The Story of the Outlaw by Emerson Hough (read aloud .txt) ๐
The bad man of genuine sort rarely looked the part assigned to him in the popular imagination. The long-haired blusterer, adorned with a dialect that never was spoken, serves very well in fiction about the West, but that is not the real thing. The most dangerous man was apt to be quiet and smooth-spoken. When an antagonist blustered and threatened, the most dangerous man only felt rising in his own soul, keen and stern, that strange exultation which often comes with combat for the man naturally brave. A Western officer of established reputation once said to me, while speaking of a recent personal difficulty into which he had been forced: "I hadn't been in anyth
Read free book ยซThe Story of the Outlaw by Emerson Hough (read aloud .txt) ๐ยป - read online or download for free at americanlibrarybooks.com
- Author: Emerson Hough
- Performer: -
Read book online ยซThe Story of the Outlaw by Emerson Hough (read aloud .txt) ๐ยป. Author - Emerson Hough
In Chicago, in the past twenty-four years, very nearly two thousand murders have been committed; and of these, two hundred remain mysteries to-day, their perpetrators having gone free and undetected. In the past year, seventeen women have been murdered in Chicago, some under circumstances too horrible to mention. In a list of fifty murders by unknown parties during the last few years, the whole gamut of dastardly crime has been run. The slaughter list is appalling. The story of this killing of women is so repellant that one turns to the bloodiest deeds of Western personal combats with a feeling of relief; and as one does so one adds, "Here at least were men."
The story of Chicago is little worse, according to her population, than that of New York, of Boston, of any large city. Foot up the total of the thousands of murders committed every year in America. Then, if you wish to become a criminal statistician, compare that record with those of England, France or Germany. We kill ten persons to England's one; and we kill them in the cities.
In the cities it is unlawful to wear arms, and to protect one's self against armed attack is therefore impossible. In the cities we have policemen. Against real fighting men, the average policeman would be helpless. Yet, such as he is, he must be the sole fence against the bloody-minded who do not scruple at robbery and murder. In the labor riots, the streets of a city are avenues of anarchy, and none of our weak-souled officials, held in the cursed thrall of politics, seems able to prevent it. A dozen town marshals of the old stripe would restore peace and fill a graveyard in one day of any strike; and their peace would be permanent. A real town marshal at the head of a city police force, with real fighting men under him, could restore peace and fill a graveyard in one month in any city; and that peace would be permanent. If we wished the law, we could have it.
The history of the bloodiest lawlessness of the American past shows continual repetitions. First, liberty is construed to mean license, and license unrebuked leads on to insolence. Still left unrebuked, license organizes against the law, taking the form of gangs, factions, bandit clans. Then in time the spirit of law arises, and not the law, but the offended individuals wronged by too much license, take the matter into their own hands, not waiting for the courts, but executing a swifter justice. It is the terror of lynch law which has, in countless instances, been the foundation of the later courts, with their slow moving and absurdly inefficient methods. In time the inefficiency of the courts once more begets impatience and contempt. The people again rebel at the fact that their government gives them no government, that their courts give them no justice, that their peace officers give them no protection. Then they take matters into their hands once more, and show both courts and criminals that the people still are strong and terrible.
The deprecation of lynch law, and the whining cry that the law should be supported, that the courts should pass on the punishment, is in the first place the plea of the weak, and in the second place, the plea of the ignorant. He has not read the history of this country, and has never understood the American character who says lynch law is wrong. It has been the salvation of America a thousand times. It may perhaps again be her salvation.
In one way or another the American people will assert the old vigilante principle that a man's life, given him by God, and a man's property, earned by his own labor, are things he is entitled to defend or have defended. He never wholly delegates this right to any government. He may rescind his qualified delegation when he finds his chosen servants unfaithful or inefficient; and so have back again clean his own great and imperishable human rights. A wise law and one enforced is tolerable. An unjust and impure law is intolerable, and it is no wrong to cast off allegiance to it. If so, Magna Charta was wrong, and the American Revolution earth's greatest example of lynch law!
Fritz Graveyard, New Mexico. Many victims of the Lincoln County War buried here
Conclusions parallel to these are expressed by no less a citizen than Andrew D. White, long United States Minister to Germany, who, in the course of an address at a prominent university of America, in the year 1906, made the following bold remarks:
"There is a well-defined criminal class in all of our cities; a class of men who make crime a profession. Deaths by violence are increasing rapidly. Our record is now larger than any other country of the world. The number of homicides that are punished by lynching exceeds the number punished by due process of law. There is nothing more nonsensical or ridiculous than the goody-goody talk about lynching. Much may be said in favor of Goldwin Smith's quotation, that 'there are communities in which lynch law is better than any other.'
"The pendulum has swung from extreme severity in the last century to extreme laxity in this century. There has sprung up a certain sentimental sympathy. In the word of a distinguished jurist, 'the taking of life for the highest crime after due process of law is the only taking of life which the American people condemn.'
"In the next year 9,000 people will be murdered. As I stand here to-day I tell you that 9,000 are doomed to death with all the cruelty of the criminal heart, and with no regard for home and families; and two-thirds will be due to the maudlin sentiment sometimes called mercy.
"I have no sympathy for the criminal. My sympathy is for those who will be murdered; for their families and for their children. This sham humanitarianism has become a stench. The cry now is for righteousness. The past generation has abolished human slavery. It is for the present to deal with the problems of the future, and among them this problem of crime."
Against doctrine of this sort none will protest but the politicians in power, under whose lax administration of a great trust there has arisen one of the saddest spectacles of human history, the decay of the great American principles of liberty and fair play. The criminals of our city are bold, because they, if not ourselves, know of this decay. They, if not ourselves, know the weakness of that political system to which we have, in carelessness equaling that of the California miners of oldโa carelessness based upon a madness of money equal to or surpassing that of the gold stampedesโdelegated our sacred personal rights to live freely, to own property, and to protect each for himself his home.
THE END FOOTNOTES[A] "The Wilderness Hunters." G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London.
[B] "The Story of the Cowboy," by E. Hough. D. Appleton & Co., New York.
[C] "Life and Adventures of Virgil A. Stewart." Harper and Brothers, New York. 1836.
[D] Tuthill: "History of California."
[E] "The Story of the Cowboy," by E. Hough. D. Appleton & Co. New York.
[F] "The Story of the Cowboy." By E. Hough. D. Appleton & Co.
[G] See "The Story of the Cowboy," by E. Hough. D. Appleton & Co.
[H] Captain Saturnino Baca was a friend of Kit Carson, an officer in the New Mexican Volunteers, and the second commanding officer of Fort Stanton. He came to Lincoln in 1865, and purchased of J. Trujillo the old stone tower, as part of what was then the Baca property, near the McSween residence. The Bacas were recognized as non-combatants, but were friendly to Major Murphy. Mrs. McSween and Mrs. Baca were bitter enemies, and it was commonly said that, as each side had a sheriff, each side had a woman. Bonifacio J. Baca, son of Captain and Mrs. Baca, was a protรฉgรฉ of Major Murphy, who sent him to Notre Dame University, Indiana, to be educated. "Bonnie" Baca was at different times clerk of the probate court, county assessor, deputy sheriff, etc., and was court interpreter under Judge Warren H. Bristol. He was teaching school at the time Sheriff Brady was shot, and from his refuge in the "round tower," a few feet distant, saw Brady fall. Captain Baca, wife and son, were after that closely watched by the men of the McSween faction, but managed to remain neutral and never became involved in the fighting, though Billy the Kid more than once threatened to kill young Baca.
[I] This man, Ed. Short, later came to a tragic end. A man of courage, as has been intimated, he had assisted in the capture of a member of the famous Dalton gang, one Dave Bryant, who had robbed a Rock Island express train, and was taking him to Wichita, Kansas, to jail. On the way Short had occasion to go into the smoker of the train, leaving the prisoner in charge of the express messenger, whom Short had furnished with a revolver. By some means Bryant became possessed of this revolver, held up the messenger, and was in the act of jumping from the swiftly moving train, when Short came out of the smoker. Catching sight of Short, Bryant fired and struck him, Short returning the fire, and both falling from the train together, dead.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Story of the Outlaw, by Emerson Hough
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF THE OUTLAW ***
***** This file should be named 24342-h.htm or 24342-h.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/3/4/24342/
Produced by D. Alexander and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)
Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.
Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you
do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is
subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
redistribution.
*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
http://gutenberg.org/license).
Section 1. General Terms of
Comments (0)