The Great Bend Tribune’s Sunday edition featured an Associated Press story about the Bender crimes, which were a series of murders that happened 140 years ago in Labette County.
Known as the bloody Benders, the family moved to Kansas in 1873 from Germany. They opened a general story, and then proceeded to murder and steal from their customers.
It is estimated that 21 people were murdered. And, in fact, since the Bender’s moved from Germany, it would be interesting to know if they were fleeing the law in that country. It would also be interesting to know if unsolved murders followed the family wherever they went.
In the 1950s, the country was horrified by the Clutter murders, which also occurred in Kansas.
Evil has always existed. With increasing forensic skill, the Internet and instant media, it somehow seems that times are much worse than they have been.  It is simply recorded and documented at a greatly improved rate than it was a mere hundred years ago, and everybody now knows about it.
During World War II, 55 million people died over the insanity of a single man. Adolf Hitler was a man who did his best to knowingly and systematically extinguish not only Jews, but gypsies and handicapped people, along with the bitter war casualties.
These people were loaded into cattle cars, moved to so-called concentration camps, and then told to take a “shower.” From this “shower,” 12 million people died.
Apparently, leaders in the U.S. knew of this atrocity at least a year before the war ended, but focused on winning that horrendous war, leaving babies, the elderly, and average people to continue to die through no fault of their own. Those who dare to lead shoulder grave responsibilities.
We teach our children to stand up to bullies in school these days.
The question remains, what responsibilities do we have to other countries? Do we focus in on our own problems and forget those in far away countries?
Have we had enough of being the world’s policeman?
How would we react if a dangerous situation involved a family member, a child, a sister, a grandchild of our own? Do we risk our own casualties in a world that is not supportive?
Would preventative measures helped with any of the above situations?
Even shining the lamp of history upon time leaves unclear questions. Maybe because there are no easy answers.
Thorny questions for those who dare to take on leadership, and with life and death decisions weighing upon their hands.