P a g e 4 G h o s t T o w n s a n d H i s t o r y o f M o n t a n a N e w s l e t t e r The first man and Colonel Sanders had gotten out of the passageway in the rear of the house and the rest of us were following, when, "bang!" went a gun. The two men in front of me jumped out behind the houses and I rushed out as fast as I could, expecting to find the colonel killed. When I got out, however, I saw that all three of the men were running away; and Colonel Sanders was standing there with his overcoat on fire. I asked him if he was hurt. He said, "No." The truth of it was that about the time the killing was to have commenced, Colonel Sanders' pistol was discharged in his overcoat pocket, as he was in the act of drawing the weapon. This stampeded the assassins and saved his life and perhaps mine. Colonel Sanders had taken, as is known, a fearless and active part in the prosecution of Ives. It was beyond doubt the purpose of these men to murder him as a matter of revenge. Sanders' Magnificent Effort It is a great pity— an irreparable loss, amounting to a calamity—that no copy of the great speech of Colonel Sanders in the Ives trial was ever taken or preserved. Sanders was a great orator, and thousands of our people have heard and enjoyed his splendid speeches in the courts and on the platform. But those who did not hear his speech in the Ives trial never heard the best effort in the lifetime of this gifted man. During its delivery on that cold wintry day, there stood these hundreds of miners in the street of Nevada spellbound by the marvelous appeal on that occasion by this wonderful man, to the jury and the struggle for the protection of their homes, property and lives in their new mountain land. And never did a great speech go home with more directness and force to the hearts of honest and determined men. This great speech, if we had it in the archives and history of the state, would constitute a monument to this peerless pioneer that would stand in glory's sky, hallowed with the golden sunlight, when the bronze statue being erected by a grateful people to his memory, shall have crumbled into dust. On the day George Ives was hung a real democracy was established in these mountains. Its foundation was laid upon the bones of the desperado and outlaw. And Colonel Sanders is entitled to be called its Pericles. A generation has passed away since those dreadful days with their exciting events. And the influence of the miners' courts, and especially of the Ives trial, upon the people of Montana has not passed away, and will not for generations to come. These courts and the result of this trial taught the people that life and property were worth defending at all hazards, and that the enforcement of the law was the only hope of human safety and liberty. Since Montana has had a history, the people have never forgotten the lessons they learned In those early crucial days. The devotion of the people to the law, the estimate they early learned to place upon life, liberty and property, have made our state a palladium of safety to the peaceable, law-loving citizens, and a place to be avoided by the assassin and the desperado. So long as our people keep in mind these lessons and teach them to their children will Montana be worthy of the patriotic devotion and pride of her sons and daughters. –From The Circle Banner, March 23, 1923, Accessed via: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/
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