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Show AMERICANS By s Elmo Scott Watson caved by Chance - ...,AS PAINE, with his stir-H stir-H , ''These are the times that ' rM'.s souls," read to the men 'sWon's army, did much to r the despair of 1776. Alter 1 .as aide to Gen. Nathanael e he became secretary to the ' Sessional committee oi foreign Zs and helped get loans from . and Holland. ,ut aiding the fight for human Irtv of only one people was not Lh for him. Instead of settling ' to enjoy life in the nation he Lu found, he went to England T i79i, published his famous Lts of Man" for which he was .tiawed by the king's court. Then f .ent to France where he was Led to the national convention, u when he opposed the execution (King Louis XVI, the Jacobins Llled him from the convention, ben Robespierre came into power, .jne was thrown into prison and ademned to the guillotine. He is saved by the merest chance. He prison keeper went along the irridor placing chalk marks on doors of those to be executed l, Dext morning. In the prison loom, he did not notice that Paine's ill door was temporarily wide open - id Sat against the corridor wall. 0 be put the chalk mark on what (came the inside of the door when was closed. The guards passed by Paine the jxt morning and the delay gave imes Monroe, United States min-I min-I ter to France, time to obtain his lease. i j Captive for 10 Years I H 1800, Ellis P. Bean left his home in Tennessee and drifted down lie Mississippi to Natchez where he ink a job with a pack train. Be-euse Be-euse they carried contraband, the jarty was attacked by Spanish sol-Sers. sol-Sers. Bean, with a few other sur-ivors, sur-ivors, was taken to prison in Chi-uahua. Chi-uahua. Then followed one of the cruelest eriods of imprisonment that any Iian has ever endured and related re-lated sane. For three years he ijin prison at Chihuahua and then I leaped only to be recaptured, iaten almost to death and chained I the prison wall. After trying to cape again, he was thrown into a (ungeon at Acapulco. Eventually illowed to work in chains during he daytime, he killed his two jiurds with a crowbar and got pay. 1 Again caught, he put in another lear in dark, dirty dungeons and las flogged regularly. Again aimed ai-med to work, he killed seven men M this time got 300 miles away dore he was seized. In retalia-K retalia-K he was made the victim of tost every kind of cruelty. So well was he able to stand 10 tars of this treatment, unbroken in lirit and with defiance gleaming in s still bright eyes, that his captors iveloped a superstitious fear of m. When the revolution broke out, y offered him. a place in the jalist army which he accepted iadily but with his fingers crossed. Once at liberty, he soon talked Is companions into going over to te other side and was given a cap-incy. cap-incy. Finally he led a victorious fee into Acapulco and those who Id been so cruel to him begged ' mercy. In true American fash-1. fash-1. he showed no bitterness no de- for revenge. "Go away and "t bother me," were the only wds he had for those who had ven him 10 years of torture. I ('Dictator' of Skagway j'S name was Jefferson Ran-i Ran-i dolph Smith and he was born Georgia in i860, all of which "Ms hke wonderful background the story of a Southern gentle-" gentle-" But he was a gambler and "ook who wound up in Alaska- they called him "Soapy" Smith. I e got his name in Leadville, :''. where he sold suckers bars -oap supposedly wrapped in $20 "e was a gambler and conn. , man in Denver and Creede, , where he became "dictator" , e Mmp, succeeding Bob Ford, r f Jesse James, k f the Alaan gold rush be-L be-L ,t Went up t0 Skagway and b. , the town wide open and wait-L wait-L h 3 man oJ his talents. He fc, ecam6 'eader of a gang that fr'urt !abon as headquarters for - ". robbery and even murder. t" t?Tspect i0T Iaw was 50 fla" (Ve . at " son became too much " n. lawless community. A tw corrmittee held a closed it' N i decide what t0 d0 about sJrv 0 sfls'on was really neces- (;,,. 'Soapy" tried to "crash" VJt ,, 'ng with a Winchester rifle atally shot by an armed til' 'f""der of the daring days . Tdike, the town of Skag- '5Modav rn mre aPPrP"ate i.i the f a nuge rock carved or.lv 0 01 a skull and bearing tral "ame-"Soapy" Smith-bom Smith-bom hom sands of miles tame anrt to seek adventure and " got both-with dishonor, "tern Newspaper Union. i I I |