So a trivial difference over a business transaction opened graves for many brave and generous men, desolated happy homes, and for a long time heaped shame upon the name of Perry County and the State at large.
French and Eversole disagreed and quarreled. At each subsequent meeting the quarrel was renewed with ever increasing bitterness; menacing threats were freely indulged in until the vials of hate became filled to overflowing. A theretofore existing sharp business rivalry materially assisted the estrangement from the start. As stated, both were engaged in the mercantile business in which each tried to outdo the other, often at a material loss.
Serious trouble might yet have been averted through the interference of honest friends but for an unfortunate circumstance, which involved them to such an extent that the breach became irreparable.
The circumstance referred to might, however, never have had serious consequences had it not been for the pernicious activity of the slanderous tale teller. In this feud, perhaps more so than in any other of the internecine strifes which, during the eighties added to the significance of the title, the “Dark and Bloody Ground,” and intensified the crimson hue of its history, we find those who shunned battle, feared to oppose their breasts to the shock of bullet, but gloried in pouring oil upon the flames, without danger to themselves.
In such a struggle the tale-bearer is more dangerous than powder and shot. Morally and legally, he who instigates a murder, even by indirection, is as much a murderer as the man who fires the gun and accomplishes the bloody deed. With the countenance of the saint such a man will seek the confidence of both sides. He loves to pose as a peacemaker; he preaches brotherly love. Yet, when the trouble is about to abate, he seems to regret it, for then he seizes upon every chance, uses every opportune moment to convey some confidential intelligence to the party or parties for whose ears it had been least intended. The strife is renewed; passions are rekindled; yet, while men welter in their hearts’ blood, widows mourn and orphans cry, the traitor, the tale-teller, the scandal peddler, maintains his saintly countenance and bewails the fate of the unfortunates.
Yet it is not always the spoken slander, the spoken tale, that hurts. The old adage that “silence is golden” is not to be applied in all cases. Silence is often even more dangerous than spoken words.
Silence may become a greater liar than the tongue. We often hear the expression “if you cannot speak good of any one, say nothing!” Yet silence is the most bitter, poisonous, insidious traducer. Silence may convey contempt more completely than a torrent of spoken words. Silence is most treacherous because it places the burden of its interpretation upon the other side. That interpretation may be wrong, but the silent slanderer does not correct it.
Silence is also many sided. It may mean consent; it may mean denial. It does incalculable harm without being in the least responsible or actionable. One cannot horsewhip one for injury to character through silence. Silence and innuendo are closely related; both are the most dangerous weapons of the moral coward.
Spoken lies are soon forgotten. They “rile” the blood—but that passes. Spoken lies are tangible, as it were, and may be met. Silence and innuendo are like enemies in invisible ambush. One cannot attack an invisible foe.
What we have reference to might best be illustrated by the following dialogue the writer once overheard: