Fellow delegates, like all of you I've listened in awe and admiration to the magnificent oratory of the honorable Major Cassius St...arbuckle, the cattlemen's mouthpiece, the lowing herds. But seriously, under the spell of his eloquence I could see once again the vast herd of buffalo and savage redskin roaming our beautiful territory with no law to trample them except the law of survival, the law of the tomahawk and the bow and arrow. But then with the westward march of our nation came the pioneer and the buffalo hunter, the adventurous and the bold. And the boldest of these were the cattlemen who seized the wide-open range for their own personal domain, and their law was the law of the hired gun. Now, now today have come the railroads and the people, hard- working citizens, the homesteader, the shopkeeper, the builder of cities. We need roads to join those cities, dams to store up the waters of the Picket Wire, and we need statehood to protect the rights of every man and woman, however humble.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Hallie: Ranse, do you think I could, I, I mean, grown up and all? Do you think I could learn to read? Ranse: Why sure you can..., Hallie. Why, there's nothing to it. It'd be, it'd be easy. Can you learn how to read? Why, I, I can teach you. A smart girl like you. Of course you can learn how to read. Now you wanna try? Hallie, I'll teach ya how. In no time you'll be reading everything. Hallie: It's awful worrisome not knowin' how. I know the good book from preacher talk. But it'd be a sole comfort if I could read the words for myself.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The United States is a republic, and a republic is a state in which the people are the boss. That means us. And if the big shots i...n Washington don't do like we vote, we don't vote for them, by golly, no more.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We're for statehood. We want statehood because statehood means the protection of our farms and our fences; and it means schools fo...r our children; and it means progress for the future.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Dutton Peabody: No, no, no, you don't. No. I'm a newspaperman not a politician. Politicians are my meat. I build 'em up. I tear 'e...m down. But I, I wouldn't be one. I couldn't. It'd, it'd destroy me. Gimme a drink. Tom Donophon: The bar is closed. Peabody: Good people of Shinbone, I, I, I'm your conscience. I'm the still small voice that thunders in the night. I'm your watchdog that howls against the wolves. I'm, I'm your father confessor. I, I, I'm, what else am I? Tom: The town drunk.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Ransom Stoddard: I don't wanna gun. I don't wanna gun. I don't wanna kill 'em. I wanna put 'em in jail. Tom Donophon: Well, I... know those law books mean a lot to you. But not out here. Out here a man settles his own problems. Ransom Stoddard: No. Do, do you know what you're saying to me? D'you know? You're saying exactly what Liberty Valance said. What kind of community have I come to. You all seem to know about this fellow Liberty Valance. He's a no-good, gun-packing murdering thief. But the only advice you can give to me is to carry a gun. Well, I'm a lawyer. Ransom Stoddard, attorney at law. And the law is the only, the only.... [he collapses]LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »