Carl Wells Books

Our republic/democracy is visibly failing. Whether it ceases to exist in five months, five years, or five decades, the good ole U. S. and A. is heading for the trash heap of history. It is depressing to see our nation disappear the way it is disappearing, but huge nations are inherently dangerous to themselves and others. Leopold Kohr has shown us why in The Breakdown of Nations. World history has shown us how in many specific instances, and is showing us how right now as the Powers That Be cheer on the barbarians among us. Which is not shocking, since the Powers That Be are barbarians themselves. The Powers That Be may not be the ones physically swinging the sledgehammers, but they are the ones encouraging the swinging.

But what comes after the U.S.A.? History will not have a full stop, at least in the very near future, despite the mad ravings of dispensationalists. After the U.S. ceases to exist, what?

Hopefully, of course, the break-up of the U.S. can be peaceful, with no starvation, and with little violence. We’ve already had some violence, but perhaps that can be limited in amount. I certainly hope so. I hope we can all start over, still well fed, still most of us not beaten to a pulp, still retaining our savings. I pray for a peaceful end to the United States.

But if the republic/democracy comes to an end because we can no longer get along together, what is next?

Well, the barbarians have to go their own way. Who are we to try to tell them what to do? If they want various forms of peoples’ republics–communist paradises–well, that is their business. We who don’t like that way of living proved unable and unwilling to build and defend a civilized civil government, so who are we to try to tell others how to live? We will have enough on our platter, and more, in trying to determine how our seceded portions of the ex-U.S. should govern ourselves.

My reading of the Bible tells me that there is no one form of government which automatically is the best and automatically works. Here’s the hard truth (which can also be an encouraging truth): nothing works except obeying God from the heart. God needs to be the lawgiver, and His people need to love Him and want to obey His laws. Nothing works, if our hearts aren’t right. A legion of angels could deliver to us a perfect constitution from the hand of God Himself, with detailed instruction as to how we should organize civil government, and if our hearts are wrong within twenty years we will turn the country into a mess.

Christians have spent centuries pretending that there can be a separation of religion and state. Our intellectual dishonesty in that regard has not changed reality for one split second. Theocracy always exists.

A god always makes the laws. The god can be Allah, can be humanist barbarian man, can be the God of the Bible, or can be any of a thousand other gods. We Christians need to admit this fact, admit that we need to love God better, admit that His laws give us a wise way to live, then work toward building small Christian nations which honor God in every way, including in their laws. If we don’t want to do that, fine. We can go on destroying ourselves and can go on refusing to give our neighbors an example of trying to work toward God.

In this brief essay, I simply want to suggest that after our failed republic/democracy throws some of us out in the cold in terms of civil government, a possible option for one or more small Christian nations, is monarchy. That’s not the only option! Having judges could work. A republic or democracy could work, if the central authority of God is acknowledged. There are many ways to construct a semi-sane civil government. My only point is that monarchy could work, if we all understand what we are getting into.

1 Samuel 8 warned how inherently dangerous was a monarchy! The king, Samuel warned, would build himself up, would construct a powerful army, and would take a tenth of the wealth for himself. Nevertheless, the people still wanted a king to go out before them and ‘”fight our battles”‘ (1 Samuel 8:20). Like believers in our day, they wanted to escape responsibility; let the king be the one responsible.

These are not encouraging words for monarchy as a potential form of civil government!

However, that is not God’s only word on monarchy. In Deuteronomy 17 God gave the people permission to set a king over themselves once they entered the promised land. But God made very clear that the king was to see himself as limited in what he could do. He was not to be the out-of-control king eventually warned about in 1 Samuel 8. No, the king’s powers were to be limited. All of Deuteronomy 17:14-20 is crucial for us, but I will quote only part of the passage. God would help them choose a king, who was not to be a foreigner.

‘”Moreover, he [the king] shall not multiply horses for himself, nor shall he cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses, since the LORD has said to you, ‘You shall never again return that way.’ He shall not multiply wives for himself, or else his heart will turn away; nor shall he greatly increase silver and gold for himself.

‘”Now it shall come about when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself a copy of this law on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests. It shall be with him and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, by carefully observing all the words of this law and these statutes, that his heart may not be lifted up above his countrymen and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, to the right or the left, so that he and his sons may continue long in his kingdom in the midst of Israel.”‘ (Deuteronomy 17:16-20)

The king was limited by the law of God! He was to be humble. He was actually to write down for himself a copy of the law, which he was to read constantly. (Contrast that with most Christians, who often read the Bible little or not at all.) If a nation had a king who acted in the way God instructs here, it would have a chance to have a semi-sane civil government which honored God and was honored in turn by Him.

Nothing in terms of having a good civil government is going to be automatic or easy or perfect. This should not surprise us. Is your Christian life automatically done in the right way, and always done perfectly? (If it is, maybe you will be a good candidate for king!) Most or all of us would admit that doing things right is hard, all the time. No civil government on earth will ever be perfect, whether it is a monarchy, a republic, or a whatever. But a monarchy could work. Getting the right man as king would be hard to do, but if we had such a man, it would give us time and space and hope. We would have to watch him like a hawk at all times, and squawk like a chicken when we saw him going wrong! But there is no inherent reason why monarchy could not work when the monarch was a Christian and the people were Christian. That is, if we were all serious about our Christianity rather than just wanting to piddle around and pretend.

The trilogy The Chronicles of Jupiter, respectfully translated by me, deals in part with monarchy as a possibly successful form of civil government. The three volumes are War On Jupiter, Brains Ought Not to Be Overworked, and Final War on Jupiter. There is free shipping on all books purchased from me, and most of my books sell for a pittance as ebooks.

The U.S. is dying. It deserves to die. Maybe–maybe–you and I can be in on the construction of small nations which honor God and protect our neighbors. Maybe.

We are trying to see whether or not black lives matter. According to the group Black Lives Matter, black lives do matter–and white people are causing immense problems because white people act as if black lives do not matter. Such, at least is the theory of Black Lives Matter.

Today we will try to see if white people are causing most of the problems that black people face.

One problem black people have is that many of them are being killed before they are even born. Walt Blackman is a black member of the Arizona House of Representatives. He wrote a Feb. 25, 2020 article for the “Arizona Capitol Times” which is entitled “Abortion: The overlooked tragedy for black Americans.” Mr. Blackman reports that black women are 14% of the child bearing population, but obtain 36% of all abortions. Another stat, from 2008, puts the white abortion rate at 11 per 1000, while the black abortion rate is 50 per 1000. So the black rate of abortion is thus 4.5 times higher than the white rate. So are black women being dragged into abortion clinics by white people, and forced to get abortions to kill black babies? Well, that’s a theory, but more likely black women are voluntarily killing black babies.

Black people have a homicide rate of 34.4 per 100,000, while white people kill at a rate of 4.5 per 100,000. Thus the black rate of murder is 7.6 times as high as the white rate. What makes this especially problematic for black people is that black people are mostly killing black people. Yes, black on white violence is not uncommon, and now and then white people commit violence against black people, but mostly black people victimize other black people. Again, it is difficult to imagine that white people are forcing black people to kill black people. But they are killing their brothers and sisters at a painfully high rate.

In fact a 2011 Penn State study indicates that when we factor in cases in which black people are afraid to testify, etc., the black murder rate may even be 11.7 times higher than the white rate. But surely 7.6 times as high is enough, and we need not argue about the difference between 11.7 and 7.6.

My brother correctly pointed out that we have a crisis in regard to fathers in this country. Here are the stats on illegitimate births: 77.3% of black births are illegitimate, 56.9% of Hispanic births are illegitimate, and 30% of white births are illegitimate.

Even 5% of any people group would be tragic, and a warning that we need to change something. But 77.3, 56.9, and 30? All these numbers are horrific, and are the sign of a dying civilization. But we are concerned today especially about black people, and clearly the black community is permitting themselves to bring forth almost all their children without two-parent families. Again, this is not being forced upon black people by white people; it is something black people do voluntarily. (Although it is quite necessary to point out that it is the white liberal welfare state which encourages all–black, Hispanic, and white–to bring forth illegitimate, fatherless children. So to at least some degree we rightly can blame Whitey for the black illegitimacy rate.)

I have been told that the black church is strong. Baloney. The black church is the root of all the problems in the black community. Black people overwhelmingly vote for leftist candidates, black people permit an horrific murder rate in their community, black people murder their unborn children at an horrific rate, black people have illegitimate children at an horrific rate. If the black church is so strong, where is the evidence? Both the white church and the black church are doing a wretched job of guiding their people to a biblical brand of Christianity. But today we are talking about black people. Are black churches forced by white people to preach and live an antinomian (anti-God’s-law) brand of Christianity? No, black churches are doing it voluntarily. Of course there may be some black churches which are really preaching and living a biblical Christianity. But they must be very few, or the behavior of the black people would reflect that better teaching.

Why are countless white liberals agreeing with Black Lives Matter that the root of black problems is white racism? Why are they winking at the violence, the looting, the burning, which black people are committing against people who had nothing whatever to do with the death of George Floyd?

There is a reasonable answer, but it is not the one white liberals understand.

There is a well-known woman soccer star, a white person, who said something which unconsciously hit the nail right on the head. (No need to name her; there are tens of thousands of similar people. She speaks for lots of people.)

She said, “I realize my silence has not contributed to addressing these issues and therefore, I am part of the problem of racism and inequality. [. . . ] I was not doing my part and I must own up to that.”

She is 100% correct: she is ‘”part of the problem.”‘ But not in the way she thinks. She is indeed part of the problem. She is part of the problem because she has jumped to blame white people for black problems.

Here’s the reality: white liberals hold black people in unconscious contempt. They do not hate black people, I think. They reserve their hatred for white Christians. But in their heart of hearts, white liberals do not believe black people can behave in a civilized manner.

And–this is crucial–white liberals want to feel righteous. We all want to feel righteous, right? Of course. But righteousness is hard, and requires that we act in ways approved by the Bible. Self-righteousness is easy. Self-righteousness is a lie. It is Satan’s version of righteousness: “even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.” (2 Corinthians 11:14)

It is easy to blame white racists for the problems of black people. It is hard to tell people painful truths. That white soccer player, and all her liberal colleagues, are indeed part of the problem. But not because they haven’t said enough about white racism. Rather they are part of the problem because they refuse to hold black people to a civilized standard. You loot and burn the property of others? You are a barbarian, and you need to grow up. White liberals won’t tell that to black people, because white liberals just want to pretend to themselves that they are righteous, and pretend that the great mass of unwashed white people are the problem.

It is of course true that white people have not always acted fairly toward black people. See last week’s comments by my thoughtful friend X, for examples. And no doubt white bigotry continues in this country. In a country of 320,000,000 people, we are not all going to act right all the time. But on the whole I think there is a very minute amount of white bigotry toward blacks. We are conscious of wrongs which have been done in the past, and we want to do better. A very high percentage of us would celebrate greatly if the black community began to succeed and flourish at a very high rate. When we see black people contribute to civilization, we are glad.

But here is some very bad news. Black people, you are mostly going to have to help yourselves. The white liberals are your enemies, although they pretend to be your friends. And those of us of a conservative and Christian bent, are not likely to be much help. Here’s why: it is very hard for us to love in a biblical manner.

On a blog post devoted to lies we tell ourselves, from Sept. 21, 2017, I concluded with lie #23.

“23/We care quite a bit about other people. No, mostly all we care about is our families and ourselves. If we cared about other people, we would treat them more politely, we would get to know other people better and would involve ourselves in their lives, we would actively seek to help or encourage people. The news is even worse than that, however. For when I say we care about our families, even then we often care for them in a very foolish manner. We might think we love our children, but do we discipline them according to biblical principles, or do we make excuses for them and enable their sin? Often we enable their sin. So, in effect, we don’t even really care about our families all that much. Oh, we are on their side and want them to be successful, but only because they come from us. We don’t love them enough to teach them how to live in a manner pleasing to God.”

Those are probably the darkest words I have ever written. But I consider them to be precisely true. We white Christians (and black and polka dot Christians as well) usually do a very poor job of loving even our own families. So how are we going to provide biblical help to black people as a whole? No, about the best you can hope for from us is that we treat each person with politeness and respect. That is about all we can offer. That is not a small thing, really, but it is not going to help you create a black community which reflects God’s standards of behavior. You are going to have to do almost everything yourself.

I feel almost powerless to help the black people of this country. I have tried to tell the truth, but almost no one will pay attention to what I write. Black people, if they read my stuff, won’t trust me–and probably should not. I’m just another white guy. I am powerless, but God is not powerless. So here is my contribution to black well-being–a prayer.

God of the Bible, in the next two years send this country 10,000 black people, men and women, young and old, who love the truth and want to help their people live in a manner which pleases you. Let those 10,000 people speak and live biblical truth. Help them to stand bravely for your truth. Help those who love you to mentor young people. In Christ’s name, amen.

Maybe that is too weak a prayer. Maybe I should have asked for 100,000 or 1,000,000. But let it stand. If you don’t like it, pray your own durn prayer.

Do black lives matter? I think they matter to God, and can matter to all of us, but be warned that we can’t even love our own families properly, so it is a long and difficult path before we can love very many people, including those of another race, in a wise manner. I think black people have responsibility and can live in a civilized manner. I think white liberals and black race hustlers are the deadly enemies of black people. I think black people are going to have to tell the truth to themselves and their fellow black citizens. I think it can happen. When it does, we will begin to see good results. All of us, black and white, will benefit. But it is going to have to start with telling the truth. One black truth-teller, with God on his side, is a mighty army.

Today we begin a two-part series on the topic of, do black lives matter?

I found myself very upset about the rioting, burning, and looting in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd. I didn’t really want to write about the topic, since I knew that my opinions were likely to offend many people. On the bright side, few or no people were likely to read my stuff, so I would mostly escape opprobrium if I did write something. (Which, come to think of it, is not a very bright side.) First off, though, I asked a trusted Christian friend to tell me if I was even crazier than usual. With his permission, I print his response. Some of the names have been redacted, at his request.

First will come my email to [X], then his response will follow.

[X], As you know, I believe that everybody is crazy in one way or another, and very often in many ways. I have believed that for many years, and have seen no reason to change my mind on the topic.

That said, I also understand that there are degrees of insanity.

My query to you concerns the recent rioting and looting.

It seems to me that it is very crazy to burn, destroy, or loot the property of someone who had nothing to do with a crime against the black man George Floyd. The police officer who was responsible for his death has been arrested, and will have a trial. Why does the crime against George Floyd give people the right to destroy the property of others?

It seems off the charts nutty on the face of it to allow this destruction, yet much of the commentariat of this country–almost unanimously–seems to believe that it is quite acceptable and even honorable to be doing this destruction.

Black people have an illegitimacy rate of around 75%. Countless black people are the victims of black violence, not the victim of white violence against blacks which is statistically rare. Yet all the problems of the black community are supposedly the result of systemic racism. And many white people including all the ones in control, seem to agree with the theory that blames all black problems on white people.

Am I missing something? I know I’m crazy. Is the fact that I can’t understand what is going on, simply one more proof that I am even more out of touch with reality than I realized?

Or would semi-sanity cause us to say that the looting and rioting are silly and wicked? And that the black people need to accept responsibility for their actions and stop doing violent things? It seems to me that the black looters/rioters and the white people supporting the black looters/rioters are not doing the black race as a whole any favors–in fact they are hurting them.

There I go again! Is my response simply proof that I am deplorable, irredeemable, and a mean-spirited bigot?

Thanks for taking time to reply. Let me down as gently as you can. Thank you. C.

[X’s response follows]

Hi, Carl, When I was going into second grade we moved to the south side of Indianapolis. After I had attended school for a few weeks at School 34 I asked my mother if I could bring my best friend home to visit. She agreed that would be fine, but I think she was a little shocked when I came in with a little black boy. I spent some time at his house, too, and it was interesting to me how they fixed their hair and did a few other things differently from white people.

At that time my dad was extremely prejudiced against blacks, violently so. In my memory I can’t remember bringing my little black friend home again, probably because mother knew it would cause trouble.

When I worked at [a large company, its name redacted by Carl] in the 1960s one of my best friends was a black man named George Edge. His wife’s name was [Y], the same as my mother’s name. George was a hard working and smart engineer, with a great personality.

I can remember him telling about being in the army and when he got out he said he thought he was going to go to Georgia Tech, famous for the saying, He’s a ramblin’ wreck from Georgia Tech and an hell of an engineer. It’s their fight song. The lyrics are below.

I’m a Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech, and a hell of an engineer—
A helluva, helluva, helluva, helluva, hell of an engineer.
Like all the jolly good fellows, I drink my whiskey clear.
I’m a Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech and a hell of an engineer.

Oh! If I had a daughter, sir, I’d dress her in White and Gold,
And put her on the campus to cheer the brave and bold.
But if I had a son, sir, I’ll tell you what he’d do—
He would yell, ‘To hell with Georgia!’ like his daddy used to do.

Oh, I wish I had a barrel of rum and sugar three thousand pounds,
A college bell to put it in and a clapper to stir it round.
I’d drink to all the good fellows who come from far and near.
I’m a ramblin’, gamblin’, hell of an engineer!

George told me they wouldn’t accept him at the college and told him to stay in his part of Atlanta. Not one to give up, George moved to Gary, Indiana with his family and went to college there. He went to college during the day and worked in the steel mills at night to feed and house his family. I remember him telling me about coming home after work and taking a shower and his wife finding him asleep in the hallway because he was too tired to make it to the bedroom. As I noted, he turned out to be a terrific engineer, but he definitely wasn’t treated fairly because he was black.

In the 1990s we stayed overnight in Tuskegee, Alabama on a Saturday night. Booker T. Washington and Tuskegee University might come to mind when you hear this town’s name. Anyway, Sunday afternoon we had a meeting with a company in Georgia and we needed to attend Sunday school and church as early as possible. The AME church in Tuskegee started Sunday school one half hour earlier than any other church in town (think lots of Baptist churches), so we decided to go there. We knew it would be a totally black church.

We walked in and met the minister and he asked us to step into his office. He was a nice looking, well-dressed man in his upper 30s. He said to us, “You’ve put me in a bind.” I very carefully told him we weren’t there to cause trouble, and we just wanted to get an early start because we had a meeting to attend that afternoon. You could see his relief to hear those words.

We went to Sunday school and it went great. Then in church we sat with a black lady and quickly fell in love with her. She was all about Christ, was funny, clever, and very affectionate. That has been a long time ago and [Z] and I still talk about that black lady several times each year. We know God will put us in contact with that lady when we get to heaven.

By the way, when we got home from that trip we had a beautiful message on our answering machine from that minister, telling how much he enjoyed having us in church.

After church that morning we stopped at McDonald’s to grab a quick bite before departing town. On the way in there was a group of older black guys sitting close to the door I entered. I looked their way and they said nothing. Then I said hi to them and they all started talking. We had a great talk for a few minutes about a variety of things. It was obvious to me the reason they didn’t talk to me was the fact they weren’t supposed to talk to a white person unless the white person talked to them first. How sad.

Now let’s drop down to Pine Mountain, Georgia, a little town of 1,364 people where the beautiful tourist attraction of Callaway Gardens is found.

We were there, also in the 1990s, on a turkey hunting trip with a company. We turkey hunted in the morning and ate delicious southern prepared food in the excellent restaurants in the area during the day. Once we were eating in one restaurant and a black gal about 25 years old waited on us. She was strikingly beautiful, with a figure to match her good looks. She was also, by far, the best waitress in the restaurant. She was super sharp, and had a wonderful personality.

The strange thing is, the people we were eating with, who were all from the south, did nothing but give her a rough time, and it was obvious they did so because of the color of her skin. Fortunately we had an opportunity to get her aside and talk to her. We asked her if she was treated badly like this a lot, and she said she was. We then asked her what she would desire for her future in life. This is her reply: “I would like to move to Bermuda where most everyone there is the same skin color as I am, and I think I would be treated fairly there and be happy.”

I’ve gone through this long answer to your question to show I’m not prejudiced toward black people, and that I have seen many cases of black people being mistreated. Despite all of this, Carl, I totally agree with you on all of your points you mentioned. Without question, many black people and those who are supposed to be supporting them, are causing white people to lean more toward racism than ever before. That includes me.

Regarding the looters, they are there for a purpose: to steal and to rob. They are criminals. Trump really meant it when he said, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.” He has back peddled on what he said, but that is what would stop the looters.

To justify the looting is pure insanity. And now they are talking about doing away with police departments entirely in cities and towns and let some nice organization talk to the people and get them to do what it is right. It would save all kinds of money, they say. Total insanity.

I’ll be the first one to say there are many Macho Men and Macho Women in police departments who love power and to be in control of others, but there are a tremendous number of police officers who are doing the right thing, and doing a great job. Being a police officer is a dangerous job that may cost you your life at any time. Usually there over 100 police officers killed in the line of duty each year in the United States. What they go through to arrest the drug dealers, child abusers, and such each day is gruesome and the details are rarely told. It takes great skill to carry out the duties of a police officer, and when they are no longer on the job it will be time to stock up on ammo to protect your premises, because there will be no one else available to do it for you.

Well, there you have it, Carl. I’m totally confident you are sane and correct in your views, and I think I am also, along with [Z] who agrees with us 100%.

It will be interesting to see how this protest thing turns out, but I’m betting the results won’t be good.

[back to me, Carl]

X was kind enough to grant me permission to print his email. However, here is something which will encourage you, as it encouraged me. Remember X’s father, violently prejudiced against black people? X, in granting me permission to quote him, adds something for us to ponder long and hard:

Carl, you can use my comments, but I think it best to not use my name or [Z]’s name. More than anything, my dad looks like a bad egg regarding black people, and he was–until he came to know Christ. Actually, my dad and mom went on two mission trips to the southeastern United States, and they were both to the same place, and both places were full of black people. As I recall it, it was the black people they worked with. Oh, what a difference Jesus can make in a person’s life.

[again, back to me, Carl]

So there we have it: a man formerly bigoted against black people, twice working with them on a Christian mission trip. To coin a phrase, Oh, what a difference Jesus can make in a person’s life. Okay, well, maybe I didn’t exactly coin that phrase, but I think I read it somewhere.

Next week I will conclude this two-part series on whether or not black lives matter. In my opinion we are off to a good start, because I have cleverly managed to get someone else to do most of the actual writing of this first column. Plus, X’s comments are honest and thought-provoking, and come from a man whose heart clearly is in the right place. I may be deplorable, irredeemable, and a mean-spirited bigot, but I think almost everyone will sense that X is not.

In early February my Aged Parent and I watched “High Noon.” (We were joined for part by my sister.) “High Noon” is a famous 1952 film. It starred Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly. The movie had seven Academy Award nominations, and had four wins, including the superb “The Ballad of High Noon.” Here is a link to the version which opens the movie; it is sung by Tex Ritter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5an9OuXKxBw.

The movie held our interest well. However, Wikipedia makes clear that the movie was controversial at the time. No less a person than John Wayne called it ‘”the most un-American thing I’ve ever seen in my whole life.”‘

To summarize the plot very briefly, Marshal Will Kane (Cooper) has just gotten married to his beautiful young Quaker bride Amy (Kelly). But he hears that Frank Miller and three of his gang are heading to Hadleyville to take revenge on Kane. He doesn’t cut and run; his duty requires him to defend the town and himself rather than leave. He tries to get support among the townspeople to help him defeat the Miller gang. But they all (with unimportant exceptions) find excuses, including the people at church. The brave Kane is going to have to face the four vicious men all by himself.

Grace Kelly, a Quaker, tries to leave her new husband due to her religious beliefs, but at the last moment she decides to help him. She wields a gun at a crucial moment; see the movie for how that turns out. I don’t want to give the plot away. It is a movie worth seeing, even if you end up agreeing with John Wayne. Any movie which features the beautiful Grace Kelly is worth seeing.

What might make the movie un-American? Well, it portrays the townspeople as refusing to fight bravely for their town and their friend the marshal. They refuse to pull out their rifles and pistols and fight beside him.

Years ago I heard about a town named Northfield, Minnesota. If memory serves, the writer Frank Gruber alerted me to Northfield. I didn’t follow up on that hint for many decades, until seeing “High Noon” made me think about Northfield again. What happened in Northfield, Minnesota on September 7, 1876, is that the James-Younger gang (eight men), tried to rob the Northfield bank.

The townspeople did not know that the men were the famous James-Younger gang. But they figured out very quickly that some men were trying to rob the bank. Their response? They pulled out their weapons and began shooting. (Some people even threw large rocks!) Two of the gang were dead very quickly, others wounded. They robbed the bank all right–of about $20.00.

The man who had the combination to the safe refused to open it, despite the gang’s threat to murder him. So he was shot down in cold blood, probably by Frank James. He died. His name was Joseph Lee Heywood. When his widow learned that he had given his life rather than permit the robbery, she reportedly said, ‘”I would not have had him do otherwise.”‘ (Shot All to Hell, p. 99)

The gang, out in the streets, also shot one other man who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time; he too died, four days later on September 11.

Once the seven to ten minutes of chaos had ended, the gang was very far from home free. The people in the town, and from other towns (alerted by telegraph) immediately formed posses to track down the James-Younger gang. Pretty quickly they had figured out who the bank robbers were. The gang was far from their usual stomping grounds, but they were in Minnesota, and Minnesotans were not amused. They were probably “Minnesota nice” even then, but their instinct was to join in the pursuit and try to hunt down the James-Younger gang. Men joined the pursuit in droves.

The three most famous members of the gang were Jesse James, Frank James, and Cole Younger. The other five men were not novice outlaws.

The search took approximately two weeks, and Jesse and Frank James finally escaped by the skin of their teeth. The other four were either killed or captured.

All this, as you can well imagine, was front page news for a very long time. We still remember Northfield, Minnesota, and they have a festival each year commemorating the robbery and the shootout.

How do I know all this? Well, I just finished reading Shot All to Hell: Jesse James, the Northfield Raid, and the Wild West’s Greatest Escape, by Mark Lee Gardner. The book was published in 2013. It is absolutely riveting. Mr. Gardner has done an astonishing amount of research. He wants to get the story completely right. Where he is unsure, he says so. This is history writing which informs, moves, and causes us to think. The book is reasonably available on the Internet. This morning I saw a price for a used copy of $5.39 (free shipping, but sales tax will be added) at AbeBooks.

While Joseph Lee Heywood was acclaimed a hero by most, one dissenting voice arose in Minnesota. The editor of the Spring Valley town paper had a different take. I have removed the italics, and the ellipsis is Mr. Gardner’s:

“Do the demands of the employer of the employee extend so far? Is not an employee’s life of greater value than a few thousand dollars of the employer’s gold? We would not detract one iota from the dead man’s laurels, but we fear he gave his life from a mistaken motive or demand of duty. He was a husband and father, with a wife and children looking to him for care and protection, whose demands cannot be measured by gold and silver; and was not his duty to them more sacred and of far greater importance than the treasure for which he sacrificed his life? . . . The coldhearted, selfish employers will look with secret satisfaction upon his sacrifice, and the thoughtless world will plaud it as heroic; but a more thoughtful tribunal will judge that in dying for others’ gold he transgressed a higher and holier law, and cruelly wronged his wife and children.” (Shot, p. 130)

Put me down on the side of that dissenting voice. While I join in honoring Joseph Lee Heywood for his courage, I think the wiser course would have been to open the safe. But that is just my opinion.

Frank James lived to die of old age. Late in life, a reporter asked him if what he had done with his life had been ‘”worthwhile.”‘ Frank was slow to respond, but when he spoke his answer plainly came from the depth of his spirit.

‘Finally, Frank answered: “If you’re not a quitter, anything you’ve done has got to be worthwhile. You can make it worthwhile. I guess, if I had it all to do over, and had the choice, and had to make the choice as a young man, I’d rather have all the pain and danger and trouble than to be just a plain farmer. If I had an old man’s head, I would choose different.”‘ (Shot, p. 241)

That is an honest answer. He would do it all again. Working a simple job for a lifetime would never have been enough for the young Frank James. Only if he were thinking as an old man would he choose differently. The misery he had caused others (and his own family, if we learn from Mr. Gardner’s book) was worth it, because he enjoyed the exciting life more than quiet peacefulness and honest, simple work. This is a valuable look into the thinking of a sociopath. I’m glad that the fictional Mattie Ross told the discourteous Frank James, ‘”Keep your seat, trash!”‘ (True Grit, p. 188)

Shot All to Hell is a superb book. Many pictures are scattered throughout, and add to the value of the text. I hope to live long enough to read Mr. Gardner’s book on Billy the Kid entitled To Hell on a Fast Horse.

“High Noon” versus Northfield, Minnesota? The people of Northfield ran toward danger, weapons blazing. The complete story of the chasing down of the James-Younger gang included plenty of folly, plenty of bad and sad decisions, and not everybody was as intrepid as Joseph Lee Heywood, as we would readily expect given the varieties of human nature. But the people of Northfield and their Minnesota neighbors give us a picture of pioneer people whom we can respect and admire.

Don’t believe too readily that the townspeople of Hadleyville in “High Noon” represented the people on the frontier. A whole bunch of those people, our ancestors, were brave, and were quite capable of giving bad guys a warmer reception than they wanted or expected.

Remind me never to try to rob a bank in Northfield, Minnesota.