ATDTDA (12) - Cowboy/Wild West Poets & R-girls?

[kelber at mindspring.com]

An excellent article about how the Pinkertons' methods became an inspiration for J. Edgar Hoover in forming the FBI:

http://www.geocities.com/travbailey/index.html  

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: bekah <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net>
>Sent: Jul 5, 2007 3:52 PM
>To: David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>, P-list <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Subject: Re: ATDTDA (12) - Cowboy/Wild West Poets & R-girls?
>
>Pynchon doesn't really tell us much in this paragraph of seeming 
>animosity toward the cowboy/poets.  Why?    Are these guys on the 
>train really  "cowboy poets?"   I'd like to suggest that Pynchon is 
>obliquely alluding to Charlie Siringo and his side kick Tom Horn.
>
>Trying to keep this in relation to AtD:  (I shall assume you know the 
>history of the Western cowboy and the railroad's  restructuring of 
>the US map which was mentioned earlier in AtD).   Yes,  cowboys did 
>sing and write songs and poetry which was very romantic, metered and 
>rhymed.  Some of the old stuff is still around.
>
>But the days of the cattle drives were short-lived.   By the late 
>1880s they were essentially finished because the railroad stretched 
>and branched to locations closer to the cattle lands (except in 
>remote areas).   The cowboys either moved to town,  became miners or 
>joined the Pinkertons (see below).     Only the miners remained to be 
>industrialized and Pinkerton'ed out of existence.
>
>Just about the time Dally is riding east to meet her mother,  Charlie 
>Siringo,  an old working cowboy who joined the Pinkerton Agency was 
>also riding the railroads in the area.   Siringo had been an 
>authentic cattle driving  cowboy from 1870 - 1885.  When he retired 
>from cowboy life he  wrote his autobiography, "A Texas Cowboy, "  the 
>first autobiography of a working cowboy,  a classic,  and still 
>available.  
>
>Then Siringo  joined the Pinkerton's in Chicago and got transferred 
>to mining country where he  was involved in the  miners' strikes and 
>the difficulties of  "Big Bill" Haywood,  an IWW leader. 
>
>**  Siringo  sometimes disguised himself as a railroad hobo but he 
>was actually  seeking  information. 
>
>He was accompanied from time to time by Tom Horn a Pinkerton 
>assassin,  ex-gunman and bounty hunter who needed no disguise to look 
>pretty bad.   Both of these guys had been involved in the 
>apprehension of Kid Curry and Siringo helped chase Curry's buddy 
>Butch Cassidy out of the country.
>
>After retiring from the Pinkertons Siringo wrote other books 
>including  "Two Evil Isms: Pinkertonism and Anarchism"  (1915 )   The 
>Pinkertons harassed him for years over the title and they had Horn 
>executed for participating in a robbery while employed with them 
>(can't let a Pinkerton go to jail and blab).   Charlie Siringo and 
>Tom Horn are whole stories unto their own:
>  <http://www.thrillingdetective.com/eyes/siringo.html>.
><http://www.thrillingdetective.com/eyes/horn.html>
>(also in Wiki)
>
>
>Bekah