- tion, Regulator violence, and illegal moonshin- ing. The law took second place. The poor condition of the legal process itself made the challenges to the system even more accepted. In some places the entire judi- ciary was tainted. A Kentucky attorney general found one county’s grand jury “made up of the criminals, their close kin, and steadfast friends and admirers.” Other locales saw one party or faction or family firmly in control of the whole system, and those in opposition could find little justice. Grand juries that would not in- dict, or courts that would not convict, resulted. Even if a conviction did occur, governors of- ten rewarded political allies by pardoning their friends in the penitentiary. Convicts seemingly incarcerated for life might be free in a matter of months. Being an enforcer of the law also became dangerous. Even the justices of the common- 240 128.163.2.206 All use pardons more numerous, and abuses are more flagrant.... The most alarming feature of all is the indifference of the public.... Shock- ing tragedies at their very doors do not startle them to a realization of the evils that are curs- ing Kentucky... and presenting us to the eyes of the world as a reckless, God-defying, reeking band of law-breakers and murderers.” In truth, the violent situation these writers decried did not differ markedly from the situation in the South generally at the time. The partisan New York Times recognized that fact, even as it un- fairly declared that the Elliott assassination “could scarcely have taken place in any region calling itself civilized except Kentucky, or some other southern state.” The commonwealth par- took of a regional subculture heavily oriented to violent behavior. So it was violent but not unique. In the three decades after 1875, how- ever, another form of Kentucky-centered vio- lence identified the state with a particular, al- most unique, kind of killing. Feuding created a stereotype that would curse Kentucky for a century or more. Feud Violence One definition of a feud is “a lasting state of hostilities between families or clans marked by violent attacks for revenge.” In short, feud violence must take place over time, must in- volve family, and must have the motive of re- venge. Often, actions labeled as feuds did not meet these criteria, and the term was careless- ly applied to violence that differed little from that taking place elsewhere. Moreover, much of the so-called feud violence resulted less from family vendettas than from personal, econom- ic, or political causes. Even if wrongly defined and misnamed, however, what was called feud violence did exist aplenty in Kentucky. Place after place saw lives snuffed out and families destroyed. Most of the feud violence took place in Appalachia after the Civil War, but one of the earliest identifiable feuds did not. The Hill- Evans feud of Garrard County traced its roots back to an 1820 controversy but erupted in full force in the 1850s. It was renewed during 128.163.2.206 All use A NEW HISTORY OF KENTUCKY had been killed after they had surrendered to the Tollivers. When he confronted Craig Toll- iver, he was told to leave town or be executed. If his wife remained, Tolliver said, she would be hired out. An attorney, Logan first requested aid from the governor. When the chief execu- tive rejected his request, Logan sought justice in his own manner and purchased rifles and ammunition. He then armed a group various- ly estimated at from sixty to two hundred men and surrounded the Tollivers and the town. In a western-style shoot-out in June 1887, the Tollivers were forced to flee a burning building. They were caught in a crossfire, and their lead- er and three others were killed. Pardons were issued to the Logan faction. In quieter times, a legislative investigating committee called of- ficials in the county inept, inefficient, corrupt, and “depraved.” The committee recommended that Rowan County be abolished, but this par- tial solution was rejected. Deeper in the mountains, three more feuds also attracted much attention in the 1880s. The Howard-Turner feud in Harlan County had its origins in the pre–Civil War period, and iso- lated murders had occurred during the 1870s. By June 1889, however, hostilities had become so open that a pitched battle took place, and the Turners withstood a long siege in the court- house. By the end of the month it was estimat- ed that fifty people had died over the decades of the “troubles.” Similarly, the French-Eversole feud in Perry County grew out of a business rivalry and eventually saw the two opposing bands meet in a two-day battle in the streets of Hazard in 1880. By the 1890s the violence had declined, but it left a legacy of bullet holes and empty buildings, forty to fifty deaths, and nearly fifty orphans. Ironically, what would become the best known of the feuds was not the bloodiest, the longest-lasting, or even the most spectacular of the family “wars.” The Hatfield-McCoy feud, nevertheless, received much attention from the media, involved two state governments in its dispute, and became synonymous with feud- ing. In many ways, the “war” was not unusual: Randolph (“Old Ran’l”) McCoy led the Pike County, Kentucky, clan; William A. (“Dev- 242 128.163.2.206 All use Stock images, such as this one showing members of the Hatfield clan posed around “Devil Anse” Hatfield (seated, at center), helped shape the conception of the feuding mountaineers. (West Virginia Archives and History, Charleston, WV) marked the formalization of the killing. Grow- ing out of Civil War, racial, and political rival- ries, as well as family lines, fighting continued for four decades. In 1874 one faction fortified the courthouse, and the militia was called in. Four years later a member of the Little fam- ily was arrested for murdering his pregnant wife. As he was being taken to trial, ambush- ers killed the county judge. The circuit judge disappeared. A mob again seized the courthouse, sever- al were wounded, and virtual anarchy reigned. Once more the militia marched in and enforced an uneasy peace in a county, where some said a hundred had already died. Religious moun- tain missionaries, like George Barnes, John Jay Dickey, and Edward Guerrant, began to make their way to what they saw as an ungodly place. Still, the new generation of leaders that had come to the fore in Breathitt County by the 1890s seldom followed the Golden Rule. Out of the Amis-Strong-Little feud grew its successor, the Hargis-Marcum-Cockrell- Callahan feud. Democratic county judge and businessman James Hargis, aided by Sheriff Ed Callahan, led one group; Republican attor- ney James B. Marcum and town marshal Tom Cockrell led another. Each group had ties to 128.163.2.206 All A NEW HISTORY OF KENTUCKY Kentucky Images and Appalachian Stereotypes While each so-called feud differed in details and causes, several characteristics did stand out. In the first place, many of the leading citi- zens of a county were often involved. Entre- preneurial business types often headed one or both factions, although, conversely, virtual out- laws sometimes served as feud leaders. In ei- ther case, what one observer called almost “a large, paid army” operated under the guidance of a person who functioned mainly as a medi- eval feudal lord caring for his men. The fighters might center around a family or political allies but could include others who were little more than “hired guns.” A second characteristic, which writers of the time sometimes submerged by describing the “code of honor” of the mountains, was that the actions taken were generally cruel and cow- ardly. Honor seldom appeared when ambush- es and assassinations proved the favorite meth- od of murder. Pitched battles, usually centered around the symbol of justice, the courthouse, did occur, but usually only because one side found itself trapped and outnumbered. Young boys tied to bushes and executed, unarmed women beaten or shot as they fled a burning house, men shot in the back—these kinds of violence left deep mental scars with the liv- ing and produced deeper desires for further revenge. Finally, while causes of the “wars” differed, a few key elements appeared in what people of the region called “the troubles.” Anger escalat- ed into violence because of such factors as Civil War memories, the presence of whiskey at elec- tions, political partisanship, economic rivalries, the ready prevalence of weapons, and an in- tense localism fed by a restrictive isolationism. Even though the mountains were less static and more nuanced than portrayed at the time, some areas remained very remote. A kind of ur- ban-rural conflict, where external forces inter- vened adding fuel to more local and tradition- al ones, may have been a factor as well. But in the end, the ineffectiveness of the law and the consequent lawlessness in a subculture of vio- 244 128.163.2.206 All use rant and immoral, backward and bloodthirsty, poor and primitive. It featured not the home- spun pioneer but a gaunt, bearded feudist with moonshine jug in one hand, rifle in the other, and murder in his eye. That image grew over time into a picture of a people who chiefly “fuss, feud, and fornicate.” By 1934 historian Arnold Toynbee concluded that “the Appala- chian ‘Mountain People’ at this day are no bet- ter than barbarians.” That stereotype expanded to include all of Kentucky, and the commonwealth as a whole began to be labeled as a violent, lawless place that should be avoided. Between 1878 and 1883, for instance, the New York Times called Kentuckians “unreclaimed savages” and “effec- tive assassins,” proclaimed the state a “delight- ful” place to live, “especially if one enjoys anar- chy and mobocracy,” and concluded that “there is no state in which lawlessness and prevail to such an outrageous extent as in Ken- tucky.” The Chicago Tribune in 1885 said the commonwealth’s civilization had been tested “and found to be barbarism,” while an article in Leslie’s Popular Monthly in 1902 described the author’s trip to bloody feudist country “where the sun set crimson and the moon rose red.” The stories went on and on, so that the stereo- type of violent Kentucky became firmly em- bedded in the national consciousness. Both images—the forgotten pioneer and the violent hillbilly—had a basis in fact. Some elements of the romantic view did exist. Ken- tucky was also a very violent state, compara- tively, until at least the 1940s. But neither ste- reotype represented Appalachian Kentucky fully or fairly. Many writers, for example, based their accounts on a quick trip to the area, “popped in, popped out, and then popped off,” and their resulting stories often ignored the re- gion’s complexities. As one 1901 article noted, correctly, “very great differences exist among the people.” While there was poverty, there was also wealth. While there were log cabins, there were also houses that would have been fashion- able in upper-class urban settings. While there was a traditional society, there was a coexist- ing modern one. That “other” Appalachia sel- dom appeared. What writers have called an 128.163.2.206 All A NEW HISTORY OF KENTUCKY Confederate ties and won by a vote of 130,026 to 94,236. Governor McCreary came to office as the youngest governor ever elected up to that time, and he quickly found new issues awaiting him, matters that created conflict and contro- versy for the next quarter century. Labor demanded a larger voice in the state, and the outcry came both from the farm and the city. The more numerous agrarians saw much of the attention devoted to railroad and business issues, they saw the value of farm products decline in the state by 27 percent dur- ing the 1870s, and they saw their people—“the very bone and sinew of our country,” one Ken- tuckian called them—their world, their ide- al, under attack. They struck out against that change. The first formal organization to expound the agrarians’ view was the Patrons of Hus- bandry, more commonly called the Grange. While conservative in many of its demands, the Grange also called for actions that were deemed radical at the time. The Grangers sponsored the formation of farmers’ cooperatives in the form of stores and warehouses. They also sup- ported a revision in the nation’s financial struc- ture, which they argued favored business. Such appeals found favor in Kentucky, and in 1875 the commonwealth had some fifteen hundred Granges with more than fifty thousand mem- bers, one of the largest state totals in the South. The organization had planted the seeds of ag- ricultural discontent that would grow over the decades. Sometimes that dissatisfaction spilled over into politics, as farmers supported first the so-called Greenback Party, which advocat- ed the printing of more money, thus creating an inflated currency. By the 1880s the Agri- cultural Wheel and the Farmers’ Alliance took up the cause as well, calling for a money poli- cy of inflation and a political policy of agrarian pride. Tightly organized and sometimes almost evangelical in their fervor, the various agrari- an groups represented a threat to the existing political order in Kentucky. Just when the old Democratic Bourbon–New Departure divisions seemed to be healing, the party now had to face angry farmers, who might bolt the Democrats or even form their own party if their wishes 246 128.163.2.206 All use arose over the count, Kentucky party members passed resolutions asserting that “an appeal to arms is the last desperate remedy of a free people in danger of being enslaved.” An angry Watterson called for ten thousand Kentuckians to march to Washington to show their displea- sure at events. Wiser heads prevailed, violence was avoided, and a compromise put Hayes in the White House. But Kentucky Democrats, feeling cheated of victory, put the election of 1876 in their campaign arsenal to be used against Republicans. In state politics, the Democrats still ruled in the legislative halls. Since the Grange had a dominant voice, though, many of the laws passed during McCreary’s tenure had an agrar- ian orientation. Various acts established the Kentucky Bureau of Agriculture, reduced the property tax—the main source of state reve- nue—by some 11 percent, lowered the max- imum interest rate to 6 percent, instituted a conservation measure for fish, and made the Agricultural and Mechanical College (later the University of Kentucky) an independent school. Almost ignored in all that activity was a bill creating a State Board of Health, one of the first in the nation. Such an action was desperately needed, for Kentuckians did not live in a healthy state. Ma- jor epidemics of cholera, smallpox, yellow fe- ver, and typhoid left thousands dead. Drink- ing unsterilized milk or contaminated water (which might come directly from a sewage- polluted source) or eating food prepared in the absence of health regulations added to the in- cidence of disease. One study of a meat slaugh- terhouse found “conditions barbaric in the ex- treme.... The meat is dressed by unwashed hands, covered with flies... [and] hung upon hooks that are never cleaned.” Lack of sanita- tion in the home, where whole families drank from the same water dipper, spread diseases quickly; the absence of shoes on summer feet resulted in bodies riddled with hookworm; poor ventilation in homes added to the high rate of tuberculosis. As late as the 1910s per- haps one-third of all Kentuckians had hook- worm, and one-fourth of those in some areas had trachoma, a disease that could cause blind- 128.163.2.206 All A NEW HISTORY OF KENTUCKY of the twentieth century good medical educa- tion, stronger food and drug laws, along with a better-educated citizenry, began to make posi- tive differences in the health of Kentuckians. By the 1920s, the state would be a pioneer in public health. The Blackburn Governorship and the Prison Issue Plagued by statewide violence and by politi- cal infighting within his own party, Governor McCreary had served amid a climate of finan- cial retrenchment and limited initiatives. Ei- ther the young Republican nominee, former Union soldier Walter Evans of Louisville; the Democratic choice, Dr. Luke Pryor Blackburn of Woodford County; or the National (Green- back) Party candidate, C. W. Cook, would face these concerns as his successor in 1879. Cook, representing the agrarian and labor interests, eventually polled more than 8 percent of the vote, supported chiefly by those usually in the Democratic ranks, but Blackburn still won eas- ily over Evans by a count of 125,799 to 81,882. New governor Luke Blackburn came to office amid controversy and remained mired in strife throughout his term. During the cam- paign one issue had been physician Blackburn’s earlier unsuccessful attempt to aid the Confed- eracy by infecting northern cities through bio- logical warfare. However, his postwar humani- tarian efforts to fight disease across the South balanced this perfidy. His work during an 1878 yellow fever epidemic in Kentucky won him the appellation the “Hero of Hickman” and brought the former Whig legislator the guber- natorial nomination and the election victory. Most of Blackburn’s subsequent work as governor focused on a single issue—prison re- form. At the time Kentucky’s prison popula- tion lived—and died—in miserable conditions. Seeking to operate the system as a business, the state government leased the penitentiary at Frankfort and its inmates to the highest bidder. Maximizing profits, each lessee kept expenses low, worked convicts hard at various tasks, such as chair making, and sold the products. With literally a captive labor force, lessees ignored 248 128.163.2.206 All use The Kentucky State Penitentiary in Frankfort. Kentucky. Such actions, amid increasing state violence, angered many. Attempts at reform took place in the leg- islature as well, for the 1880 session authorized but did not fund a new prison (eventually lo- cated at Eddyville), set up a warden system in which responsibility for prisoners rested with the commonwealth and not the lessee, and provided for a crude system of parole. But one supposed reform only added to the woes of the prisoners. In an attempt to end overcrowd- ing immediately, the general assembly allowed contractors to lease out convict labor—at $50 per convict per year in 1880—and to employ the inmates on public works outside of pris- on walls. Abuses arose at once, for contractors had no one supervising their handling of the prisoners. At one camp, half of the fifty leased convicts perished; at another, inmates official- ly reported as escapees had, in fact, died of malnourishment, overwork, and beatings. At- tempts to regulate the contractors failed, chief- ly because there was no longer any place to put the prisoners should they be returned to the penitentiary. Laboring at mines, railroads, and reservoirs, inmates continued to live in virtu- 128.163.2.206 All A NEW HISTORY OF KENTUCKY old imbecile.” In truth, Blackburn’s overall ac- complishments varied little from those of most other governors of his era. His tenure saw some reform, some financial actions, and some prob- lems with violence. If his reform agenda had been limited, at least he—unlike some oth- ers—had tried to do much more. Knott, Buckner, and “Honest Dick” Tate, 1883–1891 Some Democrats worried that the unpopular- ity of the Blackburn administration would hurt their party’s chances of retaining the governor- ship, but that concern proved needless. Re- publican nominee Thomas Z. Morrow, a for- mer Union officer and attorney from Somerset, faced a difficult race because his Democratic opponent was the popular six-term congress- man J. Proctor Knott of Lebanon, who had narrowly defeated former congressman Thom- as L. Jones of Newport in the primary. Knott owed much of his political fame to a very witty speech made in 1871, in which he sarcastically commented on a federal project near Duluth, Minnesota. In an era that praised oratory, and at a time when average people could become major leaders on the strength of their speaking abilities, Knott’s “Duluth speech” garnered him national acclaim. It also helped propel him in 1883 to the governorship, which he easily won by a vote of 133,615 to 89,181. Between the end of the Civil War and the turn of the twentieth century, virtually all Kentucky governors made recommenda- tions to their legislatures that proved to be far more reform oriented than their administra- tions turned out to be. The influence of power- ful lobbies, party factionalism, and the limita- tions of a local-oriented mindset all combined with the presence of mostly conservative legis- lators, so that the Kentucky General Assembly did little. Stronger chief executives could have challenged that situation more, but in the end their limited vision and restricted philosophy of government held them back. Proctor Knott was no exception. A learned, intelligent, and well-liked individual, he still could do little regarding the violence in 250 128.163.2.206 All use el proved fatal, and Cleveland won. Kentucky Democrats looked forward to long-delayed po- litical rewards from a president from their own party. The Knott administration was nearing its end. Would the Democratic Party be able to hold the reins of office in the commonwealth in the gubernatorial contest of 1887? Republi- cans put forth a strong candidate for governor, forty-year-old attorney William O. Bradley of Garrard County. A strong orator, “Billy O’B.” openly called for black support. His oppo- nent, the stereotypical goateed southern gen- tleman Simon Bolivar Buckner of Hart Coun- ty, brought both strengths and weaknesses to the race. A former Confederate general who had grown wealthy from business ventures af- ter the war and had been a pallbearer at Grant’s funeral, Buckner had never held political office. His advocates seemed willing to forget political records and praised instead the family record of the sixty-four-year-old general, his thirty- year-old wife, and their newborn son. Ignoring the fact that Buckner’s wife’s name was Delia, they cried out, “Hurrah for Bolivar, Betty, and the baby!” Despite a sizable Union Labor Party vote in northern Kentucky and a strong race by Republican Bradley, the Democratic ap- peals were enough. The “Confederate Dynas- ty” continued—barely. In the closest contest since the war, Buckner won with 51 percent of the vote. He polled 143,466 votes against Bradley’s 126,754, and more than 12,000 more ballots went to third-party candidates. The vote showed that the long-successful Democratic coalition had developed serious problems. Those problems grew worse under Buck- ner. Dominated by rising agrarian interests in the form of the Farmers’ Alliance, his legisla- tures successfully pushed for a property tax re- duction that left the commonwealth so short of cash that the governor had to make a personal loan of more than fifty thousand dollars to the state treasury in order to keep Kentucky sol- vent. Other laws passed by the general assembly so angered Buckner that he vetoed more than a hundred bills, issuing more vetoes than his ten predecessors combined. At the same time, the actions of the L&N lobby brought forth a 128.163.2.206 All use A NEW HISTORY OF KENTUCKY officials tried to distance themselves from Tate or to minimize the damages in a scandal that reached the highest levels. Long-unpaid IOUs to Tate were suddenly redeemed. The current state auditor, like his predecessors, had been clearly derelict in his duty, but he got off with only the censure of the public. More uncertain was the fate of a series of wealthy, influential, and trusting people who had signed as bonds- men for Tate, as required by law. Supposedly any fiscal shortage by him would have to be met by them. But given the magnitude of his embezzlement, several people’s fortunes would be lost if the commonwealth collected. In the end, the state’s highest court, in a decision not openly reported because of political con- sequences, decided that the bondsmen would not be held liable. Back in 1876 the Covington city treasurer, a son of former Confederate governor of Ken- tucky Richard Hawes, had embezzled fifty-sev- en thousand dollars, only to be among those pardoned during Governor Blackburn’s term. The Tate affair thus seemed a continuation of a trend. Distrust of all public officials increased dramatically, and angry critics charged that a cover-up had occurred. What happened to Honest Dick Tate and the state’s money after he left Kentucky? The wife and daughter he left behind, as well as a family friend, said later that for a brief time they received secret letters indicating he had gone to Canada, the Orient, and finally Bra- zil. No further word came from Tate after that. Whether he returned to the United States un- der an assumed identity or lived and died in a foreign country is unknown, one of the mys- teries of Kentucky history. His actions would have an enduring effect on the state, however, particularly in regard to the new constitution soon to be drafted. A New Constitution The constitution of 1850 clearly required at least revision, for it still sanctioned slavery and did not adequately deal with new issues such as corporations and railroads. Calls for a new con- vention had been made for two decades, but fi- 252 128.163.2.206 All use as a result of various constitutional amend- ments. Its chief provisions at the time included the following: 1. The basic Bill of Rights from the 1792 constitution was retained, except for the slavery provision. 2. The general assembly would consist of a house of representatives of one hundred members elected to two-year terms, and a senate of thirty-eight members serving four-year terms. 3. The executive branch would consist of the governor and other constitutional offi- cers, all elected for four-year terms, with restrictions on selection. On the chief ex- ecutive’s absence from the state, the lieu- tenant governor automatically assumed the power of the office (this provision was later amended). 4. The judicial branch would consist of a court of appeals, made up of five to seven members elected for eight-year terms, and a system of circuit, quarterly, county, jus- tice of the peace, and police courts. The general assembly was forbidden to create any courts other than those in the consti- tution (later amended). 5. Under more general provisions, a. The elected Railroad Commission of Kentucky was given constitutional sanc- tion to help its regulatory powers (later abolished). b. Lotteries were abolished amended). c. Salaries of state officials were restricted to five thousand dollars per year (later amended). d. State elections would be held in Novem- ber instead of August, would be by se- cret ballot rather than voice voting, and would be limited to males over the age of twenty-one (later amended). e. “An efficient system” of schools had to be maintained and must be racially seg- regated (later amended). The creation of new counties was made more difficult. f. For the first time, the governor had the power to line-item veto budget matters. 128.163.2.206 All A NEW HISTORY OF KENTUCKY Rock Bridge, about the “defeated feeling in the minds of the people of this part of the state that they have not rec’d. the recognition they were entitled to, in the division of state offices.” Simply put, as a historian noted, “Rural peo- ple sought to claim a share of the New South’s promise, to make a place for themselves and their children in the emerging order.” Various groups had sought to do that, ranging from the Grangers to the Greenback- ers, from the Agricultural Wheel to the Farm- ers’ Alliance. The Alliance had been organized in Kentucky in 1886, with S. Brewer Erwin of Hickman as president. Within five years, the Alliance—under the formal name of the Farm- ers and Labor Union—claimed more than 125,000 members in some twenty-four hun- dred sub-unions in eighty-eight counties. Its endorsement was eagerly sought, and its influ- ence on the political scene was important. But all of that power had come about within the structure of the existing two-party system. By 1891 it was not at all clear whether the situa- tion would continue, and in an open letter to Democrats, one agrarian summarized the at- mosphere, in a “Word of Warning.” He told of the “unrest” in the minds of many who usual- ly voted Democratic, for “this element, chiefly farmers, are honestly impatient as to existing grievances.” The agrarians grew more concerned once the Democratic nominee for governor in 1891 was chosen. John Young Brown of Henderson did represent western Kentucky and helped calm sectional fears, but he also represented the old leadership more than had his defeated party rivals. Disgruntled agrarians who had attended a national farm protest meeting in Cincinna- ti crossed the river to Covington, founded the People’s—or Populist—Party in Kentucky, and offered a slate of officers for the 1891 governor’s race. Led by candidate Erwin, the Populists did not stress some of the issues that would be im- portant when the national party organized in 1892, such as a graduated income tax, the di- rect election of US senators, and greater regu- lation—even to the point of government own- ership—of transportation. Although far from revolutionary in their demands, the Populists 254 128.163.2.206 All use under the new constitution for the first time, the legislature had to reexamine old laws. As a result, it stayed in session almost continuously from December 1891 until July 1893, an ac- tion that pleased few and earned the body the name the Long Parliament. Brown so feuded with his cabinet and his lieutenant governor that the administration split into two factions, and the political situation in Frankfort grew in- creasingly bitter. Meanwhile, legislative actions varied between the reactionary and the reform minded. The general assembly passed a much- needed law that at last gave property rights to married women, but at the same time it enact- ed a segregationist separate coach law. The most vocal opposition from the black community on the changes taking place oc- curred in that 1892 fight to segregate railroad cars operating in the state. African Americans fought the proposal—and the leader of the protests, Professor C. C. Monroe, lost his job as a result. Opposed in the legislature by Popu- list leader Thomas S. Pettit and others, the bill still passed by seventeen to ten and sixty-one to twenty-seven margins and was signed by Gov- ernor Brown. Boycotts, books, a lower court’s declaration of illegality, and a later governor’s call for repeal all went for naught after the US Supreme Court—with Justice John Marshall Harlan of Kentucky the lone dissent—ruled the law legal. (It would remain a state statute until 1966.) The Kentucky General Assembly also passed a limited but basic coal mine but terminated as too expensive the important geological survey. Brown himself vetoed enue bill that would have increased railroad taxes but then turned against the railroads by preventing the merger of the L&N with the second-largest carrier in the state, the Chesa- peake and Ohio. Yet at the same time, the gov- ernor intervened on behalf of a corporation in a Clay County case involving a New Jersey- based company’s request for a reduction in tax- es on some thirteen thousand acres of land. No one seemed to be in charge or to know where the state was going. Similar problems plagued the Democratic Party at the national level. The 1892 presiden- 128.163.2.206 All use A NEW HISTORY OF KENTUCKY selected P. Wat Hardin of Harrodsburg instead, and endorsed the gold standard and sound money. Hardin’s plank fell apart quickly, for the Democratic candidate repudiated the party platform and came out for free silver, to try to hold agrarians in the party. Meanwhile, Gov- ernor Brown refused to campaign for Hardin, and conservative Democrats abandoned Har- din for the Republicans. Populists put forth a fairly prominent former Democrat, Thom- as S. Pettit of Owensboro, and he gained the support of one of the largest black newspapers in the region, Louisville’s New South. Overall, however, blacks generally remained loyal to the Republicans. Title: Decades of Discord, 1875–1900 CRAIG THOMPSON FRIEND v5npjz4.16 helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend of Kentucky This content downloaded from 128.163.2.206 on Sat, 09 Nov 2024 19:25:15 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 12 ily because of a particular candidate’s qualifica- tions or fitness for office. Many understood the system to be one in which those who favored the victor should receive benefits for their aid. At the local level, few challenged a winning candidate’s right to name family members to office, and nepotism ran rampant. Fewer still questioned a victor’s right to place supporters in appointive offices, even though this practice meant frequent turnover and little opportunity to develop a professional staff. Each commu- nity had its leaders around whom voters gath- ered; each had strong kinship connections that had to be recognized; each had particular local interests to protect. Added to that localism was a system of county government that made those units semiautonomous, or as Robert Ireland has called them, almost “little kingdoms” unto themselves. Each officer had important pow- ers at a time when relative isolation made the county about the only place where citizens had any contact with government. The coun- ty judge, for example, could dispense liquor li- censes at his discretion, the sheriff gathered tax- es, the justices of the peace—there were two thousand in the state in 1889—served as lo- cal jurists hearing cases concerning petty crime, the county clerk recorded legal documents, and the county assessor evaluated property for tax purposes. Local government—not state—built most roads, enforced most laws, collected most taxes, and dispersed most poor relief. It did not always do so fairly or effectively, but it did so locally. By the time of the creation of Ken- tucky’s last county (McCreary) in 1912, Ken- tucky counties were, on average, the second smallest in area in the United States. Citizens therefore had a very intimate connection with 237 This content downloaded from on Sat, 09 Nov 2024 19:25:15 UTC use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Almost every smaller town and city had its own version, perhaps with a different base but with the same goals—to control votes and win elections. Various forces could disrupt that local power, particularly powerful lobbies. The most powerful of those in the late nineteenth cen- tury was the Louisville and Nashville Railroad. The L&N paid 40 percent of all rail assess- ments in the state in 1900. Its longtime chief executive officer, the capable and cold Milton Hannibal Smith, openly stated that “all legis- lative bodies are a menace. In action they are a calamity.” He thus determined to reduce the perceived risk to his lines by controlling such bodies as much as possible. Numerous legisla- tors were on the payroll of the well-organized and wealthy L&N as its attorneys in counties through which its lines passed. Others received free travel passes for themselves and their fami- lies. Still more benefited from L&N’s “sugges- tions” to its numerous workers on how they should vote in elections. Almost all partook of the railroad’s lavish entertainment for legisla- tors, being “freely furnished with whiskey, &c.” It is little wonder that one observer noted in 1900: “A man could not be elected justice of the peace or school trustee without the sanc- tion of the Louisville and Nashville politicians.” Other lobbies would come and go. An ac- tive lobby for the lotteries, for example, exist- ed through the 1880s, and various agricultural forces asked for legislative support. In the ear- ly twentieth century the coal interests and the thoroughbred groups each developed strong forces in the legislature as well. The lobbies, the localism, the racism, and the expectation of rewards for votes—all creat- ed an atmosphere that tacitly accepted or con- doned corruption in the voting booth. In 1879 a minister visited a Simpson County canvass and told his diary: “Oh the rabble... men aspiring to high offices treating to whiskey & buying up votes.” Vote buying, said one observ- er, “is as common as buying groceries.” Even af- ter Louisville became the first American mu- nicipality to adopt the use of the secret ballot in 1888, problems continued to grow. One 1909 estimate indicated that up to one-fourth of all This content downloaded from on Sat, 09 Nov 2024 19:25:15 UTC subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Decades of Discord, 1875–1900 for the rest of the nineteenth century and tried to place their own interpretation of the law on those around them. In a few instances, Reg- ulators may have given some order to isolat- ed counties with ineffective law enforcement, but that result was atypical. Such groups usu- ally contributed to the lawlessness. While they sought to justify their actions by suggesting that they were merely implementing justice, they in fact decided guilt and inflicted punish- ment arbitrarily and willfully. They allowed no trial by one’s peers, heard no evidence, and of- fered no appeal. Each time they acted, justice in Kentucky became a little more lifeless. Threats and beatings became common- place where Regulators ruled, and lynchings sometimes occurred. Between 1873 and 1900, at least 166 lynchings took place. Two-thirds of the victims were black. Mobs murdered with impunity. In October 1899, for example, a Maysville mob took accused killer Richard Coleman from the sheriff, who did not resist. As hundreds watched and then fed the flames, Coleman was set on fire and died a slow death. Later the mob dragged the body through the streets, and people cut off the fingers and toes as souvenirs. No one wore masks; everyone knew who was involved. But no charges were filed, and the lesson for Kentuckians was that the law was not supreme. Many other examples supported that con- clusion. The production of whiskey at home stills had been commonplace and legal for many years, but in 1862 a new federal tax on whiskey production changed that. Failure to pay the tax made “moonshining” illegal, and revenue agents began to try to seize illegal stills and place violators of the law in custody. In 1881, for example, 153 arrests were made. But many communities tacitly accepted the moon- shiner. A wall of silence often met the attempts of the revenuers at law enforcement. One county newspaper in 1881 openly proclaimed that “shooting matches and moonshine whis- key are as common as corn bread.” Once more, community mores seemed more powerful than established law. That supposition became even clearer in the way certain communities reacted to indi- 239 This content downloaded from on Sat, 09 Nov 2024 19:25:15 UTC use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms wealth’s courts were vulnerable. In March 1879 Thomas Buford of Henry County approached John Milton Elliott, a former US congressman and now a judge of the state’s highest court, on the streets of Frankfort. Upset over a judicial decision of Elliott’s, Buford shot him at point- blank range with a double-barreled shotgun. Declared not guilty by reason of insanity, Bu- ford later escaped from an asylum, fled to Indi- ana, and remained free from Kentucky law for two years before he returned voluntarily to the asylum, where he died. In 1884, an attorney who erroneously thought Superior Court Judge Richard Reid of Mt. Sterling had injured his honor in a court decision, whipped and severe- ly beat Reid. A man of the law and a “Chris- tian Gentleman,” Reid did not resort to per- sonal vengeance, as even the law allowed, but decided to support legalism over violence. His society, however, generally refuted that course of action. With his support groups gone, his manhood impugned, and his long-held beliefs under attack, the judge committed suicide. The Cult of Honor had claimed another victim. Group support of the law was shown to be dangerous as well. After three men in Ash- land were arrested for some brutal murders, a mob lynched one of them. The state militia was called out in 1882 to protect the remaining two, and officials were in the process of moving them by water to a safer place when a mob fired on them from a boat and from the shore. Af- ter a furious hail of bullets, the “battle of Ash- land” ended with several wounded soldiers and at least four dead civilians. Some commentators recognized the effect that all the lawlessness was having on the state. A central Kentucky editor in 1878 called for “a revolution in the moral sense of the com- munity, so that the man-slayer instead of be- ing exalted as a sort of hero, and actually wor- shipped for the very qualities which ought to make all men shun him, will be esteemed for his real worth, and blood guiltiness be regard- ed as it is—as the worst and blackest of crimes against nature.” Four years later, after the Ash- land tragedy, another editor in the common- wealth found that little had changed: “Mur- ders are more frequent, punishment is lighter, This content downloaded from on Sat, 09 Nov 2024 19:25:15 UTC subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Decades of Discord, 1875–1900 the Civil War and finally concluded in 1877, when, according to one report, only one male participant remained alive. Confused and biased reporting of all the feuds makes a clear picture of what happened elusive. The so-called Underwood-Stamper- Holbrook feud in Carter County, for example, may have been more a struggle between out- laws and Regulators than a feud. But the fight- ing erupted out of an “old grudge,” Civil War antagonisms, and an earlier “Kinney-Carter war.” Defending themselves in “Fort Under- wood,” that family faced, at various times, the Stampers, a law-and-order citizens’ group, and a state militia force. Various arrests ended with few convictions. As many as thirty deaths may have occurred. A brief period of calm ended by 1880, when reports once more filtered out of the hills, telling of a band of two hundred Reg- ulators who enforced their clan’s version of jus- tice. By that time, though, events in a neigh- boring county were seizing the headlines. The Rowan County War of the 1880s, or what some termed the Martin-Tolliver-Logan feud, resulted in at least twenty murders and sixteen other casualties during just a three-year period, in a county whose population never ex- ceeded eleven hundred. Only one conviction occurred. Beginning with some political dis- agreements in the 1870s, the fighting erupted in an 1884 election dispute that left one man dead and two more, including John Martin, in- jured. A former Underwood ally, Martin met “Big Floyd” Tolliver in a saloon months after- ward, accused him of the earlier shooting, and killed him. Eight days later the Tolliver fac- tion seized Martin from the authorities with a forged order and fired numerous shots into his body. On one side stood the Tollivers and the Youngs, on the other the Martins, Humphreys, and the Cooks. Each side took turns with retal- iatory killings, but the Tollivers gained virtual control of the city of Morehead and of the court system. Finally Daniel Boone Logan, whose fa- ther had been killed in the Underwood “War,” and who himself initially had been more sym- pathetic to the Tollivers, was pulled into the violence when he learned that his two cousins 241 This content downloaded from on Sat, 09 Nov 2024 19:25:15 UTC subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms il Anse”) Hatfield directed the West Virginia group, who mostly resided across the Tug Fork. Disputes concerning the Civil War, failed jus- tice, a hog, economics, and a romance were all prelude to what resulted on election day in 1882. A fight between a Hatfield and three McCoys left the Hatfield mortally wound- ed. Angry members of his family, distrustful of Kentucky justice, seized the three McCoys, tied them to bushes, and, in an almost ritualis- tic manner, riddled their bodies with some fifty bullets. One fifteen-year-old’s head was virtual- ly blown away by a shotgun blast. Scattered vi- olence took place over the next five years. Then on New Year’s Day in 1888, Old Ran’l McCoy’s home was surrounded and burned, and a son and daughter were killed. An illegal raid by a Kentucky deputy sheriff ended in some Hat- field deaths and arrests and a court case that in- volved the governors of both states and eventu- ally the US Supreme Court. A lawful execution by hanging took place in 1890, and some sem- blance of peace followed. Overall, from twelve to twenty deaths had resulted from a feud that the New York Times said “caught the attention of the whole nation.” As that feud faded, a conflict heated up in Clay County. Involving the leading families in the county—the Whites and the Garrards— the violence erupted in the 1880s over long- time business and political rivalries. Each side had various families tied to them by econom- ic, legal, and political alliances—the Bakers and Philpots to the Garrards and the Howards to the Whites. As two students of the conflict wrote, those dependent armies “made it pos- sible for elites to engage in sustained violent conflict through intermediaries.” As a result, in 1899 alone, an estimated twenty died violent- ly in the county. Two years later, a truce end- ed most of the killing, but aspects of the con- flict went on for another three decades. A 1932 investigation called for the abolishment of the county as the only way to establish order. The final major Appalachian violence termed a feud was one of the longest lasting. Violence had plagued Breathitt County since the “little hell” that was the Civil War there, and the so-called Amis-Strong-Little feud This content downloaded from on Sat, 09 Nov 2024 19:25:15 UTC subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Decades of Discord, 1875–1900 the earlier feud, some had been involved in eco- nomic disputes, and several had connections to families and politicians on both sides. In sep- arate fights Hargis’s brother and half-brother were killed; in July 1902 Cockrell’s brother Jim was murdered as Hargis and Callahan watched. By November of that year numerous houses and businesses had been burned, and nearly forty deaths had resulted. Marcum would not venture out in public without a young child in his arms, for he knew his enemies would not risk killing a baby. But in May 1903 an unes- corted Marcum was shot in the back, then in the head. Two convictions followed, but nei- ther Hargis nor Callahan was found guilty in criminal trials. Their punishments came in other ways. In 1908 Hargis was killed by his drunken son. Later, on an anniversary of Mar- cum’s assassination, Callahan stood by a store window and was wounded by an assassin’s bul- let. On the ninth anniversary in 1912, a shoot- er succeeded, killing Callahan as he spoke on the telephone. In essence the feuds in “Bloody Breathitt” and other Appalachian counties had ended. But people went on paying the costs, and like a ghost haunting the state’s hills and hollows, the bloody specter of the feuds would long bedevil the people of Kentucky. 243 This content downloaded from on Sat, 09 Nov 2024 19:25:15 UTC use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms lence provided the main source of feuds. When no responses or legal redress could be obtained from a biased legal system “rotten to the core,” other answers would be sought. A form of cul- turally approved vigilantism developed, one in which interwoven ties, fed by a limiting envi- ronment, produced a bloody personal code. Each resulting act only worsened the situation, and revenge, not justice, soon guided most ac- tions. A widow from the Clay County violence explained how her “chief aim” in life became the avenging of her husband’s death: “Each day I shall show my boys the handkerchief stained with his blood, and tell them who murdered him.” The circle of violence grew wider with each generation. The result of what some termed as feud vi- olence for Kentucky and Appalachia would be broad and far-reaching. The immediate effect of most violence proved to be an out-migra- tion of some citizens, a business depression in the affected counties, and suspended growth. While partisan political institutions may have resulted, overall, other effects usually did not last because the great coal boom that struck the region gave some feud-desolated places a re- birth of sorts. More crucial long-range results grew out of the publicity the feuds generated and the ste- reotypes that developed. Once almost forgot- ten by Kentucky and the nation, Appalachia now was suddenly “discovered,” and two some- what contradictory images grew out of the re- sulting deluge of print stories and silent mov- ies. One stereotype presented the mountain people as “our contemporary ancestors,” a peo- ple from frontier times, cut off from the world by isolation. As a result, they spoke—so say- eth the commentators—“the English of Shake- speare’s time,” maintained the earlier ways of life, and preserved old customs. In this benign and pastoral view, hospitable mountain people lived self-sufficient and happy lives as they sat in front of their quaint log cabins, produced quilts, sang ballads, and played their dulcimers. This image perpetuated the past and represent- ed a hope for the future. A second, much starker and darker ste- reotype presented Appalachian people as igno- This content downloaded from on Sat, 09 Nov 2024 19:25:15 UTC subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Decades of Discord, 1875–1900 “urban provincialism” often colored the atti- tudes behind the stories, and a cultural colo- nialism shaped the results. Once established, however, the stereotypes would prove to be ex- tremely hard to demolish. While later, some might agree that “it’s crude to feud,” there may have been some truth to the lament in the Haz- ard Herald that “one little crime in the moun- tain section will receive more front page com- ment than a dozen murders... in the cities.” A congressman complained that authors “make a universality out of an incident.” Whatever the correctness of that view, there was still little doubt that in the late nineteenth century Ken- tucky garnered a stereotype of violence. In that same atmosphere, Appalachia gained several stereotypes. All of this hurt the state’s and the region’s image and subsequent development for decades to come. bloodshed The McCreary Administration and Health Care, 1875–1879 Violence stood out as one of the key issues in the gubernatorial campaign of 1875. Demo- crats pledged to contain the violence while Re- publicans criticized them for failing to do so. But that was but one of many issues, as the party of Lincoln again put forth its strongest candidate and best speaker, the young attor- ney and former Unionist John Marshall Har- lan. Opposing him was an even more youth- ful barrister, former Confederate colonel James B. McCreary of Madison County. McCreary— like his predecessors and successors—played on his ties to the South, as did many candidates for local offices. One nineteenth-century ob- server noted that “worthy and capable ex-Con- federate soldiers (especially if maimed)” would “invariably” be elected, and Alben W. Barkley exaggerated only a little when he wrote that “for years after the Civil War, a candidate for political office in our part of Kentucky who had not had at least one limb shot off while fighting for the Confederacy might as well have whistled down a rain barrel.” While Har- lan hammered state issues, McCreary focused on national ones. He centered his attention on Reconstruction and successfully reiterated his 245 This content downloaded from on Sat, 09 Nov 2024 19:25:15 UTC use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms were not met. The problem for McCreary and his successors was how far to go to meet those demands without alienating the other forces in the often-fragile Democratic coalition. At the same time, labor unrest in the cit- ies developed, particularly in connection with a prolonged “long-wave” depression that last- ed much of the rest of the century. When the L&N and other railroads slashed wages in 1877, workers struck in protest in Louisville. In July the militia was called out, but no fur- ther conflicts of any significance developed. The formal organization of unions increased, however, and by 1880 the Knights of Labor had thirty-six assemblies in Louisville. Dur- ing the next two decades, that city alone expe- rienced at least 140 strikes, chiefly over wages. In 1887, for example, working women struck the Louisville Woolen Mills, but lack of funds or laws sympathetic to labor doomed their ef- fort. Similarly, a depression in 1893 left an es- timated ten thousand women and men unem- ployed in Louisville and many more suffering from wage cuts. A two-month strike to bet- ter that situation failed. Labor won few victo- ries over management in the nineteenth cen- tury, but workers increasingly coalesced as an important voting bloc. They too represented a fresh force that the dominant Democratic Par- ty had to face. Despite the new threats, Democrats con- tinued to win state elections. In the 1876 presi- dential race, Kentucky editor Henry Watterson emerged as perhaps the leading national advo- cate for Democratic nominee Samuel J. Tilden of New York. For the first time in two decades, it appeared that state Democrats might be on the victor’s side in a presidential canvass. Re- publicans considered as a possible presidential choice a native Kentuckian. Benjamin H. Bris- tow of Elkton had had a distinguished career as a Union soldier and had been the secretary of the Treasury. But Rutherford B. Hayes won the nomination and, in a controversial way, the election. Democrats carried Kentucky by a vote of 160,445 to 98,415, won all ten congressio- nal seats (through some resourceful gerryman- dering of the districts), and believed they had elected Tilden as president. When questions This content downloaded from on Sat, 09 Nov 2024 19:25:15 UTC subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Decades of Discord, 1875–1900 ness. The river town of Paducah in 1900 had the nation’s second highest rate of typhoid fe- ver and the third highest level of malaria. Medicines available to treat these diseas- es ranged from adequate to ridiculous. With little or no regulation of drugs, patent medi- cine firms covered newspapers with their ad- vertisements, offering “cures” for virtually ev- erything. For one dollar a bottle, for example, Dr. Radway’s Sasaparillian Resolvent claimed to cure tuberculosis, syphilis, ulcers, sore eyes, skin diseases, ringworm, “female complaints,” and “nocturnal losses.” Most such offerings proved to be either heavily alcoholic or a laxa- tive. Other Kentuckians innocently sought re- lief through morphine, cocaine, and opium, which were sold legally in many drugstores in the nineteenth century. Unexpected addic- tions brought other newspaper advertisements for more “cures” of “the habit.” The cure often proved worse than the problem. The new Kentucky State Board of Health, under the longtime direction of Dr. Joseph N. McCormack of Bowling Green, and then his son Arthur, sought to improve that situation, although its annual budget never exceeded five thousand dollars until 1901. The board began by addressing the question of medical prepara- tion. An 1878 study found that one thousand of the commonwealth’s five thousand doctors had never attended a medical school. Anoth- er report conducted a few years later termed Kentucky “the worst quack ridden State in the union” and called physicians little more than “ignorant vampires.” Even attendance at a med- ical “college” might be meaningless, for, with- out regulation, some institutions served more as diploma factories than places of instruction. The quality of the food that Kentuckians ate presented a second concern. By 1898 a state Pure Food Law—later revised and strength- ened—brought inspection of processed and prepared items. Through the efforts of people like Robert McDowell Allen, who became a national leader in the field, major change soon occurred. One sampling of certain foods, for instance, found that 80 percent were adulterat- ed in some way. Punishment of violators quick- ly reversed the situation, and by the first decade 247 This content downloaded from on Sat, 09 Nov 2024 19:25:15 UTC use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms the human element, and the existence of what one paper called a system of “absolute slavery.” As a result, the penitentiary became a place of slime-covered walls, open sewage, “graveyard coughs,” and general unhealthiness. An 1875 study had found that 20 percent of the inmates had pneumonia. The year Blackburn took of- fice another report revealed that three of every four prisoners had scurvy, owing to poor diet. More than 7 percent of the nearly one thou- sand prisoners had died during the year. Oth- ers had lived on in a hellish existence, with two prisoners per poorly heated, disease-ridden, rat- infested cell. Each of these cells measured less than seven feet long and four feet wide. In the women’s quarters, located in marshy ground, their cells stood ankle-deep in water for days af- ter a rain. Untrained guards owed their jobs to political patronage, and these officials changed as frequently as the administration. Prison les- sees sought favor with the legislators, whose votes would select them, by providing the law- makers with cheap washing, free meals, and other benefits. Legislators, in turn, averted their investigative eyes from the frequent whip- pings of prisoners, the cockroaches in the food, the rodents in the hallways, the thumbscrews, the sicknesses, and the deaths. With no parole system in existence, the only way a prisoner could be released before the full sentence was served was to die or to be pardoned by the governor. The guberna- torial power to grant pardons had previously been much criticized, for the friends of politi- cal allies, or those whose families contributed to campaigns, seemed to receive a dispropor- tionate share of them. Luke Blackburn examined the “degrad- ing” situation in the state prison, concluded that something had to be done immediately or more deaths would follow, and began an un- precedented pardoning policy. The net effect was to relieve overcrowding and to provide a second chance for prisoners previously without hope. In practice, however, his decision earned him widespread criticism as “Lenient Luke.” Before his term ended, the governor had par- doned more than a thousand people, including nearly four hundred Regulators from eastern This content downloaded from on Sat, 09 Nov 2024 19:25:15 UTC subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Decades of Discord, 1875–1900 (Kentucky Historical Society Collections, Frankfort, KY) al death camps until the 1890s, when the new state constitution prohibited convict leasing. So in the end, Blackburn’s efforts at pris- on reform only partly succeeded: the gover- nor’s free use of pardons still had not helped the overcrowding a great deal, the new penitentiary would itself be full almost immediately, and the convict leasing system represented a step back- ward. Over the coming decades, more prison investigations would find more problems, and the same story would be repeated. By the conclusion of his four-year term, the politically inexperienced and somewhat na- ive Blackburn had almost no allies. His own party shouted him down and booed him as he sought to defend his record. Democrats, after all, had once more carried the state in the 1880 presidential race, this time for Winfield Scott Hancock, and had reelected US senator James B. Beck. Besides reforming prisons, Blackburn and the legislature had raised property taxes, cut state salaries by one-fifth, improved river navigation, and reorganized the court system. The press ignored most of these achievements, however, and instead wrote about the pardon record of the man whom one paper called “the 249 This content downloaded from on Sat, 09 Nov 2024 19:25:15 UTC use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Rowan County and other areas of eastern Ken- tucky. He also continued to pardon large num- bers of prisoners, and he usually advocated lo- cal actions over state ones. His administration did create the Kentucky State Normal School for Colored Persons in Frankfort (now Ken- tucky State University) and enacted a major overhaul of the educational system, but Knott’s major achievement lay in the area of revenue reform. A new law not only fixed new taxes and raised the property tax but also established more uniform assessments, providing, for ex- ample, that railroads and other corporations be taxed at the regular property rate. The action concerning corporations alone added $90 mil- lion of property to the taxable property lists. As a result, state government revenues increased to $3.6 million by 1890, representing 50 per- cent growth over the 1880 figure. All this had occurred despite one other fiscal action during the Knott years. The governor opposed but the legislature enacted a bill backed by the L&N that granted newly constructed rail lines— about one-fourth of those operating—a five- year period free of taxes. Powerful forces still operated in the general assembly. For the Democratic Party of Proctor Knott, perhaps the greatest achievement took place outside Kentucky. In the 1884 presiden- tial election, the issues varied only in detail from before: Democrats attacked the “horrors” of Republican Reconstruction and the charac- ter of Republican nominee James G. Blaine of Maine (a man who had once taught in Ken- tucky), while calling for a low tariff on foreign goods so workers would have access to cheap- er merchandise. Republicans, in turn, coun- tered with the observation that the character of the Democratic nominee, Grover Cleveland of New York, hardly seemed pure, given the fact that he had acknowledged paternity of an ille- gitimate child. They also defended a high pro- tective tariff, arguing that it allowed American manufactures to grow. Such issues mattered little, it appeared, for the commonwealth fol- lowed its usual pattern and went Democrat- ic—as it had for twenty years—by 152,961 to 118,122 votes. This time, however, Republi- can divisions and mistakes at the national lev- This content downloaded from on Sat, 09 Nov 2024 19:25:15 UTC subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Decades of Discord, 1875–1900 legislative investigation that concluded that the railroad company had used money, passes, and influence in “an extraordinarily powerful effort to dominate the legislature.” Additionally, the Hatfield-McCoy feud dragged Buckner into a convoluted legal controversy with the governor of West Virginia, one that had to be settled by the US Supreme Court. Even that issue, how- ever, paled in comparison to a sensational po- litical scandal that suddenly erupted. Beginning in 1867 and continuing every two years thereafter, Kentucky voters had elect- ed James W. (“Honest Dick”) Tate of Frank- fort as state treasurer. Praised for his integrity and affability, Tate was so trusted that other state officials did not even bother to carry out their duties and double-check his accounts. On March 14, 1888, Tate packed some bags for a trip to Louisville and Cincinnati. As far as is known, he was never seen in Kentucky again. A few days later, worried officials began to scruti- nize his books. They found a chaotic, confused system that seemed no system at all. Bills had been laid aside and forgotten; others had been paid but not so recorded; more seriously, some had been marked paid when they had not been. State funds had also apparently been offered by Tate as personal loans to various friends and officials, including at least one governor. The treasurer had used the commonwealth’s money to speculate in land and coal mining ventures of his own. Finally, a clerk recalled that Honest Dick had filled two large sacks with gold and silver coins and had taken a large roll of bills with him on his final trip. Eventually, investigators found that Tate had embezzled more than $247,000 from the state—about one-tenth of the annual budget. He had doctored bills, deleted accounts, and forgotten transactions in a fairly crude way, but the loose controls had allowed him to contin- ue his fraud for years. Worried about the pos- sibility of a routine check, he finally fled. The Kentucky House of Representatives quickly impeached Tate, and the senate removed him from office. Criminal charges were filed against him in civil court. Belatedly, the legislature cre- ated the office of state inspector and examiner. Behind the scenes, chaos reigned. Worried 251 This content downloaded from on Sat, 09 Nov 2024 19:25:15 UTC subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms nally an 1889 vote made that possibility a real- ity. One hundred delegates, representing each district in the Kentucky House of Representa- tives, were selected. They convened in Frank- fort on September 8, 1890, met for 226 days, and signed the result of their deliberations on April 11, 1891. The process was long, contro- versial, and not always fruitful. Not unexpectedly, the delegates were a varied lot. There were sixty attorneys, twenty farmers, thirteen doctors, and seven business leaders. Almost one-fifth of them had been elected as representatives of the Farmers’ Alli- ance and spoke out chiefly on those issues of importance to agrarians—limited government, control of corporations, railroad regulation, and the like. The delegates at the convention included a former governor, the current gov- ernor, a future governor, and the uncle and brother of two other governors. About a dozen middle-level political figures formed the core of those involved in most deliberations, however. In short, the group of delegates was competent but not exceptional. Unfortunately, the delegates often oper- ated like oarsmen in a boat with no one steer- ing. With no particular person to lead and with a piecemeal rather than a considered ap- proach to constitution making, the conven- tion seemed to flounder. Delegates spent long hours offering resolutions or debating proce- dural or minor matters. What one delegate termed lengthy, “aerial flights of oratory” em- anated on virtually every subject. Delegates ignored William M. Beckner’s advice that they should fashion a flexible document, to “give posterity a chance.” Unable to agree on broad statements, they instead degenerated al- most to making laws in the form of a consti- tution through very specific sections, which, as it turned out, were often quickly outdated. Fresh from the Tate scandal, the delegates did not trust government or its leaders very much. They therefore limited officials’ time in office and fashioned a restrictive document that re- flected their suspicion of power and those who wielded it. The document they drafted in 1890 and 1891 would change drastically over the years, This content downloaded from on Sat, 09 Nov 2024 19:25:15 UTC subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Decades of Discord, 1875–1900 Almost as soon as it was written, the new constitution attracted critics, including Wat- terson, who opposed its limitations and restric- tions as well as its bundle of statutes disguised as a constitution. Others disliked some of the reform elements, such as the strengthened rail- road commission, and the L&N campaigned against adoption. But the framers had reflected the will of a state fearful of power, distrustful of politicians, and careful of prerogatives, and the constitution was adopted by a statewide vote of 212,914 to 74,523. Then, in a strange move, the delegates reassembled for almost a month, made several changes, some of them signifi- cant, and signed a new, “final” draft. Not voted on in that form by the people, the document was tested in the courts but was eventually ap- proved. At long last the constitution of 1891 was complete. The problems it would create, however, had only begun. Populism in the Chaotic 1890s The postwar Democratic Party consisted of many elements—former Whigs, former pre- war Democrats, former Confederates, for- mer Unionists, rural interests, urban inter- ests, wealthy Bluegrass farmers, poorer western Kentucky agrarians, leaders of a Bourbon bent, politicians of New Departure views, and much more. Bonded in a weak philosophical way by a devotion to low tariffs, a limited role for gov- ernment, and an opposition to Republicans, (later Democrats had never had a fully united par- ty. One element seemed always in conflict with another, whether it was Bourbon versus New Departure earlier, or agrarians against the es- tablished leadership in the 1880s. Over the years, different factions had broken off, ei- ther in passive rebellion or in small third-party movements. Now those divisions threatened to grow into full-scale revolt. Farmers grew even more worried about their place in American life and in Kentucky politics. Many argued that corporations, es- pecially railroads, discriminated against them. Others noted the long-term debt many agrar- ians owed to bankers or other lenders. Still more complained, as did an 1891 writer in 253 This content downloaded from on Sat, 09 Nov 2024 19:25:15 UTC use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms were perceived by the “old guard” of both par- ties to be quite radical, chiefly because of their stand on the money issue. During economic hard times, those in debt sought relief. More than sixty years before, conflicts on that issue had erupted in the Old Court–New Court struggle. Now the same kinds of concerns brought forth new respons- es but similar divisive reactions. Self-described “slaves of the money powers and corporations,” the debt-ridden agriculturalists called for the free and unlimited coinage of silver at a set ra- tio to gold. Perhaps few understood this action in principle, but many knew that it would cre- ate an inflated currency. Higher prices for farm products would mean that farmers could use cheaper dollars to pay off old debts. The Re- publicans and one part of the Democratic Par- ty vehemently opposed the proposal and called for “sound money.” A large—and growing— faction of the Democrats cried out instead for “free silver.” The fight was on. Populists began to draw votes from both parties, but the Farmers’ Alliance refused to endorse the third party. That decision gave the victory to Democrat Brown, who received 144,168 votes. Republican Andrew T. Wood of Mt. Sterling had 116,087, Populist Erwin polled 25,631, and a Prohibition candidate won 3,292. But the Democrats had not won a majority of ballots cast (only 49.9 percent). The Populists had garnered nearly 9 percent of the vote, and the potential for future prob- lems was clear. The slow erosion of Democrat- ic votes over the years had continued, and the party’s western bastion had drastically lessened its support. Of the forty-four counties where Populists had gained more than 10 percent of the vote, most were in the agriculturally dis- tressed western farm belt. Populists had elected at least thirteen members to the general assem- bly, and the presence of numerous Alliance- backed Democrats gave agrarians a majority in the legislature. Democrats would have to ad- dress free silver and agricultural reform issues, or their party could face the rarest of events— future defeat. Governor Brown presided over a schizo- phrenic and chaotic administration. Operating This content downloaded from on Sat, 09 Nov 2024 19:25:15 UTC subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Decades of Discord, 1875–1900 tial election brought Grover Cleveland back to the White House, a move endorsed by Ken- tucky voters, who gave Cleveland a 40,000- vote majority over incumbent Republican pres- ident Benjamin Harrison. Populists garnered a smaller but still respectable 23,500 votes (7 percent). President Cleveland and his Ken- tucky-born vice president, Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois, recognized the role of the Kentucky Democrats by appointing John G. Carlisle as secretary of the Treasury. Then the most prominent national polit- ical figure from Kentucky, Carlisle had stud- ied law under former governor Stevenson. From his northern Kentucky base of Coving- ton, he had won election as lieutenant gover- nor, US congressman for seven terms, and US senator. He had also been Speaker of the US House. Looking cold and austere dressed in his traditional black suit, Carlisle was usually de- scribed as intellectual, analytic, and brilliant, and many expected him to use the cabinet po- sition as a springboard to the presidency. But a national depression and the money issue made the Cleveland administration and Carlisle very unpopular, even in Democratic Kentucky, and doomed his political hopes. A sound money man, Carlisle spoke in Covington in 1896, and when free silver supporters pelted him with rot- ten eggs, he made that occasion his last public speech. Carlisle left the state to live elsewhere, his career having fallen victim to the issues that were dividing the commonwealth. safety act Political, Tollgate, and Other Wars a rev- In the 1895 race for governor, the money is- sue and other questions threatened to end the dominance of the Democratic Party in Ken- tucky. With an unpopular Democratic presi- dent and governor, with a depression still on- going, with the third-party Populists present to siphon votes from the majority party, and with the free silver issue splitting the Demo- crats further, Republicans could taste victory at last. They put forth their strongest candidate, William O. Bradley. In a bitter convention fight, Democrats re- pudiated incumbent governor Brown’s choice, 255 This content downloaded from on Sat, 09 Nov 2024 19:25:15 UTC subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms the masses against the classes.” To more con- servative elements in the state, he represented a “dangerous,” radical spirit. With many of the old key leaders—including Watterson, Breck- inridge, Carlisle, and Buckner—in opposition to Bryan, some Democrats left their party for the Republicans, while others gave their votes to the National—or Gold—Democrats. An- other splinter third party, the Gold Democrats had as their presidential nominee Kentucky na- tive John M. Palmer of Illinois, and their vice- presidential choice was former Kentucky gov- ernor Buckner. They won only 5,108 votes in the 1896 election in Kentucky, but had those

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