By Joel Litman
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society. And so they brought in their own lawmen – individuals like Wyatt Earp or the formidable Pinkerton Detective Agency with its impressive firepower and legacy. Private security, paid for by those who wanted and needed it, drove the first semblances of real lawfulness into the West. They brought in that hired protection because it was decades until it was justified or worthwhile for government-driven law and order to be installed. After all, only about 10% of the population lived there. The economy was simply too small and the territory too large for so many years.
• Or you could become the next Levi Strauss, starting with a small supply store and building it into a clothing and supply giant. • Or even the next Fred Harvey, starting with one restaurant along a transcontinental railroad and ending with a restaurant-and- hotel empire. The reward appeared worth the risk for so many following the famous phrase, “Go West, young man, go West.” For many of those who did strike it rich, they eventually became determined to instill some civility on these untamed fringes of
American Consequences
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