Some will rob you with a six-gun
And some with a fountain pen.

Woody Guthrie wrote this line in the early 1940s as part of his song “Pretty Boy Floyd,” a ballad about the Depression-era outlaw Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd. Guthrie, shaped by the Dust Bowl and the economic dislocations of the 1930s, often contrasted the violence of individual criminals with the less visible but more pervasive harms of banks, landlords, and corporate power. In the song, Floyd is portrayed in a populist, Robin Hood–like light, and Guthrie uses the lyric to argue that respectable institutions can exploit ordinary people through contracts, foreclosures, and legal paperwork—forms of “robbery” that don’t require a gun.

The couplet draws a sharp moral comparison between overt, physical theft and systemic or bureaucratic exploitation. A “six-gun” signals the obvious criminal, easily condemned; the “fountain pen” stands for white-collar power—documents, signatures, and laws—that can dispossess people while appearing legitimate. Guthrie’s point is not merely that both are theft, but that the pen can do greater damage because it is normalized and protected by institutions. The line encapsulates his broader critique of economic inequality: violence is not only a matter of guns, but also of paperwork that transfers wealth and security away from the vulnerable.