Volume 3, Issue 5 (October 15, 1995) Pages 105-131 JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND POPULAR CULTURE** (ISSN 1070-8286) ** Published by the School of Criminal Justice at the University at Albany, State University of New York. Available electronically on the Internet from SUNYCRJ@UACSC2.ALBANY.EDU or on the World Wide Web (WWW) with the Uniform Resource Locator (URL): http://www.albany.edu/~gh7878/cjhome.html. All rights reserved. TABLE OF CONTENTS Editors' Notes page 105 Featured Article page 106 Myths and Realities of Frontier Violence: A Look at the Gunfighter Saga by Rainer Eisfeld Review Essays page 123 Review of _Through Jaundiced Eyes: How the Media View Organized Labor_. by Steve Chermak page 127 Review of _Murder One_ and _Drug Bust_ by John McCluskey -105- Editors' Notes We are pleased to welcome all subscribers and "cyber-viewers" to this third volume of issue five. The editorship of _JCJPC_ is currently under transition. The new editors, Jack K. Reed and Brian C. Renauer, would like to thank Sean Anderson and Gregory J. Howard for all their arduous efforts in creating the excellent tradition that the Journal has upheld over the past three years. It is our desire that the Journal will become more than an electronic text journal. We hope to elicit contributions that include graphics, sound clips, and video clips as intregal parts of the work. This evolution is directly tied to our presence on the World Wide Web that we hope to expand in the near future. We would like to encourage our readership to submit reviews and manuscripts that delve into these new possiblities. -106- MYTHS AND REALITIES OF FRONTIER VIOLENCE: A LOOK AT THE GUNFIGHTER SAGA* by Rainer Eisfeld University of Osnabruck, Germany ABSTRACT "Gunfighter Nation", a term introduced by Richard Slotkin, summarizes the hypothesis that the violent frontier has continued to provide patterns of identification and legitimization for 20th century America. The paper sets out to test the hypothesis by drawing on the saga of a particular, prominent gunfighter (James Butler Hickok) - both the legend and the factual biography. Three modes of legitimizing and idealizing gunfighter violence are found to prevail: defense of national unity (against Southern "rebels"), advancement of civilization (against native "savages"), assertion of law and order (against frontier "desperados"). These idealizations are contrasted with three actually prevalent motives of gunfighter violence: the personal feud, the drunken brawl, the services of a prostitute. The paper demonstrates that the myth (a) attaches historical "sense" to an otherwise disjointed biography, permitting individual identification; (b) constructs, in the form of an epic narrative, a comprehensive pattern of the stages through which, and the means by which the American nation is supposed to have progressed, offering legitimization of collective attitudes and behavior. Slotkin's hypothesis is found to be confirmed by a case study of the myths and realities of the archetypal gunfighter's career. ** Revised version of a paper presented at the Twenty-Fourth Annual Meeting of the Popular Culture Association (Chicago, April 6-9, 1994). I am particularly indebted to Gary Yoggy, Corning Community College (Corning, New York). -107- I In the third volume of his monumental trilogy on the enduring myth of the frontier in American popular and political culture, Richard Slotkin coined the term "Gunfighter Nation" for 20th century America. The term was not merely meant to denote, like Richard Hofstadter's expression "gun culture", an emotional involvement with guns as a peculiar American characteristic, resulting in a heavily armed populace and a lack of satisfactory gun controls.[1] Rather, Slotkin concerned himself with the myth of the violent frontier as the site of the clash between savagery and civilization - and with the development of that myth into what he called "a set of symbols" capable of "shaping the thought and politics" even of the industrial world power that the present United States is, "by transcending the limitations of a specific temporality."[2] Reducing and abstracting from reality, Slotkin tells us, the myth creates a historical cliche. Such a cliche may serve to interpret new experiences as mere recurrence of familiar happenings. To project from the past into the present or even the future helps in creating a "moral landscape", providing the terms for responses to reality that may insofar be classed as pathological, as they reflect a refusal to learn. Briefly stated, the term "gunfighter nation" summarizes Slotkin's hypothesis that the violent frontier has continued to provide patterns of identification and legitimization for American society up to the present day. Despite the pivotal function which he ascribed to the cult of the gunfighter, Slotkin judged that figure a recent addition to the pantheon of frontier mythology. He spoke of a "subject ... distinctly marginal" until the Cold War years (principally, the Fifties), claiming that:[3] "'gunfighting' (as) a kind of art or profession ... is the invention of movies like _The Gunfighter_ ... the reflection of Cold-War era ideas about professionalism ... exaggerat(ing) this aspect of (the protagonists') lives." A source that, in contrast, had earlier portrayed a "gallery of gunfighters" - Eugene Cunningham's _Triggernometry_, published in 1934 and reprinted in 1941 - was dismissed by Slotkin as marginal. -108- However, the "evolution" of dime and nickel novels had already proceeded during the 1880's and 1890's from portraying "Revolutionary patriots" and frontier scouts to "two-gun men", "pistol dead shots", even "Wild West duelists."[4] Two more instances should suffice to demonstrate that, around or shortly after the turn of the century, and definitely before the Great Depression, the gunfighter of fact _and_ fiction had come into his own: * William Barclay "Bat" Masterson, himself no stranger to gunfire, produced a series of articles for _Human Life_ magazine in 1907, entitled "Famous Gunfighters of the Western Frontier", dealing with, for example, Ben Thompson, John Henry "Doc" Holliday, and Wyatt Earp.[5] * When paying tribute to Earp and Masterson in a 1921 article, actor William S. Hart referred to them and their likes, mentioning James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok, Holliday and Thompson, as "gunfighters."[6] Eugene Cunningham did not tread new ground when he, among many others, contributed to further establishing the image in the public mind, claiming "the gunman's story (to be) the story of the frontier."[7] On that score, Slotkin was wrong. Paradoxically, he may be the more right in asserting that (1) the myth of the violent frontier - in fact, the saga of the gunfighter -[8] has evolved into a "venerable tradition", and (2) for this reason continues to guide the American society's collective perceptions of present and future courses of action. Locating the origins of the gunfighter mystique in the 19th and the first decades of the 20th century should provide an opportunity for testing Slotkin's hypothesis by examining the factual _and_ the legendary career of a sufficiently "prominent" case. We propose to look at the ways the myth has swerved from reality in such a specific case, attempting to diagnose if and how it provides those patterns of identification and legitimization central to Slotkin's argument. -109- II The obvious choice as the subject of such a case study is James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok (1837-1876), with an entry in the _Encyclopedia Britannica_, a memorial in Illinois, at least seven major biographies, and more than a dozen films to his credit. Prentiss Ingraham's dime novel "life" of Hickok (written in 1881, reprinted in 1884 and 1891) had already referred to him as "the Pistol Prince." Forty-five years later, Frank Wilstach's Hickok biography, a curious mixture of legend-building and determined research, had been titled "Wild Bill Hickok, Prince of Pistoleers."[9] Sponsored by the Kansas State Department of Education, even a 1939 "guide to the Sunflower State" - one of a series compiled during the Great Depression by the WPA Federal Writers' Project - had referred to Hickok as "the best-known gunman in the old West."[10] One supposed reason for Hickok's fame is mentioned in the entry written by biographer Richard O'Connor for _Collier's Encyclopedia_:[11] "Hickok's reputation as one of the greatest of the peace officers of the post-Civil War West was built in the years from 1868 to 1871, when he was sheriff at Hays City and city marshal at Abilene, during the wildest days of their history. Unaided, he kept the cowtowns under control, walking the streets with .44 revolvers on his hips ... establish(ing) himself as the prototype of the iron-handed marshal who held the line until civilization caught up with the frontier ..." Now consider the facts: The entry suggests several years of uninterrupted and unaided service. Hickok's actual peace-keeping activities, however, were limited to four and a half months during 1869 in Hays City and eight months during 1871 in Abilene. During 1868 and 1870, he did not serve at all in any such function. Rather (and even while he held his offices), he pursued a gambling career. He had one deputy in Hays City. The Abilene City Council appointed three deputies to assist him. They did most of the patrolling. Hickok "stayed ... at his games ... If wanted, (he) had to be looked up."[12] -110- O'Connor was aware of these facts. In his own earlier biography of Hickok, he had even quoted the deputies' names.[13] And he had painted a much more realistic picture of his protagonist when commenting on Hickok's murder by Jack McCall, remarking that "a slightly different shift in circumstances" might have made a McCall of Hickok: "The revolver was their common denominator."[14] Yet O'Connor preferred to construct for _Collier's_ an image of Hickok as a lone, dedicated agent of law and order. This is in stark contrast to the judgment passed on the gunfighter by Stuart Henry, brother of Abilene's first mayor, the later Kansas "wheat king" T. C. Henry:[15] "He acted only too ready to shoot down, to kill out-right, instead of avoiding assassination when possible as the higher duty of a marshal. Such a policy of taking justice into his own hands exemplified, of course, but a form of lawlessness." Doubtlessly, O'Connor was aware that a tradition idolizing Hickok as the peace officer incarnate had already been fashioned by a succession of magazine articles, dime novels, books, and movies.[16] A particularly influential piece of myth-making had originated, a generation earlier, from William E. Connelley, secretary of the Kansas State Historical Society. It was Connelley who had eulogized Hickok as a plainsman beating "the dark forces of savagery and crime."[17] And he had carried the argument to Homeric heights:[18] "(Hickok) contributed _more than any other man_ to making the West a place for decent men and women to live in." Yet in Hays City, Hickok was defeated after his brief time as sheriff in the November 1869 election by his deputy. Two years later in Abilene, the City Council dismissed him without a word of thanks. He had worked for Russell, Majors and Waddell before the Civil War, driving wagons, stagecoaches, tending stock; had been employed as an army wagon master and government scout; had, after 1865, gambled for a living, worked as a Deputy U.S. Marshal, and scouted for the U.S. Cavalry. After his discharge in Abilene, his uncertain income for the remaining five years of his life again came from gambling, interrupted by a brief attachment -111- to the "Buffalo Bill Combination", playing to audiences in the East. His services as a lawman, consequently, were mere biographical episodes. A first device by the use of which the gunfighter myth operates should now have become apparent: It attaches historical "sense" to an otherwise disjointed biography, permiting individual identification with acts supposedly committed in the fulfilment of a "mission." That mission - and, consequently, the purported sense of Hickok's life on the frontier - consists of "taming" the West in order to permit _progress by violence_. Without the Hickok's, the Earp's,and the Masterson's bringing "order out of chaos",[19] there would be no pioneers like those evoked by Walt Whitman: "the rivers stemming, vexing, piercing deep the mines within, the surface broad surveying, the virgin soil upheaving, Pioneers! O pioneers!" This interpretation transforms the gunfighter into a true pioneer himself. Stimulated by "that onward-thrusting, high-flaming spirit of the Pioneer", Hickok emerges as a _necessary_ element of westward expansion.[20] In the last instance, it is none other than the gunfighter who guarantees "that civilazation may be free to take another step forward on her march of progress."[21] Such a combination of devotion and boldness certainly invites identification. Subsequently, three violent incidents in the career of Hickok(the facts as well as the legend) will be reviewed. This will demonstrate that the _overall_ mechanism just diagnosed works no less conspicuously _in detail_, each level reinforcing the other. Moreover, a second modus operandi adding to the myth's persuasiveness will be identified as the analysis proceeds. The incidents to be discussed below are the so-called "Rock Creek Massacre" - the quarrel, in fact, that ended with Hickok killing his first man; a fight with troopers from the Seventh Cavalry in Hays City; and, finally, the last shooting in which Hickok was involved, with two men dying under his bullets. The factual events will be outlined first. In a second step, the idealizations will be contrasted with the -112- actual outcomes and prevalent motives. III That James Butler Hickok's career in the public imagination was started by a "terrible tale" in the February 1867 issue of _Harper's Magazine_ hardly bears repeating. Recounting how Hickok had slain a certain "M'Kandlas" and nine other border ruffians - some found "killed with bullets, others hacked and slashed to death with a knife" -[22] George Ward Nichols provided a hero's name to which subsequent authors might attach further imaginary exploits. This is salient because _Harper's New Monthly Magazine_ was, of course, anything but another _National Police Gazette_. Founded in 1850 as a literary, popular science, and travel digest, it rapidly attained the largest circulation among periodicals published in the East - not least because its concept also appealed to a large readership in the West. According to a contemporary report, it could be found even "in the humblest (western) cabins."[23] Unavoidably, more and more texts were published by _Harper's_ that dealt with the - albeit largely romanticized - frontier. During the second half of the sixties, the magazine rapidly regained its pre-Civil War circulation of close to 200,000 copies.[24] (The American population at the time numbered just under 40 million.) A 12-page article, profusely illustrated, including a full-page engraving of Hickok, could be quite literally expected to attract attention across the whole country. The truth about the incident was brought to light by Charles Dawson in 1912. Hickock was employed as a stock tender for Russell, Majors and Waddell at Rock Creek Station in Jefferson County, Nebraska. In July 1861 he shot and killed David C. McCanles, the station's erstwhile owner. Two of McCanles' employees, whom he wounded, were subsequently dispatched by other agents of the stage line.[25] McCanles had come resolved to either collect an outstanding debt from the (unknown to him, already bankrupt) company or to reclaim his property, evicting the occupants by physical force. Trusting in his strength, McCanles was very probably unarmed. At the most, he may have had a shotgun strapped to his horse's saddle which, however, he did not attempt to seize before being shot by Hickok. -113- A personal feud already existed between McCanles and Hickok, who had become enamored of the former's mistress. McCanles is also supposed to have acted tyrannically toward the much younger and physically inferior Hickok. When matters came to a head, Hickok killed him from behind a curtain. One of McCanles' wounded companions was hacked to death, the other riddled with buckshot. Neither Hickok nor his accomplices received even a scratch. While they were arraigned in court on a charge of murder, the preliminary examination did not, for various reasons, result in a trial. Hickok left the region, enlisting in the Union Army as a civilian scout. Nine years and three killings later ("not counting Confederates and Indians", as the saying went), Hickok returned to Hays City, which he had departed after failing to be re-elected for sheriff. In a saloon, he was attacked by two drunken soldiers, one of whom pulled him down, the other placing a pistol against his head that misfired.[26] The assailants ended up on the barroom floor, seriously wounded by Hickok's bullets. One trooper died, later receiving a passing mention in Custer's _My Life on the Plains_,[27] the other recovered. If Hickok and his opponent had been rivals for the same woman in the circumstances that resulted in his first killing, and liquor generating heedless courage had played a prominent part in the Hays City affray, both ingredients were involved in Hickok's last shooting scrape that occurred in Abilene. This was at the height of the Texas cattle trade, when Southern drovers or gamblers and Yankee marshals heartily despised each other, colliding in the Kansas cowtowns more often than not. A particular enmity concerning a prostitute named Jessie Hazel evolved between Texas gambler Phil Coe and Marshal Hickok. At the end of the 1871 cattle season the Texas cow hands went on a final drunken spree. When Coe defied the firearms ordinance by shooting his gun, Hickok and he came to a confrontation. "Wild Bill" killed not only the Texan, but also a special policeman who accidentally rushed into the line of fire.[28] The personal feud - the drunken brawl - the services of a prostitute: these were the motives that provided the principal reasons in every shooting. Such encounters were as stupid and meaningless, as they were common on a frontier where, "like firearms, whiskey was always within reach and more or less constantly imbibed."[29] Violence, when it erupted, was usually -114- devoid of any higher purpose. It fell to the myth to invent such a purpose by first distorting the actual events and then, in a second step, interpreting not a real, but a fictitious conflict. IV When J. W. Buel, in his 1880 "biography" _Life and Wonderful Adventures of Wild Bill, the Scout_ depicted the fight at Rock Creek as an encounter "without a parallel", he had Hickok's opponents inflict terrible wounds on his hero: a fractured skull, seven balls in his legs and body, three gashes on the breast, a cut to the bone on the left forearm. Such dedicated sacrifice on Hickok's part called for an ethical imperative of the highest kind, and for a reward in moral, immaterial terms. Buel did not fail to provide both:[30] "This murderous gang had killed more than a score of innocent men and women for the purpose of robbery, and yet their power was such that no civil officer dared undertake their arrest ... After this dreadful encounter, ... the people of that section worshiped Bill as no other man. He had civilized the neighborhood." When Hickok shot and killed Phil Coe a decade later, Buel interpreted the latter's death in similar terms as "a most fortunate event for the better class of citizens of Abilene, because it at once improved the morals of the place."[31] Hickok's clash with two drunken troopers that occurred a year earlier in Hays City had to wait two generations longer for an analogous "explanation." Buel sensationally magnified the incident. He not only blew it up into "a fight with fifteen (!) soldiers", but had Hickok literally wading in his own blood that "filled ... his boots" from the multiple injuries he had suffered while allegedly killing four of his intoxicated opponents.[32] Frank Wilstach, in his 1926 life of the "Prince of Pistoleers", adhered to Buel's version, even if toning it down considerably.[33] However, it could not but impress the reader as a vulgar brawl, meaningless except that it displayed the hero's prowess under the most adverse circumstances. It fell to Connelley to discover a "mission" behind Hickok resorting to his guns by distorting the actual proceedings. This distortion is achieved by -115- shifting the events back in time to Hickok's last (!) night in office as Sheriff of Ellis County, and having him foil a plot engineered by Captain Tom Custer, George Armstrong Custer's troublesome brother. An arrogant officer, the younger Custer - or so Connelley would have his readers believe - "thought his military connection made him immune from arrest by civil authority."[34] When Hickok nevertheless took him into custody for some offense, Tom Custer swore revenge: "He selected three reckless and desperate ruffians and accompanied them into town with the understanding that they would kill Wild Bill. It was planned that one soldier would leap upon his back and force him over, while another was to pinion his arms. The third man was then to kill him." Vestiges of what actually took place may be recognized in the presentation. Of course, Hickok prevented the trio from executing their conspiracy in, according to Connelley, "probably the most famous incident of coolness, nerve and shooting the world has known." Comparing his rendering of the incident with the earlier version offered by Elizabeth B. Custer in her book _Following the Guidon_, published in 1890, provides an additional idea of the methods by which Connelley proceeded. Ms. Custer's narrative is quoted on the left, Connelley's on the right:[35] "Three desperate characters "It was planned that (from the Seventh Cavalry one soldier would leap decided) to kill Wild upon his back and force Bill ... It was planned him over, while another that one soldier should was to pinion his arms. leap upon his back, and The third man was then hold down his head and to kill him. Bill was chest, while another should found in a small saloon pinion his arms. It is so imperfectly lighted impossible in the crowded that it was almost little dens, imperfectly impossible to lighted, and with air dense distinguish one person with smoke, always to face from another. This a foe. Wild Bill was enabled them to attacked from behind, as approach him. One had been planned. His powerful soldier leaped broad back was borne upon him, bearing him down by a powerful soldier, over, and the second and his arms seized, but clasped him round to only one was held in the pinion his arms. Bill -116- clinching grasp of the wrested one arm free. assailant. With the free With his left hand hand the scout drew his Bill drew his pistol pistol from the belt, and fired backward over fired backward without his shoulder at the man seeing, and his shot, even forcing him down. The under these circumstances, soldier fell from was a fatal one. The Bill's back a dead man. soldier dropped dead, the In a minute Bill was citizens rallied round erect. _He shot the Wild Bill, (and) the troops soldier who was waiting were driven out of the in front of him with town." drawn pistol. Then he fired over his shoulder and killed the man who had pinioned his arms and who had his pistol drawn ... A number of soldiers (brought) to aid these select three if they should fail_ ... were driven from the town ... (by) the citizens." Connelley's version was also preferred by O'Connor two and a half decades later, reckoning - as it did - with Hickok's now accepted social function. Acting once again as the advancing civilization's deadly instrument, he punished the infringements of "desperadoes in uniform", whom "the civilians unfortunate enough to live in their vicinity found ... not much preferable to the savages they were being protected from."[36] Equally important, in Connelley's and O'Connor's fictionalized account, Hickok's real foe, other than the nameless rowdy troopers, acquired an identity: Captain Custer with his brazen claim to immunity personified _licence_, where Hickok stood for _order_. In the same vein, Connelley managed to cope with the problem presented to Hickok glorifiers after Dawson's book had reduced the Rock Creek "massacre" to its true dimensions of another squalid frontier brawl. Dawson had also pointed out that, although David McCanles, Hickok's victim, was apt to act tyrannically and overbearingly, and had embezzled money before establishing himself at Rock Creek, he was a rugged pioneer rather than a rascal. He had never committed either homicide or murder. Undaunted, Connelley maintained that McCanles' life "had been one of -117- progressive degeneracy." To leave not the slightest room for doubt, he added that "if ever a man deserved killing, it was McCanles at Rock Creek Station."[37] Although Nichols' and Buel's tall tales about Rock Creek had finally been deflated, a killing "for which almost any fair jury would have given (Hickok), at the least, a long penitentiary sentence".[38] Killings which very probably sprang from both hate and panic, continued to be presented in terms of an act by a man of "intrepidity" who "killed when he was compelled to kill in the line of duty."[39] V If this was the first method of legitimizing and idealizing gunfighter violence, a second way emerged early in Hickok's mythical career - in fact, with Nichols' _Harper's Magazine_ article. It reinforces the mechanism so far portrayed. And where the first mode permits individual identification, the second legitimizes collective attitudes and behavior by depicting successive stages in American history as conflicts between civilization and savagery. Such black-and-white stereotypes encourage a restricted understanding of social - past no less than present or future - realities. Against this simplified background, violence comes to be perceived not merely as indispensable, but as _morally_ adequate. When savagery challenges civilization, there need be no hesitation, no complicated, drawn-out negotiating process. The quick bullet is the legitimate _and_ easy response.[40] Writing about the killing of "M'Kandlas" by Hickok, Nichols did not even mention the name "Rock Creek." In fact, the prelude to events proper was quite different from Buel's account, with Hickok allegedly relating how "it was in '61, when I guided a detachment of cavalry ... in South Nebraska", continuing to recount that he had early known "M'Kandlas and his desparados ... in the mountains":[41] "This was just before the war broke out, and we were already takin(g) sides in the mountains, either for the South or the Union. M'Kandlas and his gang were border-ruffians in the Kansas row, and of course they went with the rebs." -118- There is a significant shift of emphasis in the way lines are drawn here: Wild Bill, "Yankee" _and_ scout for the Union, confronts McCanles, gang leader _and_ rebel combined. Again, it was Connelley who took up the thread, asserting that:[42] "... the Southern Confederacy ... exerted a powerful influence on (McCanles') life ... His associates were the Southern or border-ruffian element ... The fight ... in which he was killed prevented McCanles from becoming a Confederate soldier." After the tone had thus been set, Connelley pursued the Civil War subject further:[43] "In scouting ... for the military ..., Wild Bill put his life in jeopardy daily for more than four years ... to preserve the Union in the Civil War. He became a spy, and put his life in forfeit time after time by entering Confederate camps." Connelley then proceeded to Hickok's role in the next phase of American history - the Indian Wars: "As valuable as were his services ... in saving the Union, they were fully equalled by his work on the frontier ... No other scout rode through such dangers... He rode by night and watched by day for years ... from fort to fort, from post to post." And finally, on to the cowtown frontier: Here Hickok "ruled with an iron hand, presenting the unique spectacle of one man, by his courage and skill, holding at bay all the lawless element."[44] The archetypal gunfighter myth thus constructs, in the form of an epic, allegedly biographical narrative, a comprehensive pattern of the _stages_ through which, and the indispensable _means_ by which, the American nation is supposed to have progressed: * the violent conquest of the morally inferior Southern "rebels" during the Civil War; * the equally violent defeat of the culturally inferior "savages" during the Indian wars; * the no less violent elimination of the "outlaws" posing a threat to stability during the final phase of frontier settlement. -119- To sum up: The case study of a particular and prominent gunfighter legend illustrates those cliches that are central to the American mythology of the frontier as a place with moral significance, where civilization and savagery clashed, and of national progress by violence through a succession of frontiers. Allegedly representative of this civilizing process, the mythical Hickok personifies the force of American patriotism in the fight against Confederate secession, of advancing white settlement against the roving Plains Indians, and of law in the unruly frontier towns. In exemplary fashion, Hickok's mythical career demonstrates how a moral and civilizing purpose has been projected onto a violent past and, by constant repitition, has been carried forward into the present day. Such fatal continuity indeed permits, as suggested by Richard Slotkin, to speak of a "gunfighter nation" with regard to patterns of attitude and behavior unchangingly extolled by books, films, even encyclopediae - a _popular_ culture blending into _political_ culture when, for instance, an American president (Dwight D. Eisenhower, in this case) during 1953 publicly referred to the _leitmotif_ of his life: "I was raised in a little town ... called Abilene, Kansas. We had as our Marshal a man named Wild Bill Hickok. Now that town had a code, and I was raised as a boy to prize that code. It was: Meet anyone face to face with whom you disagree... If you met him face to face and took the same risks, you could get away with almost anything, as long as the bullet was in front." That you can get away with almost anything, as long as the bullet is in front: A more fitting eulogy to Hickok and a more revealing invocation by a president of the United States - more revealing, in fact, than John Kennedy's reference to the "New Frontier" which Slotkin cites - are hardly imaginable. Endnotes 1. Richard Hofstadter: "America as a Gun Culture", _American Heritage_, Vol. 21, October 1970, 4-10, 82-85 2. Richard Slotkin: _Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America_, New York 1992, 4/5, 6/7, 14, 24 -120- 3. Slotkin, 383/384 4. See lists compiled by Albert Johannsen: _The House of Beadle and Adams_, Vol. 1, Norman 1950, and also Dixon Wecter: _The Hero in America_, New York 21963 (11941), 345 5. Robert K. DeArment: _Bat Masterson: The Man and the Legend_, Norman/ London 31989 (11979), 380 6. Ibid., 396 7. Eugene Cunningham: _Triggernometry_, Vol. 1, London 41978 (11934), 13. In his critical study of "The Western Hero in History and Legend" (Norman 1965), Kent Ladd Steckmesser consequently ranked the gunfighter, along with the mountainman, the outlaw and the soldier, as "another classic in our great Western myth" (105). 8. Into which that of the cowboy has, of course, blended. To indicate the popularity of the myth, a single instance, Jack Schaefer's novel _Shane_, must suffice here. Shane is portrayed as the quintessential gunfighter: black trousers, black coat and hat, ivory plates set into the grip of his gun (black again), the hammer filed to a point. The gun is kept in Shane's saddle roll until the time arrives when the protagonist, cool and competent, has to face a room full of men - when "the impact of the menace that marks him" takes effect "like a physical." The book's hard cover edition (first published in 1949), after three printings was followed by a _juvenile_ edition that went through another four printings. In 1953, the film, starring Alan Ladd, was released. The novel's pocketbook edition saw 31 printings between 1950 and 1965. 9. New York 1926. A note on sources seems appropriate here. As in several other instances - e.g., Wyatt Earp, John Wesley Hardin, John H. "Doc" Holliday, or Henry "Billy the Kid" McCarty - "a fearful amount of fabricating" (Cunningham) has been going on for decades about Hickok's alleged exploits. Among authors subsequently quoted, Nichols and Buel (by their distorted and false accounts) contributed to creating the Hickok legend, Wilstach, Connelley, and O'Connor (by largely, though not wholly, uncritical repetition) to perpetuating the saga. The contrasting strand of research into primary sources, such as contemporary (city, state, and federal, including court and army) records and newspaper accounts, letters and diaries, is represented by Cunningham, Dawson, Drago, Miller/Snell, -121- Steckmesser, and - most thoroughly - Rosa. For a methodical correction of untruths in the extensive literature about frontier gunfighters, cf. Ramon F. Adams: _Burs under the Saddle_, Norman 1964. 10. _Kansas: A Guide to the Sunflower State_, American Guide Series, New York 21949 (11939), 355 11. Richard O'Connor: _Hickok, Wild Bill_, _Collier's Encyclopedia_, Vol. 12, New York 1966, 99 12. Stuart Henry: _Conquering our Great American Plains_, New York 1930, 274 (for the quote); Joseph G. Rosa: _They Called Him Wild Bill_, Norman 1974 (1964), chs. 8, 10 13. Richard O'Connor: _Wild Bill Hickok_, New York 1959, 129, 148 14. Ibid., 255 15. Henry, 274/275 16. Among the latter, especially William S. Hart's _Wild Bill Hickok_ (1923) and Cecil B. DeMille's _The Plainsman_ (1937) 17. William E. Connelley: _Wild Bill and his Era_, New York 1933, 7 18. William E. Connelley: _Wild Bill - James Butler Hickok_, Reprint from Collections of the Kansas State Historical Society, n. p., n. d. (1928), 27 (emphasis mine) 19. Wilstach, 159 20. Connelley (as in n. 17), 7 21. Ibid. 22. George W. Nichols: "Wild Bill", _Harper's New Monthly Magazine_ Vol. 34, No. 201, 282. 23. Frank Luther Mott: _A History of American Magazines_, Vol. 2: 1850-1865, Cambridge 1970 (1938), 121. 24. Mott, 384, 391, 393; cf. also James Playsted Wood: _Magazines in the United States_, New York 1971 (1949), 73 ss. -122- 25. Charles Dawson: _Pioneer Tales of the Oregon Trail and of Jefferson County_, Topeka 1912, 218 ss. 26. W. E. Webb: _Buffalo Land_, Philadelphia/New York 1874, 146; Rosa, 158. 27. Norman 1962 (New York 1874), 45 28. Harry Sinclair Drago: _The Legend Makers_, New York 1975, 32/33; Nyle H. Miller/Joseph W. Snell: _Great Gunfighters of the Kansas Cowtowns 1867-1886_, Norman 1967 (Topeka 1963), 131 ss. 29. Robert M. Utley: _High Noon in Lincoln: Violence on the Western Frontier_, Albuquerque 1987, 21 30. Buel (as in n. 15), 13, 19 31. Buel, 54 32. Buel, 51 33. Frank J. Wilstach: _Wild Bill Hickok, The Prince of Pistoleers_, New York 1926, 172/173 34. William E. Connelley (as in n. 17), 131 (also for the following) 35. Ibid., 132 36. O'Connor (as in n. 13), 130 37. Connelley (as in n. 18), 9, 21 38. Cunningham, Vol. 2, 41 39. Connelley, 19, 27 40. Cf. also John G. Cawelti: _The Six-Gun Mystique_, Bowling Green 1975, 36, 46 41. Nichols, 282/283 42. Connelley, 9,11 43. id., 26 44. William E. Connelley: "Hickok, James Butler", _Dictionary of American Biography_, Vol. V, New York 1932, 4 45. Steckmesser (as in n. 7), 158, n. 16 -123- William J. Puette. 1992. Through Jaundiced Eyes: How the Media View Organized Labor. Ithaca, New York: ILR Press. Media content is believed to have a significant influence on public opinion, policy making, and criminal justice processes. For example, media images of crime, because of the public's limited exposure and salience of the topic, are assumed to affect opinions and the policy responses implemented. Because of these assumed effects, scholars have argued that it is important to analyze the content of media messages. These images are then compared to another approximation of reality, with crime it is usually official statistics, to decide whether the media are biased in their coverage. William Puette's examination of the media's portrayal of organized labor is consistent with this protocol. Puette discusses how "organized labor is a remote experience to the vast majority of Americans," and understanding the media's portrayal of the topic is important. His stated purpose is "to analyze and understand the nature of the media portrayal of organized labor," "proferr[ing] a framework for understanding and interpreting typical media treatment of organized labor" (p. 8). Puette uses Robert Cirino's "catalogue of hidden bias" and Michael Parenti's seven basic "generalizations" to examine, understand, and interpret media coverage. Most media research examines the images portrayed about a topic in one or two sources. Puette distinguishes his work by examining the presentation of labor in movies, television news, television dramas, newspapers, political cartoons, and comic strips. Each media is discussed as a chapter with Puette highlighting how labor is portrayed and whether the message is distorted. He concludes that each medium is anti-labor, suggesting an "institutional bias" (6). He bolsters this conclusion with two detailed case studies. Puette's provides a historical chronology of entertainment films in Chapter 1, discussing movies that deal with labor issues both directly and subvertly. After examining films such as Black Fury (1935), Racket Busters (1938), On the Waterfront (1954), F.I.S.T. (1978), and Norma Rae (1979), Puette concludes that Hollywood's portrayal of unions in the media "has been both unrepresentative and virulently -124- negative" (31). Hollywood has recycled three dominant themes in movies about labor: the linkages between unions and organized crime, the prevalence of corruption and violence, and the exploitation of workers to benefit union representatives. Chapter 2 examines how labor is presented in television news programs. Puette cites excerpts from specific news programs, documentaries, and other research to prove his claim that television news focuses on strike coverage and violence, excluding stories on successful negotiations and community outreach programs. For example, he discusses a story aired on 60 Minutes, reported by Mike Wallace, examining the union boycott of Coors beer. Wallace, Puette argues, presents a pro-corporation story by omitting important pro-union segments. In Chapter 3, Puette surveys sixty-two televised dramas portraying labor unions and labor management between 1974 and 1989. The episodes considered were shown on major networks during prime-time hours, and CBS accounted for half the episodes aired (47). Prime-time coverage of labor relations began in 1974, according to Puette, when Archie Bunker's union went on strike. The vast majority of the episodes surveyed provided negative depictions, including similar themes, such as being corrupt, violent, strike-oriented, and not necessary, as found in television news and films. Puette examines newspaper coverage of labor in Chapter 4, considering historical issues, personnel that work the labor beat, the placement and headlines of labor stories, and strike coverage. He finds newspaper coverage of labor emphasizes greed, corruption, union self-interest, bad news, violence, and links to organized crime. Puette finds, for example, that often labor stories are presented alongside crime stories, and this placement is "bound to have an effect on readers" (65). In Chapter 5, Puette concludes his general coverage of various media with a discussion of political cartoons and comic strips. He critiques the political cartoons of Thomas Nast, Joseph Keppler, and others who satirized labor in the 1930s and 1940s. In addition, Puette examined twenty-nine labor cartoons presented in the Honolulu press and concluded this chapter with a discussion of the portrayal of labor in various comic strips, including Bloom County, Doonesbury, and the Wizard of Id. His conclusions -125- about the presentation of labor in newspapers are consistent with findings presented throughout the book: unions are portrayed negatively; unions are corrupt; unions are strike-prone; unions are foolish organizations; and union workers are unskilled and lazy. His accusations of general media bias are also supported by examining media coverage of two specific cases. First, in Chapter 6, Puette examines how news media covered the arrest and conviction of a prominent Hawaiian labor figure. Second, in Chapter 7, he discusses national media attention to the United Mine Workers strike of 1989-90. He concludes that both cases reveal selectivity in coverage, disproportionate access of sources to media, and exclusion of events supportive of pro-union positions. Although the examination of various media sources is an important aspect of Puette's research, it presents some problems never adequately addressed in his conclusion. Early in the book Puette states: "The negative portrayal appears to be representative of an institutional bias built into the various media's systems and structures for gathering, producing, and disseminating news or entertainment" (6). This conclusion needs further elaboration, explanation, and documentation. The organizational processes used to generate the messages rendered, the underlying forces behind their product, the sources used for selection and production leads, and the audience these media attempt to attract are very different. Moreover, there are important links across media that might have contributed to the consistently negative images found. I would have liked to see Puette struggle with some of these issues and document the social processes he suspects to have been contributing to the images presented. In general, Puette needed to provide additional details about his research methodology. The data collected for some chapters appears to have been more rigorously generated than others, and he does not provide an explanation for the messages he did and did not consider. For example, a large portion of the cartoon and newspaper results were based on media in Hawaii. Since many readers would not have an understanding of the unique aspects of labor relations and reporting in Hawaii, if there are any, it is difficult to agree with his conclusion that the study is representative (9). -126- In sum, however, I think Puette's critique of the media's presentation of organized labor is a solid contribution to the literature and recommend his book. Others agree: It won the 1993 Lowell Mellett Award for Outstanding Media Criticism. I hope that other media researchers are as comprehensive in their coverage of media messages. Steve Chermak Indiana University References Cirino, Robert. 1971. Don't Blame the People: How the News Media Use Bias, Distortion and Censorship to Manipulate Public Opinion. Los Angeles: Diversity Press. Parenti, Michael. 1986. Inventing Reality: The Politics of the Mass Media. New York: St. Martin's Press. -127- _Murder One_ and _Drug Bust_: Review of two CD-ROM's Created by Hugh Gibbons and Thomas Starbranch Regents/Prentice Hall, 1994. IBM compatible version reviewed: This is a review of two CD-ROM packages that are designed for use by criminal justice students. To simplify this review I will discuss the general format of both packages and then describe the underlying scenarios in more detail. I will then evaluate both CDs in terms of their aesthetic qualities and pedagogical utility and assign an overall rating to each. _Murder One_ and _Drug Bust_ are CD-ROM packages composed of interactive scenarios that place the student/user in the position of an assistant district attorney. The user is responsible for interviewing witnesses, gathering evidence, applying for search warrants and building a case against a murder suspect and a drug dealer. Time constraints are utilized in both to force the user to advance the investigation in the most parsimonious fashion. This forces one to choose among various lines of questioning with a simple point and click interface. This format allows the user to guide the questioning within certain parameters and to gather evidence. Inappropriate or poorly timed questions can quickly lead to overlooking key evidence, the generation of useless information, and acquittals (I know-- I asked all the stupid questions two or three times). In _Murder One_ a successful investigation presents the user with an opportunity to indict the suspect. Indicting a suspect requires the presentation of the case to a grand jury and is an initial test of the strength of your evidence against the defendant. If an indictment is handed down the student must begin establishing a witness list and defending evidence against various pretrial motions made by the defense attorney. _Drug Bust_ requires that you file charges against the suspect prior to trial. Both scenarios are effective at introducing students to legal questions that may arise in the course of a trial, what a prosecutor must prove to establish legal guilt, and the most efficient method for eliciting useful information from a witness. -128- The reality of taking a good case to trial and losing is also presented in both scenarios. The uncertainty of these mock trials quickly becomes clear to the student and may aid in clarifying reasons why a prosecutor or defense attorney would be willing to plea bargain (an option only available in _Drug Bust_). The authors construct a probability of victory based on the merits of the case presented and allows one to compare his/her performance to actual lawyers performance regardless of the verdict. _Murder One_ and _Drug Bust_ are clearly not intended to maximize visual stimulation of the student. Both are black and white line drawn animation that I found pleasing after trying several cases. The graphics do not distract one from the pedagogical purpose that these scenarios are intended to serve. They are realistic enough to provide a stable background for an educational tool without losing the message in the medium. These scenarios would be useful in a course that is attempting to introduce a student to the criminal courts or an introductory course that examines criminal courts in some fashion. The student is guided through the activities that an assistant district attorney must engage to build a case as well as an examination of various legal nuances that might derail an otherwise airtight case. The manuals provided with both CDs offer concise instruction and advice to users and equipment specifications (For IBM: 486, NEC CD-ROM, mouse) but the support requires that the user make a toll call. This deterred me from seeking advice to eliminate glitches with the sound in both packages. Neither of the glitches was a fatal flaw but both were annoying to this reviewer. Overall, I would recommend these CDs as supplements to classroom instruction. If a computer lab is available and it supports this platform then an instructor should consider using these tools to educate students. They emphasize relevant legal issues, evidence gathering, and interrogation skills in an enjoyable context that could reinforce classroom learning. These scenarios take approximately 40 minutes to complete so a small class size would probably be necessary to maximize use among students. Both packages rate a 3 on the gavel scale! John McCluskey University at Albany, State University of New York -129- SUBMITTING REVIEWS AND MANUSCRIPTS: Authors may submit reviews and manuscripts written in ASCII format to JCJPC in two ways. First reviews and manuscripts may be sent electronically to: The Editors, _Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture_, SUNYCRJ@UACSC2.ALBANY.EDU. Alternatively, reviews and manuscripts may be sent via regular mail to The Editors at the University at Albany's address which can be found below. Submissions sent via regular mail should be stored on IBM formatted disks (3 1/2" or 5 1/4"). 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