The Waxahachie Daily Light

LET'S HELP ROBBERS ALONG, SAYS BANKER.
Facetiously Suggests Cow Ponies Be Kept in Front of Depositories for their Escape.

Enid, Okla., Oct. 22 - Horse stealing is as big a crime as ever in Oklahoma, even if robbing a bank seems to be regarded as a small offense. We still have much to be thankful for, says W. B. Harrison, secretary of the Oklahoma Bankers' Association. 'Only one bank robber has been caught in six weeks, and that one made a mistake or he would now be enjoying the fruits of his daring. He got by the town mob, the bank watchman, the police and the detectives, but he couldn't get away from the farmer whose horse he stole.'

Mr. Harrison was referring to the hold-up of the Prue State Bank on October 12, when a lone bandit obtained $2,000 in the daytime and escaped, but was shot in the road because he refused to return to a farmer the horse he had stolen to make his getaway from the bank. The farmer was surprised to learn later he had a bank robber.

'What are you doing to prevent further robberies?' the secretary was asked.

'At last we have found the cure. Here is the remedy: We are advising all our members to buy cow ponies and keep one tied in front of the bank night and day. This will require two for each bank. The robber will, of course, make his escape on the pony. Then we have him. It is a clear case of horse stealing, and the man who steals a horse in Oklahoma always pays the penalty.

'No one pays much attention to these bank robberies, because the public has an idea that the banks are all rich and it isn't much of a crime anyway to rob them. But horse stealing is different. Our real-blood pioneers will not stand for that a minute. So if we can just exchange the halo of the bank robber for the stigma of the horse thief we will have the problem solved.'