Our Southern Highlanders Part 13

The real trouble was that public sentiment in the mountains was almost unanimously in the moonshiners' favor. Leading citizens were either directly interested in the traffic, or were in active sympathy with the distillers. "In some cases," said the Commissioner, "State officers, including judges on the bench, have sided with the illicit distillers and have encouraged the use of the State courts for the prosecution of the officers of the United States upon all sorts of charges, with the evident purpose of obstructing the enforcement of the laws of the United States.... I regret to have to record the fact that when the officers of the United States have been shot down from ambuscade, in cold blood, as a rule no efforts have been made on the part of the State officers to arrest the murderers; but in cases where the officers of the United States have been engaged in enforcement of the laws, and have unfortunately come in conflict with the violators of the law, and homicides have occurred, active steps have been at once taken for the arrest of such officers, and nothing would be left undone by the State authorities to bring them to trial and punishment."

There is no question but that this statement of the Commissioner was a fair presentation of facts; but when he went on to expose the root of the evil, the underlying sentiment that made, and still makes, illicit distilling popular among our mountaineers, I think that he was singularly at fault. This was his explanation--the only one that I have found in all the reports of the Department from 1870 to 1904:

"Much of the opposition to the enforcement of the internal revenue laws [he does not say _all_, but offers no other theory] is properly attributable to a latent feeling of hostility to the government and laws of the United States still prevailing in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of a portion of the people of these districts, and in consequence of this condition of things the officers of the United States have often been treated very much as though they were emissaries from some foreign country quartered upon the people for the collection of tribute."

This shows an out-and-out misunderstanding of the character of the mountain people, their history, their proclivities, and the circ.u.mstances of their lives. The southern mountaineers, as a cla.s.s, have been remarkably loyal to the Union ever since it was formed. Far more of them fought for the Union than for the Confederacy in our Civil War. And, anyway, politics has never had anything to do with the moonshining question. The reason for illicit distilling is purely an economic one, as I have shown. If officers of the Federal Government have been treated as foreigners they have met the same reception that _all_ outsiders meet from the mountaineers. A native of the Carolina tidewater is a "furriner" in the Carolina mountains, and so is a native of the "bluegra.s.s" when he enters the eastern hills of his own State.

The highlander's word "furriner" means to him what +barbaros+ did to an ancient Greek. Ordinarily he is courteous to the unfortunate alien, though never deferential; in his heart of hearts he regards the queer fellow with lofty superiority. This trait is characteristic of all primitive peoples, of all isolated peoples. It is provincialism, pure and simple--a provincialism more crudely expressed in Appalachia than in Gotham or The Hub, but no cruder in essence for all that.

The vigorous campaign of 1877 bore such fruit that, in the following year, the Commissioner was able to report: "We virtually have peaceable possession of the districts of 4th and 5th North Carolina, Georgia, West Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, and Arkansas, in many of which formidable resistance to the enforcement of the law has prevailed.... In the western portion of the 5th Virginia district, in part of West Virginia, in the 6th North Carolina district, in part of South Carolina, and in the 2d and 5th districts of Tennessee, I apprehend further serious difficulties.... It is very desirable, in order to prevent bloodshed, that the internal revenue forces sent into these infected regions to make seizures and arrests shall be so strong as to deter armed resistance."

In January, 1880, a combined movement by armed bodies of internal revenue officers was made from West Virginia southwestward through the mountains and foothills infested with illicit distillers. "The effect of this movement was to convince violators of the law that it was the determination of the Government to put an end to frauds and resistance of authority, and since that time it has been manifest to all well-meaning men in those regions of the country that the day of the illicit distiller is past." In his report for 1881-82 the Commissioner declared that "The supremacy of the laws ... has been established in all parts of the country."

As a matter of fact, the number of arrests per annum, which hitherto had ranged from 1,000 to 3,000, now dropped off considerably, and the casualties in the service became few and far between. But, in 1894, Congress increased the tax on spirits from the old 90 cents figure to $1.10 a gallon. The effect was almost instantaneous. We have no means of learning how many new moonshine stills were set up, but we do know that the number of seizures doubled and trebled, and that bloodshed proportionally increased. Again the complaint went out that "justice was frequently defeated," even in cases of conviction, by failure to visit adequate punishment upon the offenders. It is, to-day, a notorious fact that our blockaders dread their own State courts far more than they do the Federal courts, because the punishment for selling liquor in the mountain counties is surer to follow conviction than is the penalty for violating Federal law. The latter is severe enough, if it were enforced; for defrauding, or attempting to defraud, the United States of the tax on spirits, the law prescribes forfeiture of the distillery and apparatus, and of all spirits and raw materials, besides a fine of not less than $500 nor more than $5,000, _and_ imprisonment for not less than six months nor longer than three years. I am not able to say what percentage of arrests is followed by conviction, nor how many convicted persons suffer the full penalty of the law. I only know that public opinion in the mountains did not consider an arrest, or even a conviction, by the Federal authorities, as a very serious matter during the period from 1880 up to the past two or three years, and little resistance was offered by blockaders when captured.

Recently, however, a new factor has entered the moonshining problem and profoundly altered it: the South has gone "dry."

One might have expected that prohibition would be bitterly opposed in Appalachia, in view of the fact that here the old-fashioned principle still prevails, in practice, that moderate drinking is neither a sin nor a disgrace, and that a man has the same right to make his own whiskey as his own soup, if he chooses. Undoubtedly those who fight the liquor traffic on purely moral grounds are a small minority in the mountains.

But the blockaders themselves are glad to see prohibitory laws enforced to the letter, so far as saloons and registered distilleries are concerned, and the drinking public prefer their native product from both patriotic and gustatory motives. Such a combination is irresistible.

When pure "blockade" of normal strength sold as cheaply as it did before prohibition there was no great profit in it, all risks and expenses considered. But to-day, even with interstate shipments of liquors to consumers, a gallon of "blockade" will be watered to half-strength, then fortified with cologne spirits or other abominations, and peddled out by bootleggers, at $1.50 a quart, in villages and lumber camps where somebody always is thirsty and can find the coin to a.s.suage it. Thus, amid a poverty-stricken cla.s.s of mountaineers, the temptation to run a secret still, and adulterate the output, inflames and spreads.

In any case, the fact is that blockading as a business conducted in armed defiance of the law is increasing by leaps and bounds since the mountain region went "dry." The profits to-day are much greater than before, because liquor is harder to get, in country districts, and consumers will pay higher prices without question.

Correspondingly, the risks are greater than ever. Arrests have increased rapidly, and so have mortal combats between officers and outlaws.

Blockading has returned to much the same status described (as previously quoted) by our Commissioner of Internal Revenue in 1876. I have not seen recent revenue reports, but I do not need to; for the war between officers and moonshiners is so close to us that we almost live within gun-crack of it. If Mr. Harkins were alive to-day, he would say: "They used to shoot--and they have taken it up again."

Observe, please, that this is no argument for or against prohibition.

That is not my business. As a descriptive writer it is my duty to collect facts, whether pleasant or unpleasant, regardless of my own or anyone else's bias, and present them in orderly sequence. It is for the reader to deduce his own conclusions, and with them I have nothing at all to do.

I have given in brief the history of illicit distilling because we must consider it before we can grasp firmly the basic fact that this is not so much a moral as an economic problem. Men do not make whiskey in secret, at the peril of imprisonment or death, because they are outlaws by nature nor from any other kind of depravity, but simply and solely because it looks like "easy money to poor folks."

If I may voice my own opinion of a working remedy, it is this: Give the mountaineers a lawful chance to make decent livings where they are. This means, first of all, decent roads whereby to market their farm produce without losing all profit in cost of transportation. The first problem of Appalachia to-day is the very same problem as that of western Pennsylvania in 1784.

CHAPTER IX

THE OUTLANDER AND THE NATIVE

Among the many letters that come to me from men who think of touring or camping in Highland Dixie there are few but ask, "How are strangers treated?"

This question, natural and prudent though it be, never fails to make me smile, for I know so well the thoughts that lie back of it: "Suppose one should blunder innocently upon a moonshine still--what would happen? If a feud were raging in the land, how would a stranger fare? If one goes alone into the mountains, does he run any risk of being robbed?"

Before I left the tame West and came into this wild East, I would have asked a few questions myself, if I had known anyone to answer them. As it was, I turned up rather abruptly in a backwoods settlement where the "furriner" was more than a nine-days wonder. I bore no credentials; and it was quite as well. If I had presented a letter from some clergyman or from the President of the United States it would have been--just what I was myself--a curiosity: as when the puppy discovers some weird and marvelous new bug.

Everyone greeted me politely but with unfeigned interest. I was welcome to sup and bed wherever I went. Moonshiners and man-slayers were as affable as common folks. I dwelt alone for a long time, first in open camp, afterwards in a secluded hut. Then I boarded with a native family.

Often I left my belongings to look out for themselves whilst I went away on expeditions of days or weeks at a time. And n.o.body ever stole from me so much as a fish-hook or a bra.s.s cartridge. So, in the retrospect, I smile.

Does this mean, then, that Poe's characterization of the mountaineers is out of date? Not at all. They are the same "fierce and uncouth race of men" to-day that they were in his time. Homicide is so prevalent in the districts that I personally am acquainted with that nearly every adult citizen has been directly interested in some murder case, either as princ.i.p.al, officer, witness, kinsman, or friend.

This grewsome subject I shall treat elsewhere, in detail. It is introduced here only to emphasize a fact pertinent to the present topic, namely: that the private wars of the highlanders are limited to their own people. In our corner of North Carolina no traveler from the outside ever has been a victim, nor do I know of any such case in the whole Appalachian region.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Many of the homes have but one window]

And here is another significant fact: as regards personal property I do not know any race in the world that is more honest than our backwoodsmen of the southern mountains. As soon as you leave the railroad you enter a land where sneak-thieves are rare and burglars almost unheard of. In my own county and all those adjoining it there has been only one case of highway robbery and only one of murder for money, so far as I can learn, in the past _forty_ years.

The mountain code of conduct is a curious mixture of savagery and civility. One man will kill another over a pig or a panel of fence (not for the property's sake, but because of hot words ensuing) and he will "come clear" in court because every fellow on the jury feels he would have done the same thing himself under similar provocation; yet these very men, vengeful and cruel though they are, regard hospitality as a sacred duty toward wayfarers of any degree, and the bare idea of stealing from a stranger would excite their instant loathing or white-hot scorn.

Anyone of tact and common sense can go as he pleases through the darkest corner of Appalachia without being molested. Tact, however, implies the will and the insight to put yourself truly in the other man's place.

Imagine yourself born, bred, circ.u.mstanced like him. It implies, also, the courtesy of doing as you would be done by if you were in that fellow's shoes. No arrogance, no condescension, but man to man on a footing of equal manliness.

And there are "manners" in the rudest community: customs and rules of conduct that it is well to learn before one goes far afield. For example, when you stop at a mountain cabin, if no dogs sound an alarm, do not walk up to the door and knock. You are expected to call out _h.e.l.lo!_ until someone comes to inspect you. None but the most intimate neighbors neglect this usage and there is mighty good reason back of it in a land where the path to one's door may be a warpath.

If you are armed, as a hunter, do not fail to remove the cartridges from the gun, in your host's presence, before you set foot on his porch. Then give him the weapon or stand it in a corner or hang it up in plain view.

Even our sheriff, when he stopped with us, would lay his revolver on the mantel-shelf and leave it there until he went his way. If you think a moment you can see the courtesy of such an act. It proves that the guest puts implicit trust in the honor of his host and in his ability to protect all within his house. There never has been a case in which such trust was violated.

I knew a traveler who, spending the night in a one-room cabin, was fool enough (I can use no milder term) to thrust a loaded revolver under his pillow when he went to bed. In the morning his weapon was still there, but empty, and its cartridges lay conspicuously on a table across the room. n.o.body said a word about the incident: the hint was left to soak in.

The only real danger that one may encounter from the native people, so long as he behaves himself, is when he comes upon a man who is wild with liquor and cannot sidestep him. In such case, give him the glad word and move on at once. I have had a drunken "ball-hooter" (log-roller) from the lumber camps fire five shots around my head as a _feu-de-joie_, and then stand tantalizingly, with hammer c.o.c.ked over the sixth cartridge, to see what I would do about it. As it chanced, I did not mind his fireworks, for my head was a-swim with the rising fever of erysipelas and I had come dragging my heels many an irk mile down from the mountains to find a doctor. So I merely smiled at the fellow and asked if he was having a good time. He grinned sheepishly and let me pa.s.s unharmed.

The chief drawback to travel in this region, aside from the roads, is not the character of the people, but the quality of bed and board. Of course there are good hotels at most of the summer resorts, but these are few and scattering, at present, for a territory so immense. In most regions where there is n.o.ble scenery, unspoiled forest, and good fishing, the accommodations are extremely rude. Many of the village inns are dirty, and their tables a shock and a despair to the hungry pilgrim.

There are blessed exceptions, to be sure, but on the other hand the traveler sometimes will encounter a cuisine that is neither edible nor speakable, and will be shown to a bed wherein it needs no Sherlock Holmes to detect that the previous biped retired with his boots on, or at least with much realty attached to his person. Such places often are like that unp.r.o.nounceable town in Russia of which Paragot said: "The bugs are the most companionable creatures in it, and they are the cleanest."

If one be of the same mind as the plain-spoken Dr. Samuel Johnson, that "the finest landscape in the world is not worth a d.a.m.n without a cozy inn in the foreground," he should keep to the stock show-places of our highlands or seek other playgrounds.

By far the most comfortable way to stay in the back country at present is in a camp of one's own where he can keep things tidy and have food to suit him. If you be, though, of stout stomach and wishful to get true insight into mountain ways and character you can find some sort of boarding-place almost anywhere. In such case go first to the sheriff of the county (in person, not by letter). This officer is a walking bureau of information and dispenses it freely to any stranger. He knows almost every man in the county, his character and his circ.u.mstances. He may be depended upon to direct you to the best stopping-places, will tell you how to get hunting and fishing privileges, and will recommend a good packer or teamster if such help is wanted.

Along the railways and main county roads the farmers show a well-justified mistrust about admitting company for the night. But in the back districts the latch-string generally is out to all comers. "If you-uns can stand what we-uns has ter, w'y come right in and set you a cheer."

If the man of the house has misgivings as to the state of the larder, he will say: "I'll ax the woman gin she can git ye a bite." Seldom does the wife demur, though sometimes her patience is sorely tried.

A stranger whose calked boots betrayed his calling stopped at Uncle Mark's to inquire, "Can I git to stay all night?" Aunt Nance, peeping through a crack, warned her man in a whisper: "Them loggers jest louzes up folkses houses." Whereat Mark answered the lumberjack: "We don't ginerally foller takin' in strangers."

Jack glanced significantly at the lowering clouds, and grunted: "Uh--looks like I could stand hitched all night!"

This was too much for Mark. "Well!" he exclaimed, "mebbe we-uns can find ye a pallet--I'll try to enjoy ye somehow." Which, being interpreted, means, "I'll entertain you as best I can."

The hospitality of the backwoods knows no bounds short of sickness in the family or downright dest.i.tution. Travelers often innocently impose on poor people, and even criticise the scanty fare, when they may be getting a lion's share of the last loaf in the house. And few of them realize the actual cost of entertaining company in a home that is long mountain miles from any market. Fancy yourself making a twenty-mile round trip over awful roads to carry back a sack of flour on your shoulder and a can of oil in your hand; then figure what the transportation is worth.

Once when I was trying a short-cut through the forest by following vague directions I swerved to the wrong trail. Sunset found me on the summit of an unfamiliar mountain, with cold rain setting in, and below me lay the impenetrable laurel of Huggins's h.e.l.l. I turned back to the head of the nearest water course, not knowing whither it led, fought my way through thicket and darkness to the nearest house, and asked for lodging. The man was just coming in from work. He betrayed some anxiety but admitted me with grave politeness. Then he departed on an errand, leaving his wife to hear the story of my wanderings.

I was eager for supper; but madame made no move toward the kitchen. An hour pa.s.sed. A little child whimpered with hunger. The mother, flushing, soothed it on her breast.

It was well on in the night when her husband returned, bearing a little "poke" of cornmeal. Then the woman flew to her post. Soon we had hot bread, three or four slices of pork, and black coffee unsweetened--all there was in the house.