Bear Grease - Ep. 290: Blurred Lines - Good Guys vs. Bad Guys

Episode Date: January 22, 2025

In this episode of the Bear Grease podcast, Clay Newcomb details the events at the turn of the 20th Century in the the "Black Patch" tobacco region of western Kentucky and northern Tennessee. The tension comes to a head as prices paid to farmers by the monopolistic Duke Trust plummet and "The Association" attempts to stand up against it.  The Night Riders resort to beatings of non-Association farmers, raids on towns, and burning Duke Trust's tobacco barns. But the question remains: were they justified? Who were the good guys and who were the bad guys? Listen to interviews with former Kentucky Supreme Court Justice, Bill Cunningham, and recordings of the last living Night Rider, Joe Scott. If you have comments on the show, send us a note to [e-mail] Connect with Clay and MeatEater Clay on Instagram MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new field. Worldware gear at firstlight.com. So they started getting the attention of national newspapers, Charlotte Observer, New York Times, and all by these raids on the town, taking independent farmers out and flagging, of course, had lynching going on throughout the south.

But when they started raiding these towns, like one of the headlines says, Kentucky Town, raided in Burn by Knight Rider. This is post-Civil War, and the North still kind of. have looked upon the south as being violent anyway. Around that time, we had Hatfields and McCoys. And Kentucky especially, it's always had a reputation, dark and bloody land. It's always been a head of bloody history. On this finale episode, the Tobacco Wars of Kentucky and Tennessee

are in full swing, and the stage is set for a showdown between the Tobacco Planners Association who are the poor farmers, and the corporate giant known as the Duke Trust. and their American tobacco company. The players are as old as time. It's the rich versus the poor, but the difference between the good guys and the bad guys remains blurred. The region known as the Black Patch grows the finest dark-fired tobacco in the world,

but the struggle is much bigger than tobacco. And the tools of terror are arson, beatings, and sabotage, meant to impact the national economy. but did it even really work? I really doubt that you're going to want to miss this one. It reminded me we were going to one of these speeches somewhere years ago and on the way there, Paul said, you're not going to give them the whole ball of works, are you?

I said, what do you mean? You're not going to tell the whole story again. And I said, well, you know, it's a little hard to just tell in sound bites. My name is Clay Newcomb, and this is the Bear Grease podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant. Search for insight in unlikely places and where we'll tell the story of Americans who live their lives close to the land.

Presented by FHF Gear, American-made, purpose-built, hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the places we explore. I spoke the other night to a group in Princeton, in Princeton, Kentucky, going up there talking to that group about the night riders. It's like going to the Vatican and talking about Catholicism. I mean, they have the Black Patch Parade.

Had David Amos lived there, his home was there. They have Tobacolese engraved on the side of the courthouse and the structure of it. I mean, some of them, they can stand there and tell you about how their uncles was so and such. That was Bill Cunningham, a former Kentucky Supreme Court Justice, and the author of the book On Bended Knees about the Knight Rider Tobacco Wars between 1904 and 1909. He painted a clear picture of the significance of tobacco and how it's long been etched into the culture of Kentucky.

And when things are that important, they become culturally heightened because of the potential gain or ruin in their wake. But the high stakes also make them a potential tender box of chaos, unrest, and even violence. but a gauge of something's cultural importance often is found in music and tobacco often shows up in the music about Kentucky. I can't vouch for the character of outlaw country musician David Allen Coe, not even a little bit, but I've respected him as a songwriter since I was a teenager and I want to

listen to one of his songs. And FYI, Harlan County is in Kentucky. That folks in Harlan County, Lord, they knew that we were poor. They always called my daddy preacher dance. But Daddy weren't no preacher leastways I don't recollect. Ever hear a Papa talk of nothing but the land. And Daddy was God-fearing farmer, yes, he was. That song is called Daddy Was a God-fearing man. The pastoral imagery of an uneducated but God-fearing farmer is strong in the lore of rural America.

And it paints the picture of poverty, purity, naivety, and the righteous work ethic of someone whose hands are calloused by rocks and dirt. What's not overtly said, but is implied, is that this song is being listened to with the contextual backdrop of a rapidly urbanizing and industrialized America. and by leaning into this romantic idea of the farmer, tapping into its nostalgia, which Americans love to do, in a way, it's pitting the agrarian way of life against the urban industrial America, which clearly dominates the national hegemon. But listen to the next verse,

and listen for the mention of America's old smoky friend. Well, he always grew tobacco, though he did not smoke yourself. Had the best tobacco drop around. And he never touched a drop of liquor that I can recall. Papa made his living on the ground. Tobacco, you heard it. And I've got to admit that this is one of my favorite songs of all time, and it wouldn't be until I understood the significance of tobacco farming in this region that I really got it.

Being the best tobacco farmer around was a thing of rural prestige, where families passed on generational knowledge about this crop that became a source of pride. But not far from the surface, its foundation was in the financial uplift it brought to families. Like most things in society, it all went back to money. But I think there's some potential inherent philosophical flaws in this song. It's idealistic to believe that simply by being a farmer that you have some inherent righteousness or pure lifestyle. And don't get me wrong, I'm prone to buy into the nostalgic stereotype myself. I love farmers.

But why this story of these tobacco farm and night riders is so interesting? Because these good-hearted farmers did some pretty dark stuff when empowered under the cover of darkness, black masks, and a righteous mission against a corporate criminal. I'm here to decide if they were justified and even think about where I would have stood if I lived during that time. To rehash the high points of this story, the dark-fired Tobacco Planner's Protection Association was formed in 1904 to protect the interest of the tobacco farmers as prices plummeted because of the monopoly of the Duke Trust in American Tobacco. The trust monopolized the buying of tobacco, forcing farmers to sell. at a deficit, wrecking the economies of the regions built around tobacco. So the Tobacco Association formed to monopolize the selling.

In 1904, they had 5,000 members, but by 1906, they had 25,000. The Knight Rider's formed as the unofficial clandestine strong arm of the association, whose first mission was to get all the tobacco farmers of the region to join the association. But the mission gradually shifted to beatings, sabotaging non-association members' crops, and large-scale arson. But there were violence that broke out in other places in Kentucky and Tennessee. I'd say all the states that grew to vodka, but they were just kind of sporadic. You had this well-oiled, well-structured military-type organization only here in West Kentucky.

That's one of the things that makes it fascinate. In the last episode, Bill told us how this was the time period when America was sorting out the issues between labor and capital, the workers versus corporate interests. The struggle was happening everywhere and in things outside of tobacco farming. But according to Bill's book, this was the most sustained violence and unrest in America between the Civil War and the race rides of the 1960s.

But the tobacco war wasn't just instigated by farmers, but by other people that didn't even grow tobacco. So I've kind of come around to think, well, economically was one of the problems, because then being the only way in a carriage crop, your banker depended on it, the grocery store guy who you bought money on credit. So the business, small business, had an economic dependency on the success of dark fire tobacco. when it wasn't successful, they didn't get paid. So they had an economic interest in it. But I think that probably maybe half the people approved of what they were trying to get done,

but disagree with the method. Where tobacco grew, it was a cash crop that people used to live above subsistence, which is important. And as they say, a rising tide lifts all boats. You probably remember clips from the historic interview from the mid-1980s, where our guy right here, Bill Cunningham, interviewed the then-97-year-old Joe Scott. So in the 1980s, this guy was 97 years old, who at the time was the last living night writer. Here's Joe Scott responding to a pivotal question of why tobacco prices fell. This was the reason for the war.

The audio isn't perfect with old Joe, but it's worth it, so hang in there. Why were prices down? What happened? What caused the prices to go down? Well, according to the way I looked at it, these tobacco companies, they were getting about four times as much. Say, we got three and a half, four dollars, and they'd get about 20, 20, 20, 25 times. They're making about four and five times as much as we get. They, they're getting all the poor dollars. They were, we were. They were getting it all, don't see. There wasn't no way of changing them.

And they had it in their head they wasn't going to change, you see. The government wouldn't do a thing about it, don't see? These lawyers wouldn't do nothing but. They wouldn't do nothing but. The tobacco companies were making four and five times as much as the farmer. Does that sound familiar today? He said the government wasn't helping and there was no way of changing them. You can hear the frustration in his voice even 80 years later.

The Tobacco Association felt justified at whatever means they needed, so their unofficial strong arm called the Knight Riders took charge. But who were these guys? They were masked. They were clandestine. This is Bill referencing why Joe Scott was talking late in his life. Well, he says the only reason he's talking now, because they're all dead. Nobody put him in his grave.

And I think, you know, you get old. I get like, I'm like this kind of now. Do you hear him talking about all this story, wasting your time? Joe Scott, if you watch this interview with him, you see what kind of man he was at 100. I can imagine what he was like at 18. And what you would have been, 18, 19. And I think a lot of them just teenage boys,

this is as good as it gets. Sometimes you look back in history and wonder why people did what they did. I think Bill's assessment of these were young, young boys saying and thinking this is as good as it gets is a good assessment because that can be a license to be reckless and people still do that today. The first couple of years, the Knight Rider's primary job was to convince tobacco farmers to join the association and not sell to the Duke Trust.

It was simple because some joined and other tobacco farmers just wouldn't. And when they went on these outings, they called it going on a visit, which varied from a cordial conversation if a person was cooperative to a nighttime front yard beaten. Here's Joe Scott on why he went on these visits and later on these raids. It's a little hard to understand, but it's such an incredible interview. It's worth it. They kind of left it up to you on whether or not to go, though, they didn't order you to. Well, I tell you, when you look right down a barrel of a gun and sure to not say nothing

and say they go, make you have a different feeling, you know. That's the reason I said I might be a talk of two ways. I look down this gun, there'll take a oath not to tell this thing, but I've told it now, and so you're all getting in trouble, why you're left, you're left. There's nobody left.

You're the last one? I know, but some gun might be just a little smarter than you are. He might pick up something, you know, on that. Yeah, we're going to take care of you on that. I might pick up something more. Are there any, are you probably the last one left? Are there any where I don't know it? No, no, no, no.

He knows about that than I do. Is Aaron left? Not that I know of. Thank you, the last one. It's interesting to hear the old man still hesitant to talk about the night riders, but he was the last one. And remember, Joe didn't view anything he did personally as criminal. He was fighting a criminal, the Duke truck.

Do you think any of the people that you might have been in on taking out to Whip, do you think any of them are still around? No, no, them around either. When you did take somebody out, tell me about what would happen. You'd ride toward them, and how would all that happen? Well, most of them would come out telling you, they wouldn't go to do so-and-so, they'd tell them, you've been talking to us. He said you wouldn't go to business.

It's none of our business. You wouldn't go to the biker. I'm still going to stay with the companies, you know, and so on the. We sent you word and give you all the invitation in the world to quit and not buy the bacher. And you're going to head, bullhead, and said, we're going to work. I'm not afraid of none of you this at times. They just didn't put. They didn't take much worries about it.

They just take them to whip you. If they didn't go to whoop me, it wasn't about it. Four five fellows would get a hold of two and hold each arm and all. He said straightly around a sap, and some other jerk a tree top out and worked you over, son. He said, they'd take you out and whip you over, son.

That's if you were bullheaded and kept selling to the Duke Trust in American Tobacco. The Knight Riders had three intimidation tools in their belt, and a personal visit and whooping was option one. Option two was sabotaging or scraping

a non-association member's tobacco beds, and this meant while your entire year's crop was just starting to come up, they'd go out at night and destroy it, and it would be too late to start over. They called the people that did this hoe-toters, as they were doing this work with a hoe at night. Thirdly, and what would be the most destructive task of the night riders

where these military-style raids into cities, where they'd take over a whole city and burn down the tobacco barns of the Duke Trust, causing enormous physical and financial damage. because the private beatings just weren't working. On Blood Trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over. They just get darker. I've seen something in the road.

I instantly thought it was a sleeping bag. And there was a full of blood. Oh, my God, he doesn't have a hit. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors, where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. where he should be right there, but he wasn't. This season, we're going deeper, from cold case files to whispered suspicions,

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Season 2 of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, IHeart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. 1905 and October 1905, then you move in the night. That's when I think these individual floggings and everything happened fairly quick. Because by the summer of 1906, David Amos, probably in the conference with Ewing, was saying, These boys are having a lot of fun with this, but we're not changing the prices. Nothing's happening. We've got to attack the Duke Trust where it hurts, and that's in the pocketbook.

That's when they kind of shifted away from the infliction of punishment upon the independence to destroying the tobacco owned by the American Tobacco Company, and that was their raids on Princeton, Russellville, Hopkinsville, Eddieville. You know, this book, I wrote this book The Perfect Time, because up to the time I wrote, nobody talked about it. So I had an opportunity not only talked to Joe Scott, I also had an opportunity to talk to another senatorian,

100-year-old S.M. Martin, who was a former marshal. He was the marshal of 80 of you, the Knight Riders, rated Eddie of you on. If you read the book, you know, I quotes them in there from SMART. On December 1, 1906, they rated Princeton, Knight Riders, 300 strong. burn the warehouses and made their way out, highly successful. About 300 of them, they came into town past midnight.

They took the fire brigade hostage. They took the police department hostage. They took the telephone ladies at the switchboard and held them at base, so they couldn't call out for help. They came in and burned two warehouses caused a lot of damage, and then they congregated in the Cordell Square, and they rode out of town together singing to the... tune of my old Kentucky home, the fires burn bright for my old Kentucky home, highly successful.

The fires burn bright. On my old Kentucky home, it's summer and everyone's gay. The corn tops ripe and the medals are in bloom while the birds, they make music all day. In Princeton, Kentucky, under the instruction of the country doctor and the leader of the night riders, this medical doctor, David Amos, he led 300 masked, armed men on horseback and military formation into town and took the whole place hostage. Men soaked the two Duke Trust in American Tobacco Barnes with kerosene and dynamite and lit them on fire. And within minutes there was a giant explosion and a raging inferno as four or four. hundred thousand pounds of trust tobacco went up in flames. And the barns of the Tobacco Planners Association were untouched.

You can start to see the logic. If the association is the only one with tobacco to sell, the trust will have to subject themselves to the prices demanded by the association. It seems like a failproof plan. Insurance companies started to drop the policies on Duke Trust Barnes all across the region. people lived in terror and many people even moved out of the black patch to get away from the chaos.

People could only guess where it would happen next because there were tobacco barns all across the south and this was going on in other parts of the south. Just the black patch was the main place. And it was partly because there was only one country doctor slash military mastermind slash defender of the poor farmers, Dr. David Amos. You'll get to decide if he was of,

villain or if he was a hero, but his operations were the apex of the tobacco wars. So, buddy, and then they had raids here on Eddieville, basically the similar thing. It's right on Eddieville, there were some pretty severe beatings, and they destroyed some warehouses. That was later on in 1907. They raided Russellville, Kentucky, did the same thing. But then in December, December the 7th, they planned the big raid on Hopkinsville. Hopkinsville would be the big raid that was the straw that broke the mules back. Here's Joe Scott. I wonder which raids he went to.

How many raids did you go on? Any guess? Well, I went to Hopkinsville raid and went to this raid in the Heddeville. Then I went to Bennett's raid. then I went around that we went to free doing this that night but they didn't do nothing

we just ought to locate that I was about for four raids three four raids Joe said he went to Eddieville Hopkinsville and Bennett's raids

this is an interesting section where Joe talks more about Dr. David Amos and something that happened at Hopkinsville how person was he described him to us oh Amos

is a tall for I always called him psychos, his old legs, you know. Was Amos a pretty good speaker? Yeah, yeah. He didn't talk very loud, but he made business on his words. He placed them all where he wanted him to go, you know. Well, like I said, he had the sound go laid off and marked. I guess he had every man's name he had ever talked to him.

He didn't talk too much. He didn't talk and didn't talk too much. But he said he made it, though, he'd lift that away. Well, he said he'd raised that, Hopkins Hill, and says, I know Hopkinsville is just like, I know why ABC's. And I guess he did. He knew where to place every man, and where he doesn't. Well, if one man got shot up there that night, I don't remember who he was. I find it interesting that this leader, Amos, wasn't a flashy speaker.

He just meant what he said. That's probably good leadership advice. mentioned that only one guy got shot that night. Well, I'll let you take a guess who that was. And David Amos was riding in a bug, and he was leading. They gathered from all different areas, and about 300 went into Hopkinsville, and they took over the streets. They took over the fire department brigade and put them under their custody. And they destroyed two or three of the tobacco warehouses there, And as they were leaving, before they were leaving, David Amos was wounded by one of his own troops accidentally. The Hopkinsville raid took place on November 7, 1907, with over 400 mass riders taken over the town.

And just like in Princeton, it took over the police station, the fire station, cut the phone lines, and took over the state militia armory. And then they lit the Duke Trust Tobacco Barns on fire. However, in Hopkinsville, there was a backfire. The association barns were close to the Duke Trust barns, and they all ended up burning, creating massive chaos and even destruction to the association members. It was reported that over $300,000 in damages were done that night, which would be equivalent to millions today. When the fires stopped, it was reported that the Methodist Church had 32 bullet holes.

The local judge's house had eight bullet holes, and they shot 175 rounds into the office of the city judge. It was massive economic ruin, and it spread terror throughout the black patch. And after it was all over, Dr. David Amos would survive the gunshot wound. Here's more from Bill. There was one humorous story that came out of that. Charles Meacham was a newspaper editor and mayor of Hopfield, and he ran the newspaper of the Kentucky. He was adamant anti-night rider. See, you're getting back,

there were people in pop places of influence that were ran against the night rider. Here had the mayor of Hopkinsville, also the newspaper editor. So the night riders wanted to get him and give him a good beating mother were there. And they started looking for him. And Meacham went downtown

because he's the mayor in the town's on fire. They see him. They start chasing him down through the streets. He runs down his alleyway, this dead end, right there next to the Baptist Church. He thinks he's been had But he looks toward the basement of the Baptist Church and he goes with these coal shoots going down in it.

You remember the coal shoots? And where they put the coal in for the furnace, he's just barely able to get in that coal shoot and slides down into the basement of the Baptist Church and it escapes the Knight Riders because these are all God-fearing people. I don't think we can go into church and do this, so he escaped.

But the Knight Riders had a lot of fun out of him because they said that Charles Mason the only sprinkled the Methodist saint saved in a water dunk in Baptist Church. That's a good one. Years after Bill wrote his book, he would find some evidence that brought the facts of that cute little story into question. But a good story is a good story, especially when it's making fun of Methodists. Just kidding. Well, sort of. But here's an update on how things were going on the macro scale of the association's plan.

By 1907, the Tobacco Association was selling 90%. That's 90% of all tobacco grown in the black patch. And prices had gone back up to 7 cents per pound from 3 to 4 cents. It seemed to be working. However, history will later reveal whether the price increase was caused by the night riders or other factors in the market that had nothing to do with them. 1907 to 1908 were the most active years of the night riders and it's when these military-style terror raids started making national headlines so they started getting the attention of national newspapers short observer New York Times and all by these raids on the town that you know taking independent farmers out and flagging of course he had lynchings going on throughout the south but when they started raiding these towns like one of the headlines

says, I think it was a Charlotte Observer, maybe in the New York Times, said, Kentucky Town, raided in Burn by Knight Riders. And all that went down, of course, and got all that was a high watermark. It was a Hopkinsville raid. This was post-Civil War, and the North still kind of looked upon the South as being violent anyway. So what? I think around that time, we had Hadfields and McCoys, and Kentucky especially, it's always, head of reputation, dark and bloody land, and it's always been a head of bloody history.

The Hopkinsville raid in 1907 was at the pinnacle of the Knight Rider's dirty deeds in the black patch. But what we haven't figured out yet is whether this was working to bring the prices of tobacco back up. Remember, this whole thing is about the poor farmers fighting a corporate criminal monopoly. We've just discussed two of five major raids where hundreds of thousands of of trust tobacco were destroyed and some association tobacco. So it seems like it would have to be significant. But maybe it wasn't because the black patch is relatively small compared to where tobacco is grown.

But what was wild is that they could never catch these night riders and prosecute them. This was before massive video surveillance, fingerprinting, DNA collection at crime scenes, and they just couldn't catch these guys. But more than anything, most people were, afraid to talk because they'd be snitching on family or friends in these tight-knit communities. But the beginning of the end for the night riders involved a woman named Mary Lou Holloway from Princeton, Kentucky. Mary Lou Holloway was running a boarding house there.

She was good-looking, which made her unpopular with the women, and she was opinionated, which made her unpopular with the men, and she'd go about blasting the night rider verbally. It kind of tolerated because John Hollowell, her brother-in-law, was the head of the night rudders and Hollywood came. But then she said in April of 1907, she said, I'm going to go to the grand jury and get a lot of people indicted who were involved in this raid on Princeton. I heard conversations in my boarding house dining room named. I know who was involved. I'm going to hear her admissions being made.

I'm going to get an indict. So she went over at the courthouse, and the Grand Jury was in session, went up there and knocked in the door. They let her testify, and she started telling all this stuff. Well, probably half of the Grand Jury were Nightriders, so they weren't going to die to anybody, but then they told the Knight Rider's John Hollowell, look, we've got to do something to get out of control. She said, okay, well, we'll teach her a little lesson.

So they sent some nightriders out to scrape her plant beds. Remember telling you about the plant bed? You scrape the plant beds. they may not be able to get out of crop. They scraped through plant beds that night. Well, Mary Lou blew a gasket and said, I know who did this. Your brother-in-law, John Hollowell did this.

And, well, we're not going to tolerate it. And then about a week later, John Hollowell's plant bed gets scraped. So that called for the sheriff to come out to investigate because the night rider plant bed got scraped. He went out there, and it was really a clumsy job. They found the day book, they belonged to there where the scraping took place, of Steve Schult. And he worked for Muriel. They found a trail in the do, leading up to Ned Pettett's house.

He'd also work my work. So they get those boys and take them downtown and sweat a confession out of them. Yeah, Mary Lou paid us $5 to go out there and scrape the plant beds. Then they decided, since scraping the plant beds didn't help, they're going to have. to go and do something more drastic so they went out there on May 1st to her house they circled it they started shooting into it and threatened to burn the house down if it didn't come out and they come out and they beat Robert tying around that big hackberry tree to beat him and she was trying to protect him they beat her too and she got flying glass cut her from the gunshots and all that

and they told them that they didn't get out of the county they're going to be killed. Robert would flee out of state, but would go gather up some good lawyers and come back to Kentucky and press charges against the night riders. They came back. He filed a suit in federal district court in Buduka. Federal court at that time, they drew their jury from all the way up to Louisville. So now they're going to have jurors, and they're not going to have sympathies with the night riders. First jury trial, they had an abolition in Biduca.

had bodyguards for Robert and Mary Lou, they came back, hung jury. Second trial, they got a $35,000 verdict, which was like millions today. So that was the beginning of the end. Mary Lou went in 35 grand in federal court against the night riders started the ball rolling towards the public sentiment turning on the terror and destruction of the group.

Other cases started to pop up, and people started winning suits against the night riders. Additionally, the mission started to drift, and the night riders, empowered by masks and power, started being more vigilante and personal and less mission focused. And they started doing a bunch of stuff not connected to this tobacco mission. And additionally, in 1907, a new governor was elected on a law and order ticket. And during his campaign, he guaranteed that he'd stopped the night ride.

But at this point, the night riders were winning the war, and the governor would call in the state militia to guard some cities in these tobacco warehouses that they thought might be targets. But here's another interesting data point, because we're only looking at the night riders, you know, these guys that are defending the poor farmers. But what about the huge corporate monopoly of the Duke Trust? In 1907, the tobacco tycoon, Buck Duke, James Buckduke, his personal net worth was around $200 million. $200 million is an enormous amount of wealth in 1907. Could these raids destroy on a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of tobacco really matter to the Duke Trust? Prices had gone back up, but was it because the Tobacco Association and the Knight Riders? was what they did effective.

What do you think? Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls in building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record.

if you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at Phelpsgamecalls.com. I think you'll be glad you did,

and you'll find out that the Steve Ronella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good. turkey noises and getting action you know the the whole essence of it all though all that is pretty much romantic it wasn't really very effective people ask me you know we'd like to think well we stood up to the duke trust and by god we made them give in and all i don't even know duke even knew about all this stuff or not people ask me who won did the night riders win i said no night riders didn't win democracy won

With the beauty of what this story represents is, yes, there's violence and yes, there's lawlessness, but in the end, law and order prevailed in the courts. The victims and all got, they got justice in the court system, so that became a deterrent. That's what really killed the Knight Riders was here in this area, with all the civil suits. Whenever they were successful in the Beduka case, $35,000 verdict against guys of they're out there because they're in the organization because they don't have any money to start with. And then the whole energy just shifts. The whole energy of the movement really shifted when Dr. David Amos,

the Knight Rider's leader, was prosecuted for the burning of Hopkinsville. As you listen to the section, let me remind you that Bill Cunningham was a member of the Kentucky Supreme Court and a judge his whole career. He had a couple of informants that turned and gave state's evidence against Amos, and there's no question that he was guilty, and he denied it. He brought some people in that kind of tried to establish the hell by a lot of lying going on, what it had been able to. He said he wasn't involved in it.

He was an all-male jury. Some farmers, they found him not guilty. Then, though, he was by that time running from lawsuits. because they all sued him as the other people. So he was hiding out for seven or eight months trying to avoid the service of the marshals on those summons this one, the lawsuits. The verdict in the Hopkinsville in 2011

is not so important as it was that they prosecute him because the attitude toward them has changed enough where the politicians feel politically safe in prosecuting him. And the quandary and all that has always been, the hero, David Amos, lied under oath. But he was in a conflicting situation.

He had two oaths he had taken. One to the night riders to be loyal, not to divulge any interest, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he picked that oath to follow and stood the one imposed by the law, you know,

testifying in trial. Well, naturally, I can't approve of it. I can't approve of it. but I've seen a lot of people with the penitentiary that I sympathize with. I've seen a lot of people. I know why these kids like that. I knew his daddy. Daddy abused him.

I had a lot of sympathy for him. So, no, I don't approve it. Can't approve it. Sworn numerous times uphold the Constitution and the law. But I have a great empathy and sympathy with them, just like moonshining. moonshining in this area back during the Great Depression, my dad and his friend, that's the way they survived. Would I approve breaking the law?

No, but I have deep sympathy for it. It's interesting to me the sympathy the South has for moonshineers. One of my good friends once asked me, Clay, will history one day look back and have sympathy for today's meth dealers? And his point was, is that alcohol has destroyed more families and people. than probably anything. But to get back to our story, in the end, Dr. David Amos went free,

was never convicted, even though they knew he was guilty. So how does that work? I want to hear why the judicial system failed, or did it? It was what we call jury nullification. You ever heard that term? I've had many people when I was trial and become an attorney.

It was frustrating for coming an attorney. this guy is guilty as hell but we ain't sent him the penitentiary and we're the ones that called the shot you gave us the law beyond a reason yeah we believe he's guilty we believe he's give up i think it was a jury notification where they said hey it's not this is all over this has been a good country doctor had all these character witness he's giv the poor he's done he's sitting over with his wife and you know 1911 i think it is that we're going to end it right here. Jury notification. That's a new one to me, and I'm conflicted on it.

In some cases, I could see how this judicial trick could be used for good when a guilty person just doesn't deserve what the law prescribes his punishment, but it also sounds like it could be misapplied in a good old boy system, letting some go, letting others go pay the price. But by 1909, the table's fully turned in the night. writer movement came to an end. But it came to an end because they weren't needed anymore. So when you hear why, you'll wonder if their plan really worked. The economics of the country changed. A.O. Stan, they got the tobacco tax repeal. Consumption started going up. About 1907,

1908, about that time, a New York federal court repeals ruled that the American tobacco company was in violation of the Sherman antitrust law, and they're going to have to break up their monopoly. In 1911, then, that was affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court, so Duke had to break his trust down. Well, he was just as wealthy afterwards, but it affected the monopoly out here. So prices went up, and then the mood really changed.

On November 7, 1908, the Duke Trust's American Tobacco Company was declared a monopause. This was huge. This is what Joe Scott was saying all along. So at the end of this, the Tobacco Association was right, and they were fighting a righteous war against a corporate criminal. Though their efforts were isolated in a small area, and tobacco was being grown in many other parts of the country. You can't help but think these five years of disruption to the tobacco industry gained the attention of the nation. This is a complex story, and if you look at it, trying to decide, who the good and bad guys are.

It can be confusing. Because the good guys sure as heck weren't the Duke trust corporate tobacco criminals, were they? But you can't approve of the terror, beating, and the arson of the night riders. Where do you think you would have stood if you would have been alive during this time and lived in the Black Patch? Here's Bill talking about writing his book and a mistake that he made. I wanted to be sure I was fair and objective because I had family roots in my grandfather was probably a night rider, and I've heard rumblings in my family.

So I want to be sure I was fair and objective. The night riders, there are a bunch of outlaws, really. When I was writing this book, I was district attorney. So I didn't want to come out, district attorney making heroes these guys. So I wanted to be balanced. And it was. Never had anybody complained. It was biased.

the mistake I made in the book, the book makes it sound like that the opponents, the Knight Rider, and I use the term sometimes, a thin minority. I'm convinced now it was not a thin minority. It was probably a majority. I think that the Knight Rider was probably a minority,

but the rest of them were long out of fear. What makes me say that is the Governor of Kentucky got elected, Willison, Governor Wilson, got elected on a law and order plank that he was going to, put down the night rudders. And he took all kinds of measures sending in the militia and all that

to suppress these uprisings in these towns. We were occupied. Murray, Kentucky was occupied by troops during the Civil War. Union troops during the Civil War, then also the state militia less than 40 years later. Well, people ask you, who won? And I said, democracy won. A good guy, bad guy?

Well, they were both right and they're both wrong. I like it when someone is able to objectively evaluate their work. I think that's the romance of it. I mean, it's all-American story. You watch Netflix, when they take on the corporation who poisoned their streams. The big corporations are painted as being bad guys. And this was one where, and that was the image I had really growing up, but like everything else.

everything else. They're not all good, not all bad. I want to ask Bill what he thinks we should learn from all this. I think we learned what a great country we have that we can absorb these types of, I mean, these things that survive. Just like how did we survive for 230 years on a written document that they were, doctors were bleeding people when it was written. It took you months to get across how we survived. And I think it, you, you know, you. shows because of law, because of democracy. A.O. Stanley responded by going to the legislature that the needs of the people and got the tobacco tax respond.

The court system, courageous judges, courageous jurors, the court system came down here and said, no, this is wrong, guys. You've all done these people damage. We're going to give you $35,000. It was the majesty of the law that stood up. And so that's what we learned from it. And this struggle, I mean, it's overthrown government. all over this world, this struggle between the poor and the rich.

And usually it ends up first anarchy and then a despot. But here, we just, law and order got us through it. And they had a Christian Cranny jury. They didn't send David Amos to the penitentiary because there was a certain amount of sympathy and compassion. So I think that's what we learned for it. It does work, but it takes people. I've learned this being a public servant for 50 years.

you can have the best system in the world. You still, in the end, we've got to have good people to stand up and do what's right. Got to have citizens like Mary Lou. She wasn't the only one either. There's an odd irony at the end of this story. After James Buck Duke dismantled his tobacco company, he was still enormously wealthy and was interested in leaving a family legacy. There was a little college down there in North Carolina called Trinity College in Raleigh.

according to Bill's book in December of 1924, less than a year before Duke's death, he paid Trinity College $6 million to change its name to Duke University. Yeah, that's Christian Leitner's Duke. I'll leave you with a nice big chunk of irony about the man who was the first professor at the Duke University School of Medicine. He was the first professor of medicine at Duke University. And his name was. It was Harold Amos. And he was. David Amos his son.

I can't thank you enough for listening to Bear Grease and Brent's This Country Life podcast. Please leave us a review on iTunes and share our podcast with somebody this week. We really thank you for all the support that you've shown Meat Eater and First Light. Which all this allows us to bring you these stories every week. And what keeps us all united is our love of wild places. So keep the wild places wild. That's where the bears live. On blood trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over.

They just get darker. I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bag. And there was a pool of blood. Oh my God, he doesn't have a hit. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors, where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce,

and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. Indications were he should be right there, but he wasn't. This season, we're going deeper, from cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen backwoods. Each story begins in the wilderness and ends in darkness. because out here, there are no witnesses, no cameras, just fragments and the people left behind trying to piece them back together. He's not an honest person. He's incapable of being honest.

Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers. Season 2 of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, IHeart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.