While the Hatfields and McCoys fought to the death in Pike County, Kentucky, and along the borders of West Virginia, a bloody drama was being enacted in Rowan County. While the French-Eversole war raged in Perry County, many other counties suffered similarly during identically the same period. The eighties were a decade of blood, for during those years Harlan was in the clutches of murderers and anarchy reigned supreme. Letcher, Bell and Knott passed through like bloody experiences. In Clay County feudal wars raged for years and never disappeared completely until the close of the last century. The list of counties drenched with the blood of their citizens might yet be extended. To describe all the feuds in detail would, however, prove repetitive, even monotonous, and be only cumulative. To lengthen the list of assassinations could serve no beneficent purpose.
Some years ago we published an edition of Kentucky’s Famous Feuds and Tragedies. We closed the volume in the belief that feuds had ended once and for all times. But the worst period in all the bloody history of Breathitt was since then.
At the time of the publication of the first edition (from which some writers have quoted freely without giving us credit), we were charged with defaming the State, although it was admitted that the truth had been faithfully portrayed. It was not our intention then to malign the State, nor is it now.
We have simply compiled from facts a history of past events. Of what use is any history but to record past events that future generations might take lessons therefrom and be guided thereby?
Ignorance of true conditions does not, and never did bring about correction of evils.
The crusade against commercialized vice, the liquor traffic and other body and soul destroying evils can succeed only through full and complete publicity.
This history furnishes a study for the psychologist as well as for the criminologist. We cannot study crime and its manifold phases or point out remedies by studying the lives of saints. To find the original causes of social and political diseases we must go where these have existed or still exist. It would be silly to attempt to prove the result of the drink habit by the lives of teetotalers.
There are those who would be overcautious, who believe in the policy enunciated by the proverb: “Never mention a rope in the home of a man that has been hanged.” Had this principle at all times been adhered to, reforms would have been few. People will not rise to battle against evils until they are first made acquainted with the fact that the evils exist. It was due to the publicity given by the newspapers of conditions in Breathitt County that a thorough clean-up was inaugurated there.
If it be proper and right to publish nothing of a criminal or degrading nature, then we must of necessity put the ban upon the Bible.