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88 American Annual Cyclopaedia, 1899, p. 409.
89 The official count was Taylor, 193,714; Goebel, 191,331; and Brown, 12,140.
90 American Annual Cyclopaedia, 1899, p. 410.
91 A Louisville paper commented as follows on the lawlessness accompanying this election : "Following closely upon a series of wholesale murders in the State's feud- districts; where a man's life is not safe, we are now shown the sickening spectacle of fifteen American citizens murdered outright at the polls while attempting to exercise their right of suffrage. That number were instantly killed in election rows and riots in different parts of the State, and the news comes that a dozen more are likely to die." Quoted in American Annual Cyclopaedia, 1899, P. 409.
92 The Legislature stood: Senate, twenty-six democrats, twelve republicans ; House, sixty democrats, forty republicans.
93 The democratic committee said on Dec. 21: "The Democratic party of Ken- tucky, through its several State committees, has unanimously declared that the best interests of the party, as well as justice, demand that contests shall be made by all the candidates on the Democratic ticket for the respective offices for which they were nominated." American Annual Cyclopaedia, 1899, p. 411.
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an act of war, and feeling was soon running high, with a dangerous situation confronting the state. On January 30, as Goebel was walking up to the state house, he was shot by someone concealed in the office of the secretary of state, and mortally wounded. He was administered the oath of office, before dying on February 3. On his death, J. C. W. Beck- ham, who had been declared lieutenant-governor by the Legislature, suc- ceeded to the governorship.
A situation which had been dangerous heretofore was now composed of all the elements of civil war. Taylor called out the militia and threw a cordon of troops around the capitol, and issued a call for the Legisla- ture to meet in London. The democrats, who claimed the Government, refused to obey, with the result that only a minority, the republicans, adjourned to London. The democrats, after attempting to meet in vari- ous places in Frankfort, adjourned to Louisville.94 By the end of Feb- ruary both factions of the Legislature went back in Frankfort with a situation in the Senate very amusing had it been less dangerous. As there were two groups claiming the Government, John Marshall, the re- publican claiming to be lieutenant-governor and therefore president of the Senate, and Senator Carter, elected president pro tempore of the Senate by the democrats, both occupied chairs aside of each and at- tempted to direct the proceedings of the Senate. The republicans obeyed Marshall and invariably adjourned as a quorum could not be found. whereas the democrats obeyed Carter, and having a majority, proceeded to transact business. The humor in the situation was described by this news dispatch: "Senator Carter directed the clerk to read the journal, while Mr. Marshall directed Rev. Dr. Dorsey of the Christian Church to pray. Doctor Dorsey was quicker than the clerk and he began his prayer before the clerk had a chance to read. It is the custom in the Kentucky Legislature for the members to rise when prayer is being of- fered. The democrats all kept their seats and Senator Carter sat down while the republicans all stood up. The moment Doctor Dorsey had finished, the clerk was at it and the lieutenant-governor was asking if there was any business before the Senate." 95
The question as to who rightfully held the offices had in the mean- time been appealed to the courts and on March 10 the State Court of Appeals had decided in favor of the democrats. Refusing to consider this as final, the republicans appealed the case to the United States Supreme Court, which handed down its decision against them on May 21. It held that Kentucky still had a republican form of government, and that offices were not private property, and therefore not protected under the Fourteenth Amendment, as the republicans had argued.96 The republicans accepted the decision in good faith, and due to an extraor- dinary amount of forbearance on the part of all factions, the state was delivered from a most dangerous situation. The republicans con- tented themselves with flaying their opponents with words, and the demo- crats beat back in kind.97
94 While the Legislature was in Louisville, the House passed by a vote of forty-five to eight a resolution inviting "the ministers of the City of Louisville of every denomination 'who had not engaged in the unjust and unholy crusade against the late Governor Goebel to open the proceedings each day with prayer.'". American Annual Cyclopaedia, 1900, P. 327.
95 Quoted in American Annual Cyclopaedia, 1900, P. 327. Also see Ibid., 324, 326, 327.
96 Taylor and Marshall vs. Kentucky, 178, United States Reports, 548. The Ken- tucky situation at this time was closely akin to the conditions in Rhode Island in 1841 and 1842, which gave rise to the suit in the United States Supreme Court decided in Luther vs. Borden, 7, Howard, I. Also see American Annual Cyclo- paedia, 1900, P. 323; J. G. Speed, "Supremacy of the Law" in Harper's Weekly, Vol. 44 (1900), p. 504.
97 The republicans in convention on May 17, 1900, said: "We denounce the course of the Democratic majority in the last General Assembly from the hour when it
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The democrats now determined to clear up the chaos as far as pos- sible. The Legislature appropriated $100,000 for reorganizing and equip- ping the state militia, and for recovering war supplies taken to London, and another $100,000 for the apprehension and prosecution of those re- sponsible for the assassination of Goebel.98 Caleb Powers and others were soon arrested and a series of long-drawn-out trials followed, during which time Powers was tried four times. He was finally pardoned in 1908, by Augustus E. Willson, a republican governor.99
Taylor and others fled to Indiana, where they were safe from the Kentucky processes, as extradition was refused. In 1909, Governor Willson also pardoned then. 100 In 1904, the Legislature appropriated
adopted rules in defiance of right and the constitution, down to the final action by which it attempted to deprive Governor Taylor and Lieutenant-Governor Marshall of the high offices to which they had been elected at the polls." American Annual Cyclopaedia, 1900, p. 328. Governor Beckham on July 20, 1900, said: "We declare to the world that the mob and the assassin shall not be the arbitrators of the rights of the citizens of Kentucky, nor shall the penalty of an appeal to the law and the regularly constituted authorities be death at the hands of assassins. Law and order shall and must prevail in Kentucky." Ibid., 329. The Democratic Convention, meeting in Lexington, at the same time said: "We present to the people of Ken- tucky an army of intimidation, unlawfully quartered in the public buildings of the state; a state senator, in the discharge of his duty to the state, stricken down by an assassin's bullet, fired from ambush in the executive building, then occupied by his political adversary, who hoped to profit by his death; that adversary arming, filling, and surrounding the buildings with armed men, instructed to defy the civil authorities and prevent search of the assassin; the same political adversary and republican pretender, by force, dissolving the Legislature, in violation of the Con- stitution; attempting by military power to force the Legislature to meet in a veri- table slaughter pen for the democratic members; driving its members through the streets of Frankfort at the point of the bayonet, forcibly preventing the Legis- lature from meeting in its lawful and proper place; keeping armed riotous and disorderly men under the very window of the room where lay dying the assassin's victim; driving the Court of Appeals from the Capitol; aiding with the soldiery and spurious pardons those lawfully accused of capital crimes to flee from justice, and by military force defying the writ of habeas corpus; the same republican pre- tender fleeing from the state after indictment and remaining a fugitive from jus- tice, protected by an open violation of the Constitution of the United States, after having declared to the people of the state, 'I am a citizen of this state and amenable to its laws. I am not a criminal, neither shall I ever be a fugitive from justice. Whenever indicted I shall appear for trial.'" American Annual Cyclopaedia, 1900, p. 329. Writing of the tense feeling. Samuel Hopkins Adams said: "How deeply the bitterness of the Goebel killing has entered into the daily life of Kentucky no outsider can fully realize. The animosities engendered by it have brought about literally scores of fatal quarrels. Business partnerships have been dissolved ; churches have been disrupted ; lifelong friendships have been withered; families have been split ; there is no locality so remote, no circle so close knit, as to have escaped the evil influence." "The State of Kentucky vs. Caleb Power" on McClure's Maga- sine, Vol. 22 (1904), p. 466. William Lindsay summed up the situation thus: "In the estimation of the great mass of the people, neither side can defend or excuse its methods or escape its share of responsibility for the deplorable conditions brought about hy the embittered and protracted controversy." International Monthly, I, 572.
98 American Annual Cyclopaedia, 1900, 352, 327.
99 New International Year Book, 1908, p. 395. Also see American Annual Cyclo- pardia. ICOI, pp. 703. 704 ; New International Year Book, 1907, P. 441 ; Caleb Powers, "My Own Story" in the Reader Magasine, Vol. 5, 265-277 : 389-401, 513-524, 675- 686. Samuel Hopkins Adams said of these trials, "From the first it was apparent that Powers was to be found guilty at any cost. A legal trial he might have; but a fair trial was heyond all hope. In the matter of Goehel's slaying there was no such thing as an impartial view in all the state. One might as well have expected a judicial attitude of mind from the factions in a feud. For at that time, Ken- tucky was one great political feud. Had conditions been reversed, had the state government, and had Powers been tried under republican anspices, there would have been no better chance of justice. No republican court would ever have con- victed Caleb Powers, though his hands had been red with Goebel's blood. An equi- tahle consideration of the case was impossible." McClure's Magazine, Vol. 22, p. 460. Powers was later elected to Congress. New International Year Book, 1910, P. 40I.
100 New International Year Book. 1900, p. 405. In refusing extradition in 1900, the Indiana governor said, "I do not believe a fair and impartial trial can or will
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$20,000 for the erection of a statue to Goebel, which today stands at the entrance of the new capitol.101
Beckham had succeeded to the unexpired term of Goebel. Before two years had passed, a new election was called, which took place in November, 1900. As the "Goebel Election Law," which had been so potent a disturber heretofore, was still on the statute books, Beckham, who had been nominated by the democrats, called for its repeal in order that "the most hypercritical can find no excuse for charging fraud or unfairness to our party in the conduct of the election." He said further, "I do not believe the present law in its operation to have been unfair or unjust, and I know it to have been passed with the earnest and honest intention to remedy the evils which existed under the system which it supplanted." He called a special session of the Legislature to meet in the latter part of August to enact a new law.102 In the election in November, Beckham carried the state by about 8,000 majority over the republicans and in the next regular election won by about 27,000. The democrats also continued their large majorities in both houses of the Legislature. Beckham's term of office, following the dark and trouble- some days, was a period of constructive achievements-an attempt to leave behind in every respect the past unpleasantness.103
The tendency of a certain element of the people to chafe at restraint which it considered could not be justly borne has led from one species of lawlessness to another. During Governor Bradley's administration. and beginning particularly about 1896, raids were carried out against numerous toll-roads, resulting in the destruction of the toll-gates and houses. Warnings were frequently issued against the collection of further tolls. The toll-roads were the property of private companies, much of whose stock was, however, owned by the state. As a method of checking this summary way of dealing with the question, a law was passed making it possible for the county to issue bonds to buy the roads, whenever 15 per cent of the people should call for an election in which the bonds should be voted. This law seemed to have little effect, unless, indeed, it was to stimulate further violence; for the more destruction was carried out the cheaper the roads could be bought. By 1898, the state's stocks in the toll roads had depreciated in value from $400,000 to about $100,000. Governor Bradley sought to stamp out the trouble by offering $200 reward each for the apprehension of the raiders. As one kind of lawlessness easily leads to another, the toll-road raiders, in the words of Governor Bradley, "have undertaken to regulate the quan- tity of tobacco the farmers should cultivate, destroying his plants if he
at this time be given Mr. Taylor. When Judge Cantrill, of the trial court at Frank- fort, declares that he would not subject a sheep-killing dog to a trial under such circumstances as exist, may I not justly refuse to send Mr. Taylor back to be subjected to a trial with this prejudice intensified and fanned into hate?" American Annual Cyclopaedia, 1900, p. 325. In refusing to deliver over the fugitives in 1901, the Indiana governor said he would not force them "before a court partizan to the very extreme of vindictiveness and a jury organized for conviction in its personnel and impanelment." Ibid., 1901, p. 694.
101 The statue was unveiled in 1914. Acts of Kentucky, 1914, p. 528. Samuel Hopkins Adams said of Goebel, "Goebel became personally the object of such hatred as no man of his time has inspired; perhaps, too, of a more unquestioning loyalty than any member of his party had yet drawn to himself." McClure's Magazine, Vol. 22, p. 467. C. P. Connally said of him, "Goebel, who was the pioneer pro- gressive of the South * he was the pioneer of railroad rate regulation in the country * was the most maligned and misunderstood character in Ameri- can history. He fought his way bitterly through prejudices strong enough to deter most men, and waged war against the old aristocracy of Kentucky and the Louisville and Nashville Railroad ring at the same time." "Beckham of Kentucky" in Harper's Weekly, Vol. 59, p. 35.
102 American Annual Cyclopaedia, 1900, pp. 328, 329.
103 C. P. Connally, "Beckham of Kentucky," in Harper's Weekly, Vol. 59, pp. 35, 36; American Annual Cyclopaedia, 1900, P. 329; 1901, P. 704.
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dared to disobey ; have notified the miller that he should charge no more for flour than the price fixed by them; threatened with the shot-gun and the torch farmers who had posted their lands if the boards were not taken down and they allowed to hunt without hindrance." 104 The pro- clivities of certain sections of the state to engage in feuds, picturesque though deadly, are well known.105
Another species of lawlessness which beset certain parts of the state beginning about 1904 had its origin in economic conditions. The price of tobacco was unsatisfactory to the growers, who believed that certain so-called tobacco trusts were manipulating the market and running the price down. Going on the principle that the best way to fight the Devil is to use his own methods, a large number of planters in burley regions of the southwestern part of the state, organized in 1904 the Planters' Protective Association for the purpose of pooling the tobacco and hold- ing it for a set price. Trouble soon began when it was found that all of the planters could not be induced to join, as success depended on the cooperation of all. Night riding was taken up as a weapon against the so-called "Hill billies" who refused to join the association. Armed bands of men in the darkness of night harried the country, scraping tobacco beds, pulling up the young plants, burning tobacco barns, killing cattle, and shooting into houses. As the trust attempted to checkmate the night- riders, a serious condition arose. These riders now seeking vengeance on a larger scale, began to burn and pillage towns and villages, where the trust owned factories and warehouses. A large tobacco factory was burned in Trenton, in Todd County, in December, 1905; less than a month later a tobacco building was dynamited in Elkton, in the same county ; Princeton, the capital of Caldwell County, was raided on Thanks- giving night, 1906, by 300 armed men, who seized the telephone, tele- graph, police, and fire department, picketed the town, and burned two large factories, one reputed to be "the biggest and best equipped stem- mery in the world." The same band a little later attempted to burn Hopkinsville but were frustrated by the mayor. A year later 500 armed men rode into this town, took possession of the fire-house, and proceeded to set fire to the tobacco factories. Besides three factories, other build- ings were consumed, two men wounded, and in all $200,000 worth of property destroyed.106
Great excitement now prevailed; on January 7, 1908, the governor offered $500 reward for the apprehension of the riders ; and a little later the Law and Order League of Hopkinsville and Christian County memorialized the Legislature for aid, at the same time setting forth the dreadful state of affairs. Governor Willson called upon the Legislature
104 American Annual Cyclopaedia, 1897, p. 437. Also see Ibid., 1896, pp. 375, 377; 1898, p. 365.
105 For a chronicle of some of the most important of these feuds, see American Annual Cyclopaedia, 1878, p. 473; 1880, p. 425; 1887, pp. 410, 411, 463, 464; 1888, p. 463; 1889, p. 486; 1890, p. 474; 1899, p. 408; New International Year Book, 1910, p. 401 ; H. Davis and G. Smyth, "The Land of Feuds" in Munsey's Magazine, Vol. 30 (November, 1903), pp. 161-172; S. S. McClintock, "The Kentucky Mountains and their Fends" in American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 7 (1901), pp. 1-28, 171- 187; J. Stoddard Johnston, "Romance and Tragedy of Kentucky Feuds" in Cos- mopolitan, Vol. 27 (1899), pp. 551-558; Acts of Kentucky, 1887, pp. 218, 219; 1890, I, 187. For various phases of the question and characteristics of the Eastern Moun- taineers, see Grace F. Ryan, "The Highlands of Kentucky" in Outlook, Vol. 58 (1898), pp. 363-368; George E. Vincent, "A Retarded Frontier" in American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 4 (1898), pp. 1-20; B. H. Schockel, "Changing Conditions in the Kentucky Mountains" in Scientific Monthly, Vol. 3 (1916), pp. 105-131; W. G. Frost, "The Southern Mountaineer" in American Review of Reviews, Vol. 21 (1900), PP. 303-311.
106 Martha McCulloch-Williams, "The Tobacco War in Kentucky" in Ameri- can Review of Reviews, Vol. 37 (1908), pp. 168-170. International complications were threatened on account of the destruction of about $15,000 worth of property belonging to Italian citizens.
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to pass laws against night-riding and urged the appropriation of $25,000 to aid in prosecuting such lawlessness; he also placed Calloway County under martial law. He said, "Our tobacco is nearly destroyed; large customers are being taught that it is safer and better to buy elsewhere. Large crops remain unsold. In large districts the law has been wholly overthrown, and the poor people, who have no one to take care of them. are deprived of the protection of the people's law, and have lost their liberty and are helpless." In October, 1908, he called upon the law- abiding citizens in their respective localities to assemble and "take strong, prompt and effective measures to punish every cowardly scoundrel who rides the roads to threaten his neighbors." By the end of the year, an agreement had been brought about between the tobacco organizations and the trusts, and the worst aspects of night-riding gradually died out. A law was also passed legalizing the pooling of tobacco and providing for the punishment of those who having once agreed to pool should break their promise. For the next few years, numerous arrests were made of those charged with night-riding, and some were convicted and either fined or sent to prison.107
Lawless as the methods of the night-riders were, they succeeded in accomplishing much of what they set out to do. In the southwestern part of the state, the growers' association pooled 32 per cent of the crop in 1906, and 70 per cent in 1907-making in all about 200.000,000 pounds held for 15 cents a pound. In 1909 the acreage had been increased over the preceding year from 240,000 to 420,000 and the value of the crop from $17.779,600 to $37.174,200. One observer in speaking of the re- sults following from an increase in the price of tobacco, said, "The towns show it faintly-in the country he who runs may read. New-painted houses, fields in good heart and tilth, miles on miles of new wire fences, rubber-tired traps drawn by spanking teams, most of all the good roads pushing out fanwise to reach the remote regions, and the netted telephone wires over which if they choose the back-country folks can hear the big world breathe, all tell the same story. Bank deposits have quadrupled, the money circulation well-nigh doubled. Mortgages have shrunk be- yond the convenience of investors, and land-values so increased that the country-side is in danger of growing purse-proud." 108
While Kentucky has had lynchings, as indeed most of the states of the Union have, there is a strong and wholesome sentiment against it.109
Within recent years the democrats and republicans have been of al- most equal strength, with a close struggle sure in every election. In 1907 the latter came back into power again with A. E. Willson elected governor by 18,000 majority over the democratic candidate. Bradley was also elected to the United States Senate over Beckham after a long contest and by a close vote.110 Four years later (1911) the democrats
107 New International Year Book, 1910, p. 401 ; 1915, P. 357. In 1910 eight resi- dents of Grant County were convicted in the Federal Court of violating the Sher- man Anti-Trust Law and were fined from $100 to $1,000. Also see Ibid., 1907, p. 441 ; 1908, p. 394; "Kentucky's Anarchists" in Independent (Editorial), Vol. 64 ( March 19, 1908), pp. 645, 646; The Speeches, Addresses, and Writings of Cassius M. Clay, Jr. (New York, 1914), pp. 125-136, 139 passim.
108 McCulloch-Williams, "The Tobacco War in Kentucky," in American Review of Reviews, Vol. 37, p. 170. Also see New International Year Book, 1907, P. 778; 1909, P. 404.
109 Governor Stanley in 1917 won national applause when he rushed by special train to the scene of an attempted lynching, and quieted the mob at great personal danger. Ibid., 1917, P. 393.
110 Bradley was the only republican up to this time who had been elected to both the governorship and the United States senatorship. For an appreciation of his character and ability, see address delivered at his death by Senator Ollie James in the United States Senate in William O'Connell Bradley Memarial Address, 64 Cong., 2 Sess .. Sen. Doc. No. 649. See also New International Year Book, 1907, D. 442; 1908, p. 393; Harper's Weekly, Vol. 59, p. 36.
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came back into power, when James B. McCreary, who had been gover- nor in 1875 to 1879, was elected again, by over 30,000 votes over Judge E. C. O'Rear. A democratic Legislature sent Ollie M. James to the United States Senate. In the election of 1914 the democrats maintained their hold on the state by electing Johnson N. Camden to the United States Senate for the remainder of the term made vacant by the death of Senator Bradley, and Beckham won the long term over Willson. This marked the first popular election of United States Senators, as the Sev- enteenth Amendment had been ratified in the previous year.111 In 1915, A. O. Stanley defeated E. P. Morrow for governor, by only a few hun- dred votes, and three years later won over B. L. Bruner for the United States Senatorship to begin on March 4, 1919. The vacancy created by the death of Senator James in 1918, was filled by Governor Stanley in the appointment of George B. Martin. In 1919, the republicans came back into power by the election of E. P. Morrow as governor. In the presidential elections Kentucky has cast its vote for the democratic can- didates since 1896.112 Both the elections of 1916 and 1920 were hotly contested, with much aid being given by both national party organiza- tions. In the former campaign, Hughes spoke twice in the state and Roosevelt once. In 1920, Cox made a strenuous fight for Kentucky both in support for the nomination and in the election and was able to carry the state in both instances. But in the senatorial contest Richard P. Ernst was finally able to nose out a victory over J. C. W. Beckham.
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