r chief merchantable commodity.

Left, then, to their own devices, unchecked by any stronger arm,
inflamed by a multitude of personal wrongs, habituated to the shedding
of human blood, contemptuous of State laws that did not reach them,
enraged by Federal acts that impugned, as they thought, an inalienable
right of man, it was inevitable that this fiery and vindictive race
should fall speedily into warring among themselves. Old scores were now
to be wiped out in a reign of terror. The open combat of bannered war
was turned into the secret ferocity of family feuds.

But the mountaineers of to-day are face to face with a mighty change.
The feud epoch has ceased throughout the greater part of Appalachia. A
new era dawns. Everywhere the highways of civilization are pushing into
remote mountain fastnesses. Vast enterprises are being installed. The
timber and the minerals are being garnered. The mighty waterpower that
has been running to waste since these mountains rose from the primal sea
is now about to be harnessed in the service of man. Along with this
economic revolution will come, inevitably, good schools, newspapers, a
finer and more liberal social life. The highlander, at last, is to be
caught up in the current of human progress.

CHAPTER XVII

"WHEN THE SLEEPER WAKES"

The southern mountaineers are pre-eminently a rural folk. When the
twentieth century opened, only four per cent. of them dwelt in cities of
8,000 inhabitants and upwards. There were but seven such cities in all
Appalachia--a region larger than England and Scotland combined--and
these owed their development to outside influences. Only 77 out of 186
mountain counties had towns of 1,000 and upwards.

Our highlanders are the most homogeneous people in the United States. In
1900, out of a total population of 3,039,835, there were only 18,617 of
foreign birth. This includes the cities and industrial camps. Back in
the mountains, a man using any other tongue than English, or speaking
broken English, was regarded as a freak. Nine mountain counties of
Virginia, four of West Virginia, fifteen of Kentucky, ten of Tennessee,
nine of North Carolina, eight of Georgia, two of Alabama, and one of
South Carolina had less than ten foreign-born residents each. Three of
them had none at all.

Compare the North Atlantic states. In this same census year, 57 per
cent. of their people lived in cities of 8,000 and upwards. As for
foreigners--the one city of Fal