Speaker 1: So they started getting the attention of national newspapers, Chart Observer,
Speaker 1: New York Times and all by these raids on the town,
Speaker 1: taking independent farmers out, flag and of course he had
Speaker 1: lynchings going on throughout South. But when they started raiding
Speaker 1: his towns, like what the headlines says, Kentucky town raided
Speaker 1: and burned by night riders. This is post Civil War
Speaker 1: and the Norse still kind of looked upon the South
Speaker 1: as being violent. Anyway, around that time, we had had
Speaker 1: Fields McCoy's and Kentucky especially, It's always had a reputation
Speaker 1: dark and bloody land. It's always be had of bloody history.
Speaker 2: On this finale episode, the tobacco wars of Kentucky and
Speaker 2: Tennessee are in full swing and the stage is set
Speaker 2: for a showdown between the Tobacco Planners Association for the
Speaker 2: poor farmers and the corporate giant known as the Duke Trust.
Speaker 2: And they're American Tobacco Company. The players are as old
Speaker 2: as time. It's the rich versus the poor, but the
Speaker 2: difference between the good guys and the bad guys remains blurred.
Speaker 2: The region known as the Black Patch grows the finest
Speaker 2: dark fired tobacco in the world.
Speaker 3: But the struggle is much bigger.
Speaker 2: Than tobacco, and the tools of terror are arson, beatings
Speaker 2: and sabotage meant to impact the national economy, but did
Speaker 2: it even really work. I really doubt that you're gonna
Speaker 2: want to miss this one.
Speaker 1: It reminded me we were going to one of these
Speaker 1: speeches somewhere years ago, and on the way there, Paul said,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna You're not gonna give them the whole
Speaker 1: ball of works, are you. I said, what do you
Speaker 1: mean I'm gonna give? I mean tell the whole You're
Speaker 1: not gonna tell the whole story again? And I said,
Speaker 1: well you don't. It's a little hard to just tell
Speaker 1: in sound bites.
Speaker 2: My name is Klay nukemb and this is the Bear
Speaker 2: Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search
Speaker 2: for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the
Speaker 2: story of Americans who lived their.
Speaker 3: Lives close to the land.
Speaker 2: Presented by FHF Gear, American made purpose built hunting and
Speaker 2: fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the
Speaker 2: place as we explore.
Speaker 1: I spoke the Other Knight to a group in Princeton
Speaker 1: and Princeton Kentucky going up there talking to that group
Speaker 1: about the night Riders, or it's like going to the
Speaker 1: Vatican and talking about Catholicism. I mean they have the
Speaker 1: Black Patch Parade. Had David Amos lived there, his home
Speaker 1: was there. They have Tobica les engraved on the side
Speaker 1: of the courthouse, in the structure of it. I mean
Speaker 1: some of them, they can stand there and tell you
Speaker 1: about how their uncles was so and so.
Speaker 2: That was Bill Cunningham, a former Kentucky Supreme Court justice
Speaker 2: and the author of the book On Bended Knees about
Speaker 2: the night Rider Tobacco Wars between nineteen oh four and
Speaker 2: nineteen oh nine. He painted a clear picture of the
Speaker 2: significance of tobacco and how it's long been etched into
Speaker 2: the culture of Kentucky. And when things are that important,
Speaker 2: they become culturally heightened because of the potential gain or
Speaker 2: ruin in their wake. But the high stakes also make
Speaker 2: them a potential tinder box of chaos, unrest, and even violence.
Speaker 2: But a gauge of something's cultural importance often is found
Speaker 2: in music, and tobacco often shows up in the music
Speaker 2: about Kentucky. I can't vouch for the character of outlaw
Speaker 2: country musicians David allen Coe, not even a little bit.
Speaker 2: But I've respected him as a songwriter since I was
Speaker 2: a teenager, and I want to listen to one of
Speaker 2: his songs. And if why Harlan County is in Kentucky.
Speaker 1: If folks in Harlan County.
Speaker 4: Lord, they knew we were born Still It's called my Daddy,
Speaker 4: Preacher Dan, But Daddy weren't no preacher.
Speaker 5: The sweet I.
Speaker 4: Don't recollect ever, Heir of Popaul talk of nothing but
Speaker 4: the land, and Daddy was here.
Speaker 5: Was read Lord.
Speaker 2: That song is called Daddy was a god fearing man.
Speaker 2: The pastoral imagery of an uneducated but godfear and farmer
Speaker 2: is strong in the lore of rural America, and it
Speaker 2: paints the picture of poverty, purity, naivity, and the righteous
Speaker 2: work ethic of some one whose hands are calloused by
Speaker 2: rocks and dirt. What's not overtly said, but is implied,
Speaker 2: is that this song is being listened to with the
Speaker 2: contextual backdrop of a rapidly urbanizing and industrialized America, and
Speaker 2: by leaning into this romantic idea of the farmer, tapping
Speaker 2: into its nostalgia, which Americans love to do. In a way,
Speaker 2: it's pitting the agrarian way of life against the urban
Speaker 2: industrial America, which clearly dominates the national hegemon. But listen
Speaker 2: to the next verse and listen for the mention of
Speaker 2: America's old smoky friend.
Speaker 4: Saint really always screw tobag of the old heat and
Speaker 4: not smoke yourself, and the bag drum around, and he
Speaker 4: never touched to drop the flicker that I can't recall
Speaker 4: combam is living on the ground.
Speaker 3: Yes, tobacco, you heard it.
Speaker 2: And I've got to admit that this is one of
Speaker 2: my favorite songs of all time. And it wouldn't be
Speaker 2: until I understood the significance of tobacco farming in this
Speaker 2: region that I really got it.
Speaker 4: It was Lord Heaven.
Speaker 5: Far grown out.
Speaker 2: Being the best tobacco farmer around was a thing of
Speaker 2: rural prestige, where families passed on generational knowledge about this
Speaker 2: crop that became a source of pride. But not far
Speaker 2: from the surface, its foundation was in the financial uplift
Speaker 2: it brought to families. Like most things in society, it
Speaker 2: all went back to money. But I think there's some
Speaker 2: potential inherent philosophical flaws in this song. It's idealistic to
Speaker 2: believe that simply by being a farmer that you have
Speaker 2: some inherent righteousness or pure lifestyle. And don't get me wrong,
Speaker 2: I'm prone to buy into the nostalgic stereotype myself. I
Speaker 2: love farmers. But why this story of these tobacco farming
Speaker 2: night writers is so interesting? Because these good hearted farmers
Speaker 2: did some pretty dark stuff when empowered under the cover
Speaker 2: of darkness, black masks, and a righteous mission against a
Speaker 2: corporate criminal. I'm here to decide if they were justified,
Speaker 2: and even think about where I would have stood if
Speaker 2: I lived during that time. To rehash the high points
Speaker 2: of this story, The Dark Fired Tobacco Planters Protection Association
Speaker 2: was formed in nineteen oh four to protect the interest
Speaker 2: of the tobacco farmers as prices plummeted because of the
Speaker 2: monopoly of the Duke True American Tobacco. The trust monopolized
Speaker 2: the buying of tobacco, forcing farmers to sell at a deficit,
Speaker 2: wrecking the economies of the regions built around tobacco. So
Speaker 2: the Tobacco Association formed to monopolize the selling. In nineteen
Speaker 2: oh four, they had five thousand members, but by nineteen
Speaker 2: oh six they had twenty five thousand. The Night Riders
Speaker 2: formed as the unofficial clandestine strong arm of the Association,
Speaker 2: whose first mission was to get all the tobacco farmers
Speaker 2: of the region to join the association, but the mission
Speaker 2: gradually shifted to beatings, sabotaging non association members crops, and
Speaker 2: large scale arson.
Speaker 1: But there were violence that broke out, and other places
Speaker 1: could took it to sea. Maybe I'd say all the
Speaker 1: states that grew Tovaica, but they were just kind of sporadic.
Speaker 1: You had this well all well structured military type organization
Speaker 1: only here in West Kentucky. That's one of the things
Speaker 1: that makes it fascinate.
Speaker 2: In the last episode, Bill told us how this was
Speaker 2: the time period when America was sorting out the issues
Speaker 2: between labor and capital.
Speaker 3: The workers versus corporate interests.
Speaker 2: The struggle was happening everywhere and in things outside of
Speaker 2: tobacco farming. But according to Bill's book, this was the
Speaker 2: most sustained violence and unrest in America between the Civil
Speaker 2: War and the race rights of the nineteen sixties. But
Speaker 2: the tobacco War wasn't just instigated by farmers, but by
Speaker 2: other people that didn't even grow tobacco.
Speaker 1: So I've kind of come around to think well economically
Speaker 1: was one of the problems was then being the only
Speaker 1: in carriage crop. Your banker depended on it, the grocery
Speaker 1: store guy who you bought money on credit. So the
Speaker 1: business is small. Business had an economy dependency on the
Speaker 1: success of darkfire tobacco, and when it wasn't successful, they
Speaker 1: didn't get paid, So they had an economic interest in
Speaker 1: But I think that probably maybe half the people approved
Speaker 1: of what they were trying to get done and but
Speaker 1: disagree with the method.
Speaker 2: Where tobacco grew. It was a cash crop that people
Speaker 2: used to live above subsistence, which is important. And as
Speaker 2: they say, a rising tide lifts all boats. You probably
Speaker 2: remember clips from the historic interview from the mid nineteen
Speaker 2: eighties where our guy right here, Bill Cunningham interviewed the then
Speaker 2: ninety seven year old Joe Scott. So in the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 2: this guy was ninety seven years old who at the
Speaker 2: time was the last living night writer. Here's Joe Scott
Speaker 2: responding to a pivotal question of why tobacco prices fell,
Speaker 2: This was the reason for the war. The audio isn't
Speaker 2: perfect with old Joe, but it's worth it. So hanging there.
Speaker 5: Firel prices down.
Speaker 6: What happened?
Speaker 3: What caused the prices to go down?
Speaker 6: Well, but the way I look at it, these tobacco
Speaker 6: companies they would get about four times as much. Say
Speaker 6: we got it, we got three and a half four dollars,
Speaker 6: and they get about twenty twenty twenty five trus They
Speaker 6: didn't make it about four and five times as much
Speaker 6: as what you get it. They get all the four
Speaker 6: dollars there. We wouldn't getting nothing. They would getting it
Speaker 6: all though. She wasn't no way, wasn't no way of
Speaker 6: changing them, and they had in their head they wasn't
Speaker 6: going to change. You see, the government wouldn't do a
Speaker 6: thing about it. Don't see these lawyers wouldn't do nothing. Bucks,
Speaker 6: they wouldn't do nothing.
Speaker 2: Buts the tobacco companies were making four and five times
Speaker 2: as much as the farmer. Does that sound familiar today?
Speaker 2: He said, the government wasn't helping and there was no
Speaker 2: way of changing them. You can hear the frustration in
Speaker 2: his voice even eighty years later. The Tobacco Association felt
Speaker 2: justified at whatever means they needed, so their unofficial strong arm,
Speaker 2: called the night Riders, took charge. But who were these guys.
Speaker 2: They were masked, they were clandestine. This is Bill referencing
Speaker 2: why Joe Scott was talking late in his life.
Speaker 1: Well, he says, the only reason he's talking now because
Speaker 1: they're all dead. Nobody put him in his grave. And
Speaker 1: I think, you know, you get old, I get like,
Speaker 1: I'm like this kind of now. You hear him talking
Speaker 1: about all this story, wasting your time, Joe Scott. If
Speaker 1: you watched this interview with him, you see what kind
Speaker 1: of man he was at one hundred. I can imagine
Speaker 1: what he was like at eighteen and what you would
Speaker 1: have been at eighteen nine. And I think a lot
Speaker 1: of them just teenage boys. This is as good as it gets.
Speaker 2: Sometimes you look back in history and wonder why people
Speaker 2: did what they did. I think Bill's assessment of these
Speaker 2: were young boys saying and thinking this is as good
Speaker 2: as it gets is a good assessment because that can
Speaker 2: be a license to be reckless, and people still do
Speaker 2: that today. The first couple of years, the Night Rid's
Speaker 2: primary job was to convince tobacco farmers to join the
Speaker 2: association and not sell to the Duke Trust. It was
Speaker 2: simple because some joined and other tobacco farmers just wouldn't
Speaker 2: and when they went on these outings, they called it
Speaker 2: going on a visit, which varied from a cordial conversation
Speaker 2: if a person was cooperative to a nighttime front yard beaten.
Speaker 2: Here's Joe Scott on why he went on these visits
Speaker 2: and later on these raids. It's a little hard to understand,
Speaker 2: but it's such an incredible interview it's worth it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they kind of left it ap to you on whether
Speaker 2: or not to go, though they didn't order you too well.
Speaker 6: I said it when you look right down in borland
Speaker 6: him short of not say nothing, said he go make
Speaker 6: you have a different feelings, you know it. That's where
Speaker 6: you now said I might be a token too much.
Speaker 6: I looked down and go and thorough take a little
Speaker 6: not to tell this thing that I've told it now.
Speaker 6: So Joe getting in troubled.
Speaker 5: Left nobody there, nobody left.
Speaker 6: You're the last well, I know, but there some some
Speaker 6: gun might be just a little smaller than you are.
Speaker 5: He might pick up something longer.
Speaker 6: Huh, yeah, we take care of you that I might
Speaker 6: pick up something more. Are there any are you probably
Speaker 6: the last one left?
Speaker 5: Word don't know it?
Speaker 6: No, no, no, he moves, I said, I not that
Speaker 6: I know of.
Speaker 1: Thank you the last one.
Speaker 2: It's interesting to hear the old man still hesitant to
Speaker 2: talk about the night Riders. But he was the last one. Remember,
Speaker 2: Joe didn't view anything he did personally as criminal. He
Speaker 2: was fighting a criminal, the Duke Trust. Do you think
Speaker 2: any of the people that that you might have been
Speaker 2: in on taking out to whip do you think any
Speaker 2: of them are still around?
Speaker 6: No? No them around either.
Speaker 2: When you when you did take somebody out, tell me about,
Speaker 2: tell me about what would happen? Well, you you'd ride
Speaker 2: toward them, and how would all that happen?
Speaker 6: Well, and most of them, most of them come out
Speaker 6: telling you they wouldn't go to do so, And so
Speaker 6: they tell them what you've been talking to us.
Speaker 2: He said, you.
Speaker 6: Wouldn't go to visit there's none of our business. You
Speaker 6: wouldn't go to the Barker. I'm still going to stay
Speaker 6: with with a company, you know, and so on, and
Speaker 6: we we think you were it, and give you all
Speaker 6: the invitation in the worlds quick enough by the buck,
Speaker 6: and you're going ahead, blue Hiddings and we're going to work.
Speaker 6: I'm not afraid, not any of this that time. They
Speaker 6: just so they didn't take much word about.
Speaker 5: They just take your whip.
Speaker 6: They go to WHOOPI wasn't I'm about full five for
Speaker 6: we get older two and old each home. You know
Speaker 6: what it is trailed around us and some of the
Speaker 6: observer three two thousand for fuels.
Speaker 3: Son, he said, they'd take you out and whip you over. Son.
Speaker 2: That's if you were bullheaded and kept selling to the
Speaker 2: Duke Trust. In American tobacco, the night Riders had three
Speaker 2: intimidation tools in their belt and a personal visit and
Speaker 2: whooping was option one. Option two was sabotaging or scraping
Speaker 2: a non association.
Speaker 3: Member's tobacco beds.
Speaker 2: And this meant while your entire year's crop was just
Speaker 2: starting to come up, they'd go out at night and
Speaker 2: destroy it and it would be too late to start over.
Speaker 2: They called the people that did this hoe totors as
Speaker 2: they were doing this work with a whole at night. Thirdly,
Speaker 2: and what would be the most destructive task of the
Speaker 2: Night Writers were these military style raids into cities where
Speaker 2: they'd take over a whole city and burn down the
Speaker 2: tobacco barns of the Duke Trust, causing enormous physical and
Speaker 2: financial damage because the private beatings just weren't working.
Speaker 1: Nineteen oh five and October nineteen oh five, then you
Speaker 1: move it now. That's when I think these individuals flags
Speaker 1: and everything happened fairday click because by the summer nineteen
Speaker 1: oh six, David Amos, probably in the conference with Youing
Speaker 1: was saying, look, these boys are having a lot of
Speaker 1: fun with this, but we're not changing the prices. Nothing's happening.
Speaker 1: We've got to attack the Duke Trust where it hurts,
Speaker 1: and that's in the pocket Book. That's when they kind
Speaker 1: of shifted away from the infliction of punishment upon the
Speaker 1: Independence to destroying the Tobaica owned by the American Tobacco Company,
Speaker 1: and that was their raids on Princeton, Russellville, Hopkinsville, Eddieville.
Speaker 1: You know this book. I wrote this book at the
Speaker 1: perfect time because up the time I wrote, nobody talked
Speaker 1: about it. So I had an opportunity. Don't only talked
Speaker 1: to Joe Scott, also had opportunity to talk to another sententarium,
Speaker 1: one hundred year old S. M. Martin, who was a
Speaker 1: former marshall. He was the marshall of Eddyville the night
Speaker 1: that the Night Writers rated Eddyville. And if you read
Speaker 1: the book, you know, I quote some in there from
Speaker 1: sem Martin. On December first, nineteen o six, they rated
Speaker 1: Princeton Nightriares three hundred strong, burned the warehouses and made
Speaker 1: their way out highly successful, about three hundred of them.
Speaker 1: They came into town past midnight. They took the fire
Speaker 1: brigade hostage. They took the police department hostage. They took
Speaker 1: the telephone ladies at the switchboard and held them based
Speaker 1: so they couldn't call out for help. They came in
Speaker 1: and burned two warehouses, caused a lot of damage, and
Speaker 1: then the congregated in the court Ell Square and they
Speaker 1: rode out of town together singing to the tune of
Speaker 1: Old Kentucky Home. The burn the fires burned bright from
Speaker 1: my old Kentucky home. Highly succession, The fires burn bright
Speaker 1: right on my.
Speaker 5: Old Kentucky home.
Speaker 1: It's some and everyone's gay.
Speaker 5: The corn tops rap and.
Speaker 3: The medals are emblem while the burns.
Speaker 5: They make music all day.
Speaker 3: In Princeton, Kentucky.
Speaker 2: Under the instruction of the country doctor and the leader
Speaker 2: of the night Riders, this medical doctor David Amos, He
Speaker 2: led three hundred masked armed men on horseback and the
Speaker 2: military formation into town.
Speaker 3: Took the whole place.
Speaker 2: Hostage men soaked the two Duke Trust in American tobacco
Speaker 2: barns with kerosene and dynamite and lit them on fire,
Speaker 2: and within minutes there was a giant explosion and raging
Speaker 2: inferno as four hundred thousand pounds of Trust tobacco went
Speaker 2: up in flames and the barns of the Tobacco Planners
Speaker 2: Association were untouched. You can start to see the logic.
Speaker 2: If the association is the only one with tobacco to sell,
Speaker 2: the Trust will have to subject themselves to the prices
Speaker 2: demanded by the association. It seems like a fell proof plan.
Speaker 2: Insurance companies started to drop the policies on Duke Trust
Speaker 2: barns all across the region. People lived in terror, and
Speaker 2: many people even moved out of the Black Patch to
Speaker 2: get away from the chaos. People could only guess where
Speaker 2: it would happen next, because there were tobacco barns all
Speaker 2: across the South and this was going on in other
Speaker 2: parts of the South. Just the Black Patch was the
Speaker 2: main place, and it was partly because there was only
Speaker 2: one country. Doctor slash military mastermind slash defender of the
Speaker 2: poor farmers, Doctor David Amos. You'll get to decide if
Speaker 2: he was a villain or if he was a hero.
Speaker 2: But his operations were the apex of the tobacco.
Speaker 1: Wars, so buddy, and then they had raids here on Eddyville,
Speaker 1: basically a similar thing. He is raded on Eddyville that
Speaker 1: there were some pretty severe beatings and they destroyed some warehouses.
Speaker 1: That was later on in nacke O seventh they raided Russellville,
Speaker 1: Kentucky did the same thing. But then in December, December
Speaker 1: the seventh, they planned the big raid on Hopkinsville.
Speaker 2: Hopkinsville would be the big raid. That was the straw
Speaker 2: that broke the mules back. Here's Joe Scott. I wonder
Speaker 2: which raids he went to.
Speaker 6: How many raids did you go?
Speaker 1: Walk?
Speaker 6: And I guess well, I went to hopkins Ville red
Speaker 6: and he went to his raids and took the view.
Speaker 6: Then I went to Bennett's raid. Then I went around.
Speaker 6: We went to free HUDs that's night because they didn't
Speaker 6: do nothing.
Speaker 1: We just at the locators. I was about for full raids,
Speaker 1: three fool rates.
Speaker 2: Joe said he went to Eddieville, Hopkinsville and Bennett's raids.
Speaker 2: This is an interesting section where Joe talks more about
Speaker 2: doctor David Amos and something that happened at Hopkinsville.
Speaker 6: The first one was he described him to us oh
Speaker 6: Amas Tall. I always called him psychoge the old eggs.
Speaker 5: You know it was a pretty good speaker.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, he didn't talk very loud, but he he
Speaker 6: he made business on his words. He know, you know,
Speaker 6: he placed them all where he wanted him to go.
Speaker 5: You know, you well.
Speaker 6: Like I said, he had the sound goal, lead off
Speaker 6: and more.
Speaker 5: I guess, I guess.
Speaker 6: I guess he had every man the name ever talked
Speaker 6: to him. He didn't, he didn't. He didn't talk too much.
Speaker 6: He didn't talk, he didn't talk too much, but he
Speaker 6: said he meant it though he was that away. He
Speaker 6: said he read he was at hopkins Jim says, I
Speaker 6: know Hawkins will was just like i'd the way he
Speaker 6: sees and I guess he did. He knew where the
Speaker 6: police over man and another room man got shot apparent
Speaker 6: of that night. I don't know. I don't remember who
Speaker 6: he was.
Speaker 2: I find it interesting that this leader Amos wasn't a
Speaker 2: flashy speaker. He just meant what he said. That's probably
Speaker 2: good leadership advice. Joe mentioned that only one guy got
Speaker 2: shot that night. Well, I'll let you take a guess
Speaker 2: who that was.
Speaker 1: And David Amos wrote, riding in a bug and he
Speaker 1: was leading. They gathered from all different areas and about
Speaker 1: three hundred went into Pompkinsville and they took over the streets,
Speaker 1: took over the fire department brigade and put them their custody,
Speaker 1: and they destroyed two or three of the Tobico warehouses
Speaker 1: there and as they were leaving. Before they were leaving,
Speaker 1: David Amlos was wounded by one of his own proofs accident.
Speaker 2: The Hopkinsville raid took place on November seventh, nineteen oh seven,
Speaker 2: and over four hundred mass riders taken over the town
Speaker 2: and just like in Princeton, it took over the police station,
Speaker 2: the fire station, cut the phone lines, and took over
Speaker 2: the state Militia armory, and then they lit the Duke
Speaker 2: Trust tobacco barns on fire. However, in Hopkinsville there was
Speaker 2: a backfire. The Association barns were close to the Duke
Speaker 2: Trust barns and they all ended up burning, creating massive
Speaker 2: chaos and even destruction to the Association members. It was
Speaker 2: reported that over three hundred thousand dollars in damages were
Speaker 2: done that night, which would be equivalent to millions to day.
Speaker 2: When the fires stopped, it was reported that the Methodist
Speaker 2: church had thirty two bullet holes, the local judge's house
Speaker 2: had eight bullet holes, and they shot one hundred and
Speaker 2: seventy five rounds into the office of the city judge.
Speaker 2: It was massive economic run and it spread terror throughout
Speaker 2: the black Patch. And after it was all over, doctor
Speaker 2: David Amos would survive the gunshot wound. Here's more from Bill.
Speaker 1: There was one humorous story that came out of that.
Speaker 1: Charles Meacham was a newspaper editor and mayor Hopfield and
Speaker 1: he ran the newspaper The Kentucky. He was adam an
Speaker 1: anti night rider. See you getting back. There were people
Speaker 1: in places of influence that were ran against the night
Speaker 1: rartor here heard the mayor of Hopkinsville also the newspaper editor.
Speaker 1: So the night riters wanted to get him and give
Speaker 1: him a good beating mother or there, and they started
Speaker 1: looking for him, and Meecham went downtown because he's the
Speaker 1: mayor of the town's on fire. They see him, they
Speaker 1: start chasing him down through the streets. He runs down
Speaker 1: this alleyway that dead end out there next to the
Speaker 1: Baptist church. He thinks he's been had, but he looks
Speaker 1: over toward the basement of the Baptist church and here
Speaker 1: was one of these coal shoots going down in it,
Speaker 1: if you remember the coal shoots, and before they put
Speaker 1: the coal in it for the first he's just barely
Speaker 1: able to get in that coal shoot and slides down
Speaker 1: into the basement of the Babtist church and it escapes
Speaker 1: the night Riders because these are all God fearing man
Speaker 1: people who don't think we can go into church and
Speaker 1: do this. So he escaped, but the night Riders had
Speaker 1: a lot of fun out of him because they said
Speaker 1: that Charles means the only sprinkled Methodist saint saving a
Speaker 1: water dunk in Baptist church.
Speaker 3: That's a good one.
Speaker 2: Years after Bill wrote his book, he would find some
Speaker 2: evidence that brought the facts of that cute little story
Speaker 2: into question. But a good story is a good story,
Speaker 2: especially when it's making fun of Methodists.
Speaker 3: Just kidding, well, sort of.
Speaker 2: But here's an update on how things were going on
Speaker 2: the macro scale of the Association's By nineteen oh seven,
Speaker 2: the Tobacco Association was selling ninety percent, that's ninety percent
Speaker 2: of all tobacco grown in the black patch, and prices
Speaker 2: had gone back up to seven cents per pound from
Speaker 2: three to four cents. It seemed to be working. However,
Speaker 2: history will later reveal whether the price increase was caused
Speaker 2: by the Night Riders or other factors in the market
Speaker 2: that had nothing to do with them. Nineteen oh seven
Speaker 2: to nineteen oh eight were the most active years of
Speaker 2: the Night Riders, and it's when these military style terror
Speaker 2: raids started making national headlines.
Speaker 1: So they started getting the attention of national newspapers, Chart Observer,
Speaker 1: New York Times and all by these raids on the
Speaker 1: town that, you know, taking independent farmers out flag. Of
Speaker 1: course he had Lynching's going on through it. So but
Speaker 1: when they started raiding his towns like what the headlines says,
Speaker 1: could think it was a Charlotte Observer maybe in the
Speaker 1: New York town said Kentucky town raided and burned by
Speaker 1: night Riders and all that went down, of course, and
Speaker 1: got all that was a high watermark was the hopkins
Speaker 1: Field raids. This is post Civil War, and the Knower
Speaker 1: still kind of looked upon the South as being violent anyway.
Speaker 1: So so what I think around that time, we had
Speaker 1: had fields McCoy's and Kentucky especially, It's always had a
Speaker 1: reputation dark and bloody land, and it's always been a
Speaker 1: head of bloody history.
Speaker 2: The Hopkinsville raid in nineteen oh seven was at the
Speaker 2: pinnacle of the night riders dirty deeds in the black Patch.
Speaker 2: But what we haven't figured out yet is whether this
Speaker 2: was working to bring the prices of tobacco back up. Remember,
Speaker 2: this whole thing is about the poor farmers fighting a
Speaker 2: corporate criminal monopoly. We've just discussed two of five major
Speaker 2: raids where hundreds of thousands of dollars of trust tobacco
Speaker 2: were destroyed and Association tobacco, So it seems like it
Speaker 2: would have to be significant, But maybe it wasn't because
Speaker 2: the black patch is relatively small compared to where tobacco
Speaker 2: has grown. But what was wild is that they could
Speaker 2: never catch these night writers and prosecute them. This was
Speaker 2: before massive video surveillance, fingerprinting, DNA collection at crime scenes,
Speaker 2: and they just couldn't catch these guys. But more than anything,
Speaker 2: most people were afraid to talk because they'd be snitching
Speaker 2: on family or friends. In these tight knit communities. But
Speaker 2: the beginning of the end for the night Writers involved
Speaker 2: a woman named Mary Lou Holloway from Princeton, Kentucky.
Speaker 1: Very Lou Hollowood was running a boarding house there. She
Speaker 1: was good looking, which made her unpopular with the women,
Speaker 1: and she was opinionated, which made her unpopular with the men.
Speaker 1: And she'd go about blashing the night rider at Burbally.
Speaker 1: It kind of tolerated because John On Hallowell, her brother
Speaker 1: in law, was ahead of the night rudders and Harwell came.
Speaker 1: But then she said, in April nineteen o seven, she said,
Speaker 1: I'm going to go to the Grand jury and get
Speaker 1: a lot of people indicted who were involved in this
Speaker 1: raid on Princeton. I heard conversations in my boarding house
Speaker 1: dining room named I know who is involved. I heard
Speaker 1: admissions being made. I'm going to get it in dank.
Speaker 1: So she went over to the courthouse and the Grand
Speaker 1: juris in session, went up there and knocked on the door.
Speaker 1: They let her testify and she started telling them all
Speaker 1: this stuff. Well ploy half of the grand jury or
Speaker 1: night Riders, so they weren't going to die anybody. But
Speaker 1: then they told the night riders. John hollywell, look we
Speaker 1: got to do something to get out of control, said okay,
Speaker 1: we'll teach her a little lesson. So they sent them
Speaker 1: night writers out to scrape her plant beds. I'm matre
Speaker 1: to tell you about the plant bed. You scraped the
Speaker 1: plant beds, they may not be able to get out
Speaker 1: of crop. Plant ate scraped to the plant beds that night. Well,
Speaker 1: Mary Lou blew a gasket and said, I know who
Speaker 1: did this. Your brother in law, John Holliwa did this.
Speaker 1: And well, we're not going to tole Reve. And then
Speaker 1: about a week later, John Hollowell's plant bed gets scraped,
Speaker 1: So that call for the sheriff to come out to
Speaker 1: investigate because the night rider of plant bed got scraped.
Speaker 1: He went out there and it was really a clumsy job.
Speaker 1: They found the day book they belonged to there where
Speaker 1: the scraping took place. Of Steve's shot and he worked
Speaker 1: for Mary Lou. They found a trail in the do
Speaker 1: leading up to Ned Pettitt's house. He'd also worked by work.
Speaker 1: So they get those boys and take them downtown to
Speaker 1: sweat a confession out of them. You have Marrily who
Speaker 1: paid his five dollars to go out there and scrape
Speaker 1: the plant bed Then they decided, since the scraping the
Speaker 1: plant beds didn't have their to have to go and
Speaker 1: do something more drastic. So they went out there on
Speaker 1: made first to her house. They circled it, they started
Speaker 1: shooting into it and threatened to burn the house down
Speaker 1: if it didn't come out. And they come out and
Speaker 1: they beat Robert tying around that big hacked their tree
Speaker 1: to beat him, and she was trying to protect him
Speaker 1: to beat her too, and she got flying glass cut
Speaker 1: her from the gunshots and all that, and they told
Speaker 1: him that they didn't get out of county, they're gonna
Speaker 1: be killed.
Speaker 2: Mary lew and Robert would flee out of state, but
Speaker 2: would go gather up some good lawyers and come back
Speaker 2: to Kentucky and press charges against the night Riders.
Speaker 1: They came back, he filed a suit in federal district
Speaker 1: court in Baduka. Federal court at that time they drew
Speaker 1: their jury from all the way up to Louisville. So
Speaker 1: now they're gonna have geors and they're not gonna have sympathy.
Speaker 1: First jury trial had a militia and Baduka had bodyguards
Speaker 1: for Robert Mary lou they came back hung jury. Second trial,
Speaker 1: I got thirty five thousand dollars verdict, which is like
Speaker 1: millions today. So that was the beginning of the end.
Speaker 2: Mary lou Win in thirty five grand in federal court
Speaker 2: against the Night Riders started the ball rolling towards the
Speaker 2: public sentiment turning on the terror and destruction of the group.
Speaker 2: Other cases started to pop up and people started winning
Speaker 2: suits against the Night Riders. Additionally, the mission started to drift,
Speaker 2: and the Night Riders, empowered by masks and power, started
Speaker 2: being more vigilante and personal and less mission focused, and
Speaker 2: they started doing a bunch of stuff not connected to
Speaker 2: this tobacco mission. And additionally, in nineteen oh seven, a
Speaker 2: new governor was elected on a law and order ticket,
Speaker 2: and during this campaign he guaranteed that he'd stop the
Speaker 2: Night Writers. But at this point, the Night Writers were
Speaker 2: winning the war, and the governor would call in the
Speaker 2: state militia to guard some cities and these tobacco warehouses
Speaker 2: that they thought might be targets. But here's another interesting
Speaker 2: data point, because we're only looking at the Night Writers.
Speaker 2: You know, these guys that are defending the poor farmers,
Speaker 2: But what about the huge corporate monopoly of the Duke Trust.
Speaker 2: In nineteen oh seven, the tobacco tycoon Buck Duke, James
Speaker 2: Buck Duke, his personal net worth was around two hundred
Speaker 2: million dollars. Two hundred million is an enormous amount of
Speaker 2: wealth in nineteen oh seven. Could these raids destroying a
Speaker 2: couple hundred thousand dollars worth of tobacco really matter to
Speaker 2: the Duke Trust?
Speaker 3: Prices had gone back up?
Speaker 2: But was it because the Tobacco Association and the Night
Speaker 2: Writers was what they did effective?
Speaker 6: Think?
Speaker 1: You know, the whole essence of it. Although all that
Speaker 1: is pretty much romantic, it wasn't really very effective. People
Speaker 1: asked me, you know, we'd like to think, well, we
Speaker 1: stood up to the Duke Trust and by God we
Speaker 1: made them give in, and all I don't even know
Speaker 1: the Duke giving to you about all this stuffer on.
Speaker 1: People asked me who won? Did the light Writers win?
Speaker 1: I said, no, Knight Writers don't win democracy one. But
Speaker 1: the beauty of what this story represents is, yes there's violence,
Speaker 1: and yes there's lawlesses, but in the end, law and
Speaker 1: order prevailed in the courts. The victims and all got
Speaker 1: they got the justice in the courts system, so that
Speaker 1: became a deterrent. That's what really killed the night Riders
Speaker 1: was here in this area were all the civil suits
Speaker 1: whenever they success was successful in the Baduka case, thirty
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars verdict against guys that are out there
Speaker 1: because they're in the organization, because they don't have any
Speaker 1: money to start with, and then the whole energy just shifts.
Speaker 2: The whole energy of the movement really shifted when doctor
Speaker 2: David Amos, a night Rider's leader, was prosecuted for the
Speaker 2: burning of Hopkinsville. As you listened to the section, let
Speaker 2: me remind you that Bill Cunningham was a member of
Speaker 2: the Kentucky Supreme Court and a judge his whole career.
Speaker 1: He had a couple of informants that turned and gave
Speaker 1: the state's evidence against Amos, and then no question that
Speaker 1: he was guilty, and he denied it. He brought some
Speaker 1: people in that kind of tried to establish it. He
Speaker 1: of a lot of lying going on. At ninety he
Speaker 1: said he wasn't involved in it. He was an all
Speaker 1: male jewelry, some farmers. They found him not guilty then
Speaker 1: though he was by that time running from lawsuits because
Speaker 1: they all sued him as the other PRIs he was.
Speaker 1: He was hiding out for seven or eight months trying
Speaker 1: to avoid the service of the marshals on the summons,
Speaker 1: on the lawsuits. The verdict in the Hopkinsville in nineteen
Speaker 1: eleven is not so important as it was that they
Speaker 1: prosecuted him, because the attitude toward him has changed it
Speaker 1: up where the politicians feel politically safe in prosecuting him
Speaker 1: and the quandarant all that has always been the herero
Speaker 1: Old David Amos lied under oath, but he was in
Speaker 1: a conflicting situation. He had two olds s. He had
Speaker 1: taken one to the Knight Writers to be loyal, not
Speaker 1: to divulge any enfany blah blah blah blah blah, and
Speaker 1: then he picked that oath to fallow and stood the
Speaker 1: one imposed by the law, you know, and testifying in trial. Well, naturally,
Speaker 1: I can't approve of it. I can't approve of it,
Speaker 1: but I've sent a lot of people with the penitentiary
Speaker 1: that I sympathize with. I've sent a lot of people
Speaker 1: that I know why these kids, like that I knew
Speaker 1: his daddy daddy abused him, or that I had a
Speaker 1: lot of sympathy for him. So no, I don't approve it.
Speaker 1: I can't approve it, sworn numerous times uphold the Constitution
Speaker 1: in the law, but I have a great empathy and
Speaker 1: sympathy with them, just like moonshining. Moonshining in this area
Speaker 1: back during the Great Depression, my dad and his friendows
Speaker 1: that's the way they survived. Would I approve breaking the law, No,
Speaker 1: but I have greep sympathy.
Speaker 2: For It's interesting to me the sympathy the South has
Speaker 2: for moonshines. One of my good friends once asked me
Speaker 2: play will history one day look back and have sympathy
Speaker 2: for today's meth dealers? And it's point, wise is that
Speaker 2: alcohol has destroyed more families and people than probably anything.
Speaker 3: But to get back to our story.
Speaker 2: In the end, doctor David Amos went free, was never
Speaker 2: convicted even though they knew he was guilty.
Speaker 3: So how does that work?
Speaker 2: I want to hear why the judicial system failed or
Speaker 2: did it?
Speaker 1: It was? It was? It was what we call jury nullification.
Speaker 1: You ever heard that term. I've had many people when
Speaker 1: I was trial and come with attorney, were frustrating for
Speaker 1: become with attorney. This guy is guilty as hell, we
Speaker 1: we ain't see him as the penitentiary, and we're the
Speaker 1: ones that called the shot. You gave us the law
Speaker 1: beyond reading. Yeah, we believe he's guilty. We believe he's given.
Speaker 1: I think it was a jury nullification where they say, hey,
Speaker 1: it's not this is all over. It's been a good
Speaker 1: country doctor, had all these character witness he's given the poor.
Speaker 1: He's done. He's sitting over with his wife, and you know,
Speaker 1: nineteen eleven, I think you just said we're not We're
Speaker 1: going to end it right here.
Speaker 2: Jury notification. That's a new one to me, and I'm
Speaker 2: conflicted on it. In some cases, I could see how
Speaker 2: this judicial trick could be used for good when a
Speaker 2: guilty person just doesn't deserve what the law prescribes as punishment.
Speaker 2: But it also sounds like it could be misapplied in
Speaker 2: a good old boy system, letting some go, letting others
Speaker 2: go pay the price. But by nineteen oh nine, tables
Speaker 2: fully turned and the night rider movement came to an end.
Speaker 2: But it came to an end because they weren't needed anymore.
Speaker 2: So when you hear why, you'll wonder if their plan
Speaker 2: really worked.
Speaker 1: The economics of the country change Ao stand they got
Speaker 1: the Tobiquo attacks. Repeal consumption started going up about nineteen
Speaker 1: oh seven nineteen oh eight. About that time and New
Speaker 1: York Federal Corps Appeals ruled that the American Tobacco Company
Speaker 1: was in violation of the Sherman anti trust law and
Speaker 1: they were going to have to break up their monopoly.
Speaker 1: By in nineteen eleven Man that was affirmed by the
Speaker 1: US Supreme Court. So Duke had to break his trust down. Well,
Speaker 1: he was just as wealthy afterwards, but it affected the
Speaker 1: monopoly out here. So the pricius went up, and then
Speaker 1: the mood really changed.
Speaker 2: On November seventh, nineteen oh eight, the Duke Trust's American
Speaker 2: Tobacco Company was declared a monopoly.
Speaker 3: This was huge. This is what Joe Scott was saying
Speaker 3: all along.
Speaker 2: So at the end of this the Tobacco Association was
Speaker 2: right and they were fighting a righteous war against the
Speaker 2: corporate criminal. The other efforts were isolated in a small
Speaker 2: area and tobacco was being grown in many other parts
Speaker 2: of the country. You can't help but think these five
Speaker 2: years of disruption to the tobacco industry gained the attention
Speaker 2: of the nation. This is a complex story. And if
Speaker 2: you look at it trying to decide who the good
Speaker 2: and bad guys are, it can be confusing because the
Speaker 2: good guys, sure as heck weren't the Duke Trust, corporate
Speaker 2: tobacco criminals where they But you can't approve of the
Speaker 2: terror beating and the arts and the night writers. Where
Speaker 2: do you think you would have stood if you would
Speaker 2: have been alive during this time and lived in.
Speaker 3: The black Patch.
Speaker 2: Here's Bill talking about writing this book and a mistake
Speaker 2: that he made.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be sure I was fair in a
Speaker 1: projective because I had family roots and my grandfather was
Speaker 1: probably a night writer, and I've heard rumblings in my family,
Speaker 1: so I want to be sure I was fair in
Speaker 1: a projective. The Night Writer. There are a bunch of outlaws, really,
Speaker 1: and we get right. When I was writing this book,
Speaker 1: I was district attorney, so I didn't want to come
Speaker 1: out this year attorney making heroes. These guys so be balanced,
Speaker 1: and it was never had anybody complained it was biased?
Speaker 1: The mistake I made in the book. The book makes
Speaker 1: it sound like that the opponents the Night Writer, I
Speaker 1: use the term sometimes a thin minority. I'm convinced now
Speaker 1: it was not a thin minority. It was probably the majority.
Speaker 1: I think that the night writers were probably a minority,
Speaker 1: but the rest of them went along out of fear.
Speaker 1: What makes me say that is the governor of Kentucky
Speaker 1: got elected Willison. Governor Wilson got elected on a law
Speaker 1: and order plank that he was going to put down
Speaker 1: the night wriuter, and he took all kinds of measures,
Speaker 1: sitting in the militia and all that to suppress these
Speaker 1: uprisings in East Town. We were occupied in Murrie, Kentucky
Speaker 1: was occupied by troops during the Civil War, Union troops
Speaker 1: during the Civil War, and then also the state militia
Speaker 1: less than forty years later. Well, people asked you who won?
Speaker 1: I said, democracy won. Good guy, bad guy. Well they're
Speaker 1: both right and they're both wrong.
Speaker 2: I like it when someone is able to objectively evaluate
Speaker 2: their work.
Speaker 1: I think that's the romance of it. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: all American story. You watched Netflex when that take on
Speaker 1: the corporation, who who? Who poisoned our streams? The big
Speaker 1: corporations are painted at being bad guys, And this was
Speaker 1: one where and that was the image I had really
Speaker 1: growing up. But I like everything else they're not all good,
Speaker 1: not all bad.
Speaker 3: I want to ask Bill what he thinks we should
Speaker 3: learn from all this.
Speaker 1: I think I think we learn what a great country
Speaker 1: we have, that we can absorb these types of men,
Speaker 1: these things and survive. Just like, how did we survive
Speaker 1: for two hundreds thirty years on a written document that
Speaker 1: they were doctors were bleeding people when it was written,
Speaker 1: it took you months to get across how we survived.
Speaker 1: And I think it shows because of law, because of democracy.
Speaker 1: Al Stanley responded by going to the legislature, then the
Speaker 1: needs of the people and got the Tobiaco attacks. Responded
Speaker 1: the court system, courageous judges, courageous jury. The court system
Speaker 1: came down here and said, no, this is wrong, guys,
Speaker 1: you have all done these people damage. We're gonna give
Speaker 1: you thirty five thousand dollars. It was the majesty of
Speaker 1: the law that's up. And so that's what we learned
Speaker 1: from it. And this, this struggle, I mean, is overthrown
Speaker 1: governments all over this world, the struggle between the poor
Speaker 1: and the rich and usually ends up first anarchy and
Speaker 1: then the despot. But here we just law and order
Speaker 1: got us through it. And they had a Christopher Craney jury.
Speaker 1: They didn't send David AMers the penitentiary, and because they
Speaker 1: had some there were a certain amount of sympathy and compassion.
Speaker 1: So I think that's what we learned for it does work,
Speaker 1: but he takes people. I've learned this being a public
Speaker 1: servant for fifty years. You can hear the best system
Speaker 1: in the world. You still in the end, who got
Speaker 1: to help good people to stand up and do what's right?
Speaker 1: And you got to have citizens like Mary loom Plie.
Speaker 1: She wasn't the only one either.
Speaker 2: There's an odd irony at the end of this story.
Speaker 2: After James Buck Duke dismantled his tobacco company, he was
Speaker 2: still enormously wealthy and was interested in leaving a family legacy.
Speaker 2: There was a little college down there in North Carolina
Speaker 2: called Trinity College in Raleigh. According to Bill's book, in
Speaker 2: December of nineteen twenty four, less than a year before
Speaker 2: Duke's death, he paid Trinity College six million dollars to
Speaker 2: change its name to Duke University. Yeah, that's Christian Latner's Duke.
Speaker 2: I'll leave you with a nice big chunk of irony
Speaker 2: about the man who was the first professor at the
Speaker 2: Duke University School of Medicine.
Speaker 1: He was the first professor of medicine at Duke University
Speaker 1: and his name was it was herold Amos and he
Speaker 1: was Ja David Amos's son.
Speaker 2: I can't thank you enough for listening to Bear Grease
Speaker 2: and Brent's This Country Life podcast. Please leave us a
Speaker 2: review on iTunes and share our podcasts.
Speaker 3: With somebody this week.
Speaker 2: We really thank you for all the support that you've shown,
Speaker 2: Meat Eater and First Light, which all this allows us.
Speaker 3: To bring you these stories every week.
Speaker 2: And what keeps us all united is our love of
Speaker 2: wild places.
Speaker 3: So keep the wild places wild. That's where the bears live.