Well, the message I'm going to do today is a little unusual. Even though I've done these before in the past, I've usually used them for illustrations, but I think that we're in a place in history in America that we need to look back. History repeats itself if we don't do something about it, if we don't study history. I'm Native American by ancestry, but I have a tiny bit of English, Italian, and French way back when. And my great, well my grandfather, Charlie, had a twin sister. And her name was Liddy. Liddy married a Dalton, one of the Dalton families. The Dalton family were first cousins with the Youngers. And they were also, by marriage I believe, related to the James family. Now, during the Civil War, there was a lot of what we might call crimes to humanity. One of the great generals in American history was Robert E. Lee. He was a superintendent of West Point. But he was also a citizen of Virginia. And one day he basically arrested John Brown. They hung him. He did everything he could do to stop the dissolution of the Union. But when they asked him to become the general of the Union Army, and he walked the floor all night long, he said he just walked the floor, walked the floor, walked the floor, walked the floor. All of these men, every general, every general in the Civil War, on both sides, were students of Robert E. Lee. Never scared to death of him, because he was a great man. He was a great Christian man. And he finally decided that he had to resign from West Point. Well, the Civil War went on, you know, for five years, basically. A lot of people died on both sides. Some of the worst crimes against humanity were Sherman, General Sherman. He just literally raped the South, went across, just burnt whole towns down. They hated him. Abraham Lincoln's wife hated Sherman. because of the murderous way he did. There was Quantrell, William Quantrell, and Bill Anderson, William Anderson. They were two captains. They called them marauders. And the men that they had with them were Frank James and the Youngers. And that's how they knew each other, plus they were family. Well, after the Civil War was over, they would not let the Youngers and the Daltons and the Jameses live a normal life. Every robbery that happened, they blamed them. But the banks had taken over, the railroads had taken over, the carpetbaggers were in the South. It was a horrible time in American history. The Ku Klux Klan got started. In every missionary Baptist church there was a Ku Klux Klan and also a Masonic Lodge. They had to protect themselves back then. I'm not making excuses for the Ku Klux Klan and the bad things that they did, but they had to protect themselves after the Civil War. Now, one of the greatest Baptist preachers in history was Benjamin Marcus Bogart. Jesse James and Frank James, now the Youngers, were never, ever robbed a bank. I don't care what all your movies has, the James Youngers, Northfield, Minnesota, the James is there, the Youngers, the Daltons. The Youngers and the James never rode in one bank. Matter of fact, the Youngers never robbed a bank at all. Period. Zero. They were blamed for it. all over the place. They were blamed, blamed, blamed every time. They were running for their lives. But they were part of Quantrell's, Captain Quantrell's group. And so they were, there's a death sentence on them. They tried to get in the South. They tried to get legislature where they would have amnesty for all the people that fought in the Civil War. Because that's what usually happens, you know. I mean, got that. Sherman got amnesty, you know. But it went on and on and on. The Youngers finally said, and the Daltons, our first cousins, why don't we rob one bank? You know, Cole and Jim and Bob and all them, why don't we just rob one bank and leave the country? Why don't we go to Cuba or South America and just, and this guy over here in northern Minnesota, he was one of the guys that was involved in the killing of our father. The Youngers' father had the mail route Through, out south he had seven ranches, seven farms, and he had hundreds of horses, and they ran all the sages and all the mail routes. Well, they caught him, the Union soldiers caught him, and he was a Union sympathizer. He was for the Union. He was against the dissolution of the Union. Against it. They caught him on the side of the road, stole $7,000 from him, and murdered him. And then went and robbed his farms. And burned them down. You know in Shenandoah Valley, remember the movie Shenandoah with Jimmy Stewart? There wasn't any farms left in Shenandoah Valley. They were all burned to the ground. They were all burned to the ground. Anyway, they finally followed their mother from home. These boys hadn't done anything. They had never robbed a bank. They hadn't done anything. They kept putting them with the Jameses and the Daltons. They weren't part of it at all. They went to the last farm where their mother lived and went in there and ordered her out of the house and then made her set fire to her own home in the snow and burn it down. She had to go live in a cabin in the hills. And these people were wealthy. They had all of the foundation to start a family after the Civil War, but they weren't allowed to do that. Now, the James brothers, Frank and Jesse James, they would go wherever these farms had been taken and they robbed banks and they'd go there and the farm people of the Baptist churches, Mr. James founded five missionary Baptist churches. He was a missionary. He died out in Oregon, I believe it was, in a mission work out there. But those missionary Baptist churches were still alive in the 1950s and 60s, all five of them. They would go from household to household. Baptist deacon from Baptist deacon. And they would make donations to the people that were losing their farms. And the banks hated them and the railroads hated them. Railroads were taking the land. And this is a horrible thing going on. This happened in American history. You hear how bad the Youngers and the James were. And the Daltons, the Daltons, they were some of the family that were pretty rough. They robbed, the first train they ever robbed was up in, I think, in Pixley, California, which is not too far from Bakersfield. Well they, they went back into Oklahoma. They got involved with different other gangs. And they started, and they were, they were deputies. They were officers of the law, some of them. Well, the one that my Aunt Liddy, Liddy Dalton, was married to never did anything at all. There were several of the Daltons that had nothing to do with it, but their name was Dalton, so they were persecuted in some ways. This is the life and time at works of Benjamin Marcus Bogart. In here, on page 54, it tells about Ben Bogart sleeping in bed with Jesse James. His father was a deacon. And they went to the James household. And they were bailing church members' farms out. And this happened all over. They robbed banks. They robbed trains. But they were Robin Hoods. They really were real Robin Hoods. Now let's look and see. Strangers were entertained in the homes of hospitable people. This has been Bogart's work. Late one evening, an intelligent, personable man came to the Bogart house and asked to stay overnight. Now Frank James was a deacon and a preacher. He preached. Here now he talks about this. Ben especially enjoyed the break in the monotony of the farm life as far away from civilization. He listens with wonder. and entranced with the exciting tales of the talkative stranger as he vividly described the places he had been and the things he had done and what he had seen. As most little boys would have done, Ben noticed that this little finger had been cut off. When he asked the Frisbee how this happened, the guest changed the subject and seemingly annoyed with the youngster. There was no guest room in the Bogart house, so Mr. Bogart explained that there was no spare room, but that he was welcome to share Ben's bed. People slept. You know, when I was little, we were poor. We were poor Indians escaping Indian territory and came out to California trying to be mistaken for White Okies. I have slept in the bed with five people. Back and forth. Feet down here and head just like that. That's all we had. We just shuffled all in the bed. And the air conditioning we had in the summertime, we'd roll out of the sweat as best we could and let it cool off and then roll back in it and it was cool for a moment. Same way the pillow, if you had one. This was a real treat. The man said he'd be glad to sleep in the boys' bedroom. And there were very few wizards and certainly seldom any so entertaining. Ben reluctantly watched him leave the next morning. Later saw a picture of the famous outlaw Jesse James and the picture looked familiar and Ben remembered the guest. Ben was going to be a Robin Hood. He began to shoot his pistols and rifles and he was going to be another Jesse James and Frank James and he was going to help people and get them out of poverty and reclaim their farms, except, except he said Satan wasn't working my life. On page 60 now, we're going to figure out how Boyd and Ben Golgar got turned around slightly. from the life of Jesse James and Frank James, and they were the, you know, the youngers never robbed banks, okay? They robbed one bank. They never robbed banks. But the Daltons did. Many of those were just outlaws. And the James were somewhat outlaws, but they were what you might call honorary outlaws, according to the Baptist churches in the area. Ben was only 12 years old when a man by the name of Bob Fowler was going to be hung. And his father intentionally took him to the hanging. He intentionally took him to the hanging. Ben wanted to be like Jesse James and was shooting and practicing and riding horses and all of this as it went back on back then. Ben Bogard remembered the terrible scene that his father took him to. The details made my heart come up into my throat. He stood about 40 feet from the gallows. This man had committed murder and rape and killed these people. And he was sentenced to death by hanging. But they had no witnesses. But they hung him anyway. There were 10,000 witnesses there at this hanging. The larger crowd he had ever seen up to that time, and as the courthouse bell tolled the death march, the sheriff led the prisoner out of the jail and with an officer on either side, and they marched him up to the scaffold beside which his coffin was also placed. As the prisoner walked past, he paused to look at this narrow box, which was in a few minutes to be his last bed. He was pale as death. but nevertheless walked steadily up the steps of the scaffold looking out over the great crowd that was about to witness his death. He arrogantly announced in a clear, loud voice he was guilty of the crime. I'm guilty. But that he would never have been convicted if a certain man had not sworn lies in order to convict him. He then named the man and denounced him as liars, as Ben later said, I rather think they did for a man and that Paul's death will not be very likely voluntarily tell a lie like that. He said, I think he told the truth. After this public denunciation, the condemned man knelt for prayer. A Catholic priest prayed to all the saints and to the Virgin Mary and a little bit to Jesus Christ for salvation of this poor criminal. He then put an evergreen sprig into his bosom and gave him extreme unction, the last rites. They call it the anointing, they said, with oil. He said, I never saw such an abominable prayer and silly ceremonies in his life. That's what Bogart said when he was 12 years old. Poor Fowler was depending upon that for salvation now. He said, after the religious ceremony, the prisoner's hands and feet were tied. The black cap was pulled out down over his head and his face and the rope was slipped over his head and adjusted to his neck. The trap door was sprung and fell through the door with such force that the rope broke as if it had been a string. The victim lay on the ground, writhing and twisting. Once again, the rope was re-tied and he was jerked up, hung two times. but not hard enough to break his neck. He hanged there, slowly dying from strangulation. Many emotions could be read in the faces of the sightseers. Some had come like vultures to pray. Others had come because of morbid curiosity, and some, like the pagans of old, with no more feeling than they would have of a present-day football game, to be entertained by it. But to the child then, would come to his first hanging. The incident was one of horror. Years later, he witnessed another. He turned away sick at heart and he decided he was going to be a preacher of God, a preacher of the Bible. He wasn't going to be another Jesse James. The terrible results of sin. He said, I wonder why such a saint should overtake him and not others. He later said, I have not that time learned this scripture. By the grace of God, I am what I am. When the fullness of time had come, God set forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law that he might redeem those that were under the law, the curse of law. For by grace you're having been saved, or in grace actually, you're having been saved through faith and not of yourself. It's a gift of God. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. These are all the things that should have been preached to that man that were going to the gallows, but he heard a false gospel. Now, one of my far-distance relatives, the story of Cole Younger, Michael Younger, he said some things over a hundred years ago that I think we need to listen to today. Everything that he said was just laced with Scripture, laced with Scripture. He would go and he would speak in churches. He would speak to the young people groups. He would speak to YMCAs. He went all over the place speaking to people. Now, he had been a soldier in the South, and he did his duties. He was a captain at 19 years old, a captain at 19 years old. He was never married. He did not have an affair with Bellstar, even though what Bellstar said. Jesse James said that they robbed the bank together. He never, he didn't even like Jesse James. He loved Frank James, but he didn't like Jesse. One time, Jesse James told him, and this is one of the first times he met Jesse James. He didn't, he didn't, he was around Frank James a lot. He was around Frank James in the war. They served together. And they were bosom friends, like you know how you've been in the military, Larry. I don't know whether you faced battle or not, but when you face battle, you depend upon each other to save your lives. And that's what happened. You make acquaintances and friendship with blood. And that's the way Cole Younger and Frank James were. But he didn't like his brother. Well, he went to this house, and Jesse James had told him this guy was going to kill him He said, he's gonna kill you on sight. Now, he was out of the war. The war was over. And he'll, here still, his, he did some very famous, brave things in the war as a young man. Very, 17 years old. He was a captain at 19. He did some very brave things and he was a great shootist. A marksman, and a shot, and quick. And he went up to this man, and he said, I heard you're looking for me. He said, not especially, no. Well, they all sat there, and they talked that evening. And they were at a friend's house, so guess what happened? The guy that Jesse James said was going to kill Cole Younger on sight, his name was Coleman. They called him Cole for short. They had to sleep in the same bed together, Larry. Coleman, Cole Younger, took his pistol with him. The other guy was afraid to take his pistol. The other guy didn't sleep a wink that night. Cole Younger slept like a log. He got up in the morning, and at breakfast he said, well, he said, I heard you wanted to kill me on sight. He said, who told you that? He said, Jesse. He said, we didn't tell you the truth. He said, I didn't know anything about this or Vendetta with each other until you came here and told me. He said, I don't know anything about it. Well, from that time on, Cole Younger didn't have much use for Jesse James. He was setting up a gunfight. Well, they went on and split his friends. Cole Younger went to jail for 25 years for the robbery he committed. He was going to go to Northfield, Minnesota. And this guy that was the president of the bank, he said that guy was one of the people that robbed our father and killed our father and had our seven farms destroyed. Everything robbed, took all of our animals, everything. Confiscated it all, conscripted it. Left their mother out in the snow and made her set her last home on fire. Because the boys rode with us out. That's why. That's all. They had not committed a crime at all. Well, the Youngers and the Daltons were first cousins or mothers or sisters. I know all this stuff because I'm related to them, okay? This came down from my family. It came down from Ben Bogart. It came down from people that came from that area of my family. Marilyn, you knew these people. You're related to Bell Star. Marilyn's uncle, Jim Reed, was Bell Starr's husband. She had two children by him. The Starrs were my family on the Cherokee side. And so we're both related to these people all over. I've heard these legends come down of what happened and the truth of it all. Now, in his own words, and this is not a copyrighted book or anything, it's just the story of Cole Younger by himself. And he tells you what happened. After he finally was pardoned and got out of prison, he hooked up with Frank James. And they went around lecturing in Wild West shows and things. They told about their lives. Now, they couldn't convict Frank James of anything because the people loved those people. These are the people that bought their farms out of debt. They were out in the street, out in the dirt, out in the highways and byways where the railroads came through and the banks took over. No way in the world were they going to trick Frank James with anything, nor would they have convicted Jesse James. The Cole Younger and Frank James historical Wild West show is an effort on the part of two men whose exploits have been more widely exaggerated They didn't do one-tenth of the things they were supposed to do. Period. I'll tell you this little parenthetical thing about Jesse James. Jesse and Frank were trying to live a normal life. They tried to. They quit robbing banks. They quit doing this. They had nailed all the people out they could. And so they went in different areas. Well, one of the cousins that looked like Jesse kept robbing banks and trains. Jesse went to him and said, knock it off, cool it. And then he went ahead and robbed some more and said he was Jesse James. You heard about the four brothers killing Jesse James and all that. Jesse James went to the house, now this is from family sources too, okay. Jesse James went to his cousin's house and shot him. and took chicken, shot him outside in the barn, took chicken blood and rubbed it all over the house in there. He shot him with a .36 caliber pistol, which, now you call it .38. And Bob Ford was carrying a .44, by the way, not a .38 or .36 caliber. His mother wouldn't identify him because that's not my son. This was a fiasco back then. They buried him real fast. Now his brother had looked a lot like, or his cousin had looked a lot like him. He had bullet holes in him too, like Jesse did. And Jesse went on to live a normal life in different places. But his cousin died because he kept on robbing banks. Now we'll get back to this. He said, there will be nothing in the Wild West Shoal to which any exception can be taken. And it's my purpose, he said, as part owner of the shoal, and I have put the contracts with my partners that no crookedness nor rowdiness will be permitted that attaches to our shoal. We will insist and assist the local authorities too in ridding the shoal of of a sort of cat followers who frequently make traveling shows to scapegoat for their misdoings. We purpose to have our show efficiently and honestly policed, to give the people the worth of their money and to give an entertainment that will show the frontiership of early manhood as it was. And they had people riding, you know, the Bronco Busters and the Cowboys and the Indians and all of this out there. They would give lectures. They would give lectures about what really happened, what really happened at that time. And he says, the lecture is what my life has taught me, what my life has taught me, and it is so much relevant to today. You will just see lights will come on when you see what's going through America today as you see this. And I'm going to have to do it in more than one session, by the way. Looking back through the dimly lighted corridors of the past, down the long vista of time, when I feared not the face of mortal man, he was so brave in the war, they couldn't believe how this young boy was so brave. He would go in and face the enemy, just unbelievable rescues and things. If he had a friend that was in the north side, you know the families were torn apart. One son would be on the north and one would be on the south sometimes. He went in, if he knew somebody, a family, and they were going to hang this man for treason or whatever, have him in prison, guess what? Coleman Younger would go in and rescue that friend out of his own people's hands and turn him loose and tell him to go home and stay there. Stay out of sight, stay there. I feared not the face of mortal man, nor battalions of men, and when backed by my old comrades in arms, it may seem inconsistent to say that I appeared before you with a timidity born of cowardice. But perhaps you will understand better than that I can tell you that twenty-five years in prison's cell fetters a man's intellect as well as his body." He said, I deserved to go to prison. because I robbed that bank, but I didn't rob anymore. That was it. They kept blaming, after he went to jail, they kept blaming more robberies on him and he's in jail. He's in prison. Therefore, I disclaim any pretensions to literary merit. By the way, he was a librarian in prison. He was also a nurse. He took care of the other prisoners. He was a nurse. He was assistant to the doctors. and trust that my sincerity of purpose will compensate for my lack of eloquence. And two, I'm not so sure that I can for that kind of oratory, and that leaves the points to guess at. He said, what I want to tell you in simple language is what my soul makes bare to you. I'm going to tell you the truth in simple form. He said, the ladies and gentlemen, that the farthest thought from my mind is that posing as a character, I do not desire to stand upon the basis of notoriety, which the past record of my life have earned for me. Those of you who have been drawn here by mere curiosity to see a character of a man, who by the events of his life has gained somewhat notoriety, will miss the real optic of this lecture and the occasion which brings us together. My sole desire is to benefit you by recounting some of the important lessons which I've learned and that life has taught me. Life is too short to make any other use of it. Besides, I owe too much to my fellow men, my opponents for my opportunities to my country and to my God, and to myself to make any other use of the present occasion. Every time they could, they went to church. Did you know that? These boys went from village to village trying to escape. They were warned out for their arrest for nothing. They didn't do it. But the places where they wanted to arrest them, they were going to hang them. They hadn't committed any crimes, no more than going to war and fighting like men of war. He said, there are some important lessons of my life. and it may be in order to give you some account of my ancestry. It is something to one's credit to have an ancestry that one need not be ashamed of. One of the poets said, while talking to a select party of his aristocracy, depend upon it, my snobbish friend. Your family line you cannot ascend without good reason to apprehend. You'll find it waxes at the further end with some plebeian vocation, or what is worse, your family line may end up a loop of stronger cline that plagues some worthy relation. I am proud, he says, of my family line. Our ancestry was ever punished for any crime, never, or infringed upon the law. My father was a direct descendant from the Lees on the side of the Elders on the other. The Lees came from Scotland, tracing their line back to Bruce. Sharon, you're related to them, I believe, and maybe even Marilyn. The Youngers were from the city of Strasburg-on-the-Rhine, descending from the ruling family of Strasburg when that was a free city. My sainted mother was a direct descendant of the Sullivans and Ladins and Percivilles of South Carolina, and the Taylors of Virginia, and the Freestos of Tennessee, and Richard Freestow, my mother's father, was one of the judges appointed by the governor of Missouri to organize Jackson County. And when elected, one of the first members of the legislature, Jackson County, was so named in honor of the old General Andrew Jackson, whom he served at the Battle of New Orleans. His family were all patriots, and he was a patriot. That's what he was trying to say. My family never committed any crimes. My family never went to jail. My father and mother were married in Independence, the county seat of Jackson County, and they spent many happy years there. one of my own happy childhood days were spent there, my happiest. And they were 14 children of us, and I was the seventh of 14. They were seven younger than myself. How often the dark days of the journey over the sea of life have called up the happy surroundings of my early days. When I had a noble father and a dear mother to appeal to a faith for a council, they believed in God. They were members of Baptist churches. All of these were. There had never been a death in the family up to 1860, except among the plantation Negroes. Mine was a happy childhood. He said, I don't pose as an instructor of other people, yet one man's experience may be of value to another. Presumptuous for me to tell some of the results of the experience, a teacher whose lessons were severe. but at least worthy of consideration. I might say, however, with shape fear I have brought the golden opinions from all sorts of people. The subject of my discourse tonight is the index which follows. I believe that no living man can speak upon his theme with more familiarity. I have lived the gentleman, the soldier, the outlaw, the convict, living the best 25 years of my life in a felon's cell. I have no desire to pose as a martyr for men whose sin must suffer, but I will punctuate my remarks with bold statements for the eagle should not be afraid of the storm. It is said there are about three ways in which we arrive at knowledge in this world that we live in. by instruction, by observation, and by experience. We must learn our lessons in life by some one of all of these methods. Those of us who do not or will not learn by instruction or observation are necessarily limited to the fruits of experience. A boy who was told by his mother that fire burns Did you ever have your mother take you up? I was raised with wood stoves. They took my hand and put it real close to the wood stove, and they said, it's hot. And I cried, because my hand was getting too hot. It's hot. Don't touch it. Don't do it. I saw people. I lived in the time when they were cooking with wood burning cook stoves, and I still do. I got food cooking in that stove out there right now. The fire burns. who has seen his brother badly burned surely does not need to have the facts still more clearly impressed upon his mind by experience. When my little girl, Dakota, was very small, she was a baby, and she'd start toddling around, and she would go, she liked to play with firewood near the cook stove. And I took her hand and put her hand real close to that, and she'd say, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, da-da-da-da. She was scared. I said, don't touch it. Don't touch it, like my grandmother did me. Well, I never, she never touched it. That was good. She never got burned. Sometimes it takes experience to set aside somebody. They gotta, they gotta get burned. I've learned a lot of impressive language of my life and stern teacher of experience. Some people express a desire to live a life over again. He said, I don't. I don't want to go live over again. I don't want to go back. And he said, you can't go back anyway. All this is speculation and foolishness. The same causes would produce the same effects. I confess I have no inexpressible yearnings to try my life over again. I have followed the trail of my life for something over 50 years. It layered me into varied and strange experiences. He said some things I could not control in my life, to say the least. With St. Peter on the Mount of Transfiguration, I can say that I'm here with you. It's good to be here. When Peter was on the Mount, He said, ìItís good to be here, Lord, and let me build three tabernacles, one for you, one for Moses, and whatever.î He said, ìShut up.î The father spoke from heaven and said, ìShut up, Peter, and sit down and listen.î The man who chooses the career of outlawry is either a natural fool or an innocent madman. The term ìoutlawî has a varied meaning. A man may be an outlaw and yet a patriot. Look at Sherman. General Sherman committed terrible sins against humanity. Against all the laws of war today, he did. And yet he's a patriot. There's an outlaw with a hard belt, a hand of steel. There's an outlaw who never molested the sacred sanctity of a man's home. There is an outlaw who never disowned a woman's honor or assailed her heritage, and there is an outlaw who has never robbed the honest and poor. Have you heard of the outlaw who is the far-off western land where the sun dips into the high horizon to the infinite beauty? He was the adopted son of the Coctine Indians. It was one of the saddest scenes in the annals of human tragedy. Now, we don't know anything about this today. This is something lost in history. It was during one of these fierce conflicts which characterized earlier frontier days. A young boy that was raised by the Indians was sent to make peace with a white man. And he was white, but he dressed like an Indian. He was going to there to say the war is over, everything's there, and he was killed by his own people. And the war went on. The war went on. The brave little courier was shot to pieces by a cattle cab of armed men who slew him before questioning his mission. The little boy being stripped of the adornments, peculiar to the Indians, when the outlaw wrote upon the scene, you have killed the lone child, the messenger of peace. which I risked my life to secure with a white man that outlawed me. That was their own family. This really happened. He wrote back to face the fury of the wrong people. My friend, civilization may be thin sometimes, have a thin veneer, and the world today may be slimy with hypocrisy. but no man is justified by killing lions to free dogs." Killing a lion to free a dog. I have a book in there, The Last Lion. It talks about the Kennedy family, The Last Lion. Ted Kennedy, what was he talking about? The Last Lion. Outlawry is often a fit companion with treason and anarchy, in which the lowest seats of hell shall be reserved. The outlaw, like the commercial freebooter, is often a deformity of the face of nature through the darkness of the light of God's day. I need not explain my career as an outlaw, a career that has been gorgeously colored with fiction. To me, the word outlaw is a living coal of fire. It's something wicked pasted upon me. The past is a tragedy, a tragedy whereupon danger lurks in every trail. I may be pardoned for hurrying over a few wild, relentless years that led up to my career of an outlaw, a memory that cuts like the sword blades in a squadron of cavalry. That outlaw is like a big black bird from which every passerby feels license to pluck out some of his feathers, to hurt him, to endanger him. My young friend, if you are endowed with physical strength and and steady hand let me warn you to use them well for God who gave them to you in the final victory. Think of a man born of a splendid parents, good surroundings, the best advantages, fair intellectuality, and the possibility of being the President of the United States. This is the way he was born. This is the way he was raised. And with the courage of the field general. Think of men of him lying stagnant in a prison cell. This does not apply alone to the highway outlaw, but to those outlaws who are sometimes called by the softer name financiers. Now he's talking about Wall Street. Not long ago I heard a man speak of a certain banker, and I was reminded, remember the banker that he robbed in Minnesota, Northville, Minnesota, that had killed his father? this upstanding citizen of the town, they decided to rob that bank because this guy, his father's money was in the bank. All prisoners do not contain all the bad men. Every dog that dies has some friend to shed a tear. But when that man dies, there will be universal rejoicing. I'm not exactly a lead man. It may be some surprise to you to know that I have been shot between 20 and 30 times. Be shot between 20 and 30 times. And now carrying over a dozen bullets which have never been extracted. And how proud I should have been had I been scarred battling for the honor and glory of my country. This should have happened in war. I should have been a soldier. These rooms I I received while wearing the gray. I've never been proud of any of my regrets is that I did not receive the rest of them during the war with Spain." He said, I wish we had been down there. I wish I had been there with Teddy Roosevelt. That's where I should have been. For the freedom of Cuba. Remember Cuba, there's a lot of things involved here. Cuba at one time was going to be part of the United States. Three or four times it was going to be annexed, but the Democrats kept on vetoing it, vetoing it, vetoing it, vetoing it. We wouldn't have any trouble today if what he saw at that time, if Cuba had been part of the United States, or like Hawaii, or like Alaska. I was in prison when the war of Cuba was inaugurated, and a war that will never pass from my memory, while hearts beat responsibly to the glory of battle and the cause of humanity. how men turned from the path of peace and, seizing the sword, followed the flag. As the blue ranks of American soldiery scaled the heights of heroism, for the smoke rose from the hot altars of the battle gods and of freedom's wrongs avenged. So the memory of Cuba's independence will go down in history. What he did, what he lived, that was. became communist later on, remember. And he slam-bassed communism also. He lam-bassed communism and socialism also. Glorious is our revolution in 76 and 98, twin jewels in the crown of sister centuries. Spain and the world have learned that beneath the folds of our nation's flag lurks a power as irresistible as the wrath of God. Freedom. Freedom. Sleep on side by side in the dim wall faults of eternity. Manila Bay and Bunker Hill and Lexicon and Santiago and Ticonderoga and San Juan Hill. Glorious rounds in Columbia's Ladder of Fame. Growing colossal as the ages roll by. Yes, I am a prison. Yes, I was in prison then. And let me tell you, dear friends, I do not hesitate to say that God permits few men to suffer as I did when I woke to the full realization that I was wearing the stripes instead of the uniform of my country. He said I should have been in uniform. Remember, friends, I do not uphold war for commercial pillage. This is extremely, listen closely to the words spoken over 100 years ago. Remember, friends, I do not uphold war for a commercial pillage. LBJ. You remember that name, Lyndon Baines Johnson? Listen closely to this. I remember, friends, I do not uphold war for a commercial pillage. Bill Helicopter, all the munition plants, all of this, LBJ's buddies and friends were making millions while men were dying on the battlefield. War is a terrible thing. It leads men sometimes out of the common avenues of life without reference to myself, men of this land, let me tell you emphatically that this passionately and absolutely that war makes savages of men. It dethrones them from reason. It is too often sugar-coated with the word patriotism to make it bearable, and men call it national honor. You're patriots, but let the rulers Remember the people that are fighting the wars for them. Let them remember the people that are fighting the wars for them. Come with me to the prison, for for a quarter of Frenchy I have occupied a lonely cell. When the door swings in on you there, the world does not hear your muffled wail. There's little to inspire mirth in prison for a man who has lived close to the earth of nature, in the forest and in the saddle To imprison him is like caging a wild bird. Yet, imprisonment has brought out the excellencies of many men. Imprisoned, they learn to think about their own lives. I have learned many things in the lonely hours that I have learned, that hope is a divinity. I have learned that surplus of determination encongers every weakness. I have learned that you cannot mate a white dove to a black bird. I have learned that vengeance is for God and not for mankind. I have learned that there are some things better than the picture of a church window. I have learned that the American people, and especially the good people of Minnesota, did not strip a fallen foal. I have learned that whoever says there is no God is a fool. Anybody who says there is no God is a fool. I have learned that politics is often mere traffic and statement-shift trickery and debauchery. I have learned that the honor of the Republic is put upon the planes and the battle for. I have learned that the English language is too often used to deceive the commonwealth of labor. I have learned that man who prides himself on getting on the wrong side of every public issue is as pernicious as the enemy. to the country as a man who openly fires upon the flag. I have seen mute sufferings of men in prison, which no human can portray. I have seen men die there during my twenty-five years in prison, and I have spent a large portion of that time in the hospital nursing the sick and soothing the dying. Oh, the sadness of despair, the volcano, human bold, that lurks in such an hour. A soldier from the North I met in battle. when I wore the gray in 63. I had led him to safety beyond the Confederate lines in Missouri. He saved a man's life. He saved more Union soldiers' lives than any other soldier. And he was on the South. And in 97, he died in my arms in Minnesota Prison a few months before a full pardon had arrived from the President. The death of my brother Bob. Yet, my dear friends, prisons and prison discipline, which sometimes destroy reason and perpetuate a stigma upon those who survive it, I say are the safeguards of the nation. They want to turn people out on the road. Look in New York. Why is there prisons? He said prisons are the safeguard of the nation. The lawlessness in Washington State, in Oregon, in California, in Los Angeles, in New York. He said prisons are a safeguard for the nation. A man has plenty of time to think in prison, and I might add that is an ideal place for a man to study law and religion and Shakespeare and not forgetting the president's messages. However, I would advise you not to try to get into prison to learn. I find an ideal place for those particular studies. I find also a careful study that the law is simply an interpretation of the Ten Commandments. The law is interpretation of the Ten Commandments. Nothing more, nothing less. All law founded upon scripture and scripture in form of religion or law and rules the universe. The infidel who ridicules religion is forced to respect the law, which in reality is religion itself. It is not sufficient alone to make good and just laws, but our people must be educated, or should be, from the cradle up to respect the law. The law is made by God. Right over here, human government was established right over here. What is in human government? To protect the people from the government, and protect the people from the bad guys. The good people from the bad people. This is a great lesson to be impressed upon the American people. Let the world know that we are a law-loving nation, for our law is life. Why did we go over there and get involved in the Middle East? Why did we go over to different places? Why are we going down there? Why is President Trump going down there and stopping the drug trade coming into America? Law is life. Experience has taught me that there is no liberty apart from law. The Bible says, Paul said, that in the law there was an engagement to control you. In Christ you have freedom. You have freedom because now you want to live the law. The law is a boundary line, a wall of protection circumscribing the field in which liberty may have her freest exercise. Beyond the boundary of the line, freedom must surrender her rights and change her name to penalty or transgression. The law is no enemy but the friend of the liberty. The world and the planets move by law. Disregarding the law by which we move, they would become wanders in a bleak darkness forever. They would become destroying comets, falling meteorites. The human mind is a normal condition, moves and works by law, right and wrong. When self-willed, blinded by passion or lust, enters her realm and breaks her protecting laws, mind then loses her sweet liberty of action and becomes a transgressor. Chaos erupts, the throne of liberty, and mind becomes enmity with the law. And how many, many times the words of the poet have stung my soul during the past twenty-six years. Eternal Spirit of the chainless mind, write us and adonis liberty thou art, for there by habitation is the heart, the heart which love of Thee alone can bind. What a story, huh? So far. Can we use some of this to put us a foundation on our feet today, what he learned? This is a hundred and... I think he wrote this in 1901. That's 124, almost 125 years ago. And we're going to look at some of this thing. Patriotism. We're going to look about what national love for your nation, to hate the nation of America, is suicide. He brings all this out. He brings it all out. He brings out who God is. And God loves us. He gives us laws. Because God loves us, He set up human government. And if the human government does not protect you from the enemy and protect you from the government, it's total failure. It's nothing but anarchy in itself. Our Father, we send this little message out there. I hope they've learned some things from his life, Cole's life so many years ago, my distant cousins that were caught up in the wars and fighting and killings Some honorable, some dishonorable. Father, use it wherever it goes. Let them see Jesus through it and what Jesus meant to Coleman's life. And the reason why he went out and lectured to people all over in churches and YMCA's throughout this country. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.