Pretty Boy Floyd documentary

with hard times even Law and Order In America seemed threatened if you needed proof it was Pretty Boy Floyd if you gather around me children a story I will tell pretty boy FL them Outlaw Oklahoma knew him [Music] well he was an outlaw a robber and a killer but in depression America Charles Pretty Boy Floyd became a kind of hero celebrated in movies and song for helping the poor it was in okah my city it was on a Christmas Day I come a whole Carlo with a letter that did say well you say that I'm an Outlaw you say that I'm a peace here's Christmas dinner for the families on releas my father was uh with with my mother and I when I was born but after that it was only about a year I think after that he was put in prison and the first time I ever saw him I was probably about five maybe five and a half years old he impressed me because he was so well-dressed and he looked so nice and everything you know I thought he looked like a movie star they called Floyd The Sage Brush Robin Hood because he generously rewarded those who helped him escape the law all part of the desperation of Hard Times there was a lot of stealing you know steal someone's Hogs and butcher them and so there was a lot of uh that sort of thing going on because of people being hungry and of course I think a lot of that was overlooked by the uh enforcement authorities because they realized it was a matter of person needing Floyd was the son of tenant farmers who had struggled to escape poverty and debt at age 20 he turned his back on Farm Life robbed a St Louis grocery store payroll was caught and spent three and a half years in the Missouri penitentiary released in 1929 found a rural economy that was falling apart 7ent cotton and a 40 meat how in the world can a poor man eat up high and cotton down low how the world the out whole families had to work just to survive now it's through this world i r i see lots of funny men some will rob you with a six gun some with a fountain pin well they needed a hear all about that you know the banks were uh on farms and everything and I think that the people felt that my father was just uh one of them kind of striking back for all of them from 1929 to 1931 as the economic crisis deepened bank robberies increased dramatically there had been so many bank robberies around that it was quite often that a customer come in and to have my back to the counter at the moment and this fell holler this is a hold up I said oh yeah turned around and showing enough the gun was right in my [Music] face most of them were small robberies by by that I mean they was small Bank and of course it was kind of a disgrace to get robbed by anybody except A Pretty Boy Floyd Floyd was a wanted man in States across America's Farm belt but in the small towns where he robbed banks Farmers talked to Floyd tearing up mortgages and giving money to the poor Charles Pretty Boy Floyd was becoming a legend there's a [Music] Minar Farmers the same old story told how this outlaw paid their mortgage and save their little [Music] home Charlie came to our house now this is my first remembrance of him he came to our house and mother was telling him about a family that lived out the edge of town mother said well this family out out there really need some help you know their kids don't even have shoes to go to school he said well why don't let's get some groceries her mother said that they agreed together they were going to get groceries so they mother said well Ruth knows the way I crawled in there and showed Charlie how to go out to their Farmhouse so Charlie gets out of the car and puts the basket of groceries on the porch and then he gave me a bill and put it in my hand and he said dink I was Tiny then he called me dinky but he said dink give this man this bill and tell him to buy his children some shoes Pretty Boy Floyd in Outlaw Oklahoma knew him well Floyd was frankly a little smarter than most of the average bank robbers to where he would uh move out of the one area and he would hit maybe 100 miles away in 1931 Pretty Boy Floyd embarked on a robbing spree that took him from Oklahoma through Missouri East to Ohio and then home to Oklahoma where Floyd knew that for a few dollars a poor farm family would gladly hide him out in 5 months Floyd stole more than $112,000 we here about Pretty Boy Floyd there was some other Outlaws I can't think of their names now mostly we had to talk about we talk about that kind of stuff you know get a lot of fun out of it they'd follow his escapades in the paper you know and it was kind of like they were pulling for him to stay at large instead of being [Music] killed hello L depression America was fascinated by the underworld Outlaws and gangsters on the screen and on the streets seemed Unstoppable in Oklahoma which led the nation in bank robberies in 1932 officials appealed to the citizens to turn in Pretty Boy Floyd who was accused of six killings and 10 robberies he really didn't spend all that money that he robbed to him I think it began to be a game in the beginning and then it got more serious you know in early 1932 Oklahoma Banker intensified efforts to capture Floyd they hired IR Kelly a retired Sheriff to lead the Manhunt Floyd's wife had moved down to live with her parents and the telephone operator let my father know that Floyd and when Floyd had told her he was coming and that was the uh way that they were able to set up the Trap it was in night time and IR Kelly and some more people were staked out and those days you had gates to keep the stock in and somebody had to stop and open the gate to go into where we live we live back in the field along about 2:00 in the morning it got quite cold and the Fellas at this one end of the road that they thought Floyd would come in decided to go into bsby which was 2 miles and get some coffee while all of this was transpiring Floyd came in through this uh place where these ERS had left and so my father got out to open the gate and er Kelly stepped out from behind the chicken house my dad could not be positive that it was Floyd because those officers would have given him a signal if Floyd came through and they were to come up and block you know the thing off so uh when Floyd they came up to open the gate and my dad stepped out then the gun battle started and my dad was [Music] killed the killing turned the public against the outlaw Pretty Boy Floyd we just heard about it we don't ever know him coming in here doing anything for anybody and this the we would just hear about call Robin Hood it's nice to be a Robin Hood I'm sure but if you come and take my bread when I need it to eat and go give it to somebody else you're not a Robin Hood to me Floyd would remain at large for two more years until FBI agents cornered and shot him in an Ohio cornfield but the crime wave of the early Depression years continued to feed f years that America was coming apart all I got G all I got gone

Channel: muddbosss

Views: 131,595

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Id: -LlErDCdffU

Length: 10min 8sec (608 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 26 2015