Who Is To Blame?

Below is part of Governor Woodson's message to the Missouri legislature, denying responsibility for failing to arrest the James/Younger Gang and, not surprisingly, asking for more money. It was printed in the New York Times, on March 28, 1874, under the title "Lawlessness in Missouri."

To the General Assembly of Missouri: Senators and Representatives: Your present session is rapidly drawing to a close, and I am sorry to say that up to the present time you have not deemed it expedient or necessary to make any provision enabling this Executive to enforce the Criminal Law and have the outlaws and murderers who are bringing disgrace upon the State arrested and brought to trial and punishment..... These desperados may one day enter and rob a bank, and in cold blood shoot down the Cashier. Next day they visit an agricultural fair in one of the richest and most populous counties of the State, and almost in the midst of thousands of men, woman and children, rob the safe, shoot a young woman and make good their escape. Only a few weeks intervene until we hear of them at the hour of 1 o'clock in the morning, with a prisoner in their possession, forcing the keepers of a public ferry..... to transport them..... and the following morning their prisoner..... is found a corpse in the public road, riddled by their murderous bullets. The question now arises, who is to blame for the failure to arrest and bring to punishment these outlaws? .....Some of our people believe that the Executive has failed in the discharge or his duties..... So far as this Executive is concerned..... no power placed by the law in his hands has remained dormant. I have exhausted every resource known to the law in his (sic) efforts to have these desperados arrested..... (But) you have provided no military organization which I can use, nor have you set apart or appropriated one dollar..... I have no means of paying for a secret service to aid in the emergencies by which we are surrounded..... With the power to employ a secret Police force -- and the means to pay them provided -- I can enforce the law..... Without such power I do not believe that it can or that it will be done.

Return to Cole's Tale