Manchester High School - Somanhis Yearbook (Manchester, CT)

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SOMANHIS EVENTS 29 others. As the patriots of ’76 did to the support of the Declaration of Independence, so to the support of the Constitution let every American pledge his life, his property, and his sacred honor. Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every American mother to the lisping babe that prattles in her lap; let it be taught in schools, 1n seminaries, and 1n colleges; let it be writ- ten in primers, in spelling books, and in almanacs; let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of Juctice. In short, let it become the political religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay of all sexes and tongues and colors and conditions sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars!” Here, then, is a remedy! Let every American citizen take to heart the advice of Lincoln; and the Constitution, the beacon light of American liberty, will never be dimmed! Charles Staver House OUR SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS Way down in the Southern Appalachian Mountains there exists a strange group of unknown isolated people. The ancestry of these inhabitants has been traced back to 1607. When James I confiscated the estates of the native Irish in six counties of Ulster, he planted them with Scotch and English Presbyterians. These outsiders then came to be known as Scotch- Irish. In time, when they came into conflict with the British Government, large groups of them emigrated to America and settled in western Penn- sylvania. Soon they began to clash with the Indians and gradually pushed southwest, finally settling amid the mountains of Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina, where they still remain. The mountaineers of the South are marked apart from all other people by dialect, customs, character, and isolation. Our typical mountaineer is lean-faced, sallow, level-browed, with rather high cheek bones and predom- inating, hard gray eyes, often searching. He goes about in a dirty blue shirt, baggy trousers, and a huge, floppy hat—always unkempt. As from infancy these people have been schooled to disguise and hide emotions, ordinarily their faces have a stupid look. Many wear habitually a sullen scowl, hateful and suspicious. The smile of assurance and the frank eye of good fellowship are very rare. As a class they have great and restless physical energy. They are great walkers and carriers of burdens. Many of the women are pretty in youth; but hard toil in house and field soon ages them. At thirty or thirty-five a mountain woman is likely to have a worn and faded look, with form prematurely bent, short-waisted and round- shouldered from constant bending over the hoe in the cornfield, or over the hearth as she cooks. They make their own dresses, but the style never changes. The voices of the highland women are low-toned by habit, often sweet, being pitched in a sad, musical, minor key. With strang- ers, the women are shy, but speculative rather than timid, as they glance with “a slow, long look of mild inquiry, or unconscious melancholy.” Al- though the mountaineers are very shiftless, they mean to be crudely cour- teous. The mountain home of today is like the log cabin of the American pioneer. The commonest type has one large room with maybe a narrow porch in front and a plank door, a big stove chimney at one end and a single sash for a window at the other. Everything must be in sight of and acces- sible to the housewife. Linen and small articles of apparel are stored in a chest or cheap tin trunk. Most of the family wardrobe hangs from pegs or

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28 SOMANHIS EVENTS tives make the laws which govern us, we indirectly have a voice in the gov- ernment; yet our modern craze for law-contempt constitutes the greatest menace known to such great institutions as the Constitution and the Supreme Court. In 1917 an amendment to the Constitution was proposed by Congress. In 1919 the law known as the 18th amendment became a part of our national rules and regulations! We know that this law prohibited in general the use of intoxicating liquors, but what matters it, just what the law prohibited? The legislators, the representatives of the American people, deemed this law necessary and the law was duly passed by both houses, signed by the presi- dent, and “O-K-e-d” by the Supreme Court. However, legal warfare over the amendment did not end with its ratification by the necessary number of state legislatures. Public interest had been aroused. Vast properties were endangered. Great Constitutional lawyers and eminent counsels, such as General William Marshall Bullitt, W. D. Gurthie, and Elihu Root, were retained and an effort was made to defeat or nullify the amendment in the courts. Two sovereign states,, Rhode Island and New Jersey, brought suit against the United States in the Supreme Court. Seven test cases were de- bated but all to no avail. The decision remained that “by lawful proposal and ratification, this amendment has become a part of the Constitution and must be respected and given effect the same as the provisions of that instru- ment.” However, the average American gives little heed to the Constitutional aspect of the amendment. His interest in the prohibition movement is fixed on other features which to him seem to be of immediate personal concern. So, though he calls himself a law- abiding citizen, he neglects the mandates of the Constitution for a more pressing interest of self-satisfaction, and fails utterly to realize that the constitutional aspect is of far greater importance for the future welfare and happiness of himself, his children, and his country. Therefore, little realizing what he is doing, he does not hesitate to violate the law. Since one law may be broken so easily and profitably, other laws are inevitably broken. Children, then raised in the homes of these citizens, grow up in an atmosphere of law-contempt, and what hope is there to change their opinion outside the home, with such an influence to combat? This, then, is the menace to our future peace and quiet! The present generation has a tendency to consider the law as a thing to be unheeded— unless, of course, some criminal is in danger of his life because he broke some law; then every clause, every word, every syllable in the law that he has broken is evoked to save his unworthy neck! Thus law breaking follows law-breaking until today the sanctity and honor of the Constitution are in danger—in danger from two sources: first, from ignorance of the law; and secondly, from contempt for the law. Let us take a few examples: In the last presidential election over 4,800,000 men and women voted for a party, of which the chief plank in the platform was for destroying by Con- stitutional amendment the judicial system set up by George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and their fellow patriots. Did they know what they were doing? Again, Congress proposed by a large majority in each House the so- called Child Labor Amendment. Immediately the legislatures of the States began to reject it as violative of the Constitutional principle. Either Con- gress was badly wrong or the states were in error. Lincoln foresaw just such a danger, as exists today, and in advance he gave us his remedy. Remember his immortal words: “Let every American, every lover of Liberty, every well-wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution never to violate in the least particular the laws of the country and never to tolerate their violation by-

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30 SOMANHIS EVENTS nails in the walls together with strings of dried apples, peppers, and tobacco. The wall decorations consist of gaudy advertisement-posters left by travel- ers. Very few cabins have a carpet on the floor. Kerosene lamps are used; and all necessary beds, tables, and chairs are made, when needed, or bartered from some neighbor. In some of these places you will find a “pet pig” harbored. Utensils are limited to a frying pan, an iron pot, a coffee pot, a bucket, and some gourds. Such dwellings obviously are difficult to keep clean and orderly. But despite the low standard of living in the backwoods, the average mountain home is a happy one. There is little worry or fret. These people raise a few cattle, which with dried fruits, honey, nuts, fur, herbs, and woolen socks knitted by the women, form the stock in trade which they barter for their necessaries and few luxuries, cloth, sugar, coffee, snuff, and fiddles. The raising of corn is the chief work in summer, and the getting out of tan-bark and lumber in winter, There is not much variety in food for these people. Dry corn bread, black coffee, potatoes, few vegetables, and very little meat completes their menu. The mountaineers raise a great deal of corn, much of which is used in one of their occupations—the secret manufacture of liquor. They call this liquor “moonshine”, because it is made and sold during the night. They are very sly about this and construct their stills in places hidden by trees, laurel, or other shrubs. All this liquor used to be pure; but now, as the mountain- eer knows how to adulterate it, all sorts of ingredients are used. The men make this liquor in secret, largely because it looks like “easy money to the poor folks.” Thus, among these poverty-stricken people, the temptation to run a secret still and adulterate the output spreads. Although they fear the law, they are lawless and, if any government officer is around, he must be very cautious, for the mountaineer will not hesitate to shoot to kill. There is, however, a softer side to their natures. The mountaineers are fond of music and dancing furnished by singing, banjos, and fiddles. In homes where dancing is not permitted, “play parties’’ are held at which social games are practiced. As there are so few amusements, “goin’ to meetin” is recognized as a social function. Everybody goes to the log schoolhouse to hear the circuit-rider preach for hours, Weddings are not celebrated in church but at the home of the bride and are jolly occasions, The man of the house is lord. He takes orders from nobody. Whether he shall work or loaf is nobody’s affair but his own. No hat is lifted to maid or wife, At the table, if women be seated at all, the food is passed to the men first. No one can understand the attitude of our highlanders toward the rest of the earth, unless he realizes their isolation, They are really still living in the 18th century. ‘They are not only cut off from the outside world, but are separated from each other. Each is confined to his own locality. Some women have never been to the post-office six miles distant. Another has never seen the ford of the river only two miles from her home.” The moun- taineer is not tempted by a display of good things all around him, nor does he see the haughtiness and extravagance of the rich. All men are equal. He will accept no charity and never loses self-respect. Strangers are very rarely welcome and are called foreigners. : The one thing the mountaineer values the most is his independence. This must be preserved or the fine spirit of the race wi ll vanish. One can readily see that education is needed there. But the schools needed are not ordinary schools. They must be vocational, to turn out good farmers, mechanics, and housewives. Moonlight schools have been in operation for about five or six years. A little Kentucky mountain school teacher, herself a product of the mountains, discovered that people, including adults, would walk miles to learn to read and write. She established Moonlight Schools, holding the sessions on moonlight evenings, because those were the only