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Broadcast: February 13, 2005
VOICE ONE:
People in America, a program in Special English by the Voice of America.
(THEME)
Two of the most famous outlaws of the old American west were brothers. I'm Tony Riggs. Today, Maurice Joyce and I tell about Frank and Jesse James. We begin their story on a cold day in February, eighteensixty-six.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
Liberty, Missouri. Two o'clock in the afternoon.
((SFX))
Twelve men on horses ride slowly into town. Their hats are low on their faces. They stop in front of the Clay County Savings Bank. Two of the men get off their horses and enter the bank. The bank manager asks if he can help them. The two men pull out guns from under their heavy coats. They demand money.
In less than two minutes, they return to the street. Now the gang is in a great hurry. All twelve men begin shooting.
((SFX))
Several people are wounded. A young college student is killed.
((SFX))
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
What happened on that day was the first bank robbery, during business hours, in peacetime, in the United States.
History books say the two men who went into the bank were Frank James and his younger brother Jesse. But this was never proved. Frank and Jesse James told lawmen they were home that day. Several of their friends confirmed the story.
True or not, during the next sixteen years, the James brothers did become two of the most famous outlaws in America.
VOICE TWO:
History experts say they robbed at least twelve banks, perhaps many more. They stopped seven trains, taking money from passengers and the United States Postal Service. They robbed as many as seven stagecoaches, the horse-pulled vehicles used back then as public transportation.
They traveled from their home in Clay County, Missouri, to Minnesota in the North and to Texas in the West. Hundreds of lawmen hunted them. But the James Brothers were never caught. Much later, their story was told in songs.
(MUSIC)
Who were Frank and Jesse James? Why were they so famous?
VOICE ONE:
Frank and Jesse were the sons of Robert James, a religious minister who owned a farm in Clay County,Missouri. People who knew the family said the James boys were polite and friendly. At least until the time of America's Civil War.
Many people in Missouri believed in the cause of the southern, or Confederate, states during the Civil War. However, Missouri was on the border between the North and the South. Almost as many people there supported the Union as the Confederacy. Terrible fighting took place in Missouri and in other border states.
Guerrilla groups from both sides were responsible for the fighting.
