CHAPTER XI.

SOME OF THE RESULTS WHICH FOLLOWED WHITE-CAPPING IN SEVIER COUNTY

There is an old adage that A Politics makes strange bed fellows. The reader can no doubt recall one or more instances in which the above statement has been verified in his own experience. And what is true of politics in this sense, may also be said of White-capping so far as it affected the public and the people in Sevier county. Indeed as a general proposition, may it not be said that this holds good in reference to any subject or issue which becomes absorbing and calls forth different views and discussions by the people? Men with or without studying public questions, ally themselves with one side or the other and thereby risk their popularity and their fortunes with the choice made. Nor are men always controlled in their choice by right and wrong or the moral aspect of the questions involved. Some it is true circumscribe their conduct and actions by moral motives, while others are influenced by gain, or popularity, while still others are controlled by a sordid ambition which knows no bounds short of general deviltry and revenge.

As we have had occasion to say, perhaps more than once in these pages, those who took the initiatory steps in White-capping in Sevier county were prompted by proper motives but were evidently guided by false reasoning, but many persons, even on as grave matters as these do not stop to reason, but act from first impulses. From one motive or another a sufficient number of people were willing to cast their fortunes with those who believed in the new methods of reform, to make it a strong and popular organization among the citizens of Sevier county.

Some men joined the White-caps for their influence in trade and from a business standpoint; some for their influence in elections, for it was known that they could make or unmake officers at will; others joined them because the protection the order could afford them in the commission of crime, or for crimes already committed. So it is well known that, at one time in Sevier county, the anti-White-cap had the laboring oar to handle, and was the under dog in the fight. Men were looked upon as odious, and were taunted and intimidated because they saw proper to side with those who sought to lead the anti-White-cap forces and sentiment.

In course of time through the tide changed, influences fast accumulated against the White-caps and they were put on the defensive. Some of them were men of means and they had spent their money freely to forward the interest of their pet organization, and to assist those who had cast their fortunes with it for protection. And when the general crash came, as we have seen that it did, many a White-cap woke up to the awful fact that his investment in the organization had left him without money, without friends and without character. He was regarded as unworthy of belief as a witness in a court of record. He was disqualified by special statute from sitting on either grand or petit juries, and in effect rendered infamous. Indeed the way of the White-capper is hard. He is now down and everybody who passes gives him a kick. His crime is great and the full enforcement of the law is demanded against him.

The legislature is petitioned and grants new laws for the purpose of more effectually punishing him. Judges are summarily disposed of and others installed in their places, in order that punishment may be more swift in overtaking him. He is indicted, arrested and put in jail, and disallowed bail. Public sentiment is so strong against him that it can be felt in the very air around him, and he cannot get a fair trial on his native heath, but is forced to go among strangers for a trial. How changed the condition of the White-cap now and a few years ago, when his word was law and courts and juries were to him as chaff before the wind!

The pendulum indeed has swung to the other side, and it may well be questioned whether wrongs and excesses, though unintentional, may not be indulged in on the other extreme. This is generally true in reference to all reforms. But let us hope in these matters that the golden medium may be found and accepted, and that scales of justice may be correctly poised so that every man may know and respect the law.

After the collapse of the White-cap organization came, it is remarkable how soon its leaders disappeared. Some left the county and the state to avoid prosecutions; others feeling that to their credit, their character and in a measure their property was gone, disposed of their remaining assets and went to unknown parts. Some have been killed, while others are in the courts either awaiting trial or the execution of the sentences that have been pronounced against them. Another large class of citizens who have either been regarded as White-caps or in sympathy with them, but in no sense leaders, are now living quiet retired lives and apparently show little or no sympathy with the now defunct institution.

Public sentiment has been so revolutionized that White-capism is now viciously attacked and unmercifully condemned on every hand. It is natural therefore that those who feel themselves guilty should want to be as quiet and retired as possible.

To show how much White-capping and White-caps are hated in Sevier county, and how the people regard those who took a leading part in breaking it up and driving it from their midst, it is only necessary to call attention to the late election for sheriff in that county.

Sevier county is one of the strongest republican counties in the state, there being about four thousand voters in the county and not over four hundred of these democrats, or about one out of every ten. In that election there were two candidates for the office of sheriff, to-wit: R. H. Shields a life long and consistent republican, and T. H. Davis, a life-long and consistent democrat. Not only is Shields a republican, but a man of unblemished character and splendid qualifications to discharge the duties of the office. He was never a White-cap nor a White-cap sympathizer, but a man of exemplary habits, who believes in the supremacy of the law. Mr. Shields, however, is not aggressive in his manner, but rather quiet and unobtrusive, and during the White-cap upheavals in the county he took little or no stock in them so far as was generally known, being content to let them alone if they would him.

On the other hand, Mr. Davis as stated was a strong democrat, but like Mr. Shields a man of good character and excellent qualifications for the office. He is, however, a man not only of pronounced views on important questions, but very aggressive in declaring them and carrying them into execution. So when the White-cap subject, became the all absorbing topic in the county, Davis was among the first to speak out boldly against it, and declare it unlawful and revolutionary in its character. He showed the White-caps no quarters, and vigorously attacked them wherever he went. By reason of the bold stand he had taken against this lawless element, he, though a pronounced democrat, had been appointed a deputy sheriff of the county by M. F. Maples when elected sheriff in 1896. It was unusual in that county for the sheriff to appoint even a deputy who was a democrat, but in this instance he took the risk and made the appointment. It was soon learned that he had made no mistake, for Davis at once showed himself to be an active, wide-awake officer. This appointment afforded him a field of operation he had long wanted and that was to hunt down White-caps and bring them to justice. His work along these lines has been referred to in another place in this volume, and need not here be repeated.

His two years experience as a deputy sheriff had given Davis and extended acquaintance over the county which was worth a great deal to him in his coming race. Shields had likewise been before the public before and was well known to the masses of the people.

The two candidates thus equipped entered the contest. Shields had the advantage in his politics, and to offset this, Davis launched forth his anti-White-cap record. On these two issues the battle was waged. Sevier county had not elected a democratic sheriff since the civil war, nearly forty years, and it was not believed by Davis most ardent supporters that he could overcome the enormous political majority against him. While men were wedded to their party and hated to break away from it, yet they felt that to get rid of White-cap domination and all the attendant evils it had brought upon the people, was far more preferable at this time than a party victory. The White-caps did not stop at party lines, neither should those who intended to wage war on them. Politics, it was argued, was a good thing in its place, but when men’s lives and their property, the protection of their homes, their wives and their children are all at stake, men should close their eyes to politics and vote for the man who stands and has stood closest to their interests. The war on White-caps has been successfully waged and they were now on the run, but it would not do to give up their general at the critical moment.

Arguments like these were used by Davis friends with telling effect. Old men who never had voted a democratic ticket in their lives, ignored the question of party politics and voted for Tom Davis. Republicans and old Federal soldiers left their businesses, and canvassed the county in his interest. Shields friends could not check the tide. They argued that Shields was no White-cap nor White-cap sympathizer and if elected would show them no favors, and besides he was a republican, all of which was true, but Davis had fought the White-cap battles and won the victory and he must be rewarded.

The people voted for Davis not because they liked democrats more, but because they liked White-caps less. On these lines the two candidates for sheriff waged their contest. What White-caps were left in the county and their sympathizers had no candidate in the field, but as between Shields and Davis they naturally went to the former. They all hated Davis too bad, he had been their unrelenting enemy, and pursued them into the last entrenchment. No argument could draw this element to him, so it naturally went to Shields, who if he had not helped them, had not done them any harm. This was the turning point in the election. A large number of people only wanted to know whom the White-caps were for, and this known they would vote for the other candidate. Many former admirers and supporters of Shields, when they learned that the fragments of the White-cap forces had gone to him, immediately left him and went to Davis, saying they hated to vote with the democrats, but preferred it to voting with White-caps.

Although Shields saw this very thing was weakening him, yet he could not afford to say to the White-caps that he did not want their support. This is one of the times the candidate’s supporters defeated him - his strength became his weakness - and when the conflict was over and the smoke of battle cleared away Davis was elected by a majority of 74 votes, out of a total vote of 3,530.

Thus it is that Sevier county, almost solidly republican in a single-handed race between a republican and a democrat, neither having the advantage of the other in point of character and qualifications, to-day has a democratic sheriff. It cannot properly be said that it was Shields weakness that caused his defeat, because he was not a weak candidate, it was rather the strength of the other man, combined with the peculiar condition of things as they then existed and had existed in the county. It was a condition and not a theory a that confronted the people at this time, and no other republican perhaps in the country under the same circumstances could have been elected. It is just one of the strange things that sometimes happen in the history of any people, especially in times of excitement and great agitation over grave public questions. It is the fruit of a revolutionary spirit that sometimes possesses people.

Ten years ago, if one in a serious mood had asserted that in the year 1898, the people of Sevier county by popular vote would elect a democratic sheriff in a single-handed race between two good men as in this case, he would have been laughed at in derision, if not put down as a lunatic.

Tom Davis never would have been sheriff of Sevier county had it not been for the White-cap question. It is part of the sequel of Sevier County’s reign of Terror.

There are some other questions and coincidences growing out of Davis election as sheriff and the White-cap question which it is deemed appropriate to be mentioned here.

Sheriff Davis, Pleas Wynn and Catlett Tipton were all raised up together in the same neighborhood. They were school boys together and played together in the common sports of the day. Always friends, they would fight for each other at a moment=s warning. When baseball was the rage among the boys of that section several years ago, they all belonged to the same team of which Tom was their captain. They planned and took counsel together as to how they would defeat their foe upon the ball field, and scarcely ever went down in defeat. But in course of time their paths diverged, and they traveled in different fields and operated on different lines.

Davis settled down and for several years lived the quiet life of a farmer. Tipton followed his chosen trade, a carpenter; while Wynn had no special occupation, but drifted around; much of his time being spent in idleness and unprofitable fishing and hunting. When White-capping sprang up in the county, Tipton drifted into that and became its leader and captain, with Pleas Wynn as a good lieutenant, while Davis became the leader of those who opposed it. In this sense they were enemies. Davis was after the White-caps and Tipton was after anybody that was pursuing him or his men. When the final clash came fortune favored Davis. As deputy sheriff he arrested Wynn and Tipton for the murder of the Whaleys, took a leading part in their prosecution and this naturally made them his bitter enemies, but it helped to make him sheriff of the county. Now Wynn and Tipton are condemned to die on the 4th of January, 1899, upon the gallows, and unless this decree is changed, it will become the duty of Tom Davis, their former friend and playmate, but afterwards their most hated enemy, to carry into effect this solemn decree of the highest court in the commonwealth of Tennessee .

These are not only interesting facts and coincidences when studied in connection with the lives and histories of these three Sevier county boys, but they form a part of the sequel in the history and downfall of one of the most noted gangs of outlaws known to modern civilization.

Chapter XII