A history of Kentucky and Kentuckians; the leaders and representative men in commerce, industry and modern activities, Volume I, Part 73

Author: Johnson, E. Polk, 1844-; Lewis Publishing Company
Publication date: 1912
Publisher: Chicago, Lewis Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 656

USA > Kentucky > A history of Kentucky and Kentuckians; the leaders and representative men in commerce, industry and modern activities, Volume I > Part 73

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people who formerly owned the timber and by those who would themselves be manu- facturers did the laws of the state offer them encouragement. Under which system would the state receive the longer revenues-the system such as prevails in Pennsylvania or such a system as that which retards advance- ment in Kentucky? Pittsburg alone pays local taxes on $500,000,000 in round numbers, which almost equals the value of the property assessed for taxation in the entire state of Kentucky.

Merchants in Kentucky cities are required to pay taxes aggregating from two and one- half to three per cent of their gross assets. In Pennsylvania there is a license tax to the state, only requiring a wholesale merchant to pay fifty cents on each thousand dollars of sales. The result is that an immense jobbing and wholesale business has been built up in every section of Pennsylvania, many cities in that state doing as much wholesale business as is done by all the wholesale merchants of Ken- tucky outside the city of Louisville. In St. Louis, merchants and manufacturers pay a city license tax of one dollar per thousand dollars of sales per annum. It is universally recognized by those who are capable of giving the matter any thought at all, that a tax based on the volume of business transacted, is the fairest, because it is not only accurate but is paid.

In Kentucky capital in banks, savings in- stitutions and all free capital on deposit, whether bearing interest and thereby produc- ing income, or not, pays taxes amounting to two and one-half to three per cent per hun- dred dollars. In Pennsylvania, it pays forty cents on the hundred dollars to the state only. As a result a recent report of the state auditor of Pennsylvania, shows that the revenue to the state from banks, trust companies, etc., was $1.631.615, an increase in one year of $280,000. The revenue from other personalty at forty cents on the hundred dollars was

nearly six million dollars and one can read- ily understand why, in closing his report, the auditor should say: "The revenues of the state appear to be ample. I deem it hardly necessary to suggest anything new to produce revenue." Kentucky, could do as well under a like system but would, of course, collect a far smaller sum than Pennsylvania, for a less sum would be needed.

In Maryland the specific tax on interest- bearing securities is for city or county pur- poses, thirty cents on the hundred dollars ; for the state, sixteen cents on the hundred dollars and this produced for the state, $460,000 in a single year. In Kentucky cities, with a tax rate of from two and one-half to three dol- lars on the hundred dollars, much of the tax is not collected, the inevitable result of such burden being that property is either put into non-taxable securities or is hidden. In Ken- tucky it is difficult for administrators, execu- tors and trustees to make investments in se- curities which will meet the requirements of the courts and produce any reasonable income for the benefit of their trusts. It is impossible for them to do so, if the securities in which they invest are required to pay the onerous tax levied under existing law. The result is that widows and orphans whose assets are in the hands of trustees, who must make annual settlements with the courts, revealing the se- curities in which those assets are invested, pay an unreasonable proportion of the taxes. Un- der the laws of Kentucky mortgages on real estate are taxed at the same rate as the prop- erty mortgaged, which is double taxation of the most unjust and burdensome kind.

The west has been built up and made rich and powerful by eastern capital borrowed on mortgages for the improvement of farms and public development, and in those states only the land or the mortgage is taxed, never both, as in this state. The state of Louisiana, by recent amendment of its constitution, imposes no tax whatever upon mortgages on property

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in the state which itself is taxed. The state of Washington levies no tax on mortgages on real estate, on the ground that it is unjust double taxation and against public policy. It levies no tax on money on deposit without interest, because of the tax paid by the banks to do business and because such a tax would drive money out of the state as it does out of Kentucky.

In Kentucky stock in foreign corporations, owned by citizens of the state, must pay taxes in the state at the full rate, though all the property represented by the stock owned is located in other states and pays taxes to them. Thus a resident of Covington, Kentucky, en- gaged in any business conducted by a cor- poration in Cincinnati, or elsewhere in Ohio, must pay taxes on his interest in that business in Ohio and again on the stock which repre- sents that interest in Kentucky. The result is that no large owner of industrial or other stocks represented by property in other states can afford to live in Kentucky, and many of those who acquire such interests remove their residences from the state with the result that Kentucky has lost hundreds and hundreds of good citizens and many hundreds of thou- sands of dollars. The system of taxation is purely theoretical, utterly impracticable and

unjust. It is injurious to the state, prevents development and is a failure in producing revenue, the ultimate purpose of all systems of taxation. A proper system would multiply taxable property and divide the burden, mak- ing lower tax rates possible and increasing the revenues for public improvements. Under such a system capital would be attracted rather than repelled as now ; new population would follow; factories would be built where there are none now and the people of the state would be freer, happier and less burdened by the taxes now taken from them by an unjust and archaic system.

It has not been a pleasant task, the writing of this chapter, but it is a truthful presentation of a disagreeable fact from which no honest writer of history could hope to escape. The writer trusts that before many years shall have passed the conditions herein set forth may no longer exist and that the citizens of his native state may, with calmness and equa- nimity, look at the census reports without a blush of shame.

For much of the matter in this chapter, the writer acknowledges his indebtedness to Mr. Desha Breckinridge, the accomplished editor of the Lexington Herald, who has devoted much attention to this important subject.

Vol. 1-32.

CHAPTER LXI.

THE REAL KENTUCKY MOUNTAINEER-KENTUCKY SPEECH, THE PUREST ENGLISH-REGAL MEN AND WOMEN.

Thanks to the sensational newspaper corre- spondents, the impression very generally pre- vails that when the mountaineer of Kentucky is not lying in ambush, gun in hand, to slay his real or imagined enemy, he is busily en- gaged in making "moonshine" whisky, on which he is constitutionally opposed to paying the revenue tax imposed by the government. Both of these conceptions are erroneous. True it is that feuds have existed in the Kentucky Highlands and that men have been shot from ambush, but that was in the past. Human life is as safe in the mountains of Kentucky to- day as in the streets of any city in the land. That men in the mountains yet distil illicit whisky cannot be denied, but they do not do so to that extent which sensational newspapers represent. The truth is that the mountaineer, take him all-in-all, is a better man than those who traduce him in the newspapers. He has the best of blood in his veins, being of Eng- lish, Scotch and Irish descent, with little or no admixture of other foreign blood. When his forefathers came out from Virginia and North Carolina, they found the mountains to their liking and rested there. Their descendants have remained where their fathers stopped. A true Highlander has little fondness for the lowlands and is not usually a wanderer. There was for years little change in the territory of the Allegheny plateau known as the Kentucky mountains. Churches and schools were few in number; of railroads there were none. The mountaineer lived a shut-in life and, unfortu- nately for himself, he was content, caring lit-

tle for change and less for his advancement in the social or business life. His wants were few and his surroundings supplied those wants. If he went out into the greater world which lay beyond the hills and valleys of his home, his chiefest desire was to return.

Mr. C. E. Clark, a man born and reared in the heart of the mountains, who states that he never saw a railroad until he was fifteen years of age, and "considers the fact no dis- grace," has written of his people as follows in the Lexington Herald: "The Kentucky moun- taineer is not responsible for any condition that might have existed in the past or that may exist at the present; environment has made him what he is. One brother stopped short of the journey and settled in the hills, while the other brother pushed on to a region more favored by nature. The brother in the Blue Grass region progressed and made Ken- tucky famous in the nation's history ; but the brother left behind continued to live the simple life of the early settler, meantime handing down its customs to the next generation with little or no improvement. While the brilliant lights of Kentucky culture shone forth in the life of the state and nation, not even the faint- est scintillation was ever made visible in this secluded area of the highlands. Thus un- noticed by the world and the world unobserved by them, and scarcely heeding themselves, they dreamed away almost a century of their ex- istence. But today the Kentucky mountain- eer is wide awake. He began to rub his eyes and to look about himself over a quarter of a

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century ago. Today he is fully aroused from this slumber, and in the dawning of a new day he is going forth to 'the world's broad field of battle,' all the stronger for having slept.

"Writers of description say that a. descrip- tion depends upon the viewpoint of the writer. Heretofore most writers on the Kentucky mountain region have taken the lofty position of critic, and from their high pedestal of self- goodness they have been prone to see the worst, the unique, the antique, and anything else that tickles the reader's ear. They have shut their eyes to the virtues and to the prog- ress of the mountaineer, and have only seen those things in which a few of them differ from the rest of the world. They have magni- fied these points and minimized the nobler traits. They have pictured to the world an outlaw, whisky boozer and feudist as a typical mountaineer ; but they are silent as to any better class of men. They snatch a picture of the rudest mountain hut and would have the reader believe it to be a typical mountain home ; but they seem to be blind to seeing any better sort of home. Ask yourself the ques- tion : Is the meanest, vilest, poorest character in Lexington a typical Lexingtonian? Is the humblest tenant in the Blue Grass region a typical Blue Grass farmer? Is the humblest home in Lexington a typical Lexington home ? God forbid! Yet many writers have been so unfair that they have taken the meanest char- acter and the humblest home in the mountain region and have held them up before the pub- lic as a common type of all. In this respect a modest, simple people have been outraged, maligned and libeled beyond measure, and a cry of resentment has gone up all over the mountains. Let the writer say to the world that if courage, honesty and patriotism are · signs of retrogression, then it were better if all America were retrograded.

"The mountaineer is tall, strong in physique and athletic in appearance. His facial features are indicative of intellect and resolution. His

manners are rather abrupt, yet always in the spirit of kindness. In speaking forth his con- victions he is absolutely fearless. He is affable and yet appears to possess an independence almost to the degree of arrogance. He is dog- gedly persistent in whatever he undertakes and would rather die than fall.

"A typical mountain woman gives the fol- lowing description : 'The typical mountain woman is to be admired for beauty of form and face as much as for purity of character and manners. The average woman possesses medium height and weight; nor is she denied that crowning glory and beauty of the femin- ine kind-a wealth of shining hair which she wears in a simple coiffure becoming to her face. Her features are refined and delicate. Her expression reveals a high type of womanly grace and virtue. Nor is her style of dress still of the Maud Muller type in clean tattered rags and bare feet. In the typical mountain homes, the grown girls and women are never seen with their feet bare, and their dress is far from being a primitive style. She does not seek an early marriage as has been stated. She is usually married between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one to a husband between twenty and twenty-five. She sets a high price on her affections, as a true woman should. Her love betrays much of the romantic spirit. Simple love and not coquetry and flirtation leads to the matrimonial step.' The writer fully believes that the excellence of woman- kind can be found nowhere in the world in as great abundance as in the mountains of Ken- tucky.

"Within the past ten or fifteen years there has been a remarkable improvement in the pub- lic school of the mountains. As if by sudden transformation a new frame building has ap- peared where once stood the old log structure. Having visited a majority of the schools in a dozen or more counties, and the teachers' in- stitutes in about as many, the writer feels that he can speak with authority. In an article

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printed in the Sunday Herald of December IIth, written for the Royal Geographical So- ciety by an English lady, conditions are set forth which do not now exist in the schools of the Kentucky highlands. If at that time, 1901, such conditions did exist, it was rare; or if they were general, a complete transformation had been made by the year 191I.

"The school houses, for the most part, are framed, one-roomed structures, weather board and ceiled. The log school house is becoming almost as rare as moonshine whisky. In Morgan county today there are two public high schools, two graded schools and a high class private school on the border. All the rural district schools have frame buildings; many of them have modern equipment. More- over, several have libraries of a few of the choicest volumes. But there is still great room for improvement, and, if the educational spirit continues to remain intense, a few years hence will see the mountain youth enjoying oppor- tunities side by side with the other youth of America. The term is six months, and is sometimes prolonged two months by subscrip- tion. The term opens in July and continues incessantly until the close, except a week or two in October during 'foddering time.'

"The teachers, on the average. represent the best blood of the mountains. In the in- dustrial and farming sections of the state there are so many lucrative professions and occupations that the rural schools suffer sadly for want of teachers. But in the mountains teaching pays comparatively better than other occupations in which a young man or young woman might engage ; therefore, many of them prepare to teach. The majority of the teach- ers are young men ; they seem to use the pro- fession as a stepping stone to something higher. The young men subsequently become physicians, dentists. lawyers, preachers and business men; and the young women, being candidates for matrimony, soon marry.

"It is to be hoped that these conditions may

be bettered in the near future. The profession will have to be made sufficiently remunerative to hold the teacher for life. To do this, con- solidation would be necessary. and this would be a greater problem in the mountains than elsewhere.

"In comparison with progress in other lines the progress of church building has been slow. Most of the churches are in the towns, the houses of worship being conspicuously absent throughout the country. In many communi- ties the schoolhouse is yet used for a 'meetin' house,' but this custom is gradually disap- pearing. The mountaineer has not yet been educated to his duty in the giving of his sub- stance either for the building of a church or for the support of the ministry. Churches have been built formerly by contributions from the church organization abroad, supplemented by a fund from the community itself. Many of the mountain people are diligent readers of the Bible. They have a simple and abiding faith in God's Word; to take it in any other way than literally, they deem sacrilegious. Many of them contend that the earth is flat and that the sun moves, for they say that 'The Bible says that Joshua commanded the sun to stan' still, and why would 'e commanded the sun to stan' still if it hadn't been a movin'.' However, this is the belief among the most ignorant classes. The majority of the moun- tain people never have entertained such a be- lief. Neither are they devotees to ancient customs or beliefs, as some writers would have you believe, but are ready at all times to accept as much twentieth century enlightenment as is consistent with faith in God. It was said in that same article above referred to that denominational prejudice is so strong that each 'denomination refuses to have anything to do with the other.' This is true in a few sections only, as in a majority of places they worship together. The writer knows of place after place where union Sunday schools are main- tained, and where churches have been built

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by a common fund contributed by all de- nominations represented in that particular community."

The author had permission from the writer of the above descriptions of his people to make use of them in this work, and regrets that lack of space prevents a reproduction of the entire article from which these extracts have been taken.

It has been frequently stated that the purest English of an earlier era than this is spoken by the Kentucky mountaineer. What was meant probably was that there are in use, in the mountains, many old English words and expressions no longer in common use among the masses of English speaking people. In this connection, there is reproduced here an article printed in a dispatch from Chicago by the Washington Times of May 10, 1906, un- der the heading: "Kentucky Speech is the Purest English :" "From the investigation of an English savant, Sir Jonathan Williams, it appears that the purest English is spoken in the state of Kentucky, rather than in London or any other part of the British isles or possessions. Sir Jonathan, who is a retired physician with ample means, became interested in the question of the purity of the English tongue several years ago, and has since spent much time in investigating English as it is spoken in many parts of the world. He has traveled through Australia, all of the different counties of England, Ireland and Scotland, and through many of the states of the Union, ex- amining the peculiarities of the different pro- nunciations, and it is his conclusion that, so far as his researches have extended, the Eng- lish which is nearest the correct standard is spoken by the citizens of the home of fast horses, good whisky and fair women. Whether the whisky, the horses or the fair women have the most to do with the purity of the tongue as spoken in the neighboring commonwealth of the south, Sir Jonathan declined to state.

" 'I have been interested in dialectical Eng-

lish for many years,' said Sir Jonathan, on the occasion of a short visit to Chicago, on his way to San Francisco. Your ordinary Eng- lishman of the isles is above all dialectical. The Londoner sticks a totally misplaced r on the end of words ending with a, such as idea, which to him is idear. The same is true of your New England. The southlands of America have a drawl which is totally mis- placed. The northlands of your country have a nasal twang which is a joke to Englishmen. "'It is only on the middle ground here in America that I have found the true English- the English of Shakespeare and Dr. Johnson -unmixed with dialectical absurdities or with peculiarities of expression. Slang, as such, I do not find in Kentucky and the neighboring regions along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Nor were the crudities of your western Amer- icanisms so apparent there. The clipped and halting speech of Scotland comes nearer to the Kentucky English than any I have heard in my investigations. Australia is overlaid with a slang which is worse than the worst of your west. Your east is imitative of cockneyisms, unnatural, and therefore un-English. In Eng- land itself the best English is not that of Ox- fordshire or Cambridgeshire, but of Kent and the southern downs. This, however, does not approach in purity of diction, clearness or enunciation and adhesion to classical forms as does the English of your middle west, which is neither your north nor your south, your east nor your west. I have found in the city of Louisville a pronunciation and a use of terms which is nearer, in my mind, to Addison and the English classicists than anything which the counties of England, the provinces of Australia or the marches of Scotland can offer.'

"When asked what he considered the rea- sons for the purity of the English of the Ohio valley, Sir Jonathan was at somewhat of a loss. 'I cannot explain it, unless it is that modernizing tendencies have had less effect

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there, the people read fewer slangy books, are closer students of the older classics, and hold their home language accordingly.' "

While glorifying Kentucky as to the purity of its English, it seems proper to conclude this chapter with a word about the state's men and women, the noblest and truest contribution to the glory of the world. In the London Daily Mail in October, 1906, Mr. Bart Kennedy, an English litterateur of much repute, wrote the following tribute to the people of Kentucky, and especially to the incomparable women of the state :

"At one stretch I lived in the states more than eleven years, and in that time I was in every state in the Union. The Kentuckians are undoubtedly the finest people in the states ; and in some respects they are the finest people in the world. They carry about them an at- mosphere of manners and breeding. And, though they speak with a very long drawl, their voices have not the harshness of the voices of Americans of the east. The men are big and powerful, but their bodies have not the compactness of build that belongs to the best physical Englishmen. They are loose limbed, and some of them might be described as lanky. But they have that curious look and poise that goes with innate physical power ; and they have that jaunty set of the head, and hard straight glance of the eye, that denotes independence and courage. I should say that there is a greater proportion of absolute fighters among these Kentuckians than there is among any race in the world-not even ex- cepting the English. Almost every man you see has that jaunty fighting set of the head.

"They are out-of-door people. The bless- ings of commerce have not yet spoiled Ken- tucky. They are people of the open air, the fields and woods and mountains-men who can at once handle a gun and a plow. Even their professional class have this fine outdoors air. I will go so far as to say that even their lawyers look less dishonest than lawyers of

other races. A Kentucky lawyer would at least leave his victim some shreds of skin.

"Their manners are at once free and easy and courteous; and they have a fine Arab sense of hospitality. The stranger is well re- ceived, even though he may have nothing to recommend him but his appearance, and the ready words to present himself in a vivid and striking light. These Kentuckians are wise enough to know that suspicions are, as a rule, but the reflections of one's own meanness. And still you feel that there is about them a sense of reserve; but this reserve is in no sense related to the disconcerting English re- serve. Perhaps reserve is hardly the word to apply to this quality of conservatism among them. It rather is that, with all their freeness and easiness, they are still self-poised and self- contained. They are as a people who are sure of themselves. And here I must use the word that I dislike to use, but it is the only word that will express my exact meaning to English people. The Kentuckians strike you as being gentlemen.

"In Kentucky you will find women who are among the most beautiful in the world -- tall, handsome, well-grown, Greek-looking women ; and, if I may be allowed to say so, they cor- rect the physical fault of lankiness that the observer may note here and there in the men. When a Kentucky woman is beautiful, she is absolutely perfection. The eye is offended by no inharmonious lines. It is disappointing to see a woman who is what might be called half or three-quarters beautiful. I personally would as soon have a woman who was frankly plain.

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A history of Kentucky and Kentuckians; the leaders and representative men in commerce, industry and modern activities, Volume I, Part 73

Author: Johnson, E. Polk, 1844-; Lewis Publishing Company Publication date: 1912 Publisher: Chicago, Lewis Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 656

Author: Johnson, E. Polk, 1844-; Lewis Publishing Company
Publication date: 1912
Publisher: Chicago, Lewis Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 656