Cherokee County, from The Advocate, 7/08/1893
Cherokee Co. OK Archives 
Copyright c 2003 by: Mollie Stehno, e-mail: shoop@orcacom.net
This copy contributed for use in the USGenWeb Cherokee Co. OK Archives. 
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THE GENESIS OF TRAIN ROBBERY

July 8, 1893-The Cherokee Advocate-The first train robbery to attract general 
attention occurred less than 20 years ago, at Gad's Hill, a small station on the 
Iron Mountain Railroad.  The public mind was stunned by the audacity of the 
enterprise, and it has not yet completely recovered from the shock.  The 
murderer with a mask on his face, who stalks through a train and bullies braver 
men than he, has been from the first invested with a heroic personality that is 
not his due.  He is, generally speaking, a coward, who never shoots unless he 
has the drop, and who would not think of risking his precious carcass by 
pursuing the comparatively creditable but more hazardous occupation of stealing 
horses.
     Because his lay was unique the train robber was accepted from the first as 
a king among outlaws, and though it has been demonstrated again and again that a 
train, with its sleepy passengers, its unprotected express messenger, its 
engineer, in whom the instinct of self preservation is strong, and its 
conductor, who is more or less human, is easier held up than a hen roost 
sentineled by a faithful house dog, the train robber will have imitators as long 
as morbid fools read yellow-backed literature.  Every year since the Gad's Hill 
affair a new crop has been produced.  True, the Sheriff has usually been in at 
the harvest as chief reaper, occasionally adding the duties of a hangman to 
those of goul keeper.  The lack of adequate returns, which is peculiarly 
characteristic of the industry, does not deter the ambitious neophyte, who has 
intoxicated his so-called brain with "Sixteen-String Jack."
        The "James Boys" and "Younger Brothers," who were pioneers in the 
business, are mostly dead or in the penitentiary; Sam Bass, their earliest and 
ablest imitator, was, with his entire following, wiped off the face of the earth 
during the first year of his career; Grove Johnson and his three lieutenants 
were hanged at Clarksville, Ark., on one scaffold, three months after they quit 
holding up plow handles and went in for holding up trains as a means of 
livelihood; Rube Burrows, who was for a time thought to be invincible, drew on 
his boots one morning and died before he had a chance to take them off.  It was 
learned that his strength was in the main geographical.  He knew the country.  
His neighbors also knew it, and when they finally went out after the reward that 
had been offered for their quondam friend they got it and him.  The fate of the 
Dalton's is too recent to require comment.  Dozens of the smaller fry of the 
"profession" are in the penitentiary, or like "Dink" Wilson, on the way there.  
Every mother's son of them has been or will be the subject of a certain book, 
the title of which is changed from time to time for obvious reasons.  This book 
is in the genealogical tree of the train robber.  It propagates the species.
	     Remedies innumerable for the train robbing habit, which just now 
seems to be epidemic, have been suggested.  The most rational and thoroughly 
practical is to make it a dangerous undertaking.  If it were a capital offense 
in Missouri to attempt to rob a train, the statute might result in driving the 
bandits across the State line, but it would not reduce the number of robberies 
the half of 1 per cent.
       Viewed from any standpoint, the train robber promises to be with us as 
long as the printing press and the free school.  This is not an argument against 
either of these agencies of civilization.  The naturally vicious will be bad in 
any event, and they run their course sooner, perhaps, in this line than they 
would in any other.  Dead train robbers are absolutely harmless, and the most 
rational way to treat any member of the build is to shoot him whenever and 
wherever he is found plying his vocation.  Let the railroads put guards on their 
trains whose business it will be to kill any train robber who shows himself.  
Such men are easily found, and when the railroads begin to haul in dead bandits 
as well as dynamite scattered express cars the business of train robbing will 
soon cease to thrive.  Republic