Every evening, Wilmington daily commercial., 1920-05-07
The Wild and
Woody East
By Frederic j. Haskin.

Washington, u. c., May "A few
davs ago seven armed men walked into n
little country bank near here, shot and
killed an officer of it, locked the rest of the
officers and employees into the vault and
went away with about thirty thousand
dollars in cash and securities. No one
even found out what had happened for n
olartrr OF an hour after they had left
Detectives, policemen, constables, and all
the other varieties of sleuths are hot on
the tracks OF the bandits, but have caught
nothing 50 far except lot of very vague
elites and great deal of space in the news
papers
Three days after the above happening,
seven armed men went INTO one of the
offices nf the Fifth Avenue Bus Com
nanv in New York, held up 80 men, took
two thousand dollars. and escaped with
nut even having To shoot anyone and with
out leaving lehInd So much as a clue.
This may or may not have been the
same gang There is no special reason to
suppose il was the same gang. This
country is full of gangs and individuals
who make an easy living by robbery and
murder Crimes like the two above mar
rated have become 50 common that we
scarcely realize how common they arc.
JEd~E JAMES oUTDoNE.
.Iessc JAMES and his brother, Frank,
won fame 10y their success as bandits
during the generation following the Civil
War. We are accustomed 10 think OF the
deeds and the times Of the James boys rs
something romauticallv and especially
criminal Nct the James boys never did
ANYTHING more bold than these two rob
hcries. and they never got away with any
thing So easily They held up number of
small county banks i'll western towns sue
cs~ssfulv, but they were often shot at, and
members OF their gang were repeatedly
wounded. Finally. when they tried to rob
the bank in Northheld, Minnesota. the
citizens surrounded them, fired on them
with rifles and six-shoOters, and finally
killed AL of the gang but two. The James
bovs hard hard life compared TO modern
auto bandits who make our highways un-
safe, and make every isolated store and
bank more or less hazardous enterprise.
Nc also like to read tales of the wild
West. throughout the period from about
1850 to 1890. when the SIX shooter was
supreme in all the great region west OF the
Mississippi. Many fabulous fiction tales
have been constructed about that era.
which cause the air Of the unsophisticat-
ed 10 stand on end, and make the eastern
citizen thank God that he lives in a
civilized country Het. as a matter Of
fact, excepting where hostile indians were
involved. both life and property were vast
IL safer IN the West of that day than they
are in the East Of this day. This YOU can
easily ascertain for yourself il YOU will
read, not the hair-hrained fiction which
has been written about the early West, but
the accounts Of actual experiences there
For example. a young Engllshman
named Bell, IN 1867, accompanied the
surveyors who were exploring 3 route for
the Santa Fe railroad across the continent,
and sfterward wrote book about II. He
passed through New Mexico during one
Of its widest epochs, when there were still
a few Indians on the war path, and when
there WAS absolutely no effective legal
organization Counties had sheriffs, who
were generally highly efficient men, and
sometimes q town would have a marshal.
But there WAS no adequate policing, as we
understand il today--no guardian Of the
law walking his hest Ia prevent You from
dong this or that-and the courts were an