Days of Darkness (34 page)

Thomas Baker was buried in Boston Gap beside his father, George W., Baldy George. An era was over, no doubt of that, though a few days later it was reported that Big John Philpot had announced that he was assuming Bad Tom's leadership role.

The violence had not yet run its course. Tension and hatred still gripped Manchester. Bal and Big Jim Howard still led their clan and vowed to bring to trial every Baker involved in the killing of Wilson and Burch. A few weeks later Dickey lamented to his diary, “Judge B.P. White is drinking himself to death, I fear. General Garrard sits in his great house, alone, surrounded by guards.”

Spirits picked up somewhat when surveyors for the Black Diamond Railroad rode into Manchester. They were surveying, they said, for a line from London to a point about three miles east of Manchester. There was great excitement, and plans were made to move the county seat out to the railroad. But nothing came of it. Again the dream collapsed. The line was not built until 1914.

Young Lewis, drunk and dancing, shot and killed Cotton Collins and wounded Dan Collins, both blacks, in the house of the Hawkins woman. He was arrested and fined. This had no relationship to the feud.

But then the war burst out anew. Out on the road toward Red Bird a group of Philpots and Fishers were on their way to a log-rolling when they were stopped by deputy sheriff Wash Thacker, who had a warrant for Bob Philpot. The two of them rode to the side of the road to arrange bail so as not to interfere with the log-rolling, when suddenly a group of Griffins and Morrises rounded the turn in the road and were practically on them before the two groups recognized each other. There had long been bad blood between the two clans, but feelings had intensified since Christmas 1897, when Jim Crow Philpot and Jim Bundy, a friend of the Griffins, shot and killed each other. Now the two sides jumped from their horses, dived down the banks of the road, and began firing. Big John Philpot, who had testified at Tom Baker's hearing, was quickly wounded but got his back to a tree and directed his forces. The shooting lasted only a minute or so, but in that time two Griffins and a Morris were killed and three Philpots were wounded, two of whom later died. Bud Griffin, shot in the stomach, held his bowels in with one hand and ran down the road, shooting with the other, before he collapsed. He recovered but was later shot and killed at a party.

Out of ten combatants, five were killed. No official action was taken, since no one reported the fight and no one could say who had started it. And it seemed to have been a fair fight. In the courthouse the Whites shed no tears. In the previous election George Philpot, despite his numerous kin, had lost the primary race for sheriff to Bev White. Philpot did not take the loss lightly, and in the general election he bolted to support Gilbert Garrard. He lost that one, too, but won the enmity of the Whites.

For a while it seemed that the Philpots and Griffins were determined to take over from the Bakers and Howards. In July, out at Pigeon Roost, the two families held another shoot-out. This time Granville Philpot, a member of the state legislature and thus an officer of the law, led his family's forces. One Philpot, two Griffins, and two horses were reported killed.

Meantime, another fight was tearing Kentucky apart, and Clay County with it. It was to have a strange and tragic impact.

Bloody Time in Frankfort

The last year of the nineteenth century was a time of intense political ferment in Kentucky as the voters prepared to elect a new governor. Four years earlier they had chosen William O. Bradley, a decent, fairly progressive man and the first Republican governor in the state's history. But Bradley's efforts to improve roads and schools had been balked at every turn by the Democratic-controlled legislature, his record was chiefly one of failure and frustration, and the Republicans had faint hopes of electing a successor. When Attorney General W.S. Taylor, a plodding, unimpressive lawyer from Western Kentucky, sought the Republican nomination he won it almost by default, since few thought it was worth having. Then the Democrats nominated state senator William Goebel in a stormy convention that split the party, with former governor John Y. Brown leading the splinter Real Democratic or “Brownies” Party and John G. Blair heading the Populist ticket. Suddenly Republican hopes were rekindled.

Goebel, the son of poor German immigrants who had come to Northern Kentucky after the Civil War, was totally lacking in charm, humor, or social graces. He remained a bachelor throughout his life, was noticeably uncomfortable around women, and viewed most social life as a waste of time. But a keen, tireless mind and ruthless ambition earned him respect and wealth as a lawyer, and enabled him, despite his lackluster personality, to do well in politics and claw his way to the position of president pro tern of the state Senate. There he waged a dogged fight against big business, especially the L&N Railroad, and his battle to expand civil rights for women and blacks. In his campaign against Taylor, he was often called “assassin,” a term stemming from the shooting in which he had killed banker John Stanford, whom he had angered by calling him “Gonorrhea John.” Goebel was not noted for diplomacy.

Throughout the campaign Republicans warned that they would not permit the Democrats to steal the election with the Goebel election law, which stipulated that the state election board had to certify
voting results. The law, rammed through the legislature by Goebel and his supporters, would give heavy advantage to the majority party, which could dominate the election board.

The campaign oratory of both candidates was inflammatory. Taylor called the legislature a “vicious body of deformed Democrats and degenerate Americans” and warned that “the deadly coils of tyranny will crush to death your liberties” if the Democrats should win. He referred to Goebel as a liar, a vampire, and an assassin. Goebel referred to Taylor and other opponents as villains, thieves, helpless liars, and ignorant charlatans. Taylor and Governor Bradley stumped the mountains of Eastern Kentucky calling for a majority so large that the “vote-stealers can't overturn it.” The heavily Republican mountains were incensed by the idea that they might be deprived of their rightful victory, and editorials in several papers warned that “we will not let them take through deceit what they cannot win at the polls.” Frankfort was swept by rumors that Bradley and the Republicans were hoarding rifles and ammunition in the state arsenal to counter those of the Democrats in the state penitentiary. Actually, the rumors were false, but so many people believed them that at one point Bradley asked President McKinley for a thousand federal troops to keep the peace. McKinley didn't send them.

In the election of November 7, 1899, Taylor appeared to be the winner, with 193,714 votes to Goebel's 191,331. Former governor John Y. Brown, nominee of the Democratic splinter party, picked up 12,040, Blair even fewer. The election had to be certified by the all-Democratic Board of Election Commissioners, and in the two weeks between the election and the convening of the board, between 500 and 1,000 armed mountain men descended on Frankfort, recruited by Caleb Powers, a thirty-one-year-old Knox County school superintendent who had been elected secretary of state with Taylor. They were carried to the capital free of charge by the L&N, whose officials were determined to prevent a Goebel victory. The danger eased, however, when the board, to the surprise of everyone, gave the victory to Taylor by a 2-1 vote.

That, it seemed, was that. On December 12, Taylor was inaugurated. Considering the bitterness of the race, Goebel accepted the outcome with good grace, thanked his supporters, and said he was tired and was going to visit his brother in Arizona. But two days later the Democratic State Central Committee met and urged Goebel and his running mate, J.C.W. Beckham, to contest the election. Goebel showed little interest at first but relented and filed a contest, and the Democratic majority in the legislature announced that it would investigate
the results through a select committee. Again the Republicans armed themselves to prevent the Democrats from stealing their victory. Outright civil war seemed a very real threat.

All of this did not go unnoticed in Clay County. During the campaign, Taylor did not speak in Manchester, but more than a hundred Clay Countians went down to London to hear him, and others traveled to Barbourville to hear Caleb Powers. When Powers called for men to go to Frankfort to protect the party victory, a long line of rifle-carrying horsemen rode toward the depot in London. The new century threatened to be as stormy as the one ending.

Jim Howard followed the race and its outcome closely but took no part in it. He was at the time free on appeal of his life sentence for killing Baldy George Baker. When, on January 29, he told Alexander Morgan that he was going to Frankfort the next day, Morgan was surprised.

“What are you going to do that for?” he asked.

“Well, I'm not going to get a striped suit, I'll tell you that,” Jim replied. Ever since, it has been assumed that he meant that he was going to Frankfort to do something to keep out of prison—to get a pardon. But how? Did he have reason to believe a pardon was possible? What was he willing to do to receive the pardon? And why was he seeking a pardon when he was out on appeal, one that he might well win?

What happened the next day, January 30, 1900, will always be a source of conjecture. No one knows, and it is likely no one ever will know who performed the lethal deed, but at 11:15
A.M
. William Goebel was shot as he approached the state Capitol with two companions. Witnesses said the shot (or shots; some say four shots were heard) was fired from a window in the office of Secretary of State Caleb Powers. Mortally wounded, Goebel was carried to the Capital Hotel, where he died four days later, on February 3, 1900, after being declared the winner of the contest for governor by the legislative committee of ten Democrats and one Republican, and sworn in on his deathbed—sworn in twice, in fact, since some questioned whether he was alive, or if he was conscious enough to take the oath the first time. (He was conscious enough to drink some wine and to ask for some oysters, a favorite food.)

According to historians, Goebel's last words were: “Tell my friends to be brave and fearless and loyal to the great common people.” But according to Allan Trout of the
Courier-Journal,
what he actually said was, “Doc, those oysters were no damn good.”

Whatever the details, the essential facts are that William Goebel
died of his gunshot wounds, and that moments later J.C.W. Beckham, who had been elected lieutenant governor with him, was sworn in as governor. The courts eventually upheld the Democrats' claim to the governorship, and Taylor fled to Indiana.

The role of Jim Howard in the affair has been debated ever since. The generally accepted theory is that he received a message from Caleb Powers, who was in Frankfort, offering him a pardon for killing Baldy George Baker if he would come to Frankfort and “do a job for us.” Both Howard and Powers denied this to their deaths.

Whatever the truth, Jim Howard went to Frankfort on the day Goebel was murdered, and he had some reason to believe he was going to get a pardon. He arrived on the L&N from London at about 10:30
A.M.
, went to a hotel across the railroad tracks and about a block west of the depot, and rented a room. He then left the hotel and started toward the Capitol, supposedly to pursue the matter of a pardon. According to his Democratic prosecutors, he went to the Capitol, met with Powers and others, and shot Goebel as he came up the walk toward the Capitol. According to his own version, he had just stepped out of the hotel when he heard the news that Goebel had been shot. At any rate, he remained in Frankfort three days but failed to receive his pardon and returned to Manchester. But the trials of Jim Howard were by no means over.

The Democrats were almost hysterical in their rage at the murder of Goebel. In a haphazard catch-all, police arrested sixteen men and charged each with being in one way or another involved in the assassination. There was, for example, Holland Whittaker, who was jailed for no apparent reason except that he was a Republican with a pistol. Joe Adkins, a known killer and a figure in the French-Eversole war in Perry County, was reportedly seen in the capital on the day of the assassination but was never apprehended. This may have reflected the fact that he was thought to be a Democrat or to have worked for Democrats in the Perry County feud.

Caleb Powers was arrested at once, as was Henry Youtsey, an employee in the state auditor's office. Berry Howard of Bell County and a cousin of Jim Howard, Garret Ripley, a minor Republican official, and eleven others were indicted over the next two weeks. Jim Howard was indicted much later. Little evidence led to his arrest, except that a witness later said he saw Jim running from the executive office building shortly after Goebel was shot. (Another witness testified that, at the same time, he saw Jim or someone who looked like Jim, standing near the doorway of the building.) When Jim was informed, on April 3—three months after he returned to Manchester—that he
was being sought in the case, he sent word that he would come to Frankfort and surrender as soon as he was served the proper papers. He later told reporters that he had seen several Bakers in Frankfort during his brief stay and assumed that they had implicated him.

Eventually, three of those accused turned state's evidence, two under suspicious circumstances. Five were tried, of which two (Berry Howard and Garret Ripley) were acquitted and three (Powers, Jim Howard, and Youtsey) were found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.

The trial was little short of a kangaroo court. Judge James Can-trill, who presided over Jim Howard's trial, had been a Democratic legislator and a strong Goebel supporter and had sworn in Goebel as he lay dying. His instructions to the jury were tantamount to a demand for a guilty verdict, and his conduct was so flagrantly biased that all three of the verdicts were later reversed at the appeals level. Jim was tried three times, and only once was there a single Republican on the jury. In the jury pool of 368 men, 360 were Democrats. Three former aides to Powers swore that Powers had instructed them to bring gunmen to Frankfort to kill Goebel and Democratic legislators, but they admitted that they had been offered immunity from prosecution for their testimony. Another witness admitted that Goebel's brothers had warned him that he would go to prison if he did not testify for the prosecution. Youtsey, an excitable, obviously unbalanced man, testified that Powers had sent for Howard and that Howard had appeared at the office of the secretary of state, where Youtsey, acting under orders from Caleb Powers, opened the door. Youtsey admitted that he had never seen Jim Howard before and had not heard his voice, but said that the man at the door when he opened it said, “I am Jim Howard.” (He usually identified himself as James.)