Kentucky Justice, Southern Honor, and American Manhood by James C. Klotter (review)

BOOK REVIEWS James C. Klotter. Kentucky Justice,South- revenge was contrary to his religious beliefs and ern Hono,; andAmerican Manbood. Baton that it was important for Kentuckians, who lived Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, in a state with a wellearned national reputation 2003. 197 pp. ISBN: 0807128570 ( cloth), for violence and lawlessness,to see that following 34.95. the law was a more civilized and more appropriate method of punishing criminal actions than acting As James Klotter amply demonstrates in this on an extralegal code of horton thoughtprovoking work, Richard Reid was Given Reid's physical limitations,it is questiontoo sensitive for his time and place. Born in Ken- able whether he could have successfully retaliated tucky in 1838,Reid grew up in a society that defined against Cornelison even had he wanted to, but in manhood largely in terms of physical strength and his own way Reid had taken a bold stand by refusaggressiveness ,but he suffered an injury as an infant ing to compromise his principles. His dispute with that pained him for much of his life and precluded Cornelison attracted the attention of regional and his participation in almost any kind of physically national media, and there were newspaper editors strenuous activities. Temperamentally emotional who saw in Cornelison an exemplar of southern and nervous, Reid gravitated instead to the life of barbarism and viewed Reid's decision to let the the mind, and while he was a brilliant stude it a law take its course as a courageous one. Far more devout Christian, and generally amiable enough common, however, were those who found Reid to earn the respect of his male contemporaries, he cowardlv and unmanly. Reid also found potential told none of them of his physical voters on the campaign trail divided as impairment and they assumed him to whether they would support a man to be weak, timid, and somewhat -" who tefused to defend himself with effeminate. violence. And Klotter speculates that Still, Reid became a success '6. even Re d' s wife may have thought ful lawyer, married a woman he:', -« that he revealed himself a weakling. adored, was elected a Superior i ':. 4,- In the end, Reid' s fragile disposition Court judge in 1882, and deter f <- eq,ipped him poorly to withstand mined in 1884 to run fo a seat on j i '1< 1 , 1 1' 1, 4 ., 111 the intensity of the criticism he faced, the Court of Appeals, Kentucky s _ 1' 1 '' S'"' w" ' '-".« U ' pa ticularly when he could not even highest court. In the spring of that 1 11 be entirely sure that his wife supported year,however,a fellow lawyer and f A ·,»,·.:,- him. On May 15, 1884, hewentto a fellow church member named John - ..., 4% 1 colleague's law office for a brief meetJay Cornelison summoned Reid to ing and afterward asked if he might lie his office, accused Reid of acting down in an upstairs bedroom. There, secretly to undermine his career and malign his he killed himself with a gunshot to the head. Ironicharacter ,and began beating him with a cane and cally,Richard Reid was neither strong enough nor a whip,even going so far as to chase a fleeing Reid secure enough to tolerate dishonor. down a crowded street before someone stepped in Klotter nicely situates Richard Reid's life and to stop the violence. When Cornelison' s accusa- death in the shifting cultural sands of nineteenthtions proved entirely false, the same principles of century Kentucky,the South,and the United States, honor by which Cornelison justified his behavior demonstrating especially how public debate over the dietated that Reid kill Cornelison for his assault. actions of Cornelison and Reid revealed conflicting Yet Reid refused, arguing that seeking personal ideas about how one best procured justice in the 86 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY state, about the continuing relevance of honor in the New South,and about how an American man ought to behave if he wanted to maintain his dignity and selfrespect . Ultimately,though,Richard Reid's story is relatively insignificant as a matter of history. Reid was not an especially prominent person even in Kentucky, and few scholars have written about him. Moreover,even Klotter concedes that his death, while tragic, was S() 011 forgotten and changed very little about the seeming penchant of Kentuckians for extralegal violence or thejr insistence on defining manhood in terms of an individual's willingness to retaliate for real and imagined slights by inflicting pain and humiliating others. Nevertheless ,Reid' s is a moving story well told, and while doing little to alter the historiography of the South, it does force the reader to reflect on our own era and consider whether we value leaders who respect the rule of law or those who believe that honor demands swift and bloody vengeance no matter the costs. joshua D. Rothnian University of Alabama David Stradling. Cincinnati:From River City to Highway Metropolis. Chicago: Arcadia , 2003. 160 pp. ISBN: 0738524409 paper), $ 24.99. avid Stradling,who teaches urban and environmental history at the University of Cincinnati ,has written a short comprehensive history of Cincinnati that traces its rise from a frontier community to a commercial emporium in the midnineteenth century. He then documents its transformation to a substantial industrial city at the turn of the century followed by its relative decline in the twentieth century to the city it has become today. The author not only attempts to provide a history of the building of Cincinnati by looking at how each generation shaped the city, but he also explores the larger forces at work in the city's history,such as industrialization, wars, and new technologies. The book not only examines the forces and decisions that shaped the city but it also provides short sketches of protninent actors in Cincinnati history i such as William Proctor, Powel Crosley,and Theodore Berry. Although it looks at social, cultural, and political developments , the book concentrates especially on economics and the role ot transportation as a way of explaining the citv's rapid growth in the midnineteenth century as well as its long relative decline since then. The river proves the hero in this story while the automobile emerges as the villain , largely because it,along with what the author describes as antiurban thinking, helped disperse population away from the urban core. Although the latter part of the book discusses choices by civic leadership that fed the city' s decline, especially in regard to planning,the author did not pay enough attention to the role of civic leadership or politics to satisfy this reader. Indeed, after the brief discussion of charter reform in the 1920s, Stradling makes no mention of local politics. This underscores one of the shortcomings of any effort to provide a comprehensive history in so few pages. Even though the author does a good job of introducing us to a variety of important topics,the attempt to make this a comprehensive overview in one hundred fortysix pages of illustrated text often forces the author to rely on simple causative statements in place of exploring the rich interpretations available of the city' s complex history. For instance, in discussing the emergence of city services in the nineteenth century,Stradling disregards the fascinatFALL 2004 87 ...