The Lake Charles echo. [volume] (Lake Charles, Parish of Calcasieu, La.) 1876-1898, 1882-10-21
LAKE CHARLES CALCASEU PARISH LOUISIANA OCTOBER q 1882
AN OUTLAWS PLEA.

I n )
THE LETTER OF FRANK JAMES TO GOV
ERNoR cRITTENDEN-THE CAUSES
THAT PROMPTED HIS SURRENDER VI
Wildly PORTRAYED.
Following is the letter addressed to
Governor Crittenden, of Missouri, by
the bandit, Frank James, prior to bis
surrender. He declines to state when
and where the letter was written, and
says that it is an, for the present, he
has to give the public
ST. LOUIS, September SOTO Hon.
7. T. Crittenden, Governor: Your Ex-
cellency-Time has demonstrated that
however carefully ] may follow the
path of good citizenship, and however
successful | may be in gaining the
confidence and respect Of those who
associate with me daily and hourly in
every act, the work of heaping infamy
on the name which my children are TO
bear, goes steadily on and on, as it be-
gan so many years ago. The greater
the crime which startles the people of
our western states, the greater the
certainty that it will be attributed to
my act or instigation. However strange
it may seem that a man of the reputa-
tion | bear should assume to possess
either pride or sensibility, l have the
haidihood to lay claim to some de-
gree of both. For years the one de-
sire of my life has been to regain the
citizenship which | lost in the dark
days when in western Missouri every
mans hand was against his neighbor,
and to have an opportunity of prov
ing, by submission to the most Vigor-
Gus test, that | am not unworthy of
such citizenship. 1t would avail me
nothing at this day to revertto the
circumstances attending my outlawry,
which and thousands of others re-
garded as extenuating. Those who
were where they could observe the
events in the little page OF history
need no Fecapitulation from me and
those who had no personal knowledge
in the premises have been so stirred
against me by reports ofmy evil doings
that they would naturally give no con-
sideratiOn to the facts of that charac-
ter. The people at large reason logi-
cally that where there's so much smoke
there must be SOME fire that although |
some of the charges made against me
may be unjust, all are not without
and that an evasion of the |
officers of the law is not the course of
an innocent man. May | bow to their
logic and reply that the man who is
now making his appeal does not do so
from the standpoint of martyr. He |
comes to You with their representa-
tiyes to say that, though his suffering |
has been hundred fold greater than
hey have any knowledge of, immeasur-
ably greater than the course which he
svaded would have attached to his |
acts, he recognizes that he has no
light to complain of his lot. He comes
IS man who, conscious of an honest
purpose, asks to be permitted to do
what our lowest law-abiding citizen
nay to remove from Missouri the
1dium for which, in part, he is respon-
3ible. He comes as man, outlaw
hough he has been, has innocent ones
Who call him father and husband, and
who possess love as strong and devoted
is was ever found in men whose lives
ire blameless before the world, and
)ne who is anxious to remove from
heir closet the skeleton which has so
ong been its hideous occupant. Ifit
we're not for the fear of responsibility
or that which | did not do, rather
han for that which | did, Governor
you should have never put
price upon my head ; but an excited
md justly indignant public is not dis
and when a man is stripped
# the safeguard of that presumptiye
innocence with which the law theoretic-
lily surrounds him, as / would be, he
S put to the dangerous necessity of
rowing a negative. The fear is still
With me, and as | write it prompts me
o abandon my present purposes, and |
laving for nearly twenty years proved
ny ability to eyade any attempt to
aptnre me, to take my little family
nd go to some remote section, where
can live a qniet life, free from ap-
That | refuse to obey
ueh an impulse +; that prefer to go
Jack to my boyhood home and face
ny disgrace, in order to live it down
hat | am willing to place myself IN
Ter a surveillance to which no man in
dissouri has ever yet been subjected,
S must naturally be the case should
eturn; that | choose this rough course
shen smoother ones offer, | humbly
ubmit as proof that am not so bad
$ has been painted, and that the ele-
nents of manhood have not been
mitted from my nature. Right terri
lie, Governor CrittendeH, have the
ffenses against society which have
cen charged against the James family
cen avenged. God knows enough
lood has been spilled, enough hearts
roken, enough lives bhghted. God
nows that if it is the purpose of the
Nv to prevent crime by making its
awful to contemplate, that
urpose has been served in large de-
rec in the ten years of terror and
T., 4 4 E.. |
Is justice, tempered with
lercy, mere poetical nothing? Must
le great state Of Missouri indulge a
pirit Of revenge until it has secured
: last ounce Of flesh; or, laying all
Of mercy aside, cannot
our state Il would to God could
~ "my state,' better afford now,
lat has indicated its laws as no state
yer did before. saw TO IFS suppliants /.