00:00:14 Speaker 1: My name is Clay Nukleman. 00:00:16 Speaker 2: This is a production of the Bear Grease podcast called the Bear Grease Render, where we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the scenes of the actual bear Grease podcast, presented by f HF Gear, American made purpose built hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the place as we explore. 00:00:43 Speaker 3: Well, I've been looking forward to this render for a while. We kind of got off schedule we did the first night Rider Tobacco War episode. Now we usually have a render where we talk about it like immediately, but we kind of had a fill in render with Rich Frohning. But this works out perfect. Never heard of him, never heard of the Fittest man in the world, which frowning the uh so we had we had. We've now played these two night Rider Tobacco War episodes. 00:01:16 Speaker 1: So that's what we're here to talk about. 00:01:18 Speaker 3: And we have a pretty good, pretty good guest list here a varied assortment of guests. Yes, we got my dad, Gary, Bilievernukom, who I have some I have someone sent you a gift. I'm gonna go ahead money, I'm gonna go ahead money, I'm gonna go ahead and introduce everybody. Uh, then I have Jeff Gardner. Now you're not from Kentucky, but I am from Kentucky. 00:01:43 Speaker 4: You are from currently don't live in Kentucky, correct, currently in Oklahoma. 00:01:48 Speaker 3: But Jeff, Jeff did something that's very rare in the Bear Grease world is that he basically like hand delivered this podcast to us. 00:02:00 Speaker 1: For real. I'm not kidding. 00:02:01 Speaker 3: People all the time suggest stuff, which I love, I mean, keep them coming. A lot of times the suggestions are about stories that maybe people don't have the full grasp on and maybe it's a great idea. It's not someone's fault if they send me an incomplete. But when somebody goes, this is a great story, here's the book about it. I know the author, here's his number. Also know a secondary guest that you could interview about. 00:02:29 Speaker 1: I think this. 00:02:30 Speaker 3: Would happen to be my wife's grandpa, right, I mean, he just like hand delivered the whole thing. And then so we ordered the book and we were just like, yeah, this is great. And so anyway, thanks Jeff. 00:02:44 Speaker 4: Hey happy to help. A big fan. Love what you guys do. And like I said, you know, I'm sure we'll get into it. But I read the story and was like, I literally was sitting there in my wife's grandfather's house and I went, man, I just I bet you could make a killing with a podcast of this. But then I was like, you know, I would love to hear somebody do this. And then it just clicked. I was like, this is exactly what these guys do. Yeah, and I was able to find a you know, email for you and get it to your. 00:03:12 Speaker 1: Worked out here we are. 00:03:13 Speaker 3: So your your grandfather is doctor Lloyd Murdoch, Is that correct? 00:03:18 Speaker 4: So my wife's grandfather, Yeah, he wife, you know, uh selfishly consider him my grandfather. 00:03:24 Speaker 1: He's been like grandfather to me. 00:03:25 Speaker 4: So I may refer to him that, and you may hear us refer to him as Bubby because that's what the rest of the world calls him outside. 00:03:32 Speaker 3: Of So he was he was on the first episode, and he's essentially as. 00:03:38 Speaker 1: Agronomus and was a tobacco expert. 00:03:41 Speaker 3: So he was the one real soft spoken guy that spoke on the first episode. 00:03:47 Speaker 1: So that that was great. 00:03:49 Speaker 3: And then so your brother in law, So you are married to sisters whose grandfather married my sister. 00:03:56 Speaker 1: I'm just not gonna. 00:04:00 Speaker 5: Yeah, family is Drew's grandfather. 00:04:04 Speaker 1: He is my grandfather, he's your grandfather. We're from Kentucky. It's family, get messy. 00:04:11 Speaker 6: I read the motto of Kentucky was fifteen million people, fifteen last names. 00:04:16 Speaker 1: Wow. Wow, I like it. 00:04:18 Speaker 3: I like it anytime we can jab somebody else. 00:04:20 Speaker 5: Exactly, yeah, exactly. You know we're at in Kentucky. Are you all from? 00:04:24 Speaker 1: So? 00:04:24 Speaker 7: I was actually uh born in Princeton, where one of the Reds happened, and where my that's where my. 00:04:30 Speaker 1: The Vatican of the Night Ridership. 00:04:33 Speaker 7: Ye, my U and my grandparents still live there. It's where Josh came down and did the interviews with my grandfather. In one county over was where Bill Conningham was. And but now I've since shifted. I'm in Lexington, Kentucky. 00:04:46 Speaker 1: Now, okay, okay, awesome man. Well I'm from Louisville, born and raised in Louisville. 00:04:51 Speaker 5: Are both y'all? So both y'all are Louisville fans. We are, yes, okay. 00:04:55 Speaker 1: Yes, we're all sad to see Cali party go. It didn't make any different, man. 00:05:02 Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean I I kind of wish he was still there because they'd be. 00:05:09 Speaker 5: Loves Mark. 00:05:12 Speaker 4: But we are actually two cardinals in a family of wildcats. So and now I got a little one of my own that it's it's tough, clay Man. They're they're wearing him out, they're bringing them over to their side. But he loves he loves his So I got a feeling, you know, the more we start running around together, he'll be all right, he'll yeah yeah. 00:05:33 Speaker 3: Well to finish out introductions, this is my neighbor friend, the best chicken farmer that I know, Charles Spencer known as Spence, and uh man, I just do you mind picking up your t jar. I have a deep respect for a man to drink tea out of a pickle jar Man, this. 00:05:52 Speaker 1: Is uh actually that Spence. 00:05:57 Speaker 3: Spence comes to our church every week with a different jar showing out everybody. 00:06:03 Speaker 5: I get called out. This is like you know when you talked about Honore Farmers on this podcast. You call a farmer out, he's just gonna dig in right. 00:06:12 Speaker 3: Well, it's funny because everybody brings water bottles. Now, this generation is obsessed with hydration. I mean back when I was a kid and Dad you'd be the same. 00:06:22 Speaker 1: I mean we watered like cattle, like once a day. 00:06:26 Speaker 4: You know. 00:06:27 Speaker 3: And uh, and now everybody has like huge water bottles, Stanley cub this is acceptable in my book, like just like a like a jar, you know, rather than a big water bottle or something. 00:06:38 Speaker 5: So he tastes better out of a jar. But I agree. 00:06:41 Speaker 3: Spence is a farmer and he uh, he's got he kind of had some insight into the the farm side of it. So wanted to have Spence here. But what I haven't told you, if you haven't figured it out already, is that, uh, there's a federal officer amongst us. 00:06:57 Speaker 1: Jeff works for the FBI. What what I do that Dad wouldn't have come if I Gary, what's your hiding? Gary? I drove from up here in thirty five minutes, so outside of my jurisdiction I can do about that. 00:07:15 Speaker 3: No, And I know we don't have to go into detail about it, but that's interesting. 00:07:20 Speaker 1: How long you worked for the FBI. 00:07:22 Speaker 4: It'd be five years this summer. Okay, yeah, so I'm I'm fairly new, you know, to the career as a whole. But it's been to call you kid Utah, Utah, give me to Kentucky. 00:07:34 Speaker 1: That's right now. 00:07:36 Speaker 4: But yeah, about five years and and like I said's how we ended up out in Oklahoma? 00:07:40 Speaker 3: Were you in law enforcement before? Like, what's the what's your career path? Tell you what, Clay, It's been an interesting ride. So, you know, me and Drew met in college. 00:07:51 Speaker 4: We both played college baseball at at University Louisville, and then uh graduated there, kicked around the minor leagues for a little bit, and then and literally was finishing playing, was getting married and to his sister and let me next. So I studied criminal justice in college, and then in twenty seventeen, I was just gotten engaged to Drew's sister, Chelsea and needed something to say at Thanksgiving other than I was going to go play independent league baseball again for you know, eleven hundred bucks a month for four months, okay, and so and so, you know, I was always interested in law enforcement. My dad was a police officer, my mom's dad was a police officer, and it's always. 00:08:40 Speaker 1: Been big in my family. So I looked into it. 00:08:42 Speaker 4: My dad had always mentioned, you know, trying to go the federal route, and so I started looking some of that up on USA jobs and I was like, hey, you can just apply for the FBI. I checked this out. So I kind of just did it on a whim and made it through the first couple of steps and then got denied, didn't get in. But the more I looked at it, thought, man, I think this is what I actually want to do. So I had to wait a year, Like I said, I finished playing baseball one more year, came back home, got into uh believe it or not, like trying to sell advertisements and tickets for a like minor league wrestling outfit. 00:09:20 Speaker 5: So if you look at this, watch Nacho Lebra for a birthday the other day. 00:09:27 Speaker 4: Okay, So if you go on Netflix and you watch there's a documentary called like Wrestlers or something or wrestling, and it's a documentary where they follow Ohio Valley wrestling. Well, a buddy of mine who had told me whenever I was done playing, you know, he'd offered me a job in medical sales, which is what he did, and I from my locker of my last game, I sent him a text and said, hey, dude, just finished up. I'm getting married in a month. I need a job, Like, is that still you still open? He said, yeah, come see me on Monday. So I did, and I'm expected like all right, we're gonna start talking about this whole medical sales thing. 00:10:03 Speaker 1: Well, now he says, I got a I got a job for you. 00:10:06 Speaker 4: He says, I just bought this minor league wrestling you ever heard of? It was like, if you follow wrestling, it's it's huge because like a lot of the greats from the old days came up through this Ohio yeah, Ohio Valley wrestling. And so it's looking at it on on Netflix is a pretty interesting documentary. You could see a little insight to to that world. But I did that for a few months and then he finally let me in on the medical sales side. And so I was in and out of spine surgeries for about a year and a half and then had reapplied to the bureau and and ended up getting in. Okay, so it's been a wild ride. Wow, here I am, Here, I am. Now you're a professional podcast scout here. 00:10:46 Speaker 5: It's not far from wrestling. 00:10:49 Speaker 3: I just know if you have anything else you Well, that's interesting, very interesting. 00:10:56 Speaker 1: So Dad, a guy sent this to you. We have his name. 00:11:00 Speaker 3: We get that little letter right there, the little handwritten letter. It's torn in half. Not don't know why. 00:11:05 Speaker 1: Get the top part. So Yeah. 00:11:08 Speaker 3: Jeff Dwyer out of Washington sent this to Gary Believer nukelem Wow and uh, man, it's so old that it has a plug that's like a quarter inch and has two little plugs. 00:11:20 Speaker 1: But it actually it used to work. You may get shocked it. 00:11:28 Speaker 5: It's disco lamp. 00:11:30 Speaker 1: It pretty much works. Unfortunately it was broken in transit. It cracked. 00:11:38 Speaker 3: He did a great job of packing it. But uh, do you mind if we keep this here? Though you can, do you mind? 00:11:46 Speaker 6: It's it's a lamp, but it's also like an ashtray, yeah, or an ashtray, or like a plan like put your bed in there, you put your pocket knife and your wall in there at night. 00:12:01 Speaker 3: Well, this is a throwback to the to the Black Panther. The first episode of Bear Grease. We did a We did an episode called the Myth of the Southern Mountain Lion, and at the end of it we talked about black panthers and not a week goes by. I'm without exaggeration, but someone doesn't send me something online about black panthers because dad believes in them. Yeah, just spurning the science. So anyway, you got a new lamp. I appreciate it. 00:12:31 Speaker 1: It looks like a work on This is just terrible. 00:12:34 Speaker 3: I mean it hardly even looks like a panther, but you can see his tail curled right here. I mean, like the person that made that, I mean, I don't know, but it's it's wonderful. So congratulations, than Jeff stylized, Yeah, thank you, Jeff. 00:12:51 Speaker 8: That was That's pretty awesome. And I never had a gift that I would treasure more. 00:12:55 Speaker 5: I don't think he wrote in. 00:12:57 Speaker 6: He wrote in and sent me a picture of it and said, I'd like to say this to Gary Believernewkam And I said, I got an. 00:13:02 Speaker 3: Address, will take it. And I had my believer head in the truck and I forgot. 00:13:08 Speaker 1: To put it on. Oh man, So anyway, that's very nice. 00:13:12 Speaker 3: Well, uh, the night Rider or Tobacco War of Tennessee and Kentucky farinating. 00:13:19 Speaker 5: So sorry. 00:13:20 Speaker 1: So would y'all have grown up knowing about this story. 00:13:23 Speaker 4: I didn't learn about it until, you know, I married into the family. I think my first trip to Princeton was actually during the black Patch Festival. 00:13:31 Speaker 1: Yeah, first time going down there. 00:13:33 Speaker 7: So Princeton still holds the black Patch Festival every fall and around the time that their smoke, fire and tobacco, and uh, I went to that festival ever since. 00:13:42 Speaker 1: I was really what do they do there? 00:13:45 Speaker 7: Oh, it's just they shut down main street. They have all kinds of little tints and things set up selling stuff. I remember when I was super young, we would always do like a frisbee contest where accuracy distance and stuff like that, So I was always geared up for that. They do pancake breakfast and serve the town. 00:14:03 Speaker 1: How big is Princeton, Kentucky? 00:14:06 Speaker 7: Probably four or five thousand people maybe something like that. 00:14:09 Speaker 3: Yeah, when you can you smell the dark fire tobacco, when it's smell like hickory smoker, does it smell like tobacco smoke? 00:14:19 Speaker 7: It's very very unique. I will say that you get the smell of hickory, you know, much like you you know, if you throw something in the smoker and put put hickory chips in it. It's a lot like that kind of smell. But it does have a have a distinct smell. 00:14:33 Speaker 1: Because I get I mean, the tobacco is not burning. 00:14:36 Speaker 7: No, no, it's not. It's the woods are the wood on the bottom of the of the floor of the barn are covered with sawdust and it's just that smoke that rises up. 00:14:46 Speaker 1: And did you have family that grew tobacco? 00:14:49 Speaker 7: Nope, nope, no, No, I don't have any. We don't have any other than Western Oklahoma. We don't have any farmers out in our family. 00:14:55 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:14:55 Speaker 5: I went to basic with the guy that their family grew tobac I was thinking about it, and I'm not sure it just in Kentucky, isn't it. A big old dude name wrecked in He'd talk about going in the tobacco patch and if it was wet, like they'd get sick like when they worked it. I guess because the nicotine. So anyway, oh really it was like brushing up against them. Yeah, I guess just working in the You can't go in there when it's wet. But I just randomly remember that the other day listening to this m M. 00:15:24 Speaker 1: That's my interesting It used to be all over too, I mean even in there. I can recall I grew. 00:15:31 Speaker 4: Up in basically in the city in Louisville, and so there would be times where you'd drive through and you'd see patches of open land, you know, within city limits, where people were growing to back it in and. 00:15:45 Speaker 1: It just in your lifetime. Absolutely. Yeah. 00:15:47 Speaker 4: I remember in fourth grade it was still like that's the grade in Kentucky where you learn all about Kentucky history and all that. And I remember learning that that was like the number one cash crop. 00:15:59 Speaker 1: Huh back then, I doubt it is now. I'm sure it's no is it? So? 00:16:06 Speaker 4: I mean it's always been huge, you know, It's Kentucky's kind of funny. 00:16:10 Speaker 1: We were just known for man's vices like tobacco, bourbon, and horse racing. You know, if you want to, if you want to, you know, get drunk, have a cigarette, and horses. 00:16:24 Speaker 7: It is a one stop. 00:16:25 Speaker 1: Shot man I started. 00:16:28 Speaker 3: You know, I don't think they grew a lot of tobacco here in the Ozarks. It's certainly I think it was grown at times, but this was not known for that. I really started learning about tobacco when I started going to East Tennessee and uh running around with Roy Clark whose gouy that Roy's still alives in the seventies, and uh, they they had tobacco allotments. They just sold their tobacco allotments, as I understand it, in the last twenty years. But but you know, that's that's the way it went that, I don't know if you knew it. We didn't really get into the modern tobacco stuff. But back in the day, just people grew it and there wasn't a lot of regulation. But after after about the time of the Tobacco Wars, and a lot of federal regulation came in on the tobacco market and they started doing allotments for tobacco and and basically the government would say, like, you can grow five acres or tobacco period every year, but you could sell your allotment to a farmer. And so if you didn't want to grow it, is that am I? 00:17:34 Speaker 1: Is this right? Do y'all Do y'all know some of that stuff? 00:17:36 Speaker 7: Yeah, so my grandfather knows obviously a little bit more about the allotment. But but from what I've gathered, that's that sounds pretty accurate. 00:17:43 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:17:44 Speaker 3: Yeah, And so Roy Clark grew up. And now they call it backer. I'm sure that's I can't believe I went through this whole episode without saying backer, But that's the way they say it in East Tennessee. Like, yeah, they're not joking or trying to be cute. 00:17:56 Speaker 1: It's just it's backerbacker or tobacco, tobacco, tobacco. 00:18:01 Speaker 7: Bill Comingham said it several times. 00:18:02 Speaker 1: Tobacco, tobacco, yeah, tobacco. Yeah. 00:18:06 Speaker 3: But uh but you know Roy was in his lifetime plowing with a with a horse like hand, plowing tobacco. But it was such a convenient crop because you could grow a small acreage and make that much money. 00:18:21 Speaker 1: Yeah, which was astonishing. I did. 00:18:23 Speaker 3: We had a couple of corrections on this episode, and one of them there was a modern tobacco farmer that told me, actually, the the the yield ton per acre yield that we said was way off. We said it was four thousand pounds per acre, and he said even today in like the best case. 00:18:46 Speaker 1: Scenario, you don't get that much. He said, you get like two thousand. 00:18:49 Speaker 3: So anyway, but point bing, you could grow a small amount of the of tobacco and it just had this enormous value. And I mean when you start doing the and you see that, you could almost like if you were just a subsistence guy making well from what Joe Scott said twenty five cents a day to a dollar a day, Doctor Murdoch said, you can make a dollar a day. Joe Scott was talking about making twenty five cents a day. 00:19:17 Speaker 1: Did y'all hear that? 00:19:19 Speaker 3: And so essentially you're making that range of money for just an uneducated labor and then you could like double your income by having three or four acres or tobacco. Yeah, and you just you kind of get the sense of how important that would be. 00:19:36 Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, and moving from subsistence to like where you can actually buy things. Yeah, that's one of the problems on a fund is you can produce a lot, but converting it into cash is a big deal, you know. And I don't know that was just I understand why where they're coming from, you know, like just to have something you can grow and just there's a ready set market. 00:19:59 Speaker 1: Man. 00:19:59 Speaker 5: It just that kind of thing is extremely rare. An egg, yeah, you know, so, especially on that small of a acreage. It's just I understand, like a lot of white people got upset and blood and all that stuff. You know, Like it really was kind of a unique situation. Yeah, compared to like cotton or something else where, you know, by that you need so much land to do it and the labor. You know, a small family could, like you said, double their income and he gave all the like put a calico dress for Easter and you have shoes and yeah in that, Like, I don't know, it's just it's kind of a unique situation. 00:20:35 Speaker 1: He's really cool to hear about. 00:20:37 Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I'll start off by just asking you guys, what stood out to you? Jeff, I might start with you just like the whole podcast, because there's a hundred things I want. I want to talk about the Joe Scott interview. Uh, I want to talk about Bill Cunningham. I mean, there's a whole there's one hundred different things want to talk about. But usually that's what we did is just kind of like go around the room and just be like what stood out to you? What was your favorite thing or something new you learned? But what's that to you? 00:21:10 Speaker 4: Jeff, tell you what, man, I think the biggest thing is it's you know, I think I said this when of our first sent it to you all. 00:21:16 Speaker 1: It's such a challenging story. 00:21:18 Speaker 4: You know, you have these people who felt like they were, you know, being taken advantage of, and by all means they were, and so they you can't blame them for wanting to you know, eventually, like you're saying, eventually getting to the point where there's bloodshed because they're upset. But I think I sent you all the email to this thing after I read the first chapter of that book and the way it had always been painted to me was obviously from the local standpoint of who the Night Writers were, why they were standing up against Duke. Well, if you read the first chapter of that book, I mean he was an American success story too. 00:21:56 Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, his daddy lived home from the Civil War too. I think he had lost his wife. You know, they were kids, were living with either an ann or an. 00:22:06 Speaker 4: Uncle something like that, and all they had was one mule in a patch of tobacco, you know what I mean. 00:22:12 Speaker 3: And that was Washington Duke, James James Buck, Duke's dad. 00:22:16 Speaker 4: Exactly who became in Buck and and Buck hops on the trailer behind the mule and they go start selling this tobacco. And next thing, you know, you know, Buck is growing this thing, and he's moving to New York and he's the you know, he's the rebel now in New York City trying to make a name for himself. 00:22:34 Speaker 1: And so you know, in America we celebrate that person too. Yeah. 00:22:38 Speaker 4: Yeah, But then at what point does it become where it gets too much, and that's where you saw Washington Duke. You know, there's a quote he has in the book where he says something along the lines of, you know, there's two or three things I've never understood in this world. 00:22:54 Speaker 1: The Trinity and my son, my son Buck is that I remember that? 00:22:58 Speaker 4: And you know he says he says that, and it goes you know, and Judge Cunningham mentioned the same thing in there that you know, a successful entrepreneur sometimes is in the DNA. And so you have this guy who built this company up and probably reached a point where he could have started giving back. And you know, at some point in his career he he forgot what it was like to be the farmer and to be the guy grinding every day. But then you also have this other side. And what challenges me is you have a guy like David Amos, where you know, I hate to say it, like this guy, I haven't had this thought till recently, but I go, this was an educated man who rallied up a lot of probably uneducated people to go do his bidding to Was he fulfilling a desire or dream to be this war general that he never got to carry out from his days and I think he went to like Hopkinsville Military School. Yeah, so you kind of wonder that, right, like was this two egos that ultimately were collide or is it even not that big? 00:24:06 Speaker 1: Am I overthinking that? You know what I mean? Like that's great. It's just a lot we. 00:24:11 Speaker 3: Don't really ever see really why David Amos did what he did, like that he never really tips his hat completely. 00:24:20 Speaker 1: I mean, uh, Judge Cunningham, who. 00:24:24 Speaker 3: I probably should have referred him as Judge Cunningham of the podcast, Sorry sir, uh I called him Bill I he he he kind of painted the picture of him being this uh well, it was just easy to buy into being this kind of guy that was just looking out for his people. 00:24:44 Speaker 5: With the freed slaves. He treat the freed slaves. 00:24:47 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, and it makes sense, and I think the way the book reads is that that's the case. But I don't know, you know, I just my mind started going there a little bit, and and that probably is partly to do what I do for a living. You you kind of try to examine both sides ago, all right, what's the motive behind this? 00:25:06 Speaker 1: But I can't help but think was that potentially part of. 00:25:09 Speaker 3: Well man, that's the that's the same thing that happens in every story we tell, like we we have in our mind a narrative that fits something inside of us. Because I was thinking the same thing, is like David Amos a villain or a hero and I honestly don't know still like what I think about him because it a story. Yeah, because he could have I mean, if you could have just met him and talked with him, you probably could have got a sense of does this guy really like feel sorry and empathetic towards people being take advantage of by this like corporate criminal or. 00:25:49 Speaker 1: Or was it was there ulterior motive vindictive? 00:25:52 Speaker 5: Yeah, if you saw him like a bunch of guys whooping up on someone with his kids screaming and his wife in their front yard beating them senseless. 00:26:01 Speaker 1: You'd probably it'd probably be pretty easy. 00:26:03 Speaker 5: To make a judgment, you know, and like there's some real violence in this thing. 00:26:08 Speaker 3: And then he absolutely had seemingly everything to do with that. 00:26:12 Speaker 5: Yeah, oh yeah, because I mean that was a whole organization and we're gonna have captains and you're gonna have squads and yeah, you know, I. 00:26:18 Speaker 4: Mean just and I guess that part where you and I apologies for cutting you off and on I guess that part's what what does it for him? It makes me go there because you know, it makes a point to mention that in the book of how this guy was raised and I think his daddy was a doctor too, So you go, is this one of you Do you see this in movies and all that where you see people who their family wants them to continue down the family line or what have you. But did he inside always want to be, you know, in this other world and now this was his opportunity to And that's speculation, you know, I mean, I don't know, but. 00:26:53 Speaker 1: Well, and it was said in the book. 00:26:55 Speaker 3: We didn't maybe we said it, but he he he idolized these Civil war military Yeah so maybe we said that, but uh yeah, no, that's that's a great point, Drew. 00:27:08 Speaker 1: What stood out to you? 00:27:10 Speaker 7: So first, phenomenal job on the podcast. I've heard, like I said, heard about this story since I was I was young, young, and and growing up in that in that area and region of Kentucky. These guys have always night writers have been idolized. You know, David Amos, he still has signs in cop Kentucky. I think Josh saw one of you know, home of David Amos. I mean he's still here, they're proud of Oh yeah, absolutely, And uh so I was always one sided towards towards the Night Writers. But then once you start having experiences you get older, you kind of are like, I don't know if they should have been. But as far as the podcast goes, what I really loved about it was the the book and I think I think Judge Cunningham talked about it a little bit, but you know, he was trying to be unbiased when he wrote the book. But that the last monologue of the second one where he really gives his expresses, his opinions and especially what he did for a career, his whole life, when you know he he swore to uphold the Constitution in the law and h to really get his his perspective on it all where he sympathizes with him but he can't approve of it. I love that whole, the whole last twelve fifteen minutes whatever it was, where he he kind of ran down his thoughts of it. That was a that was a really good perspective. 00:28:33 Speaker 3: Yeah, it was you know he he brought such authority on this subject. He was a perfect guest, like really he was in and we didn't get into his background a ton other than just I kept saying that he was a Kentucky Supreme Court judge. He was more than that though, I mean he was a Prime Court justice justice. 00:28:54 Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, but but. 00:28:58 Speaker 3: Yeah, him him saying what he said was like a pretty balanced view of it. And then his interpretation is conclusion of how kind of the country handled the situation. I wouldn't have thought of it because he said, he said, the the corporate criminal got dealt with and and you know, the monopoly was broken up. Excuse me, and uh, but also David Amos didn't get didn't even go to prison, which you know, you could look at that and say, well, that's being soft on a pretty hard criminal. But he saw it as kind of like this this balance. And then when he talked about jury nullification, nullification, which was a mistake that we made. 00:29:44 Speaker 1: Someone sent it in. 00:29:45 Speaker 3: I said, I thought Judge Bill Cunningham said jury notification, which didn't make sense to me. He said, he said, he said jury nullification, which that makes sense when a jury knows someone's guilty and basically just like, let's the guy off. And he was saying that that was like this kind of balance, which now that is the jury nullification. You could clearly see how that could be used in a good old boy system and totally be misused. But at the same time, sometimes somebody does something they don't really deserve what the law prescribes, and so it's you know, kind of a kind of a gray area, probably, but it sounds like it happens all the time and probably usually used in a positive way. But yeah, I liked it when he said he said, I've sent a lot of people to the penitentiary that. 00:30:41 Speaker 1: I sympathized with. 00:30:43 Speaker 3: Yeah, for some reason, that like gave a kind of like humanize the law almost, Like not that it makes any difference to the guy who's going to the pen for twenty years to know that the judge sympathized with him, but it makes you feel a little bit better. 00:31:00 Speaker 6: Interesting, how much faith you put in the judicial system, even if there were things like dream mullification, like that person went through the proper channels and was dealt with and now it's done, you know. 00:31:13 Speaker 5: Yeah, it was interesting. 00:31:15 Speaker 7: Well, and also we have you know, we have the book or we have the two hour podcast to refer back to. But at the time that the jury nullified, this was nineteen eleven and it had been over for two to three years, so, you know, in the way when I heard Judge Cunningham talk about it, he's like, we're just going to put it into this. 00:31:34 Speaker 5: It's done for me. Let's let's just move and bury the hatchet. 00:31:37 Speaker 3: Yeah, move on right, yep, Yeah, Spence, what stood out to you about it? 00:31:42 Speaker 5: There was a part where he was the gentleman. I get all the names mixed up, but the guy that was the Supreme Court justice, that's someone's grandpa. 00:31:49 Speaker 1: I apologize sisters, and my kids are the tall, blonde ones. 00:31:58 Speaker 5: That's how I go my life. But it's the just when he talked about like, you know the thirty there's that lady got thirty five thousand, and it's like, but Duke was worth two hundred million, didn't even know if he even knew of the tobacco war. 00:32:12 Speaker 1: Yeah. That was kind of a letdown, wasn't it. 00:32:14 Speaker 6: Yeah? 00:32:14 Speaker 5: And I thought about like Solomon when he's like vanity of vanities, All things are vanities, you know, and it's just like like, man, all this people beat, people ruined, you know, just these lifetime with terrible memories, all the towns burned down, and the guy that it was all fighting against didn't may not have even known it was happening, and just like, golly but it I don't know. And also just there, so there was that part of just like and I don't know what to do with that. Just it's a thinker, yeah, you know, like and you ask questions of like which side would you would have been on? And I would have been on the vigilante side as a young guy, but I wouldn't now because I change, like like looking at myself in the mirror, you know, I probably would have turned narc you know, like at some point the first time I watched some yeah, well just watching some guy get beat in front of his kids, Like that's not cool. 00:33:16 Speaker 1: You know. 00:33:16 Speaker 5: It's one thing, you're fighting someone that wants to fight. But so I don't it just and I think it's like that with a lot of American history because it's our history. You know, It's it's complicated, it's not one side, it's mixed, and and I think that's what makes these stories so powerful, Clay, that you go about is it's okay that it's complicated because we're complicated when we're flawed, and a guy. You can respect a guy but really hate something he did, you know, and just like us, like there's things I'm ashamed of in my past and I hope they don't define me. Yeah, yeah, you know, so that there's that aspect. And then also just like I've been on the receiving end of something similar to this, and like pot guests, it's probably it's probably not that big, but you know, and I sent you a text to like man that it really hit home. And Carlo was my wife. We were sitting there, I was having coffee and when it it was really cold, and so like that's it's a great way to stay inside by talking to your wife. 00:34:17 Speaker 1: You know. 00:34:18 Speaker 5: It's in the teens. But and just like we were kind of reminiscent over that, you know, stuff that happened like a decade ago. And it is hard being an independent farmer, you know, and farming's just hard, and so much of like the you know, farmers are great folks generally, I mean, we're it's a slice of society. You got your dirt balls in that. But like there's a reason we romanticize them, like you talked about that. But it's just like I just feel like sometimes a farming community throughout the at least in American history, because I don't have a you know, I don't have a viewpoint to look at other countries. But Galy, like you know, like you were talking about there that two hundred million, what if he would have made a hundred million and all these other lives could have been radically changed, Like kids could have went to school with shoes on, and no one's towns were burned. But there's that thing that always just like you know, the average farmer gets five cents of a dollar or something, you know, like, and it's just that there it's so easy to extract from agriculture, and those guys so rarely get what's deserved from something that we all do three times or maybe more day, you know. So it just it's just a thinker, man. Yeah, this was really impacted analysis. 00:35:35 Speaker 1: Man. 00:35:35 Speaker 3: I like what you said about a young you would have been a vigilanti, but an older you wouldn't have. And it's you know, the luxury that we have today is that we get to hear this whole story and we're not really emotionally involved with it. I mean, even if you're from there, you know, you weren't there during that time. And we can like you know, historical revision, we can look back on it and be be think we can understand it. There's stuff going on today that they'll be making, you know, Turkey groups podcasts about you know, fifty years from now that maybe we're a part of. 00:36:13 Speaker 1: You know, I think about that. 00:36:14 Speaker 3: It's like, what would be an equivalent today of something like this. 00:36:18 Speaker 1: It's but it's pretty extreme. 00:36:19 Speaker 3: I mean, violence is violence, whether it was done three thousand years ago or today in in the but but human nature is still the same. So people still still are violent and do crazy stuff even with the law, and perhaps it's perhaps it's less than it would have been anyway. 00:36:39 Speaker 1: Point being, I'm. 00:36:41 Speaker 3: With you, I think I think I would have sided with the farmers one hundred percent. 00:36:46 Speaker 1: But I would have hoped I would have been reason oh gotcha got the association farmers. 00:36:53 Speaker 3: Yeah, I really would have because I just would have been, like, you know, the corporation getting that much just seems unjust and what they were doing. But I think I would have been I would have been like, hey, there's a better way to do this, you know, And I would hope that's the best version of my interpretation, which I don't know if it really would have been true. But I also think that I also think going back to your question of did it really matter, and essentially Bill Cunningham's conclusion was that it really didn't. Like this, the black patch is like thirty counties out of how many maybe one hundred plus counties that maybe grow tobacco in the country. 00:37:37 Speaker 5: I don't know, it was, yeah, probably more than that, probably more than because Virginia and North Carolina. 00:37:41 Speaker 1: Yeah, in all tons of counties. 00:37:43 Speaker 3: I mean, maybe it's like I'm just guessing ten percent of the tobacco country might be the black patch maybe or maybe less. 00:37:52 Speaker 1: So, you know, how would this have. 00:37:54 Speaker 3: Affected these guys And maybe it didn't really affect them at all. James buck Duke wouldn't even known what was going on, But it seems like it did get the attention of the nation at the time, as was evidenced by articles being written in national publications. And you can't help but think that it would have brought attention to the powers that be that had the you know that we're changing some of these things. So maybe it had more impact than you would think to. 00:38:23 Speaker 5: Break up the monopoly and yeah, yeah. 00:38:25 Speaker 3: But then but I guess the main thing was just the economic factors, you know, that change, just like people started smoking more so just like the demand just kept skyrocketing. 00:38:37 Speaker 1: But all pretty wild? 00:38:41 Speaker 3: Did y'all think I did a good enough job of like, uh shaming tobacco users? 00:38:49 Speaker 4: As you bring that up, I think there's a story that you need to clarify that I would love to hear more. You said you've thought you heard the voice of God tell you not to not to anymore, and I've got to hear that story. 00:39:03 Speaker 3: Well, I mean and when I when I say the voice of God, I didn't hear the audible voice of God. 00:39:09 Speaker 1: But just and I'm very serious. 00:39:12 Speaker 3: I mean I was probably nineteen years old and uh, dip skull behind Juju and Pap Paul's back over here. 00:39:22 Speaker 5: Did you know, Gary? 00:39:23 Speaker 8: I knew, you knew I knew other things that you don't know that I knew. 00:39:28 Speaker 1: Let's hear I know. I maybe I can't tell you. Maybe I don't not tell you. I might tell you privately, do do no? 00:39:38 Speaker 3: Okay, Well, I'm very interested to hear what you because you don't know if I know anything else. 00:39:44 Speaker 1: As soon as you stop wearing tennis shoes, he knew. 00:39:49 Speaker 5: That the moment. 00:39:50 Speaker 3: No, no, but I just it was the time of my life when I when I started to just walk closer with God. 00:39:56 Speaker 1: And I just I mean, I. 00:39:58 Speaker 3: Literally remember one time driving down the road chunking a can of skull. I was littering, FBI, but I chunk can of skull. 00:40:09 Speaker 1: And uh. 00:40:12 Speaker 3: Official, and and I just knew it was bad. I just knew that, like, this is not someone wanted to do. So when I did the story, I'm kind of joking. I didn't want to glorify tobacco because, in a way, I mean, the the the agriculture and the farming of the tobacco is really cool. It's it's an interest, it's interesting tradition. But then when you when you dive into it and it's like, yeah, this is really like something the CD underbelly of of the world. I mean, you know, and I just don't. I just didn't want people to get the wrong idea. I don't view personally tobacco use is just like something casual that is like okay, I mean I have lots of great friends that chew tobacco. Probably people listening to this podcast and they should stop. So, I mean it's a period like so that's just the way I feel about it. Dad, what do you think is that? 00:41:12 Speaker 1: Okay? 00:41:13 Speaker 3: Hey, when you when you have your own podcast, you can be preachy. 00:41:17 Speaker 1: Sometimes you're an FBI am. I right, what's that? I said? 00:41:22 Speaker 3: You're you're an FBI agent. What I'm saying is right, right. 00:41:26 Speaker 1: Yeah, it's all you man, You're I'm the guest here. I was looking for the FBI stamp of approval, Like. 00:41:38 Speaker 5: Dare McGruff the crime dog was that like back in the age. 00:41:42 Speaker 1: That's that's me. We're gonna have a branch of bear. 00:41:46 Speaker 5: My middle boy is like head over heels with hunting and all that stuff. So here in Clay like is a strong role model saying don't do tobacco. You know, like sometimes you have that kid and need I need, I need. 00:41:58 Speaker 1: A little like hand. So I could talk to these grown. 00:42:03 Speaker 3: Men and be like, I'm mister ferres Use, you shouldn't do tobacco. 00:42:15 Speaker 5: People are gonna have a lot of mixed emotions about this. 00:42:17 Speaker 3: I mean I do too, but it's just sometimes the truth hurts. But Dad, what stood out to you? Well, I tell you it was an amazing deal. 00:42:28 Speaker 8: But when you think about it, our country is made up of amazing deals. I mean, you can just take this, take the personalities out, and stick it in any place. You know, the way the Indians were treated, it just keep going all the way through. And uh, but I think about Mary Lou. Don't monkey with Mary Lou. Remember Mary Lou? I mean she was pretty. The women didn't like her, she was opinionated, the men didn't like her. 00:42:56 Speaker 1: And she ended up getting wealthy over this deal. 00:42:59 Speaker 5: And she pretty much put a shot to quite a bunch though. 00:43:04 Speaker 8: But she, I mean, she was the first step in stopping it, wasn't she couldn't you say? 00:43:10 Speaker 3: That's the way Bill described that. She was the first litigation against the night riders. 00:43:16 Speaker 8: So if you got something going, you know, you need to veer from Maryland. And then you think about our country being so new and young. I mean, it hadn't developed, We didn't have really strong unions. So they have vigilantes, so you know, I get upset sometimes with union stuff, but they really served a purpose in our country. They established the worker to have a voice. They didn't have a voice. Yeah, anti trust. I mean all it would have taken was a few years later and have a law passed where hey, if you get so big, man, we're gonna bust you up, and we're gonna take care of you. You we're gonna make sure think you know. So a lot of legal things that developed out of this that kind of put up a quietness on the I love the Vigilantis. When I was young, I used to think, man, somebody ought to take that kid right there, take. 00:44:11 Speaker 9: Him out behind the barn and juste us. 00:44:16 Speaker 8: But you couldn't do it because you might have five good ideas, but you could have four bad ideas, you know. So you need the law of the Constitution to come in and establish all this. And I think we did a great job of doing that to keep our country on track. And this story just absolutely puts a magnifying glass on all that because we didn't have a lot of that stuff established. And because of this and many other stories, you know, the law developed anti trust to break it up monopolies the unions have where the workers have voices and so forth. 00:44:58 Speaker 3: It was really insightful to me to hear Bill Cunningham talk about how this very issue has overthrown a lot of countries. Yeah, because you know, like when the government would and I feel like what he's talking about is like when the government saw that these monopolies had so much power and they came in and said, we're going to take some of that power away from you. I mean that's like a step towards communism in a way. I mean, it's like government control of business. But they did it just enough that it allowed people to still be massively successful without without it just you know, totally crippling their workers. So they kind of did it like just enough. And then yeah, the unions, I agree with what you're saying, like, you know, you kind of have sometimes the union stuff I don't understand fully, but it has helped a lot of people in the country. And so they just did everything kind of just right. That set America up for the next hundred years, which would you know, make us you know, so successful in many ways. 00:46:02 Speaker 1: And you had like it. 00:46:04 Speaker 5: They touched on it, and I thought it was really good because like if you back out a you know, sometimes you look at little something to get an idea, but you back out. And this story was playing at that time, like It was a really turbulent time, right, Like you had all the barons, like the robber barons or whatever, like Vanderbilt and all them. You had railroads going up. You had Upton Sinclair's the jungle with like people falling into pickle vats or meat packing plants. You had all the like the automotive stuffs, like where they're fighting cops and stuff and gunfights. You know, you had all the al Capone and you know, like Bonnie and Clyde and like that was all in this time period coming off the Civil War, the you know, Tulsa was burned, You had the sharecroppers and like desegregation, all these things. This country was just roiling and it's all messy, yeah, you know, and and and I think it's it's just sometimes it's just messy. 00:47:07 Speaker 3: And it could have gone a lot of different ways. It could have, and it kind of moved towards stability to some degree. And you know, there's different groups of people that would argue that it didn't and and but in general it moved towards stability, at least as you compare to other parts of the world, you know. But yeah, it's such a what I love about these stories. So this book I've got I've got uh Bill Cliningham's book right here. This book, as I understand that it would have been kind of a regionally known I mean, this wasn't like a New York Times bestseller, But it's a fantastic, fantastic book, fantastic story that many people outside of the Black Patch would have never heard. 00:47:54 Speaker 7: Haven't heard it? 00:47:55 Speaker 4: Yeah, Well if you do read, I would encourage anybody listening to read it because there's so much you guys just can't cover in a podcast. Like there's small little you know, anecdotes and different things in there about some of the other experiences that were going on out there that are just unreal, you know, and you really get that feel for how violent it was, you know at some points and you know, like he mentions. 00:48:20 Speaker 1: And you know, it. 00:48:22 Speaker 4: Was just disgusting there, like it just at some point, this thing became more violent than it probably was even intended on on becoming, you know, And I think that's we see that happen all the time in uh, you know, in history and in today's where people join in on something and then all of a sudden somebody else comes in to escalate it because they're not really worried about the mission anymore. Yeah, they're just looking to crack some skulls, right, And you had some of that infiltrated toros in there. 00:48:49 Speaker 3: Well, that and that was something that I'm glad you brought that up because I wanted to say that on here. You know, sometimes in an episode you just don't have enough space or time to say everything. But there was there was some accusation of the Night Riders being a racist organization because I mean, it would have been probably at the pinnacle of like klu Klux klu Klux Klan q klux Klan. You know, it's the k Ku Klux q q klux Klan, isn't. 00:49:20 Speaker 5: It kkk though it is according to the Ramones song. 00:49:25 Speaker 3: Has mocked me before over saying the klu Klux Klan you're. 00:49:29 Speaker 1: Taking was founded in your state, wouldn't it. 00:49:31 Speaker 3: Well, now, I don't know about that, but but there was there was. There was there was some talk of that, and basically in Bill's book, which is my source, they he was he had a section where he talked about how that there were a lot of African Americans in the association, not necessarily Night Riders though because that was a segregate a very segregated society, so they kind of like lived in different places. But as the thing went further and further, people would under the name of the night Riders probably do some stuff completely off mission, and so there probably was some racist stuff going on that kind of was like this overlap between you know, these groups of people. So that was something that was talked about. But then there were a lot of people guys that just kind of under the hood of a black mask just started doing crazy stuff that that had nothing to do with tobacco, but they were kind of lumped in with night Riders, so it wasn't just all this like really clear cut mission. 00:50:39 Speaker 1: That a good description, I think, No, I think you're right on with it. Yeah. 00:50:42 Speaker 6: Yeah, And a lot of a lot of bad things happen under anonymity, yeah, you know what I mean. Anonymity seems to be a fuel for fire sometimes. You know what happens all the time on the internet, you know what I mean, People even comments and saying horrible things that I guarantee most of them would never say face to face to another person. That was a kind of that time period's version of that where they felt the freedom to go do that. Maybe not freedom, but they felt the protection or just that anonymity to go and do things that they that do. 00:51:18 Speaker 3: You know what somebody should make fun of me for in this episode is how many times I said clandestine? 00:51:24 Speaker 1: Did you? Well? 00:51:25 Speaker 3: I just felt really smart when I said so. I think I just kept saying it. And I actually said it yesterday in like casual conversation with someone, if you They were like, what And I said clandestine just like secret, and they were like, that word makes me uncomfortable. 00:51:44 Speaker 1: But you just look square as should What are you hiding? 00:51:57 Speaker 3: Maybe the last thing I want to talk about we can continue to talking about. Certainly, something I wanted to talk about was the Joe Scott interview. So for a Bear Grease podcast and now going back to Jeff giving us this one like all watered up in a little bundle. We didn't know about Joe this Joe Scott interview, which to me is so cool. Anytime that you can reach back into history and actually hear someone that was there in an interview format is really unique. It reminded me of back in the late summer, we did a series on the formation of the Buffalo National River, which was over. 00:52:33 Speaker 1: Here in Arkansas. 00:52:34 Speaker 3: And in the in the process of interviewing these people, we'd we'd talked about this lady named Granny Henderson, and I found out there was this long interview with Grannie Henderson that essentially nobody had heard. 00:52:48 Speaker 1: I mean, somebody did, but it was very obscure like. 00:52:53 Speaker 3: And I was able to go into that interview and you could hear Grannie Henderson's voice, this woman born in the eighteen high hundreds, and hear her talking about her life and its super interesting. 00:53:03 Speaker 1: This was like that. 00:53:05 Speaker 3: And so this Joe Scott interview, he was ninety seventy years old in the nineteen eighties. 00:53:10 Speaker 1: Bill Cunningham interviews him. 00:53:12 Speaker 3: When Bill's a young man, Bill's in his eighties now probably he's think so Bill would have been in his forties. I guess he interviews Joe Scott and yeah, that's that's el. 00:53:26 Speaker 1: Primo l primo stuff, when you get to hear from the guy. And it was a long interview. 00:53:32 Speaker 3: It was hard to go through and pick out which sections to use, but I mainly just wanted people to kind of hear his voice. And Joe became kind of like this focal point of Joe as a night rider and he was doing all this stuff. 00:53:47 Speaker 1: I just couldn't quite put it all in. 00:53:50 Speaker 3: I didn't want to villainize Joe either for being the last guy and just being willing to talk. But he said the only thing that he really ever did in one of the raids was like shoot his gun in the air, like he was just kind of there. 00:54:06 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:54:06 Speaker 3: Now he did insinuate that he was on some of the visits, but he didn't ever specifically say like I beat somebody. But if you think about it, an eighteen year old kid and they're just looking for warm bodies to kind of ride with them and just kind of be there, I have a feeling he didn't actually do much. He was just kind of present, kind of there. That was the insinuation I got because he never got super specific. But but you might, I mean at eighty seven years old, I mean you might not remember everything. 00:54:38 Speaker 5: But I think those are the things you remember when you're eighty seven. Yeah, like that kind of stuff, I think you remember it just like when you talk like war vets or whatever, like that's those are the things that are burned into your brain like you burn Because I think that was it hot Hoganville, Hope, he said he was there. Yeah, like, I mean that town burned down. You don't forget about burning down and down. 00:55:00 Speaker 1: Okay. 00:55:00 Speaker 3: They specifically asked him, they said, what did you do it? Maybe Hopkinsville, And he said, oh, I didn't do nothing. I just rode around on my horse and shot my gun in the air. 00:55:08 Speaker 1: A couple of times. 00:55:11 Speaker 5: Your house is burning down, you probably don't take that viewpoint of those. 00:55:15 Speaker 3: But then again, you know, you wonder how truthful the guy was being. 00:55:20 Speaker 1: I mean, here he is. 00:55:22 Speaker 3: It seems so not innocent, but it seems so like like it just was inconsequential him at his age talking about it. It's not like they're going to send to prison or something. But he was very worried about that. Actually, you know, there were parts of the episode when he was like, maybe I shouldn't be talking. 00:55:43 Speaker 1: But interesting. 00:55:47 Speaker 8: View of this would be what would have happened back then had doctor Amos had not been there with his leadership skills, you know it probably he would have just floundered around and the same thing would have happened. It would just taken a different route, probably a better route, I don't know, probably a better route. Yeah, yeah, so the way to handle it, as you look back, would be through the courts. 00:56:15 Speaker 9: Hey, we got this big guy out here that's monkeying with us. Let's let's levelize the playing field. This isn't fair, you know. And they didn't have those tools to go to. The only tool they had was, yeah, in a vigilanti stuff. 00:56:30 Speaker 5: Well, because the courts, you ain't gonna win against a guy with two hundred million dollars. I mean, like that's the that's also part of the American experience. 00:56:37 Speaker 1: And when you don't even have money. 00:56:39 Speaker 5: To buy for your kids, you know, or the time, and you need to be working. 00:56:43 Speaker 8: And well, what they did was probably what they sort of had to do. I mean, they didn't have avenues like we have today. So it's just like you just fold up, fold your tents up, let them take advantage of you, or we're going to fight. 00:57:00 Speaker 4: It's hard to judge somebody from a position you've never been in. And I think that's that's part of what you know, Judge Cunningham was getting to when he says he I've sent people to the pen that I. 00:57:11 Speaker 1: Had empathy for. 00:57:12 Speaker 4: And you know, in our line of work, it's you see it every day too. I mean, I remember my dad telling me, you know, when I was a kid, that you know, in police work and in law enforcement, the vast majority of people that you're going to interact with, they got themselves caught up in something they never meant to get caught up in. And there's there's plenty of people that it's all they've ever known. Sometimes it's a lifestyle of all they've ever known, or like Cunningham said, you know, I knew the guy's dad. I knew his dad was abusing him his whole life. And you have empathy for people, and it doesn't make it right. They broke the law, but you're a human being, and that's that's what's going to happen, you know. And so I think it's it's hard to make a judgment on somebody for any kind of situation if you've never been in it yourself. And that's something I you know, I think that's I think that's what this podcast does so well. And you guys did it with this story. And as a Kentuckian, I'm honored that you all did it. But it's you know, the beauty of this this deal that you all have going on here. Mans You make people think, and we are constantly in the today's world just find ourselves and echo chambers and never having to think critically. And you have to remember, man, life is just history is messy. 00:58:29 Speaker 1: Life is messy. 00:58:30 Speaker 4: There is not a single thing out here that any of us, you know, in my opinions, there's been one perfect person walk this earth, and we put him on a tree, you know what I mean. 00:58:41 Speaker 1: And so. 00:58:43 Speaker 4: You know, I think it's just you guys do such a good job of that of causing your listeners to think about it a go, man, what how do you digest this story? And how do you see both sides of it and then come to your best. 00:58:57 Speaker 7: Well and to piggyback off that, not only do we not know what life was like in that time being a farmer who was getting taken advantage of by this trust, but much like Joe Scott, I can't tell you what I would have done if somebody would have came to my to my house, stuck a gun in my face and said, let's go yeah. 00:59:15 Speaker 1: I mean, that's the best line from it. 00:59:17 Speaker 7: Yeah, from that, from that point on, I'm probably like, let's go yeah, I mean, And you know, you think about the night Writers, and a lot of times the night Writers and the association will get put one in the same. But you had twenty five thousand members of an association and at most probably five hundred night writers, So you're talking two percent of this massive, you know, association that a lot of times will get tied in together. And as we heard later on, as they continued with the raids and then some of the beatings and stuff, it probably wasn't even association stuff that they do. So but you know, I've never had somebody point a gun at me and tell me to do something, but I can imagine that give me to react a little bit different. 00:59:59 Speaker 3: Well, that's exactly what Joe Scott's answer wasn't it. When they say he said why did you join the Night Riders? He gave such a great, pointed, clear answer. He said, what would you do if they took a gun in your face and told. 01:00:11 Speaker 1: You to go? You probably go, let's go where. 01:00:16 Speaker 5: But it's not just random people either, it's your neighbors or the holler yeah, you know, like it's if you say no, well you're going to be looking over your back for a long time. Right next to this, it is your community. 01:00:28 Speaker 1: Clear too. 01:00:29 Speaker 3: Why these guys weren't getting in trouble because you know, when I when we first got to that point in the podcast where we're talking about they couldn't prosecute these guys, Like in some world you'd kind of be like, well, why, how the heck could they not prosecute them? They're doing all this criminal activity, But oh gosh it, you would have been you'd been narking on your on, on your family, on your neighbors, and man, part of the here's one thing that I thought about when like, what would I have done? I think in the right scenario, you could have just navigated yourself out of the situation and not been on either side. I mean, I don't know how, but I know in my life I do that a lot. 01:01:17 Speaker 1: But where would you? 01:01:18 Speaker 5: Where would you? 01:01:19 Speaker 1: No? 01:01:20 Speaker 3: But in a in a I don't know, I don't know the answer, but I just I just feel like you can, you could, you could, you could just like slide under the radar. I just don't know that I would have been the guy that had been coming to beat because I was making a big deal about selling to the to the to the Duke Trust. But also I don't know, there's ways to do it like, there's there's there's there's social ways to not be a target. 01:01:46 Speaker 7: You know. 01:01:47 Speaker 6: I was thinking about too. I was thinking about too because Duke hadn't probably i mean likely had no knowledge of the details of what was going on there, and I had to think about, like what was causing them to drop price, you know, to start paying paying I mean, you must have had these regional buyers that were making on the fly decisions about what they were going to pay people, and they were the ones who were really beating up on them, you know, financially and it you know, a lot of that stuff was probably had to do with that middle management, you know what I mean, these guys that are how are we going to get the best price for this tobacco? And without this big oversight of the Duke, the Big Duke trust and so it's you have to be able to to see the small details of this. And this was their this was their best response was to create this Planner's Protection Association and to fight this what they what they perceived as greed. So you know, there's just so many, so many minute things that you just don't know about. To say who the good guys are bad guys I think that's what the title of the of the podcast bred lines Good Guys Versus Bad Guys, I think is really fitting because it's it is hard to know, you know what I mean. And I think that I think that bleeds over into a lot of the a lot of the the things that we deal with, even in modern times. You know, it's so easy to jump on a bandwagon and not know the details of a situation. And I think, you know, probably people in New York would have had they heard about this, they would have said, you know that you got these rebellious farmers down there just doing these horrible things, and then you've got these small, small town farmers saying, you know, we got we're getting taken advantage of. And I think it I think it has to cause people to stop and evaluate and to like try to learn more. You know, I think about political situations. I think about you know, how how things are perceived there. You can't just like you talked about echo chambers or talked about echo chambers, you can't just listen to an echo chamber. You have to really be on your guard for what you hear and what you believe. 01:04:02 Speaker 3: Let's play trivia. Yeah, we got We're gonna end with trivia here. 01:04:06 Speaker 1: Does that sound good? 01:04:08 Speaker 3: You guys think you're all black patch expert? Let me why his hand out boards. I want to clarify what I said a minute ago. Basically, what I was saying was you don't have to pick. You don't have to be in every fight that's being fought. 01:04:22 Speaker 5: Yeah. 01:04:22 Speaker 3: Yeah, because when I said you can navigate around something, an old believer said, what that's what I mean. It's like, you don't have to you don't have to fight every fight. 01:04:35 Speaker 5: Why is the serpents harmless as doves? 01:04:37 Speaker 1: There you go, there you go, there you go. 01:04:39 Speaker 3: All right, We're gonna play a little trivia. Josh has seven questions. The winner gets the panther lamp. Not true, not true, We're keeping that one. 01:04:49 Speaker 5: Everybody's wives just breathed a sigh of relief. You got one from me there. 01:04:54 Speaker 1: Yes, hey, I tell you what. Here's what I am gonna do. 01:04:58 Speaker 3: This is this is this is this, this is what we're doing on this this episode. The winner of this trivia, which I'm not playing. I'm just gonna be commentating. When's this U Moultrie trail camp? 01:05:11 Speaker 5: Oh wow, Silas, I'm trying buddy. 01:05:14 Speaker 3: Stakes are high, stakes are high, and I can I can probably even get you, like a subscription from Moultrie to to to be able to run this bad boy because this is a cell camera. 01:05:26 Speaker 5: Is Josh ellable? 01:05:28 Speaker 1: He's already got something. 01:05:29 Speaker 5: Yeah, and Gary, that would be nepotism really. 01:05:35 Speaker 1: Down? Three? 01:05:36 Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, okay, So the Winter Winners getting a Moultrie Trail camp, all right, Josh? 01:05:41 Speaker 6: Okay, First for we got some questions that you that everybody should know. We got a couple that you really had to be on your game to catch. 01:05:48 Speaker 3: Could you use the one that I said was going to be on here? 01:05:52 Speaker 1: Were you paying attention? I forgot about it. 01:05:55 Speaker 3: I knew, I knew it. I knew when I said it wouldn't be on here. You can ask that I said on that, so I said this will be on trivia. Go ahead, carry on, we'll move through this prequel. 01:06:04 Speaker 5: Okay, big question? Who was the founder of the American tobacco company? 01:06:11 Speaker 1: Mmm? 01:06:13 Speaker 3: Don't be uh, don't be misled by Okay, go ahead, Christian lady, do you. 01:06:27 Speaker 1: Think people got that joke? 01:06:30 Speaker 3: And I appreciate it, Guys, I don't know that like my twenty year old son or nineteen year old son would have got it though they don't know what Christian like. 01:06:39 Speaker 6: There is no Okay, Terrell Spencer, Duke Duke, James Buck Duke, James Buck Duke. 01:06:49 Speaker 1: Duke. I put Washington, Duke. 01:06:52 Speaker 5: It is Washington. 01:06:53 Speaker 3: That's got to be the answer. Y'all are right, but Washington Duke. 01:06:57 Speaker 5: I think the more will back this out, the better for me. 01:07:02 Speaker 3: That's that's what I was gonna That's what I was trying to elude to my preamble. It's got to be specific. I don't even did we even say that on the podcast though? 01:07:11 Speaker 1: Did we say I? Actually, I don't know, should join a union? 01:07:18 Speaker 5: Okay? 01:07:19 Speaker 6: Second question, everyone should get this one. Who is the who was known as the leader of the night writers? 01:07:28 Speaker 1: This is come on that ship. 01:07:31 Speaker 5: Everyone should get this one. Okay, everybody should get a gimme. 01:07:36 Speaker 6: Okay, Drew was starting with you, David Amos, That is correct, David Amos, pH d, it's actually m D. 01:07:46 Speaker 1: Do I still get the points? Yes, Gary, Sorry, I just couldn't pull it up. Man. 01:07:53 Speaker 5: Okay, zero famous Amos. You think that's the same guy as a cookie guy? 01:07:59 Speaker 6: Probably no, there there's actually a story about that. I know the cookies are addictive though the office. Okay, here's a here's a bit of an obscure question that was mentioned in there. Okay, who was known as the Moses of the black Patch? That that one's some terrible games. I just need that one's a bit obscure. 01:08:28 Speaker 1: Yeah he was. He was only mentioned once. It's a tough question. 01:08:33 Speaker 6: We've got a couple of ringers in here, Gary, Okay, Drew Felix Felix Ewing, Felix Felix Ewing, Gary. 01:08:47 Speaker 1: Seinfeld Seinfeld. 01:08:50 Speaker 6: Felix Ewing is correct? Okay, people back in the black Patch or they're like what here's another question, Spence, you might remember this one. 01:09:01 Speaker 5: Thanks. 01:09:02 Speaker 6: What was the term given to those who would scrape plant beds as an intimidation? 01:09:09 Speaker 1: Oh, Spencer, get that? 01:09:12 Speaker 5: I don't wow remember the first word? No, I ain't cheating a man of integrity. Okay, Gary, we're gonna start with you. 01:09:22 Speaker 6: O hands hands okay, close, Jeff, hotteers, hotets, hototers, hotels. 01:09:32 Speaker 5: I think it's like a hostess. 01:09:35 Speaker 1: You buy them in the gas, some kind of icing on top of Yeah. Can I ask my question? Yes? Yeah? 01:09:44 Speaker 6: Okay, So wait, how many, Jeff you got you've gotten, he's gotten all that it has been three or four? 01:09:52 Speaker 1: Three? Three? 01:09:53 Speaker 5: That's four actually? 01:09:54 Speaker 1: Okay? 01:09:55 Speaker 5: So four three, two and a half two and a half, okay. 01:09:58 Speaker 1: Okay, okay. So my question is what was the original name of the night Writers? There there was? 01:10:07 Speaker 3: They were first known as the X but then they later became known as the night Writers. 01:10:16 Speaker 5: People scribbling here every time? See every time you say night writer, I think of the eighties? Car What was it that you could ask that? What was the nauld have been the bonus question? Mm hmm, Sorry, Silas, Who was. 01:10:32 Speaker 1: The star of night Writer? Tom all right? Already? Who was? 01:10:38 Speaker 5: Yeah? You think of magnum p that was it? Okay, Drew, I didn't know that was the question. 01:10:47 Speaker 1: He's from Princeton though. 01:10:49 Speaker 7: Prince Born born. I'm not from Jeff's. 01:10:52 Speaker 5: Jeff's. 01:10:54 Speaker 1: This is a judgment called Opossum Hunters. 01:10:58 Speaker 7: I don't know when we when did we? Did we just all come together and decide that, oh wasn't going in front of possum an It's too hard to say. 01:11:05 Speaker 1: I mean it was. 01:11:06 Speaker 3: It was a conference in eighteen eighty seven in Nashville, Tennessee. Gary, did you get anything powesome possum crew. The possum crew. You should get some points for that. 01:11:18 Speaker 1: Okay. 01:11:19 Speaker 6: Question number six, why did Joe Scott want to tell his story so late in life? 01:11:27 Speaker 1: What was the motivation? 01:11:28 Speaker 5: Why was he willing? 01:11:29 Speaker 1: Was he willing? That's a better answer. 01:11:31 Speaker 5: Story so late in life? 01:11:34 Speaker 1: I just mentioned a couple of times. 01:11:44 Speaker 5: Okay, Spence, statute of limitations. 01:11:50 Speaker 1: That might be the right. 01:11:54 Speaker 5: Drew everyone else was dead? 01:11:56 Speaker 1: Mmmm, same thing I put. Yep, everyone else was dead. That's all that is correct. 01:12:03 Speaker 5: Mm hmm. Okay, next question, we need to have another soils based podcast. Where did the mayor of Hopkinsville seek refuge during the raid? 01:12:20 Speaker 1: Mm hmm. 01:12:23 Speaker 5: From the God fearing men? 01:12:25 Speaker 6: Yeah, be specific. We're looking for a specific answer. Okay, Jeff, we're going to go with you. 01:12:38 Speaker 1: Coal shoot of the Baptist Church. Oh wow, that was specific. Baptist Church, Methodist. 01:12:49 Speaker 7: They's been to the Baptist Church down the coal shoot. 01:12:52 Speaker 1: Man. 01:12:52 Speaker 6: These guys are good, the Baptist the coal shoot down the coal shoot of the I think Baptist Church. 01:13:00 Speaker 5: Baptist Church, absolutely not the Methodist Church. 01:13:02 Speaker 4: He was. 01:13:07 Speaker 1: Anybody different than us was just the same. Any denomination I would have I would have said, that same thing. I've got nothing against the methods. Okay, lives, easy shot, right in the kidney. 01:13:23 Speaker 6: Our last question, what was the reported net worth of James B. Duke in nineteen oh seven, Spence, I like the confidence that you wrote that down with. 01:13:39 Speaker 5: I'm really I'm really calipari in this stuff right now. I'm right in the back of the conference man looking up. 01:13:50 Speaker 6: Okay, Spence will start with you. Two hundred million, two hundred million, two hundred million. They all got it, And for our final question, we have all right answers, Well done everybody, Yes, so excellent. 01:14:03 Speaker 5: 's our trivia. 01:14:04 Speaker 7: So Clay said, you know, two hundred million was an enormous amount of wealth back then, that's an enormous amount of. 01:14:09 Speaker 5: Wealth now, yeah, no doubt. 01:14:10 Speaker 1: I mean no doubt. 01:14:12 Speaker 7: I wouldn't mind two hundred million right now. 01:14:15 Speaker 1: I would imagine that would be like a billionaire today. He was, yeah, yeah, Okay. 01:14:24 Speaker 3: Closing down here the final little section of the podcast, we learned that James Buck Duke buys buys the name of Duke University, which probably, like when I read that, I had a tendency to be like, oh, come on, rich guyd there's probably a bigger story perhaps, or I wonder how. 01:14:48 Speaker 1: The people at Duke feel about Like, is that is that y'all might know? Is that a negative thing? Or is that part of their history? It's funny. I think, you know, he touches on it. 01:14:59 Speaker 5: Are you a Duke fan? I thought you were. 01:15:01 Speaker 1: I'm a little Yeah. We can throw Duke under the bus. I don't care what you did, man. 01:15:06 Speaker 5: Knowing from North Carolina. 01:15:08 Speaker 4: Over there, but it's you know, it's interesting he touches on it in the book that like when Duke first approached them about giving them this money and want to rename it, you know, it seems like it was a fairly devout like Methodist college that was. 01:15:21 Speaker 5: Called Trinity College. 01:15:22 Speaker 1: Yeah, and there it seemed like there was some administration that was like, you know, this guy's slinging cigarettes. So I don't think we can't take any part of this. 01:15:32 Speaker 4: And then I think it's just kind of funny, Like six million dollars I think the Lord gives does. 01:15:38 Speaker 5: He not like has called nullification? 01:15:43 Speaker 1: That's right. 01:15:47 Speaker 4: I think I think the Lord can overlook this one. How many more souls are we going to save? This is losing from here. But so it was kind of funny the way he touches on that, but that seemed to be his brother was was much more involved with that school and his dad and his dad right, and they both were fairly devout Methodists. I think I think that was why it was troubling to them as they watched Buck kind. 01:16:14 Speaker 1: Of take off with this, you know, with the corporation. 01:16:20 Speaker 5: And so it's interesting because you'd said that his dad said, the two things I don't understand are the Trinity and my son and then his son bias Trinity College. 01:16:30 Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just kind of like a full circle, full circle, it is, man, it's well. 01:16:34 Speaker 4: And then the way the book ends with in the way you ended the podcast, like, I mean, Amos's son goes on to be the first medical uh you know, professor medical professor for the like, it's unbelievable. It's just such a crazy story with such unique, you know, characters. Yeah, it's it's incredible. 01:16:58 Speaker 1: So who won? Jeff one? 01:16:59 Speaker 5: Jeff one? 01:17:00 Speaker 1: Did you did you miss one? 01:17:01 Speaker 7: I missed the first one? James Buck instead of oh well, patriarch. 01:17:06 Speaker 3: There, congratulations on this. Uh so, Jeff, you're gonna get a Moultrie edge too. Camera do you do you deer hunt. 01:17:14 Speaker 4: Yeah, so this will be useful to absolutely and I think I can hook you up with three on it though it's an edge two. 01:17:21 Speaker 3: Well this was this was actually my personal camera that and so the three is uh this is the third one. But uh but uh yeah, they're they're really good. 01:17:31 Speaker 1: That's awesome, man. I appreciate it. 01:17:33 Speaker 5: Undercover work too. 01:17:34 Speaker 3: Yeah, this is going to revolution. He's going to take that back to the FBI and they're gonna be. 01:17:37 Speaker 5: Like, what's that going to get? 01:17:39 Speaker 1: Like we've never had Yeah for about three times a pressure. This would be good. 01:17:49 Speaker 3: Thank you guys so much for coming. Man came all the way from Kentucky. Much appreciated. 01:17:54 Speaker 7: Thanks for having us. 01:17:55 Speaker 1: Yeah really and and thanks for the suggestion on the podcast man. Man, Like I said, I'm honored you guys. 01:18:01 Speaker 4: I was not expecting, first off, even to get a reply, let alone you guys run with it. 01:18:06 Speaker 1: But I'm glad you did. And it's been great getting to work with you guys and meet you guys through this. 01:18:12 Speaker 5: Man. 01:18:12 Speaker 1: It's awesome. And keep it up, man, people need it. Yep, thanks a lot. Guys. Keep the wild places wild because that's where the bears love. There's no criminals there and FBI is not there casually, Chick

Save this episode