Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1882-10-19
FRANK JAMES SURRENDERSi

FRANK JAMES SUkRENDEhS1
I1rod of Being Hunted Like a wild Boast,
tho Missouri Bandit Appeals for Mercy
and Gives Himself up to Governor Crit
tendon.
JEFFERSON CITY, Oct. s. 1882
After living for some four years the life OF
. peaceable. and to all appearances res.
| pectable and law-abiding citizen, Frank
James yielded to the persuasion of relatives
and'friends, and in the hope that after all he
might not be convicted, might be par
doned, and a deep seated feeling that unless
he did surrender his fate would be similar to
that of Jesse, wrote the following letter to
Gov. Crittenden:
AN APPEAL FOR AMNESTY.
ST. LOUIS, Mo-, October l, 1882.
Hon. T. T. Critenden, Governor:
Your Excellency, time has demonstrated
that however carefully may follow the path
of good citizenship, and however successful l
OF those who associate with me daily and
know my every act. the work of heaping in
fanny on the name which my children are to
bear goes steadily on and on as 1t began
many years ago. The greater the crime which
greater the Certainty that it viii be assributed
to my act or instigation. However strange it
may seem that man of the reputation bear
should assume to possess either pride
sensibility. have the hardihood to lay claim
to some degree Of both. For years the one
the citizenship which lost in the dark days
when, in Western Missouri, every mans hand
hls Sr and to an tn
the most rigorous test, that am not unwor-
thy Of it. It would avail me nothing at this
day to revert to the circumstances attending
ers regarded as extenuating. Those who were
capitulation OF them from me. and
In the premises have been SO prejudfced
against me by reports of my evil doings that
they would nat 1haturay give no
~hsre there IS SO much smoke there must n be-
made against me may be unjust, all are not
without foundation. and that an evasion of
innocent man. bow to this logic and reply
that the man who is making this appeal does
He comes to you, their representative, to say
that though his suffering has been a hundred
times greater than they have a knowledge of,
he evaded would have attached to his acts, he
recognizes that he has no right to complain
of his lot. He comes as q man who, conscious
of an honest purpose, asks to be permitted to
do what an earnest, law abiding citizen may
to remove from Missouri the odium for which
a man who, outlaw though he is, has for those
innocent ones who call him husband and
is found in men whose lives are blameless
before the world. and as one who is anxious
ton which has SO long been its hideous occu-
pant. If it were not for the fear of response
bility for that which did not do rather than
for that which did. Governor Crittenden, you
should never have had to put price upon
my head But an excited and justly indig-
nant public is not discrimfnative, and when a
man is stripped of the safeguard of presump-
tive innocence, with which the law virtually
surrounds him, as l would be, he is put to the
dangerous necessity of proving negative.
That fear is still with me, and as write, it
prompts me to abandon my present purpose,
my ability to evade ali attempts to capture me,
to take my little family and go to some remote
apprehension. That refuse to obey such an
impulse that prefer to 60 back to my boy
myself under surveillance to which no man i'll
Missouri has ever yet been subjected, as must |
choose this rough course. when smoother ones |
Offer. is, l humbly submit, q proof
6een Out and Dad aha as the eie
ments of manhood have not been entirely OBJ |
liberated from my nature. Right terribly.
against society which have been charged !
sgatnst the James family been revenged.
enough hearts broken. enough lives blighted. |
God knows that if it is the purpose of the law |
awful to contemplate. that purpose has been |
served in large degree in those ten years of
ed
mercy" mere poetical nothing? Must the |
great State of Missouri indulge spirit of re.
flesh? Or, laying all considerations of mercy |
aside, can not your State-I would to God |
has indicated its laws as no State ever did |
before, to say to its supplicants. " Yes, come |
o OF orey
will, purely as an unsentimental Investment, |
restore you to citizenship and give you an |
further purposes. We viii call upon
you to use your experience and knowl-
ment of the laws which you have in the past |
been charged with violating, and when by |
years of correct department and honest in.
duStry you have won the confidence of all of |
those who now condemn you, we will point to
it all as proof of our wisdom" If l were
goat, 1 would never have troubled you with
this petition, but would have long ago faced
In the tolls Lwould have had to accept ali the
chances, and while none would have been in
hight hi be alleged %gSs 6r II to
their advantage to assist in convicting me.
Put yourself in my place for one moment,
and then judge of my course in keeping out
of the laws clutches. There is one considera-
ton other than already mentioned which has
present present step u For I'VE months I have been
In constant dread that some rash friend of
e Of
sassination which have been, according to
published reports. poured in upon you. Sup.
pose for one moment that that
had occurred, is there a man living who
would not have held me responsible for it?
And yet, not only were the threats not mine.
as you will discover by comparing them with
my writing, but the thought of revenge was
never one moment entertained by me. have
now stated my case, and have, trust, avoid
ed any SAVIOR of mawkishness. ask if you can
not consistently with your duty give me some
hope for amnesty under the condition have
specified. 1t may strike you that modesty is
not the most prominent Characteristic of this
request but it should be remembered that it
comes from a man who is still at large and
the uncertainty of whose Whereabouts is, al
though It need not be, the cause of a deal of
apprehension. do not appeal as man who,
having followed the wrong course until his
head is whitening and he is lettering on the
verge of the grave, is taught repentance
by his incapacity for further iniquity, but
as one who is yet young and vigorous,
and has reasonable ground to be-
Heve that there are more years yet left him
for active service within the pale of society
than those which he has spent outside of it.
submit that this is not an improper Ques-
ton for your consideration, whether it would
Ia.,aes q c,f