Explore "The Town Marshal" by Edgar Lee Masters on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The Prohibitionists made me Town Marshal / When the saloons were voted out, / Because when I was a drinking man, / Before I joined the church, I killed a Swede / At the saw-mill near Maple Grove.
And they wanted a terrible man, / Grim, righteous, strong, courageous, / And a hater of saloons and drinkers, / To keep law and order in the village.
And they presented me with a loaded cane / With which I struck Jack McGuire / Before he drew the gun with which he killed me.
The Prohibitionists spent their money in vain / To hang him, for in a dream / I appeared to one of the twelve jurymen / And told him the whole secret story.
Fourteen years were enough for killing me.