Dodge City
1939
Wade Hatton: I'm going to have you indicted for murder as an accessory after the fact. Bud Taylor: I had nothing to do with it! Wade Hatton: You're going to be dancing in thin air just the same as Yancey. Now, do you want to swing or do you want to tell me and save your neck?
(Wade throws a owlhoot in jail) Wade Hatton: About ten days for this customer, Tex. Five days to cool off and five to think it over.
Tex Baird: Hey, wait! You ain't going to keep me in here, are you? Wade Hatton: I'm sorry, Tex, but you read that notice the same as anyone else. Three days in there won't do you a bit of harm. Tex Baird: Ah, but you can't do this to me after all we have been through together. We fought a war together, built a railroad together. We ate, drank, slept, lived and died together. Wade Hatton: And now we are going to be in jail together. You in there and me out here.
Jeff Surrett: You see, I make $100,000 a year one way or another. Frankly, I don't need that much money. So naturally, I'd be willing to make a deal with anyone that would, ah, well, sort of see things my way. It would make a mighty good deal for both of us. Wade Hatton: You mean a little friendly bribery, huh? Jeff Surrett: Well, you can catch more flies with molasses than you can with vinegar.
Dr Irving: I'll tell you, Ellen, we're the public disgrace of America. You know what the New York newspapers are saying? There's no law west of Chicago... and west of Dodge City, no God!
Wade Hatton: You know, out here the trail boss has sometimes even got to take the law into his own hands. Abbie Irving: Oh, yes, pioneering I believe you call it, don't you?
Col Dodge: Ladies and gentlemen, today a great chapter of history has been written. And we take justifiable pride in bringing this railroad to the terminal furthest in this country. Someday, and I believe in the near future, a great city will spring from this very spot upon which we now stand. A city which will represent all that the West stands for: honesty, courage, morality and culture. For all the noble virtues of civilization, I can see a great metropolis of homes, churches, schools; a fine, decent city which will become the flower of the prairie.
Caption: Dodge City, Kansas - 1872. Longhorn cattle center of the world and wide-open Babylon of the American frontier - packed with settlers, thieves and gunmen.
Caption: Dodge City... rolling in wealth from the great Texas trail-herds... the town that knew no ethics but cash and killing.
Wade Hatton: Well, what's the news from Dodge? Charley: Well, just about the same as always. Gamblin', drinkin', and killin'. Mostly killin'.
Rusty Hart: Well, well. So this is Dodge City, huh? Sort of smells like Fort Worth, don't it? Wade Hatton: Oh, that's not the city you smell. That's you! We better get you to a bathtub before somebody shoots you for a buffalo.
Wade Hatton: William Shakespeare. Rusty Hart: Never heard of him. What part of Texas is he from?
Tex Baird: I decided to go back to Texas. Rusty Hart: What for? Tex Baird: Oh, I don't know. This place is getting too big and calm and peaceful-like.