A controversial figure, in one of the early biographies he was described as so mean he once shot a man for snoring. (Admittedly there are those who would consider this justifiable homicide)
But eventually a mythic personification emerged as a counter point to the tough and murderous gunfighter, as one of those Robin Hood like characters, standing up for the poor and against the grasping rich. Bob Dylan’s song would be the most obvious example, although people also like to point out he misspelled Hardin’s name as evidence of various things.
Noting this anniversary set me to thinking a bit. I recalled how my grandmother, a Missouri native, always spoke approvingly of the “James boys,” not as gangsters and murderers, but as people whose family were destroyed by the Railroads, a term standing for all those rich and powerful who take what they want and leave a wake of suffering among ordinary people, and whose criminality was forced upon them, and who continued to fight for the poor for the rest of their lives…
The religious, messianic quality of the poor oppressed and one of them standing up to that system is echoed in Guthrie’s Jesus Christ.
If things continue will this become the myth, again? Will the people notice the horrors coming? And stand up?
Or, and this is my continuing fear, and what I think is much more likely, will we instead be lured by the siren song of libertarianism, and put the blame not on the uberrich and their grasping, but on organized labor, on government regulation, on some mythic “state,” and simply dismantle what little stands between the majority of people and the ultra powerful?
My fear is that much darker future is the one in front of us.
The call of angels of light.
That will tumble us into some great night.
(And why do I feel like that grumpy old guy in the round glasses…)
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