Quotes from Harry M. Caudill

Kentucky as a whole has lagged behind the rest of the nation in almost every field of government and public service, primarily because the fiercely independent and uncooperative mentality of the frontier hunter-farmer has remained so deeply and tenaciously embedded in the mass psyche.

What I have written is drawn from experience — from seeing, hearing and working with mountaineers. In a land with few books and pens many tales are transmitted from father and mother to son and daughter.

However, it is doubtless true that in a vague way some of these poorer mountaineers, fiercely independent as they were, found something abhorrent in the ownership of one person by another.

could expect to receive $1.50 for a ten-hour day. By 1927 they were earning $4.00 for 8 hours.

Such ambitions for their children as most people entertained were reserved for their sons, because it was assumed that the "girls will get married and won't need to know much anyway.

It is unthinkable that a rich and enlightened society should permit its unfortunate members to starve in the midst of plenty; but once the justifications are admitted the difficulties still stand undiminished.