Holmes County farmer. [volume] (Millersburg, Ohio) 1857-1926, 1865-12-07
An Asssassu Legislator and his
lndOrsers.

An Assaassu Legislator and his
lndOrsers.
One Babcockc, colonel in the Missouri
militia, a few weeks since visited with gang
of desperados family named Wright, re.
siding IN the western part OF the state, and
making prisoners of five OF them, including
the father and two sous, took them few
miles from their home, and murdered the
whole party. The murdered mon were all
shot in front; the faces Of some Of them
were burned with powder; and there were
in all twenty-scvcn wounds on their five
bodies. Two the boys had been connect.
ed with the rebel army, but were not charg
ed with having, in that capacity, done any
thing more than perform their ordinary duty
as soldiers. Tho father had been judge of
the county court in the county in which he
resided, and was generally respected by his |
ncighbors. The boys since their return
home had conducted themselves in an order
~ and quiet manner, and there was no com.
plant or feeling ofhostility against them in
the vicinity in which they lived. Babcockc
and his gang were residents anothcrcoun
ty, and came somc distance to perform the
murder, his only justification for which be.
ing that the boys had been in the rebel
army.
This man has been chosen member of
the Missouri legislature, and yesterday
morning we reproduced in the Times an ac-
count of speech made by him in that body,
in which he cxultcd over his crime, and for
which he was warmly applaudcd by ma
Ijority of the members There are few, in
reading this statement, but will imagine
that Babcocke was acting under some war
rant in law, as the military have been in
vested with strange discretionary powers in
| t1, tut IN lp,int, thu - M . b,t
there were circumstances connected with the
wholesale assassinations, the deliberately
| planned and rcmorsclessly executed MURDERS
relieving them from the tiendlke atrocity
which this ''plain unvarnished' recital por-
trays. If there be any SUCH they have not
been made public. We have given the
truth, and the whole truth, so far as Bah
cooke and the Wrights are concerned.
At the time Babcocke committed the mur-
ders, Governor Fletcher, of that state, was
making stump speeches not far from the
scene of the crime. II it was not his inten-
tion to inflame the passions Of the people
and instigate the commission of such atroci
ties, his language was admirably calculated
to do so. When the facts concerning the
murders were first published, we commented
on several extracts from speeches the gov
ernor had butrccently delivered, and charged
lHdb Whatever tHclt puipoSci tuclT cHccJ
could only be to arouse and stimulate an
a,sassin-lke spirit among the people That
Babcocke is at large, member of the leg
isature, avows and boasts of his murders,
and threatens to repeat them, and is cheered
and applauded by the state legislature in SO
doing is certainly sufficient proof for hold
ing Governor Fletcher and the house of
representatives as indorsers of the crime.
When in the early settlement Of Kansas
r some ingenious and imaginative Redpath,
living hundreds of miles from the territory,
would invent tales Of crime and cruelty as
having been perpetrated on the inhabitants
there, and send them to the New York
Tribune for the delcctation of its readers
the republican party Of the country was pro-
loundly agitatcd, not only in consideration
Of the suffering of its partisans in Kansas,
y but in view Of the barbarism and criminalty
disclosed by the statements, and so widely
and deeply affecting the people. We do
not speak in irony when we saw that this
sgtation and sympathy though based to a
Y great extent on the invention of Rcdpath,
! was very creditable to that party. There
q was also doubtless much that was real trans
plrlng III Kansas, as strange and quite as
dlabocal as what was described in the fc.
5 ton OF the Tribune correspondent. But the
. evidence was contradictory, and it is no,
strange that very many honest people soor
learned to regard all the stories of lawless
ness c'mlng or purporting to come from
these Us partisan inventions
No such doubts can arise in the case o
: Babcocke. 1t is not more certain that tht
' murders were committed than that the mur
II derer is known. He does not lurk in hiding
h places, among outlaws, moved to murder by
, , fierce political hatred and the remembrance
a of outrages perpetratcd upon them in an
n unorganzed state of society, and generating
. y tcuds such as devastated the clans of Scot
!, land. He stalks into the capital of the
/ state and takes his seat there as maker o.
, the laws-the most sacred and inviolable o.
- which he has blotted from the statutes by
y he blood Of victims he has murdered -
n There is not to-day legible word in tn,
!" a statutes Of Missouri. The crimson lte-cur
rent which flowed from the bodies of tho
4 Wrights, as they lay in their death-agony
- by the roadside, covered every letter and
y. character, and changed the whole mass tc
: the color of crimson, in which can be dis
a tingushed no trace or sign of laws made by
a the legislators of that state for the protec
', tion of its citizens Babcocke is the law. -
. lie erased the code of Missouri by immers
- q ing it in the blood of the family he dragged
! from their homes to riddle with bullets, witt
j as little thought of consequences as if they
i had been ordinary targets for practice
a W hen there is no law for the protection o
;, life or punishment Of murder, not even al
" insensate thrice soddcn fool will suppos,
: that less sacred privileges will be guarded
= -Chicago Times.