*Project Gutenberg's Etext of Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast*
#3 in our series by William Cowper Brann
Of the 12 volumes, we are currently doing 1, 10, and 12.
Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check
the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!!
Please take a look at the important information in this header.
We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an
electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this.
**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations*
Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and
further information is included below. We need your donations.
*Project Gutenberg's Etext of Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast*
by William Cowper Brann
June, 1996 [Etext #569]
*Project Gutenberg's Etext of Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast*
*****This file should be named 569.txt or 569.zip******
We are now trying to release all our books one month in advance
of the official release dates, for time for better editing.
Please note: neither this list nor its contents are final till
midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at
Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A
preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
and editing by those who wish to do so. To be sure you have an
up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes
in the first week of the next month. Since our ftp program has
a bug in it that scrambles the date [tried to fix and failed] a
look at the file size will have to do, but we will try to see a
new copy has at least one byte more or less.
Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The
fifty hours is one conservative estimate for how long it we take
to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. This
projected audience is one hundred million readers. If our value
per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
million dollars per hour this year as we release thirty-two text
files per month: or 400 more Etexts in 1996 for a total of 800.
If these reach just 10% of the computerized population, then the
total should reach 80 billion Etexts.
The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext
Files by the December 31, 2001. [10,000 x 100,000,000=Trillion]
This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
which is only 10% of the present number of computer users. 2001
should have at least twice as many computer users as that, so it
will require us reaching less than 5% of the users in 2001.
We need your donations more than ever!
All donations should be made to "Project Gutenberg/IBC", and are
tax deductible to the extent allowable by law ("IBC" is Illinois
Benedictine College). (Subscriptions to our paper newsletter go
to IBC, too)
For these and other matters, please mail to:
Project Gutenberg
P. O. Box 2782
Champaign, IL 61825
When all other email fails try our Michael S. Hart, Executive
Director:
[email protected] (internet) hart@uiucvmd (bitnet)
We would prefer to send you this information by email
(Internet, Bitnet, Compuserve, ATTMAIL or MCImail).
******
If you have an FTP program (or emulator), please
FTP directly to the Project Gutenberg archives:
[Mac users, do NOT point and click. . .type]
ftp uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu
login: anonymous
password: your@login
cd etext/etext90 through /etext96
or cd etext/articles [get suggest gut for more information]
dir [to see files]
get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files]
GET INDEX?00.GUT
for a list of books
and
GET NEW GUT for general information
and
MGET GUT* for newsletters.
**Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor**
(Three Pages)
***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START***
Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers.
They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from
someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how
you can distribute copies of this etext if you want to.
*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT
By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive
a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by
sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
you got it from. If you received this etext on a physical
medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS
This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-
tm etexts, is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor
Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association at
Illinois Benedictine College (the "Project"). Among other
things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
distribute it in the United States without permission and
without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth
below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext
under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable
efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
works. Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any
medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other
things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer
codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
[1] the Project (and any other party you may receive this
etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of
receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
time to the person you received it from. If you received it
on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
copy. If you received it electronically, such person may
choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
receive it electronically.
THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
may have other legal rights.
INDEMNITY
You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors,
officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost
and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or
indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause:
[1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification,
or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect.
DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by
disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
or:
[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this
requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
etext or this "small print!" statement. You may however,
if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable
binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
including any form resulting from conversion by word pro-
cessing or hypertext software, but only so long as
*EITHER*:
[*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
does *not* contain characters other than those
intended by the author of the work, although tilde
(~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
be used to convey punctuation intended by the
author, and additional characters may be used to
indicate hypertext links; OR
[*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at
no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
form by the program that displays the etext (as is
the case, for instance, with most word processors);
OR
[*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
or other equivalent proprietary form).
[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this
"Small Print!" statement.
[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the
net profits you derive calculated using the method you
already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you
don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are
payable to "Project Gutenberg Association / Illinois
Benedictine College" within the 60 days following each
date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare)
your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return.
WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time,
scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty
free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution
you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg
Association / Illinois Benedictine College".
*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*
Scanned by Charles Keller with
OmniPage Professional OCR software
donated by Caere Corporation, 1-800-535-7226.
Contact Mike Lough
THE COMPLETE WORKS OF BRANN THE ICONOCLAST
VOLUME XII
CONTENTS
A CHAPTER WRITTEN IN THE LIFE BLOOD OF W. C. BRANN AND
THOS. E. DAVIS
OTHER STATEMENTS
BRANN'S DEATH
DAVIS FOLLOWS BRANN
W. H. WARD
THE OBSEQUIES
THE LATEST TRAGEDY
BRANN AND BAYLOR
TERRIFIC DEADLY CONFLICT
THE LATE TRAGEDY
THE PASSING OF WILLIAM COWPER BRANN
REST--REST IN PEACE
A MEMORIAL TO W. C. BRANN
DEATH OF W. C. BRANN
A PEN PICTURE OF BRANN
SEMPER VIVATIM MEMORIAM
BRANN'S BRAVE BATTLE
BRANN IS NO MORE
BRAVE AND BRAINY BRANN
BRANN, OF THE ICONOCLAST
A MARTYR TO FREE SPEECH
EDITORIAL ETCHINGS
SIMPLE STATEMENT OF FACTS
LET THE PLAIN TRUTH BE TOLD
THE LAST LESSON
SALMAGUNDI
THE DEATH OF BRANN
PRIVATE VENGEANCE
BRANN, THE FOOL
WILLIAM COWPER BRANN
SPEAKING OF GALL
BLUE AND GRAY
HUMBUGS AND HUMBUGGERY
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
BRANN'S REPLY TO SLATTERY
THE LOCAL OPTION LUNACY
OLD GLORY
THE LONE STAR
SLAVE OR SOVEREIGN
RAINBOW CHASERS
Extracts from The Waco "Weekly Tribune," Issue of
Saturday, April 2, 1898.
A CHAPTER WRITTEN IN THE LIFE
BLOOD OF W. C. BRANN AND
THOS. E. DAVIS.
THE STREET DUEL TO THE DEATH
IN WACO STREETS.
THERE ARE TWO MORE WIDOWS
AND EIGHT MORE ORPHANS.
The Full Recital of the Double Tragedy, the Deaths, the
Burials and Subsequent Events--Will This End It?
In God's Name Let Us Hope It Will.
Died--At 1.55 o'clock A.M., April 2nd, W. C. BRANN.
Died--At 2.30 o'clock P.M., T. E. DAVIS.
Friday afternoon, November 19, 1897, marked a
street duel and tragedy in which two men were killed,
one lost an arm, and an innocent by-stander was injured.
Friday afternoon, April 1st, 1898, within an hour of
the time of the first tragedy, and within a half block of
the locality of the other, W. C. Brann and Tom E.
Davis engaged in a street duel in which each of them was
mortally wounded, and three others received slight
wounds. Four fatalities within five months of each other
are bloody records in the history of the city of Waco,
all of which can be traced to the same source, all of which
were born of the same cause. The publication last
year in the ICONOCLAST and the incidents following the
publication are well known. They have been published
far and wide, the kidnaping of Brann, the assault upon
him by the Scarboroughs, the Gerald-Harris affair, and
the hurried departure of Brann on one occasion. During
all these incidents Tom E. Davis was an outspoken citizen
of Waco. He denounced the author of the ICONOCLAST
articles and said he should be run out of town
and had continued throughout it all to condemn the
"Apostle." This caused bad blood between them, and
although Davis had remained in the city all the time,
and Brann had been on the street constantly, there had
been no outbreak or conflict. Each knew the feeling of
the other in the matter. Such are incidents preceding
the shooting and leading up to it.
. . .
To trace the movements of the two men during Friday
afternoon appears easy at first, but as the investigator
proceeds in his search for information he meets conflicting
statements. Tom Davis left his office on South
Fourth Street, No. 111, about 5 o'clock or a few
minutes later. Brann, accompanied by W. H. Ward, his
business manager, is alleged to have been standing at
the corner of Fourth and Franklin Streets as Davis
passed to the postoffice corner, en route to the transfer
stables. In his ante mortem statement Davis says that
he heard Brann remark, "There is the s----of a b----
who caused my trouble." Davis didn't stop or resent the
insult, but passed on. Soon after he called on James I.
Moore at his office in the Pacific Hotel building and
together they were discussing the city campaign. According
to Mr. Moore's statement, he was standing with his
back to the south facing the door and was looking toward
Austin Avenue. Davis was facing him, his back to the
avenue, and in a position which prevented him seeing
anyone approaching from Austin Avenue. Brann and
his companion approached coming south, and as they
passed, Mr. Moore says, Brann halted, looked him
squarely in the face and passed on. Davis did not see
the editor and his manager, as he chanced to turn
just as they came up and as it happened he kept his back
to the "Apostle" and his companion. From Mr. Moore's
office, Davis passed into the Pacific Hotel bar and thence
to his office. Brann and Ward soon after returned to
the Pacific; there they met Joe Earp of Laco, from the
western part of the county, and the three walked together
to Geo. Laneri's saloon. Brann and Ward passed into
the saloon, Earp remaining on the outside. They passed
out within a short time and passed down Fourth Street to
the Cotton Belt ticket office. Thence on to the newsstand
of Jake French, and while there the shooting occurred.
. . .
As to the shooting there are conflicting statements.
As in every tragedy eye-witnesses differ and citizens of
equal reputation for veracity and conservatism tell
different stories. They are all honest in what they say,
they all believe they saw what they relate, but the
conflict in statements is yet there.
Messrs. W. W. Dugger, Joe Earp, M. C. Insley and
S. S. Hall agree as to the first shot. They say it was
fired by T. E. Davis at W. C. Brann, when Brann's back
was turned. Others say Ward participated in the shooting,
while numbers say that Ward did not. Here a conflict
occurs. At any rate, the first shot was fired by
Davis, and it was immediately returned by Brann. Ward
got between the two and in the firing he was shot in the
right hand. Davis fell at the first shot from Brann's
pistol and writhed in agony. He soon recovered presence
of mind and raising himself upon his elbow returned
the fire, Brann standing off shooting into the prostrate
form, while Davis with unsteady aim was returning the
fire. Every bullet from the "Apostle's" pistol found
lodgment in the form of the duelist engaged with him.
All was excitement. It was an hour, 6 P.M., when South
Fourth Street was crowded, and the rapid report of the
pistols caused a stampede of pedestrians, each of which
feared contact with a stray bullet. In it all there was
one who displayed his devotion to duty, his bravery and
coolness--Police Officer Sam S. Hall. Mr. Hall was
standing near the insurance office of George Willig, not
forty feet away. He turned at the first report, and
seeing the duel in progress, bravely made his way toward
the men. Brann was shooting from the north, and it
was toward the north the officer started. Davis was
facing north. At each fire of the gun Officer Hall would
screen himself in a doorway, dart out and rush to the
next, gradually nearing them. Officer Dave Durie was
across the street, and he started also, but Officer Hall
reached them first, but too late. Each man had finished
shooting, Davis had fallen back upon the pavement and
his pistol rolled from his hand. Brann was standing,
pistol in hand, its six chambers empty, looking upon the
lengthened form of his antagonist. He had not spoken.
Wounded in three places, blood was soiling his linen and
his clothes. He was yet upon his feet, and Officer Hall,
not knowing how serious were his wounds, started with
him to the city hall, being joined almost immediately
by Officer Durie.
Davis was wounded in many places. Bullets had
plowed their way through flesh and bone, and unable
himself to move, blood flowing freely from various wounds,
his friends lifted him tenderly and gave him comfort as
best they could, surgeons responding quickly to the call.
Ward had been in the midst of the fray, but received
but one wound, in the hand. He was between the two
men at one time and then sought safety against the wall.
When the smoke cleared away he went to the Old Corner
drug store to have his hand dressed. Here he was arrested
later by Deputy-Sheriff James Lockwood.
During the shooting Eugene Kempner, a musician of
Kansas City, was struck in the sole of the right foot by
a stray bullet, and a street car motorman, Kennedy by
name, was struck in the left leg by a bullet. Neither of
these injuries are serious.
While in the news stand, Mr. Davis became conscious
of approaching dissolution and desired to make an ante
mortem statement. Assistant County Attorney Sluder
was present, and County Clerk Joney Jones, and to them
he gave the following version of the affair:
DAVIS STATEMENT.
"I left my office and started to Manchester's livery
stable. At the corner of Franklin and Fourth Streets
passed Brann and Ward. Brann remarked, there goes
the damn s---- of a b---- that has caused all my trouble.
Passed on and went to Manchester's stable on some
business, then came back to Waite's saloon and stopped for a
drink. I then started for my office, but near Haber's
store on Bankers' Alley I met them again. They began
to curse and abuse me again.
"Went on to the office; they followed me and I went
to the urinal in the rear, then came to the front of the
office. At the door Brann said, 'There comes the dirty
cur and s---- of a b----; he will take anything.' Brann
then pulled his gun and I shot at him; my gun hung in
the scabbard. The reason he shot me was because I was
loyal to my town and always expressed myself. He murdered
me. They both shot me after I fell. They shot
in my back, blinded me and I could not see. I make
this statement, for I know I am dying. He has been
trying to kill me for three months."
* * *
OTHER STATEMENTS.
EYE-WITNESSES GIVE SOMEWHAT CONFLICTING ACCOUNTS.
Joe Earp, a young fellow from the western part of the
county, who was in town that day, said:
"I met Mr. Brann in front of the Pacific Hotel, and
having heard of him and read after him, I was curious
to know him. It was our first meeting; in fact, the first
time I had ever seen him. We talked together, Mr.
Ward with us, to Laneri's saloon. They went inside and
I left them. In a few minutes they came out and crossed
the street, going to the Cotton Belt ticket office. They
moved together towards Austin Avenue, but half turned,
conversing one with the other. They reached the newsstand
and stopped. I saw a man whom I have been told
was Tom E. Davis, come out a door and shoot. Brann's
back was turned to the man, and while I did not see the
bullet strike him, I supposed he was shooting at Brann.
Ward turned as soon as the shot was fired and reached
for the pistol. Brann turned instantly, gun in hand,
and commenced shooting. Ward got in between the two
and then jumped away, against the wall. Davis fell at
Brann's first fire and rolled over a time or two, and
raising himself on his elbow, returned Brann's fire. They
emptied their pistols. When Davis fell Brann stepped
back a short distance and then advanced toward Davis,
shooting at him, but he never approached nearer than six
feet. Ward never fired a shot. I saw the whole affair and never
did he fire or produce a pistol. When the
shooting was over a man came out of the office and took
Davis' pistol from the walk."
J. C. Patterson was seen. He stated:
"I was with R. H. Brown of Calvert. We walked
into the street from the Pacific Hotel sidewalk, and were
walking north when we heard a shot. Three shots were
fired quickly and I saw Davis fall. I remarked, 'They
have killed Tom Davis.' I saw two men shooting, or
Brann had two pistols. Davis raised on his elbow and
returned the fire. I did not see the first shot."
Sherman Vaughan said:
"I was passing along Fourth Street and reached a
spot just in front of Geo. Laneri's saloon. I heard a shot,
and looking toward the place from whence the sound
came, I saw Tom Davis reeling backward toward the wall
in front of his place of business. He either fell against
the sign in front of his office or the wall, I could not tell
which. Mr. Brann was standing some eight or ten feet
from him with a pistol in his hand and smoke was between
them. Then followed a rapid succession of shots.
I could not see Mr. Davis shoot for the smoke, but could
see Mr. Brann plainly. Mr. Davis fell to the sidewalk
and then almost rose to his feet and fell again. He then
rolled along the sidewalk towards the alley and must
have turned over half a dozen times. Then another man,
whom I do not know, joined in, and he and Brann fired
shot after shot at Mr. Davis as he rolled along the
sidewalk. The police then came up and took Brann away.
I did not see what became of the other man."
Mr. James I. Moore said:
"I had met Tom Davis in front of my office in the
Pacific Hotel building, and we discussed the proposed
meeting at the city hall. He and I walked out on the
sidewalk just in front of my office. I stood at the south
side of the door facing north and Mr. Davis stood directly
in front of me on the sidewalk by the wall. We were
about two feet apart. While talking, W. C. Brann came
down the sidewalk from the direction of Austin Street.
He advanced within two feet of Mr. Davis and myself and
stopped; looked me squarely in the face and then at Mr.
Davis. I did not speak to Brann and don't think Davis
saw him until after he passed on. Brann passed on in
the direction of the postoffice. Almost immediately after
Brann left, Davis left me and walked up Fourth Street
towards his office, and I saw him cross the street to his
office. I then advanced to the edge of the sidewalk and
stood there alone about four or five minutes, when I
heard a shot in the direction of Davis' office. I looked
that way and three shots seemed to be fired almost
simultaneously. Davis fell to the sidewalk and writhed as
if in terrible agony. Brann seemed to be nearest to
Davis, a very large man being close in Brann's rear.
This man, I learned afterwards, was W. H. Ward. While
Davis was rolling on the sidewalk both of these men were
very rapidly firing upon Davis. They seemed to poke
their pistols almost against Davis' body as they fired.
After the first four or five shots the smoke became too
dense to see all that occurred. The first sight seemed to
chill my blood and I became too horrified to move."
H. C. Chase, 509 North Ninth Street:
"I was standing at the alley near Geo. Laneri's saloon
and heard somebody say, 'Look out!' I glanced across
the street and saw Tom Davis on the sidewalk. He had a
gun in his hand and fired at once. Brann and Ward
were a few feet distant. Brann had turned slightly,
but his back was still towards Davis when the latter fired.
Ward jumped back and grabbed at Davis' gun as the
latter fired the second time. Brann fired as soon as he
turned around and at his second shot Davis fell backwards.
Ward, it seemed to me, had gotten to one side of
Davis and was reaching for Davis' gun. As the latter
fell back, Ward backed up to the building. He did not
have a gun and did not shoot."
M. C. Insley, shipping clerk for Brann:
"I was standing in the doorway of Sam French's
cigar store as Brann and Ward reached it. They had
just passed the doorway, going toward Austin Street,
when Davis appeared with a gun in his hand. He fired
at once. I could not see Brann at this time. Davis
fired the first shot and immediately I heard another shot,
I suppose from Brann, and almost simultaneously a second
shot from Davis. As the latter fired the first shot Ward
jumped and grabbed the muzzle of Davis' gun. He let
go as the shot was fired. He did not have a gun. I
backed away from the door. The shooting was thick and
fast. Davis fell back at the door of French's as Brann
fired the last shot and his gun dropped from his grasp.
John Williams, who appeared quickly, grabbed it, and
screening himself with the door-facing of the cigar store,
tried twice to shoot it and then somebody grabbed him."
W. W. Dugger, employed in the feed store of J. P.
Nichols, on North Second Street, said:
"I was talking with Policeman Sam Hall at the alley
next to the Cotton Belt ticket office when the first shot
was fired. We were close to the scene. I glanced
instantly in that direction and saw Tom Davis with a
smoking pistol in his hand. At the same time I saw
Brann turn around and face Davis, from whom he appeared
to be distant about fifteen feet, I should judge.
He fired and fired again almost at the same time. In the
meantime, the man with Brann, whom I learned afterward
was Ward, had rushed up and caught Davis and it
seemed as if he struggled with him a moment. When
Brann fired a second shot, Davis fell. Ward had turned
him loose at this time. Davis rolled over and over on
the sidewalk and fired, I think, two shots while he was
down. While he was rolling over, Brann kept shooting at
him as fast as he could work the trigger. Mr. Ward did
not fire a shot. I saw the whole affair and know that
he did not and he did not exhibit a weapon of any kind.
He slipped back close to the building when he let go of
Davis, and when the shooting was over walked up the
street. I saw a man come out of Williams' place and
make an effort to get Davis' pistol. I can't say whether
or not he got it. I don't know where he went. Policeman
had reached the scene and arrested Brann."
Policeman Sam Hall said:
"I was standing in front of George Willig's office at
the alley and Fourth Street on the same side of the street
and say forty or forty-five feet away from the place
where the shooting took place. I was talking to Mr.
Dugger and was standing out on the sidewalk. Some
four or five minutes before the shooting occurred I looked
across the street and saw Brann and Ward standing in
front of the haberdasher store of L. Krauss, and at that
time Davis passed them and went on a couple of doors
and stepped inside of the storeroom at that point. I
then looked away, not having any idea at all of any
trouble, but just happened to see them. The next thing
I noticed was the men were close together in front of
French's newsstand with Davis between me and Brann
and Ward. The first of the trouble I saw Davis had his
pistol in his hand and instantly fired. Brann whirled and
commenced firing at Davis. I immediately started to
them, but had to work my way in and out of one door to
the other and work my way along the wall of the building,
as Brann was shooting directly toward me all the
time. I hallooed several times at them to stop shooting,
and just before I reached them Davis fell on the sidewalk
and Brann was still shooting. Davis attempted to
rise and Ward caught Davis by the shoulders and pulled
him back down on the sidewalk. Davis turned with his
face towards Brann and kept trying to fire, but his pistol
snapped. I jumped over Davis and caught Brann and
took the pistol out of his hands. Brann's pistol is a
Colts .41, latest improved, and was loaded all around
and all chambers were freshly fired. When I caught
Brann, Ward was standing up by the wall holding his
hand that was shot. I saw Ward fire no shots and I saw
no pistol in his hand. I then started with Brann to the
city hall, and as I crossed the street towards the Citizens
National Bank, Police Officer Durie came up and assisted
me in taking Brann on to the city hall."
* * *
BRANN'S DEATH.
IT CAME AS PEACEFULLY AS SLEEP TO A BABE.
After being taken to the city hall, Mr. Brann was
removed to his home, where Drs. Foscue, Hale, Graves and
C. E. Smith attended him. Soon after arriving there he
appeared to have reacted from the shock and there was
every indication of an improvement. At 11 o'clock there
was a change, hemorrhage of the lungs occurring
frequently. In addition to the immediate family circle a
number of devoted friends (and no man ever had more devoted
friends than Brann) were at the home, anxious to render
the offices of friendship. At midnight the physicians
said there was no chance and the family gathered about
the bedside. During the long minutes which followed, a
loving wife and two children sat by that bedside and
watched the unconscious man. His life hung by a thread
and while surgeon's science was being used to strengthen
the strand that held the life, Death's knife was on it.
They watched by his side, and as they watched they saw
him seek sweet repose. The anguish of the wife and
those children was terrible, but they awaited the visitation
to that happy home, kind friends being near to speak
sweet words of comfort. At 1.55 A.M. he died. His
features showed no pain, and when life left his body, the
face appeared as that of one in a sweet, peaceful sleep.
The remains of W. C. Brann were prepared early
Saturday morning and lay in state all day at the residence
on North Fifth Street. Hundreds of ladies visited the
home and viewed the face of the Apostle. It was natural
as life itself. He lay upon a catafalque in the parlors
at home and the visitors passed around the lifeless form,
looked upon the face and passed out.
Surviving Mr. Brann are his wife and two children,
Grace, aged 11 years, and Willie, a son, aged 6 years.
Brann himself was 44 years old.
Mr. Brann came to Texas about twelve years ago and
has been engaged in the newspaper business ever since.
He was connected in an editorial capacity with the Galveston
News, Houston Post, San Antonio Express and
Waco Daily News. In 1890, during the Hogg-Clark
campaign, he established the ICONOCLAST in Austin, Texas,
and made a fight for Hogg, making his first appearance
in the character which has made him famous. The paper
suspended publication and Mr. Brann accepted a position
on the San Antonio Express, which he held until the
latter part of 1894. He came to Waco in 1895 and began
editorial writing on the Waco Daily News. He decided
to reestablish the ICONOCLAST and it has been a great
success, reaching a phenomenal circulation, having readers
all over this country. The tragedy of Friday can
be traced to the attack which was made on Baylor
University in the ICONOCLAST. It was in Brann's peculiar
style, and attracted considerable attention throughout
the country. Mr. Brann is a native of Southern Illinois.
* * *
DAVIS FOLLOWS BRANN.
THE DEATH STRUGGLE AND KINDRED INCIDENTS.
While breaking hearts watched by Mr. Brann's bedside
there was a loving wife, a dutiful son and kind friends
sitting by the bedside of Tom E. Davis. For the first
six hours Dr. J. C. J. King, Dr. Curtis and Dr. Olive
endeavored to bring their patient about. He was
perfectly conscious, but was yet suffering from the shock.
At midnight he was no better and a change for the
worse was soon noted. The patient would awake from
the effect of opiates, talk with those about him and then
relapse again into slumber. He knew his son and wife,
friends who called and friends who spoke to him, but there
was rapid pulse and a labored breathing that indicated
the approach of death. Throughout the small hours of
the new-born day the wife sat by that couch, and with her
sat kind friends. Everything known to science was done
to save the life that fleeting breath told was fast ebbing
away. There was not a continued loss of blood, but
with a perforated frame, the creature of nature could
not exist, and it was evident he was fast nearing the end.
The dawn of early morning found the faithful watchers
yet at the bedside, and the rising sun peeped into the room
and shed a glow about the sick room, appearing to light
the way for the soul which was soon to wing its flight
to realms beyond. The circle about the couch enlarged,
children of the wounded man gathering about their weeping
mother, his sister and other relatives coming to watch
and wait. During the early hours of the morning and
until the forenoon was advanced, friends paced the lobby
of the Pacific hoping every moment for a report that the
patient was better. Each minute passed as an hour, and
the hours seemed as long drawn out days. Each report
from the sick room was "no change."
At noon it became evident that but a short time
remained. A. C. Riddle sat upon one side of the couch
and Richard Selman at the other, the first rubbing the
injured portion of the wounded right arm, while the other
moistened the parched lips with constant applications of
cold water. By Mr. Riddle sat the weeping wife, soon
to be a widow, and about the apartment were gathered
the children. The last hour of the citizen was one which
will never be forgotten by those who watched his last
moments. Labored was the breathing and every breath
was a gasp and a groan. His children stood by the couch
and saw the pain-racked form, and his wife held his hand
and prayed to the God of all people to spare him to her
for a longer time. Prayers were of no avail and tears
did not soothe the pain. He was in agony, and
accompanied with that agony was a desire to say something.
He relapsed into slumber at times and would at intervals
awake. His eyes would roll about the gathered friends
and relatives, and an unintelligible sound would escape.
There seemed to be no control of the tongue except at
times he could utter the words, "Wife" and "Molly."
The silence in the sick room was disturbed by the gasp
of the dying man and the weeping of his family.
The hour of 2 o'clock came and the breath was shorter
and harder. Little Nellie, 2 years of age, was brought
to the bedside, and looking at her father in childish
innocence smiled, and cried, "Mama, is that my papa?"
Did papa hear those words? It is to be hoped he did.
They rung out loud within the quiet room, the walls caught
them and echoed the music of the child's voice, and
probably that music joined the music of the great beyond,
where the soul was soon to be. If the ear of the dying
man, who gave every indication of consciousness, caught
the words of his baby, his death was made happy, even with
the pain that racked his wounded form. He saw the
anguish of the wife and children, it was to comfort them
with a last word that he sought to speak the last word
that he could not utter. At 2.20 it was seen that death
was upon him, and the rapid gasp for breath plunged the
entire family into violent weeping. Mrs. Davis had
controlled herself as best she could. The long hours were
spent in a labored effort to hold back the anguish of her
bleeding heart, but when she saw her husband in the last
moments of death she could control herself no longer.
Death came at 2.30 o'clock.
The dissolution of Tom E. Davis was known upon the
streets within a few minutes and the regret of the people
was freely expressed.
Tom E. Davis was 42 years of age. He was born
in Waco and was the son of Judge James F. Davis, a
pioneer settler of Waco. Tribune readers who have lived
here twenty years or more will remember Judge Davis.
From 1876 to 1878 he was one of the two justices of the
peace in Waco. He has followed the life of a railroad
man for many years, but finally gave it up to locate in
his native city. He has been engaged in the real estate
business recently. He was well thought of in this city,
had many friends, was a man of genial, jovial nature,
and was a good citizen. His death is mourned by a large
number. Surviving him is his wife and six children,
James F., Flossie, Mattie, Lillian, Margery and Nellie,
the eldest being sixteen and the youngest two years old.
In addition to those mentioned, who were at the death-
bed, was his sister, Mrs. Margaret Allen.
Saturday afternoon Drs. J. C. J. King, Frank Ross,
A. M. Curtis and N. A. Olive made an examination of
the wounds of T. E. Davis. Justice W. H. Davis had,
viewed the body and the examination was made at the
request of Sheriff John W. Baker. They could trace
four bullets as having struck Mr. Davis. While there
were a number of wounds, the surgeons found that the
same bullet made more than one or two holes. Two were
found to have struck in the left shoulder about the same
place. One of these came out at the back and the other
passed around the chest wall and lodged near the spine
near the waist. One went externally in the chest and
came out of the arm-pit, and another made a flesh wound
in the arm.
W. H. WARD.
HIS WOUNDS--ARRESTED AND HELD.
W. H. Ward, business manager for Brann's lecture tour,
and an intimate friend of the Apostle, was arrested
Friday night, as stated above. Baker & Ross, and Charles
R. Sparks were retained as his attorneys and he was
arraigned before Justice W. H. Davis at once, on a
charge of assault with intent to murder. Mr. Sparks
appeared in court and waived all formalities and the
question of the amount of the bond was discussed. Mr.
Sparks suggested $4,000 and this was agreed upon and
fixed by the justice. Mr. Waller S. Baker was out of the
city at the time, and after presenting a certified check
for the amount of the bond, Mr. Sparks decided to await
Mr. Baker's return before acting in the matter. When
Mr. Baker arrived at 10.30 o'clock there was some talk
on the streets of a mob, and it was decided that Ward
would be safer in jail awaiting developments. When Mr.
Davis died Deputy Constable Cliff Torrence went before
Justice Davis and made complaint charging murder.
Mr. Ward had come down town Friday to meet his
brother whom he was expecting to arrive from Tyler. He
joined Mr. Brann on the street, and while they were
together the tragedy occurred.
Mr. Ward was at Mr. Brann's burial Sunday afternoon
accompanied by Mr. Baker. His wounded hand
was bandaged and in a sling. At the jail he had been
called on by many friends and telegrams from various:
points, proffering aid and sympathy, came to him. Ward
was greatly moved by the death of Brann. He did not
talk much of the tragedy, but to a Tribune reporter,
who went to the jail Sunday to see him, Ward said:
"I do not at this time care to discuss the details. I
wish, however, to deny the statement that I participated
in the shooting or had a pistol. I did not expect a
difficulty and the first shot startled me as a thunder-clap
in a clear sky. I turned to Davis with pistol drawn and
grasped the muzzle of the weapon and was shot in the
hand. I regret the death of my friend, but cannot discuss
the details of the tragedy."
Messrs. Waller S. Baker and Charles R. Sparks state
that after the shooting they went to Mr. Brann's
residence and in the presence of outside witnesses found
Ward's pistol. It was loaded all round and showed no
indication of having been discharged.
Mr. Ward had been associated with Brann for some
time. They were co-workers on the Waco News and
when the Apostle began lecturing Ward became his
manager. They had been firm friends and when Ward was
in the city he made his home with Mr. Brann, and the
two were always together. Ward is well liked by those
who know him and he has a number of friends throughout
the country. He is a man of fine physique, is a dignified,
courteous gentleman.
While there was for a short time talk of a mob Friday
night, Sheriff Baker believed that cool judgment would
prevail and that nothing would be attempted. He was
prepared, however, to protect his prisoner, had trouble
been precipitated, and a number of citizens volunteered
their assistance had danger threatened.
THE OBSEQUIES.
BRANN AND DAVIS LAID TO REST SUNDAY.
Beneath two mounds, each banked with flowers, one in
Oakwood, the other in First Street Cemetery, were laid
the victims of Friday's tragedy Sunday afternoon. Never
were two funerals in this city more largely attended, and
never was the dead followed to a last resting place by
sorrowing friends with the reverence that was shown
yesterday. At each home, the Davis residence in the Fifth
Ward, and the Brann residence on North Fifth Street,
friends began to gather shortly after noon, and they
crowded through the two homes, on the lawn of one and
about the yard of the other. Each man had his friends,
and each had hosts of them, and they desired to show
by their attendance at this last service their devotion to
those friends who were now gone to the great beyond.
Each procession was a long one, the Davis cortege moved
from the home on Dallas Street to Elm, thence west on
Elm to the suspension bridge. When the hearse, which
was preceded by vehicles covering three blocks, containing
Knights of the Maccabees, turned into Elm Street, vehicles
were yet falling in line at the home, the procession
extending more than a dozen blocks in length. All
classes and conditions of men were in the line, from the
lowest to the highest, citizens of Waco joining in the
respect to the citizen whose tragic death was known. He
was well liked, and being liked, they sorrowfully joined
in this tribute to his memory. There were services at
the home, conducted by Rev. Austin Crouch, of East Waco
Baptist Church. Dr. Nelms was to participate, but a
sudden illness prevented him being present. The service
commenced by the singing by the choir of Some Sweet
Day. Those composing the choir were Messrs. W. T.
Millman, W. E. Brittain, W. R. Covington, J. S.
Henderson, Mrs. McDonald and Misses Josie Davis, Nannie
Huff and Shirley Faulkner, all of the East Waco
Baptist Church.
After the reading of the 23rd Psalm by Rev. Austin
Crouch, followed by the singing of Nearer My God to
Thee by the choir, Mr. Crouch began a short talk, which
went deep into the hearts of his hearers and was a beautiful
tribute to the noble characteristics of the deceased.
He began by quoting the poem, The Hour of Death, by
Mrs. Hemans, to illustrate the thought that man cannot
reckon upon the hour of the coming of death.
He drew attention to the fact that "it was said of
Moses that he died when his eye was not dim nor his
natural strength abated." He said it had been thus
with the deceased, he having been taken from life in the
prime of manhood, aged 42. He referred to him as a
loving husband and devoted father, and possessing the
love of a host of friends, as the vast concourse assembled
about his bier testified.
Mr. Crouch then referred with words full of
tenderness and pathos to the wife and six children whom the
husband and father had left when taken from life, and
in this connection quoted from Tennyson's In Memoriam,
the lines:
"I hold it true whate'er befalls;
I feel it when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all."
Touching upon the characteristics of the deceased, Mr.
Crouch eulogized his devotion to his family, his loyalty
to his friends and his willingness always to sacrifice
anything to them. He said of him that he was a good
citizen, who for the last several years had devoted much of
time and talents to upholding all the virtues of good
citizenship, adding that it was not often that one met a man
nowadays who could be called a good citizen.
Mr. Crouch closed a talk that was well chosen and
effectively delivered by warning his hearers that they
were but mortal and to be prepared for the hour of
death. With his final words he commended the loved
ones of the deceased to the mercy and care of Almighty
God.
The song, The Unclouded Day, closed the services at
the house.
When the procession reached the cemetery impressive
services, according to the ritual of the order, were
conducted by Commander Ben Richards of Artesian Tent,
Knights of the Maccabees, a final prayer was offered by
Rev. Crouch and the body of Tom Davis was lowered to
rest. The floral tributes were beautiful. Friends brought
cut flowers and evergreens, and two large designs especially
were noticed. One was a large wreath of red and white
flowers, twined with crepe, the red, white and black being
the colors of the Maccabees. This was sent by Artesian
Tent No. 6, of which the deceased was a member. The
other was a large anchor, fully four feet in length
composed of yellow roses and white carnations. It was a
huge piece, beautifully made, and testified the friendship
of him who sent it, Mr. Connor. The pallbearers were
Judge W. H. Jenkins, J. E. Boynton, T. B. Williams,
J. N. Harris, A. C. Riddle, J. K. Rose, J. H. Gouldy,
W. H. Deaton, Robt. Wright, S. F. Kirksey, Major A.
Symes and James I. Moore.
. . .
The funeral of W. C. Brann did not move promptly on
the hour. It had been fixed for 3 P.M., but there was some
delay. During the moments just preceding the funeral
services Mrs. Brann went upon the lawn herself,
accompanied by a friend, and she directed the cutting of
certain buds and roses which had been favorites of her
departed husband, and when the services were held in
the parlor she placed this collection of cut flowers upon
the head of the casket. The entire place was crowded
with sympathetic friends, and by her side were Mr. Brann's
sister and her husband, who came to Waco to attend the
funeral, being summoned from their Fort Worth home.
A brass quartette, composed of L. N. Griffin, first cornet;
J. C. Arratt, second cornet; H. C. Collier, trombone;
Fred Podgen, baritone horn, rendered sweet sacred music,
one selection being Nearer My God to Thee. Mrs. Tekla
Weslow Kempner sung Mr. Brann's favorite selection,
The Bridge. The service was conducted by Rev. Frank
Page of the Episcopal Church.
The procession was a very long one. It extended all
along Fifth Street from the house, and when Austin
Avenue was reached a large number dropped out of the
line, as was done in the Ross, Coke and Harris funerals,
and proceeded to Oakwood by other streets. A brass
band preceded the procession, playing martial music.
The street was lined with pedestrians and vehicles, some of
whom stood for thirty minutes waiting for the cortege.
The delay was occasioned, however, at the home. Soon
after the services were concluded, Mrs. Brann requested
that the casket be opened again, and her request was
complied with. For a few minutes she was alone with
her dead, and in that few minutes she gazed for the last
time upon her companion, her loved one and her husband.
When the procession reached the cemetery it was found
that a large number had preceded the cortege to the
grave, many vehicles and persons on foot being in waiting. A
large number went on the cars, three cars leaving the home.
The services at the grave consisted of an address by
Mr. J. D. Shaw, friend of the deceased. He said:
"My friends and friends of W. C. Brann: I come this
evening at the request of Mr. Brann's family to lay
tribute upon his grave. I speak as a friend living for a
friend dead. No ordinary man has fallen in the person
of W. C. Brann. Nature fashioned him to be a power
among his fellow men. By industry, by hard study, by
careful observation, by diligent research, by interminable
effort, he rose from comparative obscurity to teach and
impress the civilized world. In the person of W. C.
Brann we have an illustration of what may be expected
in a country like ours. He was a natural product of our
American democracy. He was a star that rose by dint
of his own effort, his own determination, surrounded by
circumstances that invited merit from the common people,
from the whole people. W. C. Brann was a cosmopolitan
character. He could never be confined within the
limits of a party or a creed. So great was his grasp,
so far-reaching his thought, that he lived in the world
and not in a mere party. He was found always with
that party or with that sect that represented what he
thought to be right and true. A peculiarity of this man
was his dual personality. Few people fully understood
him in this respect. As a bold genius, as an intellectual
giant, as a man armed and equipped with intellectual
fire, and as a man with a noble ambition to stand by
the right, he was a sworn foe of hypocrisy and fraud.
And when he took into his brave hands the pen, he made
fraud and hypocrisy quake and tremble. Burning words
came from his tongue, scorching and branding every fraud.
Men looked upon him then as a hard man, as a heartless
man because he told them the truth. But the other side
of this man's individuality, I, for one, have had the
opportunity to see. He could not only sow intellectually;
he was not only able to entertain the civilized world with
burning words, with thoughts that were winged and that
went like lightning, but he was a man of heart and of
honor, and a man of the warmest and most generous
love. He could go towards the skies intellectually, but
in his heart he lived close to nature. He loved nature.
He loved the very trees under whose shade he rested. He
loved the little birds that sang in the trees, the grass
upon which he walked, the flowers that bedecked the
forest. And he loved his fellow man. He had a warm,
generous heart and affection that went out to the poor
and those who were needy. W. C. Brann was never
known to attack a man who was a man. It was the strong
and the defiant that he branded, and not the weak and
the needy or the deserving. For these he was the friend.
I knew this man, not only as the editor of the ICONOCLAST,
not only as the utterer of grand and entertaining
sentences, but I knew him as a man whose palm was stretched
out to the man who was in need. Few men have been
more generous with their charity than my neighbor and
my friend whom we lay away to-day. No man within my
knowledge ever presented the world with a purer, a nobler,
a loftier home character than W. C. Brann. Oh! how he
loved his wife and his dear little children--not only the
children that were living, but the child that was dead.
How ardently he strove to support, maintain and bless
them. And what a friend they have lost. No man ever
approached W. C. Brann for a penny that he did not
respond, and from his beautiful home no beggar was ever
turned away. I am afraid many people who only knew
Mr. Brann as a genius, as a man of eloquence and power
with the pen, knew little of him as a man of heart and
affection. But, I, as his friend, as a friend of his wife
and his fatherless children, I thank the people of Waco
to-day that they have testified of their affection for this
man. We shall never see his like again here, perhaps.
He was a rising star. How soon that star has set! But,
my dear friends, he has left a memory. He has made
his impression upon the world and we will never forget
him. Let me then say, for I must be brief, I am reminded
by the stormy elements about us that I must not detain
you longer, let me say in conclusion that Brann is not
dead. His burning words still live, and his thoughts will
yet remain to affect the world, and we will never forget
him. And I say to his wife and children, though to-day
you feel crushed by this great sorrow, I know by
experience that our dead do not pass away from our minds.
They grow more beautiful the longer we live. We remember
them with greater pleasure, more tenderly, they will
always be just like they had been. They never change.
The little girl that you laid away in Houston is to-day in
your mind just what she was then. And the dear husband
that you lay away now will always be just what he is to-
day. No changes can come. He is fixed in the memory.
"Now, my friends, in behalf of Mrs. Brann and her
children, let me thank you for this presence, for this
demonstration of your appreciation of this man who has
so suddenly, so unexpectedly, fallen in our midst. Let us
cherish his memory, remember his virtue, and imitate his
daring courage in defiance of that which he thought was
evil and wrong. He was not without his faults. None
of us are. He was always ready and willing to admit that.
No man was more willing to answer for his work than
W. C. Brann. Therefore I ask for him that judgment
to-day we shall all crave of one another when we shall
have passed away. We will now lay his body in the
grave, we will cover it with mother earth, and upon it
place these flowers as a testimonial of our love and
affection for him."
At the grave, the bouquet which Mrs. Brann had laid
on the casket before leaving home was returned to her,
and just before the casket was lowered into the grave,
she stepped forward and lovingly placed the floral piece
upon the casket and it was closed in the grave. There
was a large number of floral offerings. Flowers were
there in profusion. But as at the other funeral, two
pieces were especially noticeable. One was a huge broken
wheel, full three feet in diameter, all in white, composed
of lilies of the valley, hyacinths and roses. It was the
gift of the employees of the ICONOCLAST, and William
Marion Reedy of St. Louis. The Knight Printing Company
sent a large anchor about three feet long, which
was composed of pink carnations and white roses. The
following were the pallbearers: J. W. Shaw, G. B. Gerald,
D. R. Wallace, L. Eyth, Waller S. Baker, Dr. J. W. Hale,
H. B. Mistrot, John D. Mayfield and James M. Drake.
* * *
THE LATEST TRAGEDY.
(Editorial appearing in the Waco Weekly Tribune,
issue April 9, 1898, and written by Hon. A. R. McCollum,
editor, and State Senator of the Texas Legislature.)
What use to write, or read or talk of the tragic deaths
of Brann and Davis unless those who survive are to draw
from the tragedy lessons which, rightly applied, will bring
peace and good to society and especially to this
community? If not this, then far better silence. In the news
columns of the paper we have told the story of the battle
to the death, fought on the public streets, of the death
scenes and burial. And all over this land, where newspapers
are printed, the story has been told and millions
have read. There will be no adequate estimate of the effect
the reading will have upon the minds of the millions. It
is certain that the most patent result will be to discredit
this community in the esteem of the people whose good
opinion our people would like to have, and to react in ways
that will affect the material welfare of this city and very
likely of the county, too. Beyond all question the
deplorable events of last year, opening with October, have
operated to the detriment of Waco, and beyond all question
the latest chapter of blood and violence will intensify
the distrust, unless it is evidenced that this is to be the
end, and that hereafter peace and order are to prevail, and
the sacredness of human life be more assured. This is
why we say it is little use to write or discuss the passing
of Brann and Davis, beyond rendering the tributes of love
and affection, unless our people are to learn from the
deaths the lessons of forbearance and tolerance and
subordination of passion and prejudice to the nobler and
better ends and aims of life. Asperity and bitterness must
be buried in the graves with the dead.
Brann and Davis have gone to a judgment higher than
that of men, and both, we venture to hope and believe, have
found how true it is that God is Mercy, as well as justice.
For our part, we would rather let them rest in peace and
not essay an analysis of their attributes and actions. We
will say this of Brann, that though he could write with a
pen of vitriol, in his private life he could be and was as
gentle as a woman, and his aspirations were those of
generosity and kindness, of faithfulness to friends. His home
life--with wife and children--was a poem that never
ended till he died. His genius was superhuman. As Mr.
Shaw truly said in his remarks at the grave, it is not
likely that we shall ever see his like again in this
community. Davis was cast in a different mold mentally, a
man of quite another type. He was sturdy and practical
and took the world precisely as he found it. It was indeed
a strange fate that brought these two men face to face
in deadly conflict and made of Davis the instrument to put
an end to Brann's earthly career. Both men loved and
were beloved. Widows and orphans mourn them. Let the
dead rest in peace, for good can be said of each.
It is the manifest duty of this community to forbear
from discussion of what might have been, or who sowed
the wind that brought the whirlwind. At the best, years
of patience, unselfish, earnest work will be needed to restore
our city to the place it might hold in the esteem of men.
The fool will say: "It makes no difference what others
think." It is a fool's consolation and a fool's argument,
for the cold truth is that not alone the prestige and good
repute of our fair city have been marred, but material
progress and prosperity have been affected. Population,
capital, skill, brawn, industry, morality hold aloof--not
wholly, of course, yet to a degree that is material and
unfortunate. It is possible to remedy this, but not until
we prove to the world that toleration and peace are to rule
here, and that human life is not to be held as the cheapest
thing society has to lose.
The following account of the mobbing of Brann in the
fall preceding his death (see Brann's article "Ropes,
Revolvers and Religion" in Vol. X.) is taken from the
Waco Tribune for October 9, 1897 It is reproduced
here to enable the reader to better interpret the
circumstances of Brann's death.
BRANN AND BAYLOR.
As to the Brann-Baylor episode, the old adage, "two
wrongs will not make a right," is certainly applicable to it.
Brann's article on Baylor University was wholly indefensible--
essentially ill-timed and could not possibly have
wrought any good, either to Baylor or the cause of
morality in general. It merited the protest and indignation
it evoked, and we question if Brann, when he wrote it,
really appreciated its full import, for, had he reflected,
he would have known that he placed his friends at a
disadvantage, in that men who hold the views respecting
virtuous womanhood that most Southern men (and himself
included) do could not defend the article. And Brann is
a man who we have always found to be true to his friend;
not one to place a friend in an embarrassing or unpleasant
position. He illustrated how a wonderfully brilliant man
may astonish the world and himself, too, by perpetrating
a grave blunder or mistake. We cannot understand how
he came to print the article.
And as for the course of the Baylor students who laid
forcible hands on Brann and by mob power compelled him
to sign humiliating admissions and apologies, their course
was about as grave a blunder as was Brann's. It is not
palliation to argue how indignant they were and how
natural their indignation. Perhaps those in authority at
Baylor who are said to have known beforehand the purpose
of the student mob and quietly winked at--if they
did not openly commend it--are more to blame than the
boys who did the work, for the older heads were naturally
expected to display the wisdom of mature years. It is the
truth that the authorities who condoned and the students
who perpetrated the lawlessness are equally beyond the
pale of defense.
It was thus that two wrongs and not one right were
done. All the parties to the wrong will have to take the
consequence. Brann has impaired the prestige of the
ICONOCLAST, students and university authorities have
brought unnecessary reproach on Baylor, given it
undesirable notoriety. Baylor is part and parcel of Waco.
All of us, regardless of creed, helped to rear it. Its good
name and welfare are matters of concern to all.
Brann, if he knew of disgraceful facts or episodes
connected with Baylor, should have given names, dates and
specific details. And some student, professor, patron or
friend of Baylor--someone with a daughter, sister or
female relative there--thus vested with the God-given right
of resenting slurs on the virtue of girl students, should
have been found willing to deal with Brann personally, and
somewhere else than on the university grounds with Brann
helpless and bulldozed. Any man thus acting with defense
of his womankind as his plea may, if his pretensions are
valid, always risk public opinion and jury verdicts in this
county.
We hope this matter will end where it is. Nobody wants
to see Brann driven away from Waco, nor do we believe
such a thing can be done. Men will be found in ample
numbers to maintain his right to dwell here. He is a
brilliant man, who can be distinctly useful as a writer.
On his part he owes something to the community which
is willing to maintain his every right--to the friends who
are still his friends even if he makes a mistake, and that
is to remember that Baylor University is part and parcel
of Waco, and that the reputable element of society here
does not share his views concerning the disrepute alleged
to attach to Baylor. Most of us wish Brann well; most
of us wish Baylor well.
It has been said that this is a matter of "religious"
differences and prejudices. It is not so, save where
individuals want and see fit to make it so. It has been said
"personal liberty" and bigotry are involved in this
matter. We fail to comprehend how or wherein. God knows
there is not a spot on the globe where there is more
diversity of opinion, more freedom of expression and action
as to religion than in this town. Once more, we hope
the matter is ended and for good.
. . .
Since the above was put in type the assault made by
Judge Scarborough, R. H. Hamilton and George Scarborough
on Mr. Brann has occurred. Judge Scarborough
has a daughter, George Scarborough a sister, who has
recently been a student and is now a member of the faculty
at Baylor. It will thus be understood how Brann's article
could aggrieve the father and brother. If either one had
taken a shotgun and killed Brann on sight, public opinion
would have held such a course far more commendable than
the policy adopted. If either one had challenged him,
given him a show for his life, and in the duel killed him,
public sentiment would have condoned such a step and no
jury in this county would award any penalty for the
slaying. But the overpowering attack by three men was
itself a mob attack--three may constitute a mob as well
as ten or twenty. Of course there will be some to defend
the trio of assaulters, but the consensus of public opinion
will be against it and by the greater part of our people
it will be regarded as essentially unfair. It has not served,
so far as we can see, any good purpose, but to the
contrary has intensified the bitter feeling existing here.
Brann's friends never indorsed his article on Baylor, but
this assault justified their indignation. As for Judge
Scarborough, we must regret his act and express surprise
that he got his consent to such a course. As for Hamilton,
his participation is altogether indefensible.
* * *
The following is the account of the shooting of Brann
from the Waco "Times-Herald." See the editorial for the
attitude of this paper. The ante-mortem statement of
Davis, and the statements of Moore, Hall and Sherman
Vaughan are identical in both papers and are therefore not
repeated. The "Times-Herald" gave no statements from
Earp, Petterson, Chase, Insley nor Dugger. Note other
statements not given in the "Tribune."
TERRIFIC, DEADLY CONFLICT
A Fearful Street Fight, in Which W. C. Brann and Tom
E. Davis Were Riddled With Pistol Shots and
William H. Ward Shot through the Hand.
BRANN, EDITOR OF ICONOCLAST, DEAD.
The Life of Tom E. Davis, the Well-known Real Estate
Man of Waco, Hangs by a Slender Thread, With
Almost Every Chance Against Him.
BRANN-BAYLOR AFFAIR THE CAUSE.
A Motorman and Musician Wounded by Flying Missiles--
Ward in Jail on a Charge of Assault to Murder--
The City Thrown Into a Whirlwind of Excitement
Over the Fearful Affair and Happy Homes Made Sad.
At this writing, 9 o'clock, W. C. Brann, editor of Brann's
ICONOCLAST, and Tom E. Davis, a prominent real estate
man of this city, lie dangerously wounded with a likelihood
of their dying at any moment. William H. Ward, an
employee of W. C. Brann, is shot through the right hand.
Sigh Kennedy, a motorman on the street car line, is shot
in the right knee, and Kepler, a traveling musician, is shot
in the right foot. The three men last named are only
slightly wounded.
W. C. Brann is shot through the left groin, in the right
foot and through the middle of the back about the lower
part of the shoulder blade, ranged upward and outward,
coming out at the front side near the point where the
arm joins the body.
Tom E. Davis is shot twice in the right arm, the balls
going through the arm, leaving four holes, one in the upper
left arm near the shoulder on the outer part of the arm.
This ball ranged to the back and came out just a little
ways in the left shoulder. Another shot took effect in
the right breast, near the nipple, ranged outward and
backward, coming out of the back near the side. Another
shot took effect in the back, near the right side, about the
waistband, ranged outward and downward and lodged just
over the spine, just under the skin. Another shot took
effect just under the right arm, ranged backward, coming
out about six inches in the back. This made a total of
six shots that took effect in Davis' body.
From best information obtained, the cause of the trouble
dates back to the old Brann-Baylor affair. It was during
this trouble that Mr. Davis was an outspoken advocate for
Baylor and had made the same statement that scores of
other people in Waco are accredited with having made
that "Brann is a scoundrel and ought to be run out of
town." Mr. Davis was fearless and outspoken, and Mr.
Brann learned of the stand he took.
Yesterday it seems that Mr. Brann, in company with
Mr. W. H. Ward, an employee of his, made it convenient
to come in contact with Mr. Davis, and one of them,
supposed to be Mr. Brann, cursed Mr. Davis as he passed
them. Mr. Davis had been out on the street where he had
just been passed by the men a couple of times and returned
to his office on Fourth Street, between Franklin and Austin
Streets. He had been in his office only a minute or so
when Messrs. Brann and Ward passed, with Brann on the
inside. As the two men passed Mr. Davis says that one
of them remarked in a loud voice, "There is the damned
cowardly son of a ----. He will take anything," to which
Mr. Davis replied, "Are you scoundrels talking about me?"
The shooting followed immediately. When the shooting
ended Davis was taken into French's newsstand and several
physicians were called in, opiates were administered,
and it looked as if Davis would die at any moment. He
talked some to his friends, frequently saying, "They have
got me; I am bound to go."
County Clerk Joney Jones was present, and all being
fearful that Davis might die at any moment, Mr. Jones
took his ante mortem statement, which is given below.
Mr. Brann was taken to the city hall by Officers Sam
Hall and Durie, where he was laid upon a couch and other
physicians attended him until 7:20 o'clock, when he was
taken home, being accompanied by physicians and friends.
Ward, Kennedy and Kepler all repaired to the drug
stores and had their wounds dressed.
Something near an hour after the shooting Mrs. Davis
and her children came from their home in East Waco to
the side of the wounded husband and father. At dark
Davis was removed to the Pacific hotel, where Dr. J. C. J.
King attended him in his official capacity. Mrs. Davis
was with her husband and numerous friends were present
to administer every want.
Mr. Ward employed an attorney. Justice W. H. Davis
was called up by telephone and about 9 o'clock he opened
court in his courtroom. Mr. Ward, through his attorney,
waived all formalities, preliminaries and examination and
was granted bond in the sum of $4,000, which he failed
to give and went to jail.
From the moment the first shot was fired citizens rushed
to the scene from every part of the city, and in a moment
after the firing had ceased there were fully one thousand
persons on Fourth Street surging around French's newsstand,
while there were two-thirds that number at the city
hall where Mr. Brann was being attended to, and up until
after midnight the streets were filled with hundreds and
hundreds of citizens grouped here and there in all of the
hotels and on the street corners discussing the one absorbing
question--"The shooting."
At midnight both Mr. Davis and Mr. Brann were alive,
with the former resting much easier.
E. P. NORWOOD.
Mr. E. P. Norwood said:
"Just prior to the shooting I had walked up Fourth
Street, passing Messrs. Brann and Ward standing in front
of Krauss' store, near Bankers' Alley, when I met Hermann
Strauss, who insisted that I go back across the alley
to Laneri's saloon. As we went back I saw Brann and
Ward still standing where they were and at that moment
Tom Davis had just come up the sidewalk in front of
Laneri's and, leaving Bankers' Alley without crossing it,
he went immediately to his office.
"In a moment I saw Brann and Ward go directly to
Davis' office. I thought nothing unusual of this, not
knowing that any difficulty was liable to occur and went in to
Laneri's to take a drink. In a moment or so I heard two
or three shots fired, and I immediately ran to the door.
When I got where I could see the men I saw Davis on the
ground and Brann and Ward standing up firing at him.
I am positive that Ward fired one shot, if not two shots;
he ceased and Brann continued firing until an officer rushed
right into the shooting and caught Brann."
JOHN SLEEPER.
Mr. John Sleeper was an eye-witness and made the
following statement:
"I was standing in the Fourth Street entrance to my
store and was looking south on Fourth Street, and saw
Mr. Brann and Mr. Ward coming up the sidewalk from
the alley in front of the Cotton Belt ticket office, and then
turned and looked north towards Austin Street. And
while looking in that direction I heard three pistol shots
almost simultaneously, and turned and looked in the direction
from which the pistol shots came, and saw Mr. Tom
Davis reeling and falling to the sidewalk and Mr. Brann
firing upon him. Mr. Davis fell to the ground almost in
a heap and rolled over as many as four times. Mr. Ward
handed Mr. Brann a pistol and Brann stepped forward
towards Davis and began firing on him as he was rolling
upon the sidewalk. Brann and Ward then turned and
walked away on Fourth Street towards Austin Street to
a point directly opposite my door, where I was standing,
when two police officers came across Fourth Street from
the direction of the Citizens National Bank, and as they
came up to Brann he remarked: 'Gentlemen, I am shot,'
but Ward said nothing. I noticed blood flowing from
Ward's right hand as if he was wounded in it. I did not
see Mr. Davis or Mr. Ward either shoot at any time."
AB VAUGHAN.
Mr. Ab Vaughan, a well-known man about town, says
that while crossing Fourth Street from the Cotton Belt
ticket office towards the Pacific Hotel, he passed Brann
and Ward in the street, on the east side of the street
railway track, and that he overheard one of them say
to the other, "I wouldn't do it," though which one spoke
he was unable to say. He paid no attention to the remark
at the time, and stepped into the Pacific Saloon.
The next instant he heard the reports of a pistol,
followed in rapid succession by a number of other shots.
W. O. BROWN.
Mr. W. O. Brown made the following statement:
"A few minutes before 6 o'clock I was at the Pacific
Hotel bar, in company with W. C. Brann. We conversed
together for fifteen or twenty minutes, during the course
of which Baylor University was discussed as well as the
trouble attendant upon his Philippics against it. Before
parting, Mr. Brann remarked in rather a sneering way:
'I expect to get killed, but when I am, Baylor will have
become a thing of the past,' or words to that effect. We
separated, and I walked down Fourth Street to Austin,
where I met my wife and a lady friend in our phaeton,
and after a moment's conversation with her, entered a
buggy with Mr. C. M. Clisbee, and started to the opera
house. Just as we turned the corner I heard a pistol
shot, perhaps two, and turning my head saw Tom Davis
fall to the sidewalk. I jumped from the buggy and ran
towards my wife's phaeton, fearing her horse would take
fright, but finding my fears groundless hastened to the
scene of the shooting, and there found Tom Davis lying
on the sidewalk, and assisted in carrying him into French's
newsstand. I heard several shots fired after I saw Davis
fall, but who fired them I am unable to say."
JUDGE J. W. DAVIS.
Judge John W. Davis said:
"I was standing on Fourth Street just below the Pacific
Hotel entrance, talking to a number of gentlemen, among
them John W. Marshall. I heard a pistol shot up Fourth
Street and turned and saw in front of W. F. Williams
& Co.'s office what appeared to be several men in a scuffle.
The larger man was falling toward the street. Shots
were fired into him as he was falling and continued after
he was lying on the sidewalk and was rolling over. The
shots were fired in such rapid succession that it seemed
impossible for them to have come from one pistol. I did
not recognize the participants at first, but thought that
the man falling was Tom Davis. After eight or ten shots
had been fired I recognized W. C. Brann with a policeman.
I could not tell what was the relative position of
the party. They all seemed to be in a clump."
J. W. WILLIAMS.
John W. Williams says:
"Just a few moments before the shooting Tom Davis
came into our office, that of Williams & Co., and said
hello to Tom Sparks, who was talking to me. He then
turned and went out. In a moment I heard a click as
though a pistol was being cocked and at that time
recognized the voice of Davis saying something like "don't
talk to me." At the same time I saw the tail of Davis'
coat go back as if he was trying to draw his pistol.
Rapid shooting followed as if from several pistols. When
I reached the door I saw Ward either shoot or push
Davis down, his hand being almost or quite against Davis
and Davis between me and him. At the same time as the
push or shot from Ward I saw Brann fire. And the
firing was continued by Brann, Davis at this time struggling
on the ground or sidewalk and called out to me
that he was murdered. I got his pistol. Brann
continued to fire and snapped his pistol several times after
Davis was down. The shots were fired very rapidly and
as I was looking at and watching Brann so intently I
cannot say whether Ward was shooting or not as I was
not looking at him."
W. S. GILLESPIE.
Mr. W. S. Gillespie said:
"I was sitting in my office a few minutes prior to the
shooting and noticed Mr. Brann and Mr. Ward, his
business manager, standing across the street on the corner
of Bankers' Alley in very earnest conversation, looking
across the street as if watching some one or something,
and finally came across to the corner in front of my office
and after they passed going north towards Austin Street
I heard the rapid firing of guns and ran out and found
T. E. Davis lying on the sidewalk, and I went up to him
and asked him if he was very badly hurt, and he remarked,
'They have assassinated me; they have murdered
me,' and friends came up to my assistance and he was
conveyed to French's cigar store.
B. H. KIRK.
Mr. B. H. Kirk said:
"At the time of the shooting I was on the sidewalk in
front of Mr. Mackey's office. I noticed W. C. Brann and
W. H. Ward together crossing Fourth Street from the
direction of Krauss' store and walking towards Tom
Davis' office. A moment or two after I heard two shots
fired very near together, and, looking, saw Tom Davis
on the sidewalk in front of his office in the act of falling;
as he lay on the sidewalk two more shots were fired into
him. After these last two shots Davis rolled over and
fired at Brann and I thought hit him in the breast. After
that several more shots were fired into Davis. Brann
and Ward were about three feet from Davis during the
firing, standing near the outside of the sidewalk and
perhaps a little nearer to Austin Street. I cannot say
I saw W. H. Ward fire, but my impression is that all
three were shooting."
B. H. KINGSBURY.
B. H. Kingsbury said:
"I was standing close to the telephone post between
Pacific Hotel bar and Mose's newsstand when I heard one
or two shots fired almost together. I exclaimed: 'Tom
Davis is killed,' for I saw him on the sidewalk in front of
his office struggling and rolling. As Davis lay on the
sidewalk, dead, as I thought, there were two men shooting
at him. These men I learn were W. C. Brann and his
body-guard, W. H. Ward. While so shooting at Davis,
Brann was in front of Ward and both were firing. I do
not know if Davis fired before he was down.
LATER.
Later.--At 1 A.M. a Times-Herald reporter visited the
home of Mr. Brann and found him dying. At 10.30 o'clock
he had a hemorrhage of the lungs, which filled one of them
up and the lung was still bleeding at 1 A.M., and his
vitality was fast ebbing away. Dr. M. L. Graves said
that the sufferer could not possibly live longer than two
hours and was liable to die at any moment.
At 1 A.M. Mr. Tom Davis had not rallied from the
effects of his wounds and but little hope was entertained
for his recovery. Mr. Davis has wonderful vitality and
his great strength may yet pull him through, though
there is but the faintest hope that it will. Dr. King is
still at his bedside doing all that is possible for him to do.
Later.--At 1.55 o'clock this morning W. C. Brann, the
noted editor of Brann's ICONOCLAST, breathed his last.
Just before the end came his family and intimate friends
were gathered about him. His lungs were filled from the
internal hemorrhage and he passed peacefully away.
3 A.M.--At this hour Mr. Tom E. Davis is rapidly
sinking and it is thought that the end is near at hand.
It may be possible for the wounded man to live as long as
two hours; but all hope has fled and the end is watched
for which may come at any minute. His physicians say
he is dying.
* * *
(Editorial)
THE LATE TRAGEDY.
The details of the awful tragedy of Friday evening are
yet fresh in the minds of the people of Waco, and it is
bootless to recount them. Two of the principals thereto
have passed to the beyond and a third is in the hands of
the outraged law. And with him let the law deal. In
life Captain Davis was our friend. His assailant was
our enemy. In death they take on the proportions of
common humanity. Upon the bier of one we will lay
the myrtle of never-dying remembrance. Over the coffin
of the other let the mantle of forgetfulness rest. The
Times-Herald makes no war upon the dead.
It is not with the dead we deal to-day, but the living--
the citizenship, the municipality, the people of Waco
who must suffer, who must endure, and who must survive
the blow that has fallen upon us. Not because two brave
men are dead, but because of the stain of blood guiltiness
that has again besmirched our fair escutcheon. This
tragedy has harmed Waco almost beyond the power of
men to help; because it has again been blazoned to the
world that here human life is cheapened; that men's passions
rule rather than the written law and that our Christian
civilization is but the thinnest veneer atop of the savage.
Yet out of this may yet come a blessing to Waco. If
it shall teach men to rule their passions and their speech;
if it shall show us the way to lean upon the arm of the
law rather than upon the might of our own strength; if
it shall make us more tolerant of the opinions of our
neighbor; if it shall incline us to encourage the public
weal, rather than private animosities, the shadow of
tragedy may yet pass and the sunlight of humanity prevail.
The Times has no heart for moralizing. It will add
no pang to the grief of those who mourn. It asks of the
people of Waco that upon the two new mounds made in
Oakland to-day the seeds of forgetfulness may spring into
verdure, covering feud and hiding passion, and that the
dead past will bury its dead, leaving to the present hope,
and to the future fruition.
Here follow the contents of the May, 1898, ICONOCLAST
published by Brann's friends after his death.
THE PASSING OF WILLIAM COWPER BRANN.
BY G. P. GERALD.
Poetic legend says that on a moonlight night, two
thousand years ago, along the shores of the gulf of Patras,
a mighty voice was heard, crying "Great Pan is dead!"
And from the mountains and the valleys, the woods and
grottoes, where stood the altars of those who worshiped
at the shrine of Pan, was reechoed back the cry, "Great
Pan is dead!" On the second of April, when the winged
lightning bore over a continent, and to foreign lands beyond
the sea, the news that W. C. Brann of the ICONOCLAST
was dead, in every land where his writings are
known, from men and women who worship at the shrine
of genius, went up the wailing cry, "Brann of the
ICONOCLAST is dead." Oh, death! thou grim and imperious
master of us all, how dreadful to the living are your silent
darts, that are ever striking with impartial hand the old
man in his dotage, the strong man in his prime, the brave
man in his courage and the craven in his fear.
W. C. Brann was 43 years of age, and had just arrived
at that period when he was beginning to realize the hopes
and aspirations of years, when he was stricken down amid
the rejoicings of many and the sorrows of many thousands
more. He was born in Coles County, Illinois, and at the
age of two and a half years, by the death of his mother,
was placed with a sister some two years older than himself,
in the care of Mr. Hawkins and his wife, who lived
on a farm in that county. He remained with them ten
years, and then, longing to be something more than a
farm hand, he packed his small belongings in a little box
and at night, when all was still, he took the box under
his arm and went out into the lonely darkness of the
moonless night, without money, friends or education, to
commence the struggle which ended in his untimely death
at Waco.
Mr. Brann always spoke in the most kindly terms of
Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins, and when he purchased his home
in this city, he offered to share it with them, but having
grown old and being comfortably situated they did not
desire to change.
The first place he secured was that of a bell boy in a
hotel, and from that passed on to other situations,
realizing all the time, what every proud spirited boy would
do under the circumstances, the bitterness that friendlessness,
ignorance and poverty bring to the struggle of life.
Among other things he learned the trade of painter and
grainer, also that of printer, all the time storing his mind
with what scraps of education that his life of poverty and
toil permitted. After he gathered sufficient education he
became a newspaper writer, and in 1877, at Rochelle,
Ill., was married to Miss Carrie Martin, who, with two
children, Grace and William Carlyle, "Little Billy," as
we call him, survive him. After the death of Mrs. Brann's
mother, he took to his home one of her sisters, now Mrs.
Marple of Fort Worth, and although often driven to the
most desperate straits to make a living, he proved to her
to be both a brother and a father. He continued his
newspaper career in Illinois and Missouri, until some
thirteen years ago, when he came to Texas, and gradually
became known by his connection with various papers of
the State. For a short time he had an interest in a paper
called the ICONOCLAST, published in Austin, but he soon
found himself back at his old trade, that of driving his
pen for others. At last, worn out by long years of
unremitting and generally poorly requited toil, wearied with
waiting for opportunity to write as he wished but could
not do as an employee of others, he determined to again
strike out for himself, as he had done in his early boyhood,
and in 1894 came to this city and established the ICONOCLAST,
which was a success from its first issue, and continued
to grow in circulation as he grew in reputation
as a writer, until the copy that witnessed his death reached
an issue of nearly 90,000.
The world, for several generations, has been discussing
whether Shakespeare wrote the plays that bear his name,
thousands believing that it was impossible for a man who
had no more education than Shakespeare had in his youth,
to have exhibited the varied knowledge and learning that
characterize his works, therefore these attribute them to
Sir Francis Bacon, one of the most brilliant and best
educated men of his time. All the evidence goes to show
that at the age of 18, when Shakespeare married, that
he had acquired with a "little Latin and less Greek," the
ordinary education accorded to the sons of the well-to-do
middle-class Englishmen of his time, of which his father
was one. At 18 Mr. Brann had barely secured the rudiments
of an English education, and had he lived to the
age of Shakespeare, there is no telling to what heights,
intellectually, he would have risen. From a slight
knowledge of his hopes and aspirations, I can say, that while
he dearly loved the ICONOCLAST, as a vehicle by which
he could convey to the world his thoughts, he had aspirations
that went far beyond it, and proposed that during
the next ten nor twelve years, after his mind had been
fully stored for the work, to leave as a legacy to the
world, in a continuous work, his conception of the wrongs
done to humanity, the evils that spring from them and
the remedies to be applied. And all who have read him
closely and noticed how, month by month, he grew greater
and brighter, will surely join in saying, that the loss of
such a work from such a man, at the meridian of his
intellectual life, is only second, if not equal, to the loss
of the unwritten volumes of Buckle's "History of Civilization."
Alas! that such a man, with such a great future
before him should have died standing on the very threshold
of his work.
In the private relations of life Mr. Brann was as
extraordinary as in his public career; he presented that
combination that is so rare that even novelists do not attempt
to paint it, the combination of the lover and the husband,
and as a father, a friend, a lover of humanity, with a
broad mantle of charity for all, he had few equals.
While he wrote in prose, he was a poet, and of him
can be truly said:
"The thoughts that stir the poet's heart
Are not the thoughts that others feel,
From the world's creed they are all apart,
And oftener work his woe than weal.
They are born of high imaginings,
Kindled to life by passion's fire,
As o'er earth's dross his fancy flings
The golden dreams that wrap his lyre."
As a writer, Mr. Brann had his faults, but they were
the heritage of this God-given son of genius, and with
them he climbed the heights and died among the greatest,
both of the living and the dead. And had he lived ten
years longer, in all probability, the intellectual world
would have held him as the grandest writer that this
earth has ever known since the days when old Homer
painted the matchless beauty of the bride of Menelaus,
and told of the godlike courage of the Greek and Trojan
as they fought for her, from the Scamander to the sea.
While the ignorant, the bigoted and intolerant are
rejoicing in his death and garnishing his grave with the slime
of their slander, they may be assured that his name and
writings will live until the English language dies, and
when W. C. Brann is dead and forgotten, so will be
Sterne, Smollet, Fielding, Swift, Pope, Steele, Addison,
Goldsmith, Shakespeare, Ben and Sam Johnson, Byron,
Shelley, Keats, Carlyle, George Eliot and all that mighty
host that have made the English language what it is. The
language that the little tribe of the Angles brought from
the forest of Germany to Britain swallowed the Britain,
and survived the Norman conquest, and then absorbed
both the conqueror and his language. And in the dead
centuries of over a thousand years, in every generation
has produced some mighty intellect to speed it on in building
up the bulwarks of human rights and human liberty,
until they have grown so high that despots turn from
it with loathing, and slaves cannot speak it. The language
of the Magna Charta and the Declaration of American
Independence, the two instruments that have spread the
bread of liberty before a hungry world. And as a writer
of this language, with all its mighty past and greater
future. W. C. Brann had few equals and no superiors.
I have been asked, both before and since his death,
what were his religious opinions, and while every man's
religious opinions are his own, and no one has the right
to question them, I will say he was a Deist something after
the manner of Thomas Paine, and for the benefit of
some of our professors and preachers, who do not know
the difference between an Atheist and a Deist, I will say
that a Deist is one who believes in one God, and rejects
all forms of so-called revealed religion. Mr. Brann loved
nature and when he looked upon it, he saw nature's God,
that with eternal fingers has written his message on earth
and sky, so that savage and civilized, Christian and Infidel
alike could read, that has by immutable and unvarying
laws, regulated the bloom of the flowers, the
course of the winds, and the fall of the leaf, as well as
the revolutions of the countless millions of worlds that
are ever speeding through the unmeasurable realms of
space. He believed that this mighty power, that men
call God, could perpetuate man in the hereafter as easily
as he had placed him here, and while he, like many others,
knew that all his hopes and faith did not furnish one
atom of real proof as to what lies beyond the gates of
death, still he hoped for the brighter and better life, and
when that beautiful smile overspread his face when he
died, those who beheld it felt that he had realized his
hopes, and in the shadowy realm that bounds the Stygian
river had met his little girl Inez, whose untimely death
at the age of barely 12 years, had worked such havoc
in his heart. Mr. Brann loved nature, not only when
the gorgeous god of day threw over earth and sky the
flashing strands of his golden hair, but in the night time
when all else was wrapped in the arms of sleep, the twin
sister of death; and the belated passer-by of his home
often saw the gleam of his cigar as he sat or walked
upon the lawn, in the small hours of the night: and at
such time I know there came through his soul the thoughts,
if not the words, of that death-devoted Greek, who to the
question from the woman that he loved, "O, Ion, shall
we meet again," answered, "I have asked that dreadful
question of the hills that look eternal. Of the clear
streams that flow on forever. Of the bright stars amid
whose fields of azure my raised spirit has walked in glory.
All, all are dumb."
But when I gaze upon thy face, I feel that there is
something in the love that mantles through its beauty
that cannot wholly perish, we shall meet again, Clemanthe.
But it was not the name of Clemanthe that passed his
lips, it was ever "Inez, darling Inez, we shall meet again."
I here reproduce in his own words an extract appropriate
to this subject. It is from the ICONOCLAST of
March, 1896, and an article headed "Beecher on the Bible":
"I know nothing of the future; I spend no time
speculating upon it--I am overwhelmed by the Past and at
death grips with the Present. At the grave God draws
the line between the two eternities. Never has living man
lifted the somber veil of Death and looked beyond.
"There is a Deity. I have felt his presence. I have
heard his voice, I have been cradled in his imperial robe.
All that is, or was, or can ever be, is but "the visible
garment of God." I seek to know nothing of his plans
and purposes. I ask no written covenant with God, for
he is my Father. I will trust him without requiring priests
or prophets to indorse his note. As I write, my little
son awake, alarmed by some unusual noise, and come
groping through the darkness to my door. He sees the
light shining through the transom, returns to his trundle-
bed and lies down to peaceful dreams. He knows that
beyond that gleam his father keeps watch and ward, and
he asks no more. Through a thousand celestial transoms
streams the light of God. Why should I fear the sleep
of Death, the unknown terrors of that starless night, the
waves of the river Styx? Why should I seek assurance
from the lips of men that the wisdom, love and power
of my heavenly Father will not fail?"
Like the lowly Judean carpenter who gave his life in a
protest against the wrongs which wealth and power had
done to his fellow man, he was hated by the Pharisees
and hypocrites, but he never cast a stone at the poor and
unfortunate, but was ever ready to support the weak
battling in the cause of right against the cohorts of the
wrong.
He was not only a poet, but was a prophet and a
priest; not the prophet and priest of orthodoxy, that has
handed down to us through the ages, written in the blood
of slaughtered millions, that dark story of forked-tailed
demons and flaming hells, that has given us a God that
loves us better than an earthly father can, yet permits
us in the sight of his great white throne to writhe and
suffer through the endless ages of eternity in the flames
of hell. But he was a priest and prophet of a greater
and grander faith, that in the evolution of the unborn
centuries yet to come, will strip from the Godhead all
of the horrid concepts, born of the puny hate of man
for his fellow man.
Mr. Brann was a man of the highest moral courage,
no one doubted this, but some doubted whether he had
that kind of physical courage that is necessary to
contend with mobs and assassins, but when the hour came
--when, without the slightest warning or anticipation or
danger, the death wound tore through his back, with
a coolness that few even of the bravest of men would
have possessed under the circumstances, with a courage
that could have led the Irish exiles, in that desperate and
deathless charge on the bloody heights of Fontenoy, he
turned and fired every bullet of his pistol into the body
of his assassin.
I will briefly sketch here some of the main facts that
led to his death, not only justice to the dead, but to his
living friends who only knew him as a writer and have
been compelled to read in the newspapers the loathsome
and lying slanders sent out against him from this
city.
The origin is to be found in the visit to this city of
ex-Priest Slattery, who, for gross immorality, had been
kicked out of the fold of the Catholic church. He was
accompanied by a woman fully as bad as he, and these
two saints set up to lecture, and the substance of their
lecture was briefly this, that convents and female schools
under the charge of the sisters, were but bawdy houses
to satisfy the lust of the Catholic priesthood. Mr. Brann,
who heard, in the opera house in this city, these vile
slanders flung amid thunders of applause, mostly from a gang
of blackguards from and around Baylor University, outraged
by the wrong done the pure and stainless women
whose vows bar them from the slightest hope of reward
on earth, yet devote their lives in and out of the convent
walls to soothing the sorrows and relieving the sufferings
of humanity, attempted to reply in their defense, and for
this he was hooted and nearly mobbed by this precious
lot of curs and had to be escorted from the opera house
by the police. After the Antonio Tiexeria scandal came
out, and he saw the poor girl reduced to ruin, standing
barely on the verge of womanhood, desolate and friendless
in a foreign land, with his whole sympathetic nature
aroused in her behalf, he certainly struck some hard
blows at Baylor. In his repeated thrusts he made one at
the professors which is believed by many to have cut far
deeper than anything ever said about the Brazilian girl,
and that was his proposition to open a night school for
their benefit. In last October ICONOCLAST, in a
paragraph, he expressed the hope that Baylor would not
continue to manufacture ministers and Magdalens. For
this he was twice mobbed, and it is claimed eventually
murdered.
Since Mr. Brann's assassination I have seen it charged
in some papers, notably one bearing the word Christian
at its head, that he was killed because he had slandered
his slayer's daughter, and then follows a lot of hypocritical
rot about regretting bloodshed, but that there was an
unwritten law that required the death of a man who
would slander the female relatives of another. A greater
falsehood was never published in even a pious Christian
weekly. He never mentioned the name of any woman connected
with Baylor except the Brazilian girl, and her case
was in the courts, and while his friends deeply regretted
his unfortunate expression it neither justified his mobbing
or his murder. And in the judgment of all fair-minded
men, under the circumstances could have been more readily
construed to mean Antonio Tiexera than any other woman
on earth, for within Baylor's sacred precincts she had
been reduced to that condition to which, when a woman
arrives, men call her a Magdalene. If this was the motive
that prompted his slayer, I ask why he did not appeal
to the unwritten law sooner; he who appeals to it must
do so at the first information has been conveyed to him
that the wrong has been done and he cannot wait for
months and then use it as a defense, and I do not hesitate
to say that hundreds besides myself in this city do not
believe that this prompted his assassin, except to be used
as an excuse.
Mr. Brann loved Waco as he never loved any other
place; for he knew that within its borders could be found
as many brave, liberal-hearted men, pure and noble women
as could be found in any other spot on earth with the same
population. He loved it, for he said that here was the
first place he ever found a real home, and here was the
place he had for the first time been recompensed for his
toil by receiving over a bare subsistence. Now, did Waco
love Mr. Brann, or did it hold him the foul slanderer
of her purest and best, as some claimed him to be? Let
us see. Every effort was made to throw cold water on
any turnout to his funeral; it was told around the city
that no women would attend and that no flowers would
be sent, but what was the result? From his home to the
cemetery the sidewalks were crowded, save at Baylor
University, the place that is responsible for his death, and
hundreds of men and women who had no carriages walked
from his home over two miles to the cemetery, and when
the long funeral cortege passed within the gates, around
his grave was a sea of human faces unequaled in numbers
ever before gathered around any other grave in Waco.
Yet Waco had lately laid to rest within that cemetery
a man whom she dearly loved and on whom Texas had
been proud to confer her high places, a man who in bygone
years had so gallantly led her sons on so many bloody
fields. As to the flowers, no greater profusion was ever
seen on any other grave in Waco, or, perhaps, in Texas,
a tribute that the pure and stainless women of Waco paid
to the martyred dead. At his funeral was noticed a greater
number, both from the city and county, of the sun-kissed
sons of toil than had ever been gathered here around any
other grave. Why were they there in such numbers?
Why did they bow their manly heads o'er the coffin of
the dead? I will answer for them. It was because they
knew that the dead man loved the land that they, their
sires and their grandsires loved; that he was seeking to
uproot the evils, both socially and politically, that are so
rapidly overrunning it; that all the gold of earth, or the
plaudits of those who feel themselves the grand and great
could not win him from his task of defending a people's
rights against those who were seeking to strike them down,
and if he had made an error in a paragraph subject to
a double construction, that above all else on earth in his
heart he sought
"But the ruin of the bad, the righting of the wrong
and ill."
He was followed to his grave by hundreds of men who
but a few years ago had given of their money liberally
to build up the new Baylor, many of whose wives, daughters
and sisters had been educated there. Is it reasonable
to suppose that these men who clung to him in life with
hooks of steel, and followed him to his grave with tears,
are such cravens that, alike in life and death, they would
stand by the man who had foully slandered their wives,
daughters and sisters' fame? Out upon such a supposition,
it can only find lodgment in a breast that holds that
the Yahoo of Swift is a true picture of the human race,
and that the lowest of the type is living here. If Mr.
Brann was the slanderer of women, why did so many of
them, from the hundreds that crowded the lawn around
his home, lead their children up to his coffin, and those
that were not able to look into it they would raise up
in their arms that they might look into the dead face
of the Prince of the Imperial Realm of Language.
Mr. Brann was no slanderer of women, no man on
earth had a greater veneration for the good and pure or
more sympathy for the fallen, and he would have died
before he would have wronged intentionally either class.
In this case he had struck in behalf of a poor and
unfortunate girl who had been grievously wronged at Baylor,
and it used to be held, and is yet held in some communities,
that the man who strikes in the defense of a defenseless
woman exhibits the highest trait of chivalry, even if he
had made a mistake in striking, but here in Waco, with
its Christian schools and churches, and its so-called Christian
civilization it was rewarded first by mobs and then by murder.
He was a man who was incapable of malice, he bore
none for injuries that most men would have rewarded the
cowardly perpetrators by shooting them down like they
have their prototype, the sneaking wolf; this arose from
the innate tenderness of the man who shrunk from the
taking of life, even of an animal, unless it was necessary.
I have used no words of sympathy for his wife, for
time and not words can soothe sorrow such as hers, but
for the benefit of those at a distance who were her
husband's friends I will say that she has the sympathy of
all the men and women of this city, irrespective of church
or creed, who are not the indorsers and abettors of mobs
and assassins, and I am glad to say that this collection
of hyena-hearted human vultures, though far too many,
are in the minority.
Now, to the dead friend of humanity, the eternal foe
to wrong and hypocrisy, I bid adieu forever here, and
for aught I know, for hereafter. The greedy grave, whose
hungry mouth is never filled, has claimed him, and in the
arms of old earth, the last mother of us all, we have laid
him to sleep, as peacefully as in infancy he slept upon
his mother's breast, indifferent alike in death as in life
to the human ghouls who pursued him. Never again will
his splendid intellect drive a pen. "In thoughts that
breathe and words that burn" against the serried ranks
of injustice and of wrong. Others will follow in his
footsteps, and battle as faithfully as he for the cause of
right, but, alas, none are clad like him in the Milan mail
of intellectuality, against which the cloth-yard shafts of
foes could rattle but could never pierce. Now, that for
him the restless dream of life has closed, I know that every
admirer of his genius, no matter of what faith or of no
faith at all, will join me in the wish that for him death
did not bring oblivion's dreamless sleep, where Lethean
waves forever wash the pallid brow of death, but Elysian
fields in which he met in joy the loved ones that had gone
before and will await in peace the loved ones that are
left behind.
"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! Thou that killeth the
prophets and stoneth them that are sent unto thee."
* * *
REST--REST IN PEACE.
BY W. H. WARD.
There comes, I think, in the life of every man a time
when feeble words come faintly up for utterance--when
the human soul refuses to ease tell its agony in empty
phrases--when neither tongue can tell nor pen portray
the gloom which o'ershadows the spirit engulfed in woe.
This suffering may be selfish, or be merged in a general
sorrow. As I write the simple sentence, Brann is dead,
a pall settles over my spirit, and, groping blindly in the
dark, I feel there remains on earth scarce a single ray
of light. I knew this man, and to know him was to
love him--knew his faults and his virtues; loved him in
spite of one and for the other. His faults were human;
his virtues were Godlike. For years we trod together
Life's unequal pathway--at times I felt that I stayed
his falling steps, and my own feet have strayed oft
and again has his firm hand led me back into the light.
He was to me a delightful study, for which I found never
failing recompense. I have watched his majestic mind
expand as the florist watches the budding beauty of a
flower, ever growing in its unfolding loveliness. I have
lived with him in his home, surrounded by those whom
he loved--seen him joy with their gladness, while his
heart contracted with every pain that approached his
loved ones--have stood with him on the banks of some
mighty river, and watched the evening sun throw its chain
of fire across the bosom of the waters, while his poetic
spirit reveled in the beauties of the sunset sky. Under
the shadow of Lookout, I have gazed with him upon those
beetling crags, where the fate of a nation was in part
decided, while he thanked God fervently that the heart of
the nation yet beat steady and strong--have strolled with
him in the forests when vernal nature spread its glorious
carpet for the foot of man--have felt his great heart
expand to receive every subtle impression of beauty and
tenderness from nature's matchless canvas--have seen this
man against whom the anathema of infidelity and atheism
have gone forth, humbly bow to worship God in his handiwork.
For him, as for us all, there were times when the
earth was darkened with doubt; but there were moments,
I know, when his aspiring soul mounted the clouds and
caught some reflex of the great white light that breaks
on the throne of God. It has been charged that he had
neither faith nor religion. In justice to the memory of
the dead, I deny the charge. He had a faith as noble
as it was unfaltering--that truth was eternal and the love
of justice could never utterly fade from the hearts of
men. His religion was simple still, though confined by
neither church nor creed--'twas the fatherhood of God
and the brotherhood of Man. As he loved truth and
justice even so did he despise falsehood--declaring that he
hated all "who loveth or maketh a lie." He loved his
fellows as few men have done. The great desire of his
heart, and no small part of his lifework, was devoted
to the alleviation of human suffering. In his nature he
was frank and open as the day--generous to a fault. I
do not believe that he gave his affection fondly or
foolishly. If those whom he loved failed to reach his high
standard, it was not his fault. His was a great heart
and he gave its tenderness with a princely hand, feeling
himself rich in giving--glorying in his own munificence.
No man could have been the recipient of this rich bounty
without feeling himself ennobled by the gift. He had the
faculty of attracting to him all whom he considered worthy
of his affection. He possessed in a rare degree that which,
for want of a better name, we term personal magnetism.
Intellectually, he was a meteor that shot athwart the
literary firmament, leaving a train of fire behind to mark
his course. Within a period of four years, in an inland
Texas town, he built up a magazine which was read
by a large percentage of the English-speaking people.
He had at the time of his death a larger clientele of readers
than any living writer. For years he did all of the work
of the ICONOCLAST himself, but of late he had gathered
about him a corps of contributors in whose genius he
himself reveled--a "bunch of pansy blossoms," he fondly
termed them, whose beauty and fragrance would, he
declared, delight the literary world. The hand that held
these blossoms is now folded across a pulseless breast;
but the silken skein of his affection will yet serve to bind
the flowers together. The bright particular star of the
Iconoclastic galaxy is dimmed, but the blended light of
the others may still serve to illumine the dark places of
life, and, in so doing, help to achieve that betterment of
man for which their chief toiled so earnestly, battled so
bravely and hoped so ardently. The poor and oppressed
have lost a friend and protector--true womanhood has
lost one of its ablest defenders--liberty its bravest
champion--his country a hero, ever ready to fight for a
redress of her wrongs. He was a humanitarian in the
broadest and best sense of the word. In his heart there
lived ever a hope that the time might yet come, in this
fair land of ours, when there would be "neither a
millionaire nor a mendicant--a master nor a slave." In life
he was dear to me, his memory is dearer still, nay, 'tis
sacred. I would not play Boswell to any Johnson, but
this was my friend, tender, loving and loyal to me, and
now that he is dead I come to lay this tribute in the
dust at his feet. He has been judged oftenest and most
unjustly, as men usually are, by those who knew him least.
Beneath the iron corselet which confronted the eyes of
the world there beat in this man's breast a heart tender
as a child's, and as loving as a woman's, that throbbed
in agony for every ill to which humanity is heir. I
remember in the early morning once he came into my room
and silently beckoned me to his study. There in the vines
at the window, scarce three feet from his desk, sat one
of our Southern Orioles--a feathered songster, trilling
forth the gladness of his heart in song. Brann watched
the bird and drank in the music of his song. I saw his
face light up with exquisite tenderness, and I knew that
he accepted this matin song of the bird as a message from
his Maker. I trust I may be pardoned for relating this
simple incident, but it served to show me the man as
few things could have done. I know 'tis true that: "As
snowflakes fall to the earth unperceived and are gathered
together in a pile, so do the seemingly unimportant events
of life succeed one another. No single flake creates a
sensible change on the pile, and no single act constitutes,
however much it may exhibit, a man's character." But
it is from simple things that the sum of life is made up
--from those acts which are most spontaneous and usually
least observed that human nature may best be determined
and most justly estimated. This man made no preachment
of his virtues, believing that "the years are seldom
unjust." He was the Navarre of modern journalism, and
his white plume ever showed in the thickest of the fight.
It was his strong hand that taught the "doubtful battle
where to rage"; 'twas his to enchain friendship and inspire
followers. Had he battled for a creed as he fought
for a faith, his bones would have been canonized. Had
he struggled for a party as he stood for the State, no
political preferment would have been held beyond his
reach. Had he lived in another age, among other people,
his body would have been inurned in the Valhalla of the
Brave. As it is, all that is mortal of him occupies only
so much of Texas soil as may serve as "paste and cover
of his bones." Little does he reck of this, and his friends
should not repine, for the same prairie breezes that waft
incense of flowers over the graves of Travis, Bowie and
Crockett, sing a sad requiem over the final resting place
of Brann. The aspiring soul has found its fixed abode
among the stars; his Titanic intellect which, here on earthy
ever struggled for the light, now bathes in the effulgence
of the Sun. His heart, ever unquiet because of the woes
of his kind, now knows that peace which "passeth the
understanding of man." The hand of the All-Father has
forever soothed the heart-hunger and unrest of life from
his troubled breast. That hand which swept, at will, every
cord of the harp of life, has fallen nerveless, but its music
will yet linger in the hearts of men until love of truth
and beauty shall utterly fade from the earth. A long
good-night to thee, Brave Heart, thy better part has
found the better place; to that which is mortal and
remains with us, we say, Rest--Rest in Peace.
A MEMORIAL TO W. C. BRANN.
It has been suggested that the friends and admirers of
Mr. Brann join in a contribution to mark the spot where
he sleeps. It is proposed, if this meets the approval of
friends, that it be a granite vase, some four or five feet
high, surmounted either by a life size statue in bronze or
marble of the dead, holding in his hand a copy of the
ICONOCLAST, as if offering it to the passer-by, and the
word ICONOCLAST upon it in letters sufficiently large to
be read at a distance of twenty feet. It is said by those
who claim to know that such a memorial can be erected
at a cost of some $3,000 or $4,000.
Many of his friends would not approve, and neither
would he if he could express himself, of anything that
would require any large expenditure of money while so
many thousands of worthy men and women are struggling
in vain to secure the bare necessities of life, these holding
that costly monuments can do the dead no good, and are
in bad taste in the living. There can be no doubt that
thousands in the years to come will seek his grave to lay
their offerings upon the shrine of genius, and while his
will be marked I wish to say in this connection to those
asking in what condition Mrs. Brann is left financially
that while she will have sufficient to keep the wolf from
hers and her children's door if properly managed, that
she will not have over a tithe of what it has been published
that she would.
Submitting these few words for the consideration of
his friends, I can say if a response sufficiently favorable
come, then the proper steps will be taken to carry it out;
if not, nothing more will be said, at least not from me;
and as his friend I would not approve of keeping standing
in the ICONOCLAST a list of subscribers to the fund; if
the suggestion is carried out it will be time enough to
publish it when the work is finished and the statue
unveiled. G. B. GERALD.
. . .
The man who takes up Brann's work will only succeed,
not replace him. He was a star of the first magnitude,
and such bodies are not created in an hour--not always
in an age. He who attempts an imitation, however clever
his work, would stand before the world, self-confessed, a
failure from the first. Booth, in his favorite character
inspired us--Joe Jefferson could only prompt us to
laughter. Yet, is not Jefferson without genius in his way?
There is no reason, however, why he who follows may
not be as loyal to the faith, as courageous in the fight,
as Brann was known and acknowledged to be. The Chief
is dead, but did not die until he had blazoned the way
for those who dare follow where he so bravely led.
. . .
In life Brann often said he wanted no mourning worn
for him, save that which enshrouded the hearts of his
family and friends--that the mere trappings of woe were
but its "limbs and outward flourishes," which, too often,
failed to reach the heart.
* * *
SPEAKING OF BRANN.
Died Fighting April 2, 1898.
Where now is all his thundering?
He has "fall'n on stillness" in the Spring,
And even echo answers not,
"In that dim land where all things are forgot,"
His surging sentences, his cadenced chimes
Of speech that through the seven climes
Wooed the many to rapt listening.
Soothed by the wind of the dead men's feet,
He lies in slumber senseless-sweet.
His fame, his wife's and children's tears,
The issue that made up his manly years,
His hates and loves the burgeoning Earth receives,
And list, "a little noiseless noise among the leaves"
Of southern springtime pity does entreat.
A fighter's faults were his, but strong
The blows he struck at throned Wrong;
Beauty he loved as ever love the brave;
The April air breathes beauty o'er his grave.
Truth he pursued. Lo, he has found her now:
She kissed the kiss of peace upon his brow.
His ears are filled with Silence's sweet song.
Fighting he died, marched into the Night,
His banner blazing with his bravery's light.
"Shot from behind," the story goes,
To glorify him and to damn his foes.
The foes he fought were Cowardice and Fraud;
They have prevailed again, but, O Lord God,
Thou wilt raise up still others for Thy fight.
Rejoicing loud is in the House of Sham,
Bigots to themselves make deep salaam,
Shoddydom rubs its ringed hands in glee,
The Ogre's scandal-scourged at each pink tea,
Pecksniff's pray that he has gone to swell
The galaxy of bravery and brains in Hell--
Great joy in small souls all not worth a damn!
But where men think, feel, as men can,
"Bon voyage through the dark, good man!"
They call and take up his pen-lance
And brandish it again 'gainst Ignorance
In power fortified with a myriad lies
And every great-heart, fine-soul cries
As pledge of fealty, "Here's to you, Brann!"
What tho' he hear no rumor of our hail!
What tho' we follow searching for that Grail
A bettered world with less of woe and pain,
And better gods than Privilege and Gain,
Out in the darkness, by assassins sped,
'Tis better far to join defeated dead
Than share success with him whose soul's for sale.
--WILLIAM MARION REEDY, in St. Louis Mirror.
* * *
DEATH OF W. C. BRANN.
What a sable pall was flung over the spirits of countless
thousands who heard last week that Editor W. C. Brann,
of the ICONOCLAST, was no more. "The heavens seem
hung in black and the clouds are wrung of their stars,"
wrote a St. Paul friend who idolized the apostolic seer.
The world is dark with excess of grief for the immortal
soul of an illimitable genius has been sent to its maker
and scattered with the star dust of the eidouranion
William C. Brann was an apostle. Like Christ, like Lincoln
and others whom we deify, he was misunderstood and
reviled, and a cowardly bullet pierced him in the back, a
martyrdom of which he had a premonition.
The head and front of his offending was strict adherence
to the truth, though the heavens fall. He knew no fear,
but was never the aggressor.
The lamented Brann was an educator, and an emancipator
of human liberty and human thought. The hypocrite
stood in awe of his judgment. When he indicted him
to be arraigned before the great bar of public opinion he
dipped his pen in acid that seared the eyeballs, and wrote
their sentence diluted with worm-wood and gall. It is
not small wonder that the Judas Iscariots and the lemurs
trembled at his power.
Brann's tragic exit from this vale of tears is
inspiration now for jackals to attack his name. Like the dull,
dull ass they are not afraid to kick the dead lion, while
their ears wave to the seventh heaven of delight. In earth
life they feared his name, but like ghouls they now go
down into the grave to besmirch his memory. And this,
too, from those who profess to follow the teachings of the
meek and lowly Nazarene.
Strange as it may seem to the hypocrite, Brann was a
religious man. His creed was the religion of humanity.
His biographers, if they do him justice, will write his
name with the blood of the lamb high up on the flying scroll.
Brann's friends, and they are legion, should not repine
if he is not canonized as his bones are hearsed in death,
for "whenever was a god found agreeable to everybody?
The regular way is to lynch, as the Baylorites did, to
hang, to kill, to crucify and excoriate and trample them
under their stupid hoofs, cloven or webbed, as the case may
be, for a century or two; and then take to braying over
them when you discover their divine origin, still in a very
long-eared manner!" So speaks the sarcastic man, in
his wild way, very mournful truths.
Brann was as the "life-tree, Igdrasil, wide-waving and
many-toned, with fimbriated tendrils down deep in the
Death-Kingdoms, among the oldest dead dust of men and
with boughs reaching always beyond the stars and ever
changeless as the immutable empyrean of eternal hope."
They could better spare the whole State of Texas than
William C. Brann. While the galled jades winced beneath
the scorpion whips of his satire, and would have preferred
fireballs, they felt the potency of his dynamics and scurried
to the soldier works of the masters for a glint of mental
pabulum they had never known before.
The editor of The Sunday Eye is in receipt of many
letters from admirers of the late lamented genius. They
are rich in anathema and maranatha of Brann's heartless
and cruel detractors. With one accord they have expressed
the wish that I excoriate the revilers who desecrated
by bludgeon words the sacrosanct acre of God in
which reposes the mortal tenement of the sacred scribe.
I do not believe as Mr. Charles Campbell, of Anchor,
does, that they should be gibbeted high as Haman. Nor
do I think as Mr. C. E. Stewart, of Minier, does, that they
should be lashed naked through the world and lambasted
till death ends the heart throbs. I believe that they should
be permitted to live until they have read the great genius
and learned to understand and exalt him. It would make
them better for it, religion would not suffer by it, though
Baylor sank a thousand leagues beneath the seven-hued
regions of Tartarus.
The ICONOCLAST minced no words. When it dealt body
blows they landed in the brisket and affected the solar
plexus in a very apprehensive way.
Lincoln was gentle and generous, Ingersoll was brilliant
and broad, but Brann was all this and greater. His
untimely death was a distinctive loss to the march of
civilization and a gain to the shams of hypocrisy which takes
now a new grip on the English language to batter down
the shackles Brann had welded about them with public opinion.
Brann was a reformer who meant reform. He wore
his heart upon his sleeve, but would be cruel to be just.
He endured mental anguish great as was suffered in the
garden of Gethsemane. As the sweetest perfume exhales
from a crushed, blooming rose so the sweeter and nobler
sentiments welled up from the perennial spring of his
fountains of love when most bruised and racked with pain.
I have no fear of his acceptance on the right hand up
there where men are judged by their deeds and not by
semblance of better things that a canting world may
simulate. He is in Valhalla with the other battling heroes
where the alabaster boxes of eternal love are showered
upon the halo of their brighter radiance. Brann wrote
to catch the wide world's attention that he might teach
them gentler things than feculent shocks. He was essentially
an ascetic devoted to uplifting in his own sure way.
All the classes came trippingly to his and all the dogmas,
all the purlieus of sociology and political economy were
as an open book to him. When he soared to the sun
he never dropped into the sea from Icarian wings. His
iconoclasm was the decadence of the social cesspool and
the expurgation of money power which he believed was
the ne plus ultra of anarchy and the genius of diabolic
perfidy. He preached as he felt, tender and terrible,
loving and vehement, a strange commingling of Titanic
vulgate and cooing peace. Brann was eccentric but all
genius must have a certain leeway without being dubbed
Quixotic. He was a man whose loftiest ideality was purity
in womanhood. He adored children and was in many
respects child-like. He was as
"The long light that shakes across the lake,
Where the cataract leaps in its glory."
Friend Brann, through blinding mist of sympathetic
tears, I say adieu.--Geo. L. Hutchin, in the Bloomington
Eye.
* * *
A PEN PICTURE OF BRANN
It is hard for me to realize that Brann is dead. It seems
only yesterday night that he sat opposite me at table,
and talked of his plans and projects and spoke so hopefully,
so boyishly of the future that he was never to realize.
For a long time I had a curiosity to see Brann, of the
ICONOCLAST. His pyrotechnic vocabulary, his strange
admixture of erudition and slang, his almost womanly
sympathy and the more than Apache ferocity with which
he pursued his enemies, the tender and poetic metaphor
that gemmed his iron prose, and the singular blending of
optimism and pessimism that characterized most of his
work suggested an anomaly that appealed to the imagination,
and I was anxious to see what Brann looked like.
I had an opportunity when he came here to lecture. I
knew his business manager, Mr. Ward, who figured in the
dreadful duel in which he lost his life, and who was, at
that time, arranging his lecture dates. Ward is a big
Texan, over six feet high, and I suppose he weighs all
of two hundred pounds. He is a lawyer who drifted into
journalism years ago, and under a somewhat rough-and-
ready exterior there is not much trouble in finding the
gentleman and the scholar. Well, Ward introduced me to
Brann, and after a while the three of us foregathered in
a private room of a down-town cafe, and stayed there for
several hours that I remember with unmixed delight.
Looking back at the episode, I have difficulty in framing
my impressions of the famous Texan editor. I think the
principal thing that struck me was his lack of pose and
affection. All through his talk, and he was in high spirits
and talked a great deal, there were sparks of delightful
naivete.
"I want to pull out of the ICONOCLAST as much as I
can," he said. "And since we have made enough money
to do so, I have bought a great many outside contributions.
My idea," he continued, "is this: As long as I
wrote most everything in the publication myself it was
strictly a one-man paper; and if anything should have
happened to me it would have been worth nothing to my
wife and family. What I am trying to do now is to
organize a corps of contributors who can keep it up if I
should be taken away."
Had he any suspicion of the prophecy that lurked in
these words? Perhaps he had; for when I suggested to
him the advisability of leaving Waco, with its petty local
dissensions and the personal dangers incident to them, he
shook his head.
"I got together $11,000 not long ago," he said, "and
put it into a house. It is the first money worth talking
about that I ever had, and I feel that the investment ties
me, more or less, to Waco. But aside from that," he went
on to say, "I am a little afraid that the ICONOCLAST
would lose its characteristic flavor if I moved it to one
of the big Eastern cities. You will remember that that
experiment was tried with the Arkansas Traveller, which
was moved from Little Rock to Chicago, and promptly fell
flat. The same thing happened to the Texas Siftings,
when it was taken from Austin to New York. I am inclined
to believe that a publication acquires a savor of the
soil in which it springs, and it is a mighty risky business
to try to transplant it."
He told me of Col. Gerald, who had killed the Harris
brothers only a few weeks before. "Gerald is a wonderful
old man," he said. "He is over sixty, but he is as straight
as a pine. He has a light mustache and chin beard, and
eyes the color of the blue you see in old china. He don't
know what fear is. He thinks it is some kind of a disease
like smallpox or appendicitis, and only know that he has
never had it." Between talk we ate oysters and drank a little
beer. Brann impressed me as being a very temperate man.
The conversation drifted frequently to his plans for the
future. "I've been roasted a good deal for the go-as-you-
please style of the ICONOCLAST," he said, "and, between
ourselves, wish I could have refined its style a trifle. But
if I had done so we would never have gone over the 100,000
mark as we did last week. However, I'm tired of it," he
said slowly, "most infernally tired. I am anxious next
year to devote myself to a higher class of work. I have
a novel about half done, and also a play, and I am very
hopeful that they may both succeed."
It was long after midnight when we parted. He said
that he expected to be back "one of these days."
Poor Brann! It sickens one's soul to think of the value
of such a life as his as against that of his slayer. Good
God! His little finger was worth all the Texas pot-house
politicians and Baylor University pharisees that could
be lined up between her and Orion.--O. H. S., in the
Looking Glass.
* * *
SEMPER VIVAT IN MEMORIAM.
Now that partisan hate has succeeded in hounding to his
death America's most eloquent champion of humanity; has
driven to the verge of insanity an adoring wife, and
thrown o'er the roseate lives of two tender, clinging
children the black pall of a sorrow that will forever embitter
their hearts, perchance it will pause; will remember the
teachings of that other "friend of humanity" who, nearly
nineteen hundred years ago, was crucified for daring to
fight what he believed to be wrong; whose religion may be
summed up in one word--"forgiveness."
Brann's enemies were professed followers of this Christ.
With tearful eyes and uplifted, supplicating faces they
besought the God of Justice to--in the beautiful language
of the prayer left us by his Son--"lead us not into temptation"
and "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those
who trespass against us"; and the next day passed
resolutions congratulating a mob of brutal ruffians for
frightening a sick woman nearly to death, kidnaping her
defenseless husband and forcing him--under threats of
instant death--to retract what they knew to be the truth.
A few weeks later, they were "resoluting" and
"sympathizing" and formulating plans for the erection of a
monument to the memory of two would-be assassins who
were killed while attempting to carry out their cowardly
work. Oh, Christianity!--that thy cloak--pure as polar
snow--must cover such infamy!
Brann's death blots from the firmament of American
journalism its brightest star. He was an intellectual
titan. In him was embodied the philosophy of Carlyle--
the brilliancy of Voltaire,--the withering sarcasm of
Desmoulins--the poetry of Ingersoll. His genius,
universal as that of Shakespeare, was ever aligned on the
side of the weak and oppressed; ever, with god-like
fearlessness, he stood for Right against Might--for purity
against corruption. In church, in state, in society--
he tore the painted mask from the face of hypocrisy and
exposed it, in all its festering hideousness, to the world's
ridicule.
Brann has been damned as an atheist--by people who
have never read, and are incapable of reading and
understanding, a single paragraph from his pen. The author of
"Tiens ta Foi," "Charity," "Man's Immorality"--was
not an atheist. He refused to bend the knee to superstition--
to lend a patient ear to earth's self-constituted vice-
gerents of Omniscience. But God spoke to him through
nature. The flowers he so passionately loved were
reminders of His loving tenderness; in the divine music of
Wagner, Liszt and Chopin, he recognized the voice of God.
His faith was broad as the universe--deep as infinity.
He loved purity; he hated hypocrisy; and for this he died
--a martyr.
Inspiration comes from God. The children of genius
needs must be the favorites of Omniscience. Yet
theologians vilify Brann from the pulpit--teachers denounce
him to their pupils. For nearly ten years he has been the
target of vindictive spite--such spite as only a narrow,
bigoted mind can be capable of. This is the greatest
compliment mediocrity can pay to genius.
Brann is dead! Still forever is the pen whose wondrous
alchemy transposed the English language--with all its
inherent harshness--into music sweet as song of Israfil.
Stilled is the heart that stood alone, defiant, a bulwark
'gainst the wave of corruption that is engulfing our land.
Brann is dead! But when Baylor University has sunk
beneath the wave of oblivion; when the very bones of the
splenetic-hearted hypocrites--who goaded to his death
the grandest man America has ever produced--have crumbled
into the tongueless silence of the dreamless dust--
Brann's name will live--a beacon light for those who love
truth for truth's sake.
Brann is dead! The blow that wrung our hearts with
unavailing anguish but ushered him into the company of
Shakespeare, Carlyle, Hugo and Wagner. And there,
whether it be in the light that beats on God's great throne,
or in the serbonian darkness of a hell more horrible than
that pictured by Dante--is the true Heaven.--Abbott
Graphic.
* * *
BRANN'S BRAVE BATTLE.
With humble soul and heavy heart we take up our pen to
chronicle the death, yea the murder of one of the brightest
and purest noblemen that God ever created--W. C. Brann.
A few years ago he, W. H. Ward and the writer each
occupied desks, side by side, in the editorial rooms of The
Waco Morning News. There budded a friendship between
that trio that we full believe shall blossom into ripe
fraternal love on a shore as yet unknown to Mr. Ward and
the writer. Mr. Brann was editor of the ICONOCLAST,
and as its name indicates it is a smasher of idols from
Tadmor in the Wilderness to the mountains of Hepsedam.
Scorning the sensual, always against the vulgar, in much
the same manner as Carlyle, Brann stuck the gaffles of
truth deep into the sides of wrong in high places, and
exposed rottenness wherever found. With rugged English,
twisted into sentences more cutting than whips of
scorpions' tails, he stood up and fought for right as opposed
to might. He tore off the plaster of moral cancerous
ulcers, now so prolific on the body politic of the world,
and held high the treachery, the bigotry, the superstition,
the damnably dirty doings of a generation that accepts
hidebound dogmas for the ultima thule of reasoning and
truth; precept for right and in reality worships at the
shrine of exploded fables and crowns, by its own acts, the
parrot as its preceptor--lives and dies, having no desire
to do anything that somebody has not done before! Is
it any wonder that such a man as W. C. Brann should
fall a victim to such a populace? He was hounded to his
death--mobbed, spat upon, shot and murdered, by several
thousand pin-headed obstreperous patrons and followers
of a little pee-wee college, that turns young ladies out
enceinte almost yearly and hires its professors for less
salaries than a railroad brakeman gets.
Brann's good work will live, his fame will survive and an
intellectual race yet will rise up and bless his name when
the lying epitaphs of the assassin sent to the d---- by him
shall have crumbled to earth ten thousand years. We cannot
close this faint tribute of respect to our dead friend
without acknowledging the worth of such true men as Mr.
W. H. Ward and Judge G. B. Gerald, both of whom are
able, brave, high-toned gentlemen, and both of whom came
near dying, and both were willing to die, or see that Mr.
Brann got fair play while he lived.--S. M. Scruggs, in
the Tribune.
* * *
BRANN IS NO MORE.
On the first of April--All Fools' Day--W. C. Brann,
of the ICONOCLAST, and T. M. Davis riddled each other
with bullets in Waco, Texas. Both of them died the
following day. The trouble between them grew out of the
attack made by Brann in his paper on the Baylor University,
a Baptist institution attended by the daughter of Davis.
At the time that Brann accused the students of the
college of immorality, he was assaulted by them, and barely
escaped lynching at their hands. He was forced to make
a retraction and was ordered to leave town. Being a
courageous man Brann refused to emigrate.
The Irish Standard chronicles the untimely and awful
death of Mr. Brann with poignant regret, and tenders its
condolence to his afflicted family. In many ways he won
the admiration of the American people. He was a man
of great mental endowments, and in the use of invective,
often degenerating into billingsgate, he stood without a
rival in American journalism. His mind was broad and
he despised religious intolerance. As an American he
loved the stars and stripes and was opposed to an Anglo-
American alliance. He held hypocrites in supreme
contempt and lashed the pharisees unmercifully. When
Catholic priests and sisters were misrepresented by
sectarian bigots, he used his tongue and pen in their defense.
So ably did he vindicate the Catholic church from their
aspersions that many supposed him to be a Jesuit in
disguise. In the last issue of the ICONOCLAST he told a
correspondent what he thought of Mrs. Shepard and ex-
priest Chiniquy. Had Brann lived in a more civilized
community than among the bigoted Baptists of Texas, he
would have used more elegant language in his magazine
than it contained for the past few months.
We entirely disagree with the Pioneer Press in its
characterization of the deceased journalist when it says:
"From attacking the private lives of the prominent and
successful men of every quarter of the union and
levying blackmail as the price of silence from those whose
slips or frailties his keen hyena-like appetite for filth
had enabled him to scent, it was an easy step to the most
scurrilous assaults on men and women whose only offending
lay in their uprightness and virtue."
Brann never attacked men and women for their
"uprightness and virtue," and our St. Paul contemporary is
guilty of calumny when it says so. Every evildoer and
hypocrite feared him, while upright men and virtuous
women had a champion in him. His bitterest enemies
never accused him of being a blackmailer, and the editor
of the Pioneer Press took care he was dead before he made
the unwarrantable charge.--The Irish Standard.
* * *
BRAVE AND BRAINY BRANN
The killing of W. C. Brann in a duel at Waco, Texas, a
few days ago, is but a repetition of the punishment that
generally falls to newspaper men who persistently print
the truth. Brann was an intellectual giant. The rarest
accomplishments possible for a human mind to acquire
were not too intricate for him to master. His versatility
was as boundless as his originality was unique. Absolutely
fearless and utterly indifferent regarding his personal
safety, he dared to expose the charlatan and the
trickster in whatever walk of life he chanced to meet
him. Endowed with a mind that was only circumscribed
by the Infinite itself and fortified with a thorough classical
education, he held the hypocrite up to contempt and public
scorn and deservedly lashed him with the lash of sarcasm.
True, some of our erudite(?) members of the press have
presumed to pass judgment upon him; men as incapable
of rendering a just criticism of his talents as they have
found it impossible to rise to his standard of excellence.
One who is especially in love with himself has said that
had Brann been less soulless he might have been an
ornament to his trade. Trade! When men attain Brann's
intellectual standing, and they are as rare as the
intellectual sloven is numerous, the TRADE evolves into a
profession. It is indeed disheartening to see one devote his
life and his talents to truth and justice, only to be
belittled after death by those whose poverty-stricken
understandings render them incapable of half-appreciating the
man's genius, to say nothing of his nobility of purpose in
endeavoring to elevate mankind. He has been accused of
blasphemy by another who has probably been as startled
by Brann's truthful declarations as he himself would have
been had he at some time dared to commit such a rash
act. Despite these intellectual "pee-wees" Brann's
writings will live long after the surf of eternity has carried
the penny-a-liners out upon the sea of oblivion. In the
tragic death of W. C. Brann the world has lost the most
versatile pen the century has produced and it is with
sincere grief that we chronicle his sudden taking away.--The
Gilroy (Cal.) Telegram.
* * *
BRANN, OF THE ICONOCLAST.
W. C. Brann, the fearless editor of the ICONOCLAST, is no
more. The ICONOCLAST is published at Waco, Texas, and
was started but a few years ago by its gifted author with
no more capital than his genius and the courage of his
convictions. The ICONOCLAST assailed every form of
avarice, hypocrisy and infamy; in a few months the
publication gained a world-wide reputation and amassed for its
editor a handsome fortune because it was bought and read
by thousands of people who love truth, when boldly proclaimed,
for truth's sake. Some time ago the ICONOCLAST
laid bare the iniquities of some white-sepulchral hypocrites
having charge of a young ladies' seminary under the
auspices of a religious denomination. The pious and
lecherous scoundrels, and their ilk, who felt aggrieved by
the publication of the sensational facts, instead of resorting
to the law and proving that they had been libeled, and
vindicating themselves by the imprisonment of Brann,
resorted to mob violence, and what they lacked in courage
they supplied with numbers, and beat their helpless victim
into insensibility. In the very next issue of the
ICONOCLAST, Brann, its outraged but incomparably fearless
editor, in speaking of his cowardly assailants, used the
following defiant and sadly prophetic words: "Truth to
tell there's not one of the whole cowardly tribe who's
worth a charge of buckshot who deserve so much honor
as being sent to hell by a white man's hand! If Socrates
was poisoned, and Christ was crucified, for telling
unpalatable truths to the splenetic-hearted hypocrites of
their time, it would ill become me to complain of martyrdom
for a like offense." Brann was shot in the back by a
drunken "local" politician, who doubtless had as much
conception of morality and honor as did those whom Brann
had assailed openly and above-board in the ICONOCLAST.
Brann, though mortally wounded, turned and shot his
assassin, wounding him fatally--Brann and his assassin
have both died--one, mourned as a martyr in the cause
of truth; the other mourned by the "splenetic-hearted
hypocrites" of Waco and elsewhere.--Charleston Enterprise.
* * *
A MARTYR TO FREE SPEECH.
Poor Brann has fallen a martyr to Baptist bigotry. The
foul minded crowd who imported Slattery to Waco ran a
university whose iniquities Brann exposed. The deacons
of the church and the preachers combined against him and
his life was attacked again and again because he was
not afraid of telling the truth. The last attempt was
successful and his blood is on the head of the bigots of
Waco.
We have not read in any of our "American" dailies
nor have we seen in any of our Evangelical weeklies a
condemnation of this outrage on free speech. If the
conditions had been reversed, if a Catholic had shot down
the defamer of Catholic women, the country would have
rung with denunciations of Catholic bigotry. But the
Baptist beetle-browed can for months plan the death of a
man who has exposed their hypocrisy and the assassination
is taken as one of the few "occurrences" which
diversify life in those monotonous Texas towns.
Brann was not a Catholic. In the eyes of the majority
Baptists of Waco he was an infidel. He had no sympathy
with any creed as a creed; but as far as we can
judge he loved truth and justice and hated wrong and
hypocrisy. It was this natural feeling for right and fair
play which led him into the battle with the A.P.A., the
battle in which he perished. We believe that he acted
according to his lights, and to those who live by the law
as it is shown to them, God will not deny grace. Many a
man and woman who never saw Brann, and do not sympathize
with the extreme views he held on certain religious
matters, and might perhaps take exception to his style of
conveying his opinions, will yet because of his manly
defense of ladies slandered without cause by the vilest of the
vile, breathe a silent prayer that God may have mercy
on his soul. As long as ye did it unto these you did it
unto Me. Even a cup of cold water shall not lose its
reward.--The Monitor, San Francisco, Cal.
EDITORIAL ETCHINGS.
TO THE PUBLIC.
The editorial supervision of the May ICONOCLAST has
been to me a labor of love. The stress of circumstances
under which the work has been done, is too well known for
either explanation or apology for its shortcomings. This
issue of the paper is intended as a memorial of the man
who founded it; whose genius has so long adorned its
pages, and whose personality has endeared it to so many
thousands of readers throughout the land.
W. H. WARD.
. . .
In the Vicksburg Dispatch of Sunday, February 13,
appeared an article from the pen of Ida Clyde Gallagher,
of Vicksburg, a very bright and gifted writer, in which
she pays a feeling tribute to the character of W. C. Brann.
The article in question has been widely read and copied.
It was written while Mr. Brann was on his Southern lecture
tour, and is peculiarly appropriate to this issue of
the ICONOCLAST. I therefore reproduce it with pleasure:
"The development of all really great forces afford an
interesting study for the mind capable of grasping and
measuring them. The overflow of a river, the eruption
of a volcano or the devastation of a storm arouse admiration
even while they inspire terror and awaken awe. But
it is the purely human force, with its infinite variety, which
charms while it enthralls. A man born and reared, as
other men, bound by the same ties, subject to the same
laws, fettered by the same conventionalities, to throw off
the yoke of circumstances, break through the trammels of
the conventional, grapple with and overcome every obstacle
that lies in his path, until he reaches the summit of
Olympus and bodily fronts the Gods, or towers among men,
like Saul above his brethren. We may envy him, as we
ever envy the truly great, or be disposed to close his lips
in death, because he tells us unpalatable truths, yet
admire him secretly and in our hearts exalt him. We may
not confess as much while he lives and labors, but when
his lips are dumb in death, his breast pulseless, we lay our
hatred and envy in the dust at his feet, and rear in marble
a gleaming shaft to commemorate the virtues of the dead.
The name of "Brann" has inspired this homily; Brann,
of the ICONOCLAST, the man whose praises are being sung
loved by half the world, by the other half condemned, whose
whole life has been a battle and a march, who wars as did
the Titans and if he gropes blindly at times ever struggles
toward the light. This is the man who began his education
while rearing a family, and went from behind the
smokestack of a locomotive to the tripod of a daily paper.
Who in a few years has risen to dizzy heights of fame,
whose utterances are waited for and attended by more
than half a million people, many of whom he does not and
can not convert, but all of whom he impresses. A man
who is said to be an ideal husband and father, a tender,
loyal and devoted friend, yet whose entire existence is
devoted to a warfare against existing evils, bitter as death,
and uncompromising as the grave. You may not always
be right, Mr. Brann, indeed, we shrewdly suspect you are
not, but we respect you and admire you just the same,
because you attack boldly and fight fearlessly. Yes, we
admire you, and shall not wait to whisper it to your
tombstone either."
. . .
If the futility of brute force as an appeal to reason
required an object lesson, it might easily be found in the
fact that while the hand that wielded one pen lies
motionless in death, hundreds of others have been raised up to
fight under the same banner.
. . .
Several months ago a number of the students of the
Baylor University, acting without regard for the laws of
either God or man, attempted to mob the editor of the
ICONOCLAST in an effort to bridle his pen. The hand
which they sought to restrain has now been enjoined by a
court whose order is irrevocable. In every state in the
union men have come forward to take up a fight which
Brann himself considered ended, and the object is
accomplished. In reproducing tributes to the memory of the
dead editor I have felt it my duty in several instances to
blue-pencil certain passages which might have been
considered as reflecting upon those who are innocent and
unoffending. The moral here needs no pointing.
. . .
To his readers and admirers, who have uniformly
expressed regret over the death of her husband, Mrs. W. C.
Brann desires to return a woman's thanks for the kindly
sympathy extended.
* * *
SIMPLE STATEMENT OF FACTS.
BY W. H. WARD.
Concerning the tragedy of April 1, in which W. C. Brann
lost his life and I, myself, was slightly wounded, as a
sensational event, enough and more than enough, has
already been said in the daily press. I should not have
mentioned the matter here at all, but I know the readers
of the ICONOCLAST will expect a statement of the facts. I
therefore give a subjoined account of the affair from the
Independent Pulpit, published in Waco by J. D. Shaw.
Mr. Shaw is well known to the people of Texas. There is
not a man in the state who will doubt that his account of
the tragedy is in absolute accord with truth and justice.
In the extract referred to Mr. Shaw says:
LET THE PLAIN TRUTH BE TOLD.
The lateness of this Pulpit affords me an opportunity to
correct some false impressions with regard to the recent
tragedy in which W. C. Brann lost his life.
That there should have been some errors of view among
bystanders as to the various incidents in that deadly conflict
is not surprising, and of these, trifling in their nature,
I will not here write.
The idea that Brann was seeking a difficulty with Davis
is certainly false. He had made his arrangements to go
on a lecturing tour, had spent the day at his home, went to
town about 4 o'clock that afternoon to get a shave, and
on his return walked with his business manager, Mr.
W. H. Ward, by the office in which Davis was sitting.
Having passed the office a few steps, Davis stepped out
and shot him in the back. This was the shot that killed
him, and it was after receiving it that he turned, drew his
revolver and opened fire upon his assailant.
Now as to Mr. Ward: He left Brann's house some time
after Brann did, had joined the latter a few minutes before
the firing, and was at the time walking by his side. When
Davis fired, Ward jumped at him in an attempt to get
his, Davis' pistol, caught hold of it over the muzzle and
was shot through the hand. Ward was unarmed, having
left his revolver in a grip at Mr. Brann's house. His
hands were gloved and he had no idea of a difficulty at
the time.
I state these facts not through any feeling of prejudice,
having never been mixed up in the Brann-Baylor trouble,
but solely in the interest of the truth. I can understand
how an excited observer, seeing Mr. Ward extend his
hand to get Davis' pistol and seeing immediately the fire
of the same, might have thought that Ward did the shooting,
and it was this mistake that caused his arrest.--
Independent Pulpit.
To this I will only add, that neither Mr. Brann nor
myself were in the slightest anticipation of trouble. He
left home, having the boy to drive him down in his buggy,
shortly before 4 o'clock on the afternoon of the tragedy.
I awaited his return to drive to the train to meet my
brother, whom I was expecting with a party of friends that
evening. At 20 minutes to 6 o'clock he had not returned
and I took the first car down, as several ladies who chanced
to be at Mr. Brann's home will testify. I left the car at
Fourth and Austin streets at about 6 o'clock, walked to
Herz Bros., gave an order for some books, and met Mr.
John Guerin, walked with him toward the depot, met Mr.
Brann at the corner of Fourth street and Bankers' alley,
chatted with him for a moment, when Mr. Guerin walked
on, and Mr. Brann and myself crossed the street and
walked towards Austin avenue. We had passed the place,
where I afterwards learned Davis' office was located, about
ten paces, when Davis came out and opened fire from the
rear. His opening fire was the first warning of the trouble.
We were walking side by side, conversing together, when
the first shot was fired. That shot entered Mr. Brann's
back, and caused his death. I will add, that I was
unarmed, and had not removed my driving gloves, which were
taken off when my wound was dressed, and had been with
Mr. Brann not more than three minutes when the shooting
occurred. These are the facts, as substantiated by the
signed statement of over a score of eye-witnesses, the same
now being in the hands of my attorneys, Messrs. Baker &
Ross, and C. R. Sparks. I do not wish to speak ill of the
dead, therefore I shall have but little to say of Mr. Davis.
My acquaintance with him was brief; I never met him but
once--when he was shooting another man, IN THE BACK.
* * *
Reference has been made by Judge Gerald to the pathetic
tragedy in Brann's life because of the loss of his daughter.
The burden of sorrow which he bore is beautifully revealed:
in the following account of that tragedy which was written
by Brann.
THE LAST LESSON.
"Is there no stoning save with flint and rock?
Yes, as the dead we weep for testify--
No desolation but by sword and fire?
Yes, as your moanings witness, and myself
Am lonelier, darker, earthier for my loss."
Poor in gold and goods yet richer than fancy ever
fabled in home and happiness, the young father toiled
and hoarded his scant wage; the little mother denied
herself a thousand things that women covet, and they said:
"It is for her, our Inez, our fairy queen. Her feet shall
find no thorns in life's path; a father's strength a
mother's love shall fill it with sweetest flowers."
Beautiful to their eyes, and other eyes, was she, as
Grecian sculptor's dream and still more beautiful when
childhood's early years flashed by and the bud was bursting
into womanhood's glorious bloom. No crowned empress
so imperial seemed, yet pride so womanly and softened
by such grace that each and all yielded sweet allegiance
to her sway.
And they would sit and watch her at her books or play,
drinking with greedy ear her admiring teacher's oft-told
tale of triumphs won in classroom or on the green, and
watched her comrades,--loving subjects they--weave
crowns of flowers for her fair brow and hail her queen.
And so the days went by, toilsome yet happy days until,
when scarce passed to her 'teens, the youthful swains
began to sigh for her and bashful cast their tribute of
flowers--such as they knew she loved--into the open door,
then blushingly retreat, fearing cold comfort from her
imperious eyes. And one there was of her own age, who
seemed to haunt the street, until the mother noticed it
and said:
"Daughter, what does he ever near the house?"
And the father fretted and spoke harshly of the boy,
and sharply to his child saying: "You do encourage the
little fool to haunt the place. Speak to him no more."
And the daughter made reply:
"Father, I never spoke to him, nor he to me." And
she arose, and taking her music roll went forth and the
boy followed her.
"Our daughter deceives us!" cried the father fierce
with rage; and he followed the twain.
"You have deceived me, Daughter!"
His voice was sharp, and, quailing before his wrath as
though it were a blow, she gasped, "Oh, Father!" and
returned with him in silence to their home.
And the little mother fretted and lectured her; but she
sat silent, brooding upon the great wrong, and the queenly
eyes were full of tears that seemed frozen by her pride
and could not fall.
They never fell. The gust of anger from the doting
father's lips, the breath of doubt of her dear word, and
her little heart seemed broken quite; the world seemed
desolate. The father's good-night kiss; the mother's
tender solicitude were in vain,--the wound was too deep to
heal. And while they slept and dreamed sweet dreams of
her fair future she poured her heart out to the good God,
who never doubted her, and leaving a little note that was
a wailing cry of hopeless pain, passed by her own fair
hand to the great beyond.
And the father kissed the dead lips of his first born
and knew that he had killed her. And ever in his heart
there is a cry, "I killed her!" And night and day that
cold, sweet face doth haunt him; and day and night he
hears that piteous cry, wrung from his child when he
broke her heart, "Oh, Father!" and ever the little mother's
lamentation goes up to heaven, "Our house is left unto us
desolate!"
SALMAGUNDI.
There is a class of men who take especial delight in pistol
practice--when the "other fellow" furnishes the target.
They shut their eyes and literally feel what is going on
--see pistols flashing, as the man, with a well-developed
Texas "jag," sees keyholes in the door at 3 o'clock A.M.
--just legions of them. As a matter of fact when pistols
are really cracking, powder actually burning and bullets
sweetly singing "Nearer my God to Thee," these are
the first to seek the sheltering arms of a two-foot wall--
"most any old wall," so it won't leak lead.
. . .
I wish to call attention of the readers of the ICONOCLAST
to the pack of journalistic jackals who are raising their
illfamous howl over the body of Brann. As usual, when
the lion is dead the hyena comes forth for a feast. Life
is too short and the game too mean to justify individual
firing, so I will take a pot-shot at the pock; these animals
are so much alike in tastes, character and habits that one
will typify all. I therefore call attention to "Majah"
Burbanks of the New Orleans Picayune. The state
Constitutional Convention has eliminated the negro from
Louisiana politics. Had that body also placed journalism
under the color ban they would have disposed of the
"Majah" most effectively, and, I might add, to the entire
satisfaction of all concerned; unless, indeed, the coons
had objected to their company. So help me God, I would
rather be a yellow dog, with an abbreviated narrative,
and belong to a disreputable negro, than go around with
my cowardly heart in my throat, fearing to look a man in
the face while alive, then mercilessly assail his character
after death. Bah! the mere existence of such creatures
revolutionizes Darwin's theory--argues the survival of
the unfittest.
. . .
It is well for the public to understand that the murder
of W. C. Brann did not remove all of the abuses from
which this country suffers, and the frauds and fakes which
prey upon it. Assassination may shatter an instrument,
but it cannot conquer a cause. There is still work for
the iconoclast to do, and it will be done. It will continue
to place its brand upon the forehead of the seducer, the
whining hypocrite, the sniveling rogue, the confidence man,
the fakir and the fool. It is proposed to show this country
that the pistol is unconvincing as an argument and
useless as a brake upon reform. Brann is dead; but there
are men alive who lack his phenomenal ability, perhaps,
but who share his deathless hatred of the rotten in morals
and in politics. The mission for the ICONOCLAST is
unchanged and unended. Its field is its own. It will be
filled.
. . .
The man who seeks the American spirit must look for it
in the South and West. He will not find it in the East.
That part of our common country is inhabited by a nation
of shopkeepers as distinct from the peoples of the other
sections as the lion is distinct from the jackal. They are
smooth-faced, snub-nosed rogues, tied to the counter and
till, dollar-marked niederlings of the department stores,
jack rabbits of wall street, coyotes of the boards of trade.
If every man who has traded upon the distress of his
country and the peril of his kinsfolk were to be shot this
morning, the air of the North Atlantic states would be
heavy with powder smoke. From that well kept and wearisome
prostitute and buffoon, Chauncey Depew, down to the
smallest operator of a bucket-shop, they are all tarred
with the same brush--things in trousers who would sell
their souls for coin. They own the President of this
country, and they own many of the congressmen, having
bought and paid for them.
. . .
America, I suppose, is as religious as its neighbors, but
it is for the dollar first and for Christ afterward. Easter
is a period devoted to commemoration of the saddest and
noblest event in human history, the highest and most
important event. It is used by thousands of our merchants,
however, as a time specially devoted to making money.
From the manufacturer of "Easter cards," to the maker
of hot cross buns, the signs and symbols of religion are
made the means of chasing the nimble 10-cent piece. The
cross is the hall mark of printed sentiment, to be sold for
a quarter, and the crucifixion is done over and over again
in gingerbread. The ICONOCLAST may not get to heaven
by the Baptist route or the Methodist route, or by any
one of the thousand routes which "Christians" have been
pleased to blaze out for sinners in the centuries since Christ
died, but it is a long way above that kind of impiety--
sacrilege is a better word for it.
. . .
How does the Republican party--the party of gold
--look now, from fat Tom Reed at its head down to
"Nancy" Green, son of Hetty Green, at its tail? Is it
the party of patriotism? May it be trusted to uphold
the honor of the nation? Is it honest? Is it even decent?
Nay. I say that nine out of every ten Republican
congressmen who voted for the intervention resolutions did
so because they were driven to it by fear of outraged
citizens, Democrats and Republicans alike, not because they
were patriots. I say that the representatives of the
Republican party are bound hand and foot to the millionaires
of America. I say that the leaders of that party
are without principle. The polls next November will
show what the honest money and honest patriotism people
of the nation think of the Republican party.
. . .
From the time that Fitzhugh Lee reached Washington
the myrmidons of William McKinley sought to detract
from his services to the country and to belittle his rugged
patriotism and love of truth. The popinjay in the White
House could not bear to listen to the roar of welcome that
greeted him as he stepped from the train. It was like
the oleaginous Ohio poltroon to inspire detraction of one
who is his official inferior, and his superior in everything
that goes to make a man. The Virginian is not intellectually
great. He is plain of speech and manner. But he
has carried high the unstained banner of the lees. He
has stood to his post in the face of danger. He has bearded
the traitorous Spaniard in his stronghold. He has
demonstrated once that God never made a more courageous
animal than the Southern gentleman. Beside such a
man, the purchasable McKinleys and gross scoundrelly
Hannas of the nation are dwarfs.
. . .
Dr. Dowie, of the Chicago "Zion," a place where faith
cure fools who have cirrhosis of the liver are allowed to
die for a consideration, has written a circular and sent
out a million or two of copies. He wants every adult
person in the United States to send him 50 cents, so that
he can have money to send out more literature with which
to catch more fools. The people of Chicago can confer
a favor upon themselves and humanity at large by taking
Dowie five miles out into Lake Michigan, tying three
hundred pounds of scrap iron to his heels and dumping him
overboard.
. . .
Mrs. Henrotin, president of the Federation of Women's
Clubs, has telegraphed McKinley from Chicago that she,
as the representative of that influential band of hens,
cordially and heartily indorses everything he has ever
done or thought of doing. It is proper to say that Mrs.
Henrotin no more represents her sisters than I represent
the W. C. T. U. She is only another instance of the
modern highly developed female, eaten by an itch for
writing and getting her name into the newspapers. The
mothers, sisters, wives, daughters and sweethearts of
America no more indorse William McKinley than they
indorse any other coward. The women of the federated
clubs are much like other women when they stop playing
upon the ink bottle and begin playing upon the cook-
stove. They have taken off Mrs. Henrotin's back hair,
and she now eats her meals from the mantelpiece. All of
which is proper.
. . .
Little Jimmy Eckles, Cleveland's undersized underling,
got some handclaps and whoops from the Chicago Credit
Men's Association when he addressed the members at the
Grand Pacific Hotel on the night of April 12th. He talked
about the business men's longing for war when the country
is insulted, and these snipes and jack bailiffs of the big
mercantile houses, warmed into drunken courage by gallons
of cheap wine, yelped in unison. This auriferous
insect, who was for four years comptroller of the currency,
is remembered in Washington chiefly for a remarkable
burst of speed displayed one night when his timorous
mind conceived the idea that a somnolent hackman was
going to rob him. He had his dress suit case in one
hand and his plug hat in the other, and he covered three
blocks in ten seconds. The cabby, whom he had hired,
waked in time to discover the meteoric dash, and was the
most puzzled man in the capital. Eckles is a warrior,
and his credit giving, or refusing, listeners are all warriors.
. . .
J. Guy Smith, of Cotulla, was locally called, so I am
informed, "Brann No. 2." Like most other men, he was
far behind W. C. Brann in wealth of intellect, in largeness
of heart, in charity, in his hatred of wrong and the
oppressor. It appears, however, that he had the habit of
speaking his mind and he was shot for it. Also that he
was shot in the back.
. . .
Joe Leiter, the wheat speculator of Chicago, is followed
about all day by detectives whom he has hired to protect
him. I do not know if anyone contemplates giving him
his deserts, but since he has used his inherited millions
to make bread dearer in thousands of poor mouths, he
should be whipped twice a day for a month. Under a
properly constituted and administered government, Leiter
and his kind would be sent to the penitentiary at hard
labor. He is as much a robber as any brigand of the
Italian passes, and as much of a thief as any pickpocket
in America.
. . .
A great many people imagine that "your Uncle Sam"
will frazzle hell's bells out of Spain in one word and two
motions, that all of this preparation for threatened
conflict with Spain is much ado about little; that the United
States will get up early some morning and administer the
paternal slipper to the Spanish pantaloon, simply by way
of diversion or to get up an appetite for breakfast. The
result of the scrap may show that the job had best be
undertaken after a square meal.
. . .
As the war is not yet on I rise to remark that it is my
sincere wish that those who have lost a scrap may find it
--that those who have clamored so hard and so long for
hostilities to begin, may find standing room only in the
theater of war, and be given positions in the full glare
of the footlight, with a corporal's guard behind them, to
see that they do not strike a retrograde motion when the
curtain rises on the first act.
[This completes the last issue of the ICONOCLAST. The
publication of the paper was not continued, though evidently
this was intended when the May issue was printed.
The following articles were written shortly after the death
of Brann but did not appear in the ICONOCLAST.]
THE DEATH OF BRANN.
BY WILLIAM MARION REEDY.
Mr. Brann, who was killed in Waco last Friday, was a
much greater man than even his admirers knew. He had
many virtues which, in a way, his peculiar tactics in
journalism belied. For instance, his paper was read, for
the most part, by people who took a delight in his calling
a spade a spade, and, in fact, in his seeking out spades to
write about. This was not the true Brann at all. The
man was clean-minded in his conversation. He thought
cleanly. He lived cleanly as a gentleman should, though
he did not leave off sack. He was not a brawling, boisterous
ruffian, reveling in the slums. He was essentially
a family man and a student who "scorned delights and
lived laborious days." His regard for the purity of
women amounted almost to a monomania, and he lived up
to his own preachment on all the various forms of integrity
with much more strictness than people who affected
to believe he was leper. Furthermore the man was an
ascetic in his essential spirit. He had the true taste for
the finely done thing in letters and if he did not devote
himself to what might be called the more refined literary
artistry, it was because he felt that there was danger
of drawing too fine the lessons he thought it his duty to
impart. There was no use, he said, in writing to the
few. One should write so that all might read, running.
He maintained that the way to instill principles in the
people was to secure their attention first, and he did not
hesitate to secure their attention by any device that seemed
available. Therefore he felt himself justified in appealing
to the lower instincts in men in order that, while they were
all unsuspecting, he might inculcate something better.
And so there ran through his publication the strangest
contrasts of sweetness and salacity, of eloquence and
bombast, of purity and pornography, of jewel-phrases and
gutter slang, excerpts of enthralling poetry and brothel
billingsgate. He pointed his morals with putridity and
he adorned his really beautiful style with barbarities and
banalities which make one shudder. He set his fine
thoughts like jewels in compost. He ravished the classics
to mix them up with sentences that stunk of the stews.
The man seemed to indulge in special flights of poesy with
no other purpose than to achieve a disgusting anti-climax
of muckery and mockery. The person who read Brann
intelligently was impressed most by this habit of irony in
the Waconian. It was of the essence of his iconoclasm.
He had something in his effects in this line that was
piteous. There was no denying his appreciation of the pure
air, of the beautiful in life and nature, of the truth
as thinkers see and feel it. It seemed to me that when
he had soared up towards the ever vanishing ideal, he
reached a point whereat he turned in disgust and hurled
himself madly back to the dungiest part of this dungy
earth. There was a mighty dissatisfaction, even a despair,
in Brann, and a touch of sadness in his writing as in his
face. The more I read of his deliberate pandering to the
literarily excrementitious appetite, the more I saw, or
thought I saw, that he was afflicted with a mighty ennui,
and was chiefly trying to escape from his own torture as
one who knew not whether solace was to be found either
in the spiritual or the earthly nature of man. Such a
one as he might have been expected to take up any cause
that assailed the existing condition of things politically
and sociologically. While he was an ascetic his asceticism
was only a wreaking of his own bitterness upon himself.
He was a man in whom strong emotions were easily excited
and he put into his writing all the passion which he
suppressed in his dealings with his fellows socially. He never
felt malice towards people whom he assailed most
maliciously. He saw them simply as representatives of some
fault in our social or political system, and he felt that he
was doing his duty by his own conception of what the
world should be, by pillorying them as object lessons of
characters to be eliminated in his good time coming. When
he saw a foul wrong he saw it personified in some man or
woman. Then he went abroad in search of foul things to
say about it. And he found them and he hurled them at
the object, and he polluted the atmosphere for a mile
around. When he wrote about the abstractions of poetry
and philosophy he wrote with a sweeping, swinging rhythm
that thrilled anyone. He was master of the diapason.
His ear was not attuned particularly to minor chords.
He loved cyclonic clashes of words and he would strike out
fecal flashes to illuminate them. His correggiosity was
at times overpowering. His vocabulary overcame him
often, bore him away from his thought and landed him in
some swamp out of which he was wont to extricate himself,
to the great delight of the semi-educated reader by some
quip or quirk equally meretricious and mephitic. Thus
would he, metaphorically, throw filth at himself. He felt
all the time that he was pursuing the best course, bending
things he despised and loathed to better purposes. Mr.
Brann believed that the country was, if not in itself
decadent and degenerate, under the control of decadent,
degenerate and depraved men. He believed that society
was a social cesspool. He thought that most religion was
hypocrisy. He believed that most wealth represented
nothing more than the superior and diabolic genius of
dishonesty. So believing he so preached and he preached with
a vehemence that was in a sense vicious. His terribly
irony made his work an engine of anarchy. Not that he
meant anarchy at all, but because the people who were
caught by his banalities could not differentiate sufficiently
to extract the core of truth from the great superstructure
of extravagances with which he hid it. Mr. Brann meant
only to lift the world up, and one of his queer conceptions
was, that his own dragging down of things pure to the
lowest levels of life and thought and feeling was calculated
to make his multitudinous clientele look upward. He
was mistaken. He came to know it, too, for he said to
me one evening, "I am only a fad." "I'll pass away when
my vogue is done, like brick pomeroy." He wished he
could believe that the best way to help people up was to
take a stand and view a little above them. He said, when
it was suggested that he try this tack, that he feared it
was too late. Not that he wholly abandoned his belief
in his own plan, but it seemed to me that he felt sorry that
once attention could be attracted by being shocking it
could only be held by a continuance of the shocks.
. . .
In my personal dealings with Mr. Brann I found him a
person of almost feminine fineness. It was amusing to
meet him after some particularly atrocious issue of the
ICONOCLAST, either personally or by letter, and have him
"roar as gently as a sucking dove." In such moods he
revealed a character that was really sweet--though I must
apologize for that misused word. He was impressed with
the pity of life. He loved to toy intellectually with
subtleties of thought. He had intuitions in art and poetry,
and music touched him truly and deeply. I never have seen
such a gentle man with women and his estimate of woman,
either in conversation or writing, was a high and noble one.
If at times he wrote so that his conception of virtuous
womanhood was unpleasantly associated with ideas that
revolted you, it was his peculiar belief that purity was all
the purer for the contrast and antithesis. He loved
children, too, and in his more familiar moods, according
to his intimates, he was like one whose heart was as a little
child. He cared no more for money after he began to
make it than he cared in his bohemian days when he was
readier to give than to take. He loved his friends blindly.
He did not hate his enemies, he despised them. He had
all the manly virtues, courage, generosity, modesty. Yes,
modesty; for egoism such as he had was not foolish pride.
His egotism was only his own force asserting itself. His
friendship was almost foolish. He praised too generously.
He was inclined to help everybody he could and I am sure
that he never assailed anyone or anything that did not
represent to him uncharity and snobbery. He was not
envious. His mind was on the Texas scale; he knew no
meanness. His was Kentucky origin and he was tainted
with Kentucky's quixotism. He loved liberty and he
loved love. He was the friend of the people as he dreamed
they should be. He was the advocate of the greatest
enlargement of rights. With little of what he strove for in
immediate political issues did I sympathize. He believed
more in what is called socialism than I do, but he believed
it most earnestly. He was the greatest force in this
country, with his 80,000 issues of his magazine per month,
for all the things that go with free silver. His following
included all the thinking followers of Bryan and his work
had no little effect, in its powerful music and color, upon
many people to whom Bryanism represented the political
abomination of desolation.
. . .
As to the manner of Mr. Brann's death there is only to
be said that he expected it. He judged from the characters
of those he attacked, that they would assassinate
him. He died as he expected to die, without any cringing
to his enemies. Some people he attacked who did not
deserve his vitriolic attentions, but he thought they did. In
the main he scourged and sacrificed only those who deserved.
The manner in which he was killed and the cause in which
he was killed--the cause of an institution in which a girl
was debauched in the name of Christ and turned out of
doors to starve to the glory of religion--glorify him. He
who fought in the open was shot by a sneak from behind.
The sneak himself was shot in his act of cowardice. Mr.
Brann was brilliant and brave. He partook of the qualities
of the men who immortalized the Alamo. He was the
first man who identified Texas with thought. He loved
Texas so well that he defended the code of private and
public mobbery for righting wrongs. To that cruel
coward code he fell a victim. With all his faults as I see
them, I can think of him only as worthy of being buried
in some high place, to the strains of Sigfried's Funeral
March, and can only say, with Browning of the dead
"grammarian"--
Here, here's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form,
lightnings are loosened
Stars come and go! Let joy break with the storm,
peace let the day send!
Lofty designs must close in life effects:
loftily lying,
Leave him--still loftier than the world suspects,
living and dying.
--The Mirror for April 7, 1898.
PRIVATE VENGEANCE.
A CONSIDERATION OF ALLEGED CHIVALRY.
Some person has sent me a marked copy of the New
Orleans Picayune, the marked matter being an editorial
substantially approving the manner of the taking off of
Mr. Brann, the editor of the Iconoclast.
Granted that, as the Picayune declares, Mr. Brann
wantonly attacked spotless reputation, that decency and
purity were not sacred to him--an assumption, by the
way, that is a rank injustice to Mr. Brann's memory--
let us see about this matter of private vengeance which
the Picayune approves.
Are there not laws in all the states against libel? Are
there not laws against publishing obscene and defamatory
matter? If there be, then what justification can there be
for private vengeance? What is the use of laws if men
on any provocation may set aside those laws and set
themselves above them and execute the person who may
have offended, or who may be imagined to have offended
them? If private vengeance is to prevail what is to
prevent any person construing any criticism into a mortal
offense and assassinating the critic, even though the critic
be palpably and undeniably criticizing for the public
good? When the individual is made the judge, jury and
executioner of whomsoever displeases him, what becomes
of law, of order, of civilization? There is not a day in
the year that one could not justify the murder of a
hundred editors, if the rightfulness of the killing were
determinable solely by what the killers thought of the
criticisms against them in the papers controlled by those
one hundred editors.
If we can tolerate a state of society in which any man,
for what seems to him good and sufficient reason, for
anything from biting the thumb at him to jesting about
his whiskers, may take the life of another, why shall we
not tolerate the man who will take another's property
because the taker deems the other has too much or has
unjustly accumulated what he has?
What is the result of this sanction of private vengeance?
It is anarchy. Pursued to the ultimate of its logic it
means that every man is a law unto himself and the justice
of an execution rests upon nothing but the opinion, or
delusion, of the executioner. What one man might call a
trifle might, to another man, call for blood. You could
kill a man because his boots creaked or his eyes squinted or
he wore the wrong shade of your favorite color in his
necktie. Ridiculous? Not at all. Liking or disliking any
of these trifling things is only a matter of personal
preference. They may be as distasteful to one person as the
tone of an editorial is to another. If a man may rightly
kill a writer, like Mr. Brann, why would it not be right for
someone to kill any editor? At one time there was talk
in the south of killing the late Joseph B. McCullagh for
his editorials. How if Senator Hanna were to "go gunning"
for the editorial "roasters" of himself, or for
the malevolent cartoonist? Mr. Brann attacked hypocritic
preachers, snide politicians, shoddy society people,
shyster lawyers. He did it in, to me, an exaggerated
manner, but he felt that such manner was necessary to arouse
the people. Were Brann's blasts against Baylor University
intrinsically worse, more a license of the press than
let us say the assaults of the New York World, the New
York Journal or the Post Dispatch upon Pierpont Morgan
and the trusts? And yet, if any trust magnate, crucified
as a blood-sucker on the poor, were to shoot the editor
of one of these sheets, he would be howled to the hangman's
noose. The trust magnate would be told he should have
had recourse to law. But in the south, no--Mr. Brann
was rightfully assassinated. No law for him! Why?
Because Mr. Brann assailed a few southern "josses." If
Mr. Brann were justly slain then the next person who
may dislike an editorial in the Picayune may kill its editor
on the ground that the editorial--no matter how trifling
in its imputation--is "carrion journalism." This law of
chivalric private vengeance would justify a saturnalia
of murder in every large city where gossip circulates in
society. The chivalry of it! A man has written something
he deems to be true and comments upon it as he
deems it his duty in a quasi public capacity. Everyone
who does not like the article can "take a pop at him."
But, says the chivalrous Picayune, the law of private
vengeance does not apply to anything save grave offenses
in scurrility. Ah! The offensiveness of a criticism is
only a matter of individual capacity for pain or humiliation.
The trifle is only a trifle, because a man thinks
it so. It may become a thing of importance at any time
if you leave the decision of its importance solely to the
judgment of the man who is going to resent it.
Private vengeance makes for the creation of a caste
of bulldozers. Let it become known in a community that
criticism is an invitation to death, and who profit? Not
the men of spotless reputation. Not the decent and pure
elements of the community. Not at all. The ruffian gang
in politics profits. The sanctimonious crooks profit. The
seducer and betrayer, who is a dead-shot, profits. Every
social and civic iniquity flourishes under this dominance of
the law of private vengeance. All the people who deserve
criticism are ready to shoot. They are the judges of their
own spotless reputations. They will kill the man who spots
it. So it is that in almost every southern city there has
grown up a class of political brahmins absolutely secure
from criticism that counts. Take New Orleans. The
papers feared for years to breathe a breath of attack
against the "spotless reputations" of its leaders. The
story of the corruption that developed is too well known
to require telling. After all, it is not the people of
spotless reputation who are assailed in the papers. Whenever
anyone is assailed the chances are there is ground for the
assault, and there is at least a prima facie evidence that
attack or exposure is necessary in the interest of public
morality. Any reputation would be spotless if no one
dared attack it. If it were high crime to assail people
vigorously how would dishonor, debauchery, fraud and
crime in high places ever be brought to light. If the
right of private vengeance shall prevail in any community
then the ruffians and blackguards may pursue their
nefarious ends unhampered because of the terror they
inspire by threats to shoot their critics. This recognition
of the right of the individual to punish, by the infliction
of death, the person who has injured him, puts the
community at the mercy of the worst elements in it. It is
the extension of the barbarism of lynch law. It makes
every man, who wants to be one, a mob. It develops the
idea of savagery in revenge to such an extent that the
individual executioner of the offender against himself does
not hesitate to wreak his vengeance from behind. It
promotes assassination.
Aspersions upon the virtue of women are certainly
indefensible on any imaginable ground. They demand
often a punishment which the law is inadequate to provide.
They cannot be ignored. They constitute the
exceptions which confirm the rule that it is well to let
the law punish slanderers. And in general men are
expected to protect to the last extremity the reputations of
the women of their family and their acquaintance. The
person who attacks publicly or privately the virtue of a
woman deserves the limit of vengeance, for the publicity
of legal proceedings toward punishment only aggravates
the original wrong. Mr. Brann did not attack the virtue
of girl-students at Baylor University. He attacked the
administration of that institution and the killing of him
was the result of a distorted view of the trend of his
criticisms. If it were believed that he assailed the virtue
of girl-students at Baylor he would not have a single
mourner in the southwest. And no man in any part of
the United States can have a following of respectable
people, if he defames women. The feeling of reverence
for woman is so general that it is often a defense for
personal violence against writers who never dream of
attacking feminine honor. Aside from the fact that death
is too light a punishment for the man who attacks womanly
chastity, the law of private vengeance is not sweepingly
and invariably to be condemned. I am not liberal enough in
recognition of the great fact of human nature to admit
that the objection to private vengeance is mainly an
objection to the recognition of the right of individual execution
of the death penalty for any criticism. Men ought not to
be shot for criticisms of public institutions. It would be
foolish to argue against the fact that men occasionally feel
called upon to resent criticism by an appeal to battle
without weapons. The killing of critics at the whim of the
criticized is the evil against which protest is made. Plain
assault and battery is easily defensible on the ground that
no one can be expected always to have his temper in control.
It makes writers careful, and it is not followed by
the regret which follows killing. Writers are expected to
keep within bounds in their criticisms, and even then they
are certain to generate ill feeling in the criticized and their
friends, but so long as the offense is not murderous of
reputation and mortally malevolent the private execution
of writers is an offense not to be condoned on a mistaken
interpretation of chivalry. For all sins of journalistic
criticism, outside of the diabolism of blasting reputations
for virtue, the law provides adequate remedy, and if it
does not, then it were idle to say that the exasperated
victims of criticism should not have recourse to their fists,
although decent criticism, free from malice, addressed to
people in position semi-public would not seem to call for
violence under pretense of resenting something much worse.
As a rule I should say that the criticism which does not
call for extreme and desperate punishment calls for no
notice at all, or if it does, in the case of men, there are
laws, civil and criminal, that cover the case, with ample
punishment for the offense. This is the practical view of
the remedies against "carrion journalism."
A public sentiment strong enough to support private
vengeance is strong enough to support the law. There
are laws for the punishment of slander. More rigorous
laws could be enforced. If the people hate slanderers
bitterly enough to kill them, then they should hate them
enough to see that the laws against slander are enforced.
The moral sentiment that can sustain the one could sustain
the other. But the individual execution of vengeance
is a turning away from the law. It is the fostering of the
bully and the killer for drunken pastime. It is a bulwark
for boodlers, blackguards, frauds and lechers. It gives
rein to individual passion without limit. Such chivalry is
barbarism.--Pasquin.
BRANN, THE FOOL.
BY ELBERT HUBBARD, EDITOR OF THE PHILISTINE.
It's a grave subject. Brann is dead. Brann was a
fool. The fools were the wisest men at court; and
Shakespeare, who dearly loved a fool, placed his wisest
sayings into the mouths of men who wore the motley.
When he adorned a man with a cap and bells it was as
though he had given bonds for both that man's humanity
and intelligence. Neither Shakespeare nor any other
writer of books ever dared to depart so violently from
truth as to picture a fool whose heart was filled with
perfidy.
The fool is not malicious. Stupid people may think
he is, because his language is charged with the lightning's
flash; but they are the people who do not know the
difference between an incubator and an egg plant.
Touchstone, with unfailing loyalty, follows his master
with quip and quirk, into exile. When all, even his
daughters, have forsaken King Lear, the fool bares himself
to the storm and covers the shaking old man with his
own cloak. And when in our own day we meet the avatars
of Trinculo, Costard, Mercutio and Jacques, we find they
are men of tender susceptibilities, generous hearts and
intellects keen as a rapier's point.
Brann was a fool.
Brann shook his cap, flourished his bauble, gave a toss
to that fine head, and with tongue in cheek, asked
questions and propounded conundrums that stupid hypocrisy
could not answer. So they killed Brann.
. . .
Brann was born in obscurity. Very early he was cast
upon the rocks and nourished at the she-wolf's teat.
He graduated at the university of hard knocks and
during his short life took several post-graduate courses.
He had been wage-earner, printer's-devil, printer,
pressman, editor.
He knew the world of men, the struggling, sorrowing,
hoping, laughing, sinning world of men. And to those
whom God had tempted beyond what they could bear, his
heart went out. He read books with profit, and got great
panoramic views out into the world of art and poetry;
dreaming dreams and sending his swaying filament of
thought out and out, hoping it would somewhere catch and
he would be in communication with another world.
Discreet and cautious little men are known by the
company they keep. The fool was not particular about his
associates; children, sick people, insane folks, rich or poor
--it made no difference to him. He sometimes even sat at
meat with publicans and sinners.
He was a mystic and lived in the ideal. This deeply
religious quality in his nature led him into theology, and
he became a clergyman--a Baptist clergyman.
But no church is large enough to hold such a man as
this; the fool quality in his nature outcrops, and the jingle
of bells makes sleep to the chief pew-holder impossible.
So the fool had to go.
Then he founded that unique periodical, which, in
three years, attained a circulation of 90,000 copies. This
paper was not used for pantry shelves, lamp lighters, or
other base utilitarian purposes. It cost ten times as much
as a common newspaper, and the people who bought it
read it until it was worn out. All the things in this paper
were not truth; mixed up amid a world of wit were often
extravagance and much bad taste. It was only a fool's
newspaper!
In this periodical the fool railed and jeered and stated
facts about smirking complacency, facts so terrible that
folks said they were indecent. He flung his jibes at stupidity,
and stupidity sought to answer criticism by assassination.
Texas has a libel law patterned after the libel law of
the State of New York. If a man takes from you your
good name you can put him behind prison bars and place
shutters over the windows of his place of business.
The people who thought Brann had injured them did
not invoke the law. They invoked Judge Lynch----
A mob seized the fool, and, placing a rope about his
neck, led him naked through the October night, out to
the theological seminary, which they declared he had
traduced.
There they smote him with the flat of their hands, and
spat upon him. It was their intention to hang the fool,
but better counsel prevailed, and on his signing, in
terrorem, a document they placed before him, they gave him
warning to depart to another state. And on his promising
to do so, they let him go.
But the next day he refused to leave; and his flashing
wit still filled the air, now embittered through the outrage
visited upon him.
His enemies held prayer-meetings, invoking divine aid
for the fool's conversion--or extinction. One man quoted
David's prayer concerning Shimmei: "bring thou down
his hoar head to the grave in blood!" And others still,
prayed, "let his children be fatherless and his wife a
widow."
But still the fool flourished his bauble.
Then they shot him.
That hand which wrote the most Carlylean phrase of
any in America is cold and stiff. That teeming brain
which held a larger vocabulary than that of any man in
America is only clay that might stop a hole to keep the
wind away. That soul through which surged thoughts
too great for speech has gone a-journeying.
Brann is dead.
No more shall we see that lean, clean, homely face,
with its melancholy smile. No more shall we hear the fool
eloquently, and oh! so foolishly, plead the cause of the
weak, the unfortunate, the vicious. No more shall we
behold the tears of pity glisten in those sad eyes as his
heart was wrung by the tale of suffering and woe.
His children are fatherless, his wife a widow.
Brann the Fool is dead.--The Mirror.
April 14th, 1898.
* * *
WILLIAM COWPER BRANN.
BY J. D. SHAW.
William Cowper Brann was born in Humboldt Township,
Coles County, Illinois, January 4, 1855. He was
not raised in the home of his parents, though his father,
Rev. Noble Brann, survived him, and is still living. His
mother having died when he was two and a half years old,
he was within the next six months placed in the care of
Mr. William Hawkins, a Coles County farmer, with whom
he lived about ten years. As to his childhood experiences
on the Hawkins' farm nothing is now known. They were
probably such as are common to children raised in the
country. Of Mr. Hawkins he always spoke kindly, referring
to him as "Pa Hawkins." His nature was not suited
to farm life, however, and he finally made up his mind
to see more of the world, hence without ever having
disclosed his resolution to any one, he quietly walked away
one dark and cheerless night, carrying in a small box under
his arm all that he then possessed, and leaving behind him
the friends of his childhood in the only place he had ever
known as his home, thus entering upon the active struggle
of life at thirteen years of age, without friends, destitute
of means, and almost entirely uneducated.
The first position he obtained was that of bell boy in a
hotel. Later on he learned to be a painter and grainer,
then a printer, a reporter, and finally an editorial writer.
He was energetic, industrious and painstaking in whatever
he undertook to do, therefore always employed.
Early in his struggle he realized the need of an education,
in the acquirement of which he applied himself with eager
diligence. Nature had endowed him with keen perceptive
powers, a retentive memory and great mental vigor, by
means of which he soon accumulated considerable knowledge.
Every moment that could be spared from his daily
toil was spent in reading books of science, philosophy,
history, biography and general literature. In this way
he became thoroughly informed on almost every important
subject, as will be seen by the contents of his writings.
On March 3, 1877, at Rochelle, Illinois, he was married
to Miss Carrie Martin, who, with their two children, Grace
Gertrude and William Carlyle is now living in the beautiful
home, here at Waco, from which he was buried April 3, 1898.
During all the years, from the time he left the
hospitable home of Mr. Hawkins, in 1868, until after he had
successfully launched "Brann's ICONOCLAST," he suffered
the harassing annoyances of extreme poverty, in the
endurance of which he was cheerful, hopeful and diligent in
the equipment of his mind preparatory to the work he
always believed he would some day be able to accomplish.
Beginning his literary career as a reporter, he was soon
made an editorial writer, in which capacity he became
well-known throughout Illinois, Missouri and Texas. As
such he was versatile, forceful and direct. There was
no needless repetition of tiresome circumlocution in his
composition. He possessed an inexhaustible vocabulary,
from which he could always find the words best fitted to
convey his meaning at the moment they were most needed,
and every sentence was resplendent with an order of wit,
humor and satire peculiar to a style original with himself.
In July, 1891, he issued at Austin, Texas, the first
number of "Brann's ICONOCLAST." Only a few numbers
appeared, when it was suspended and he resumed his
editorial work, then on the Globe-Democrat, of St. Louis,
Missouri, and later on the Express of San Antonio, Texas.
It was in connection with his first attempt to establish
the ICONOCLAST that he delivered a few lectures that were
well received. In later years he went upon the platform
again with every prospect of a successful career in the
lecture field.
In the summer of 1894, he settled here in Waco, and, in
February of the following year, revived the ICONOCLAST,
which was successful from the first issue, having reached,
at the time of his death, a circulation of ninety thousand
copies. It was through the ICONOCLAST that his genius
found full scope for development, and that he became best
known to the public. In its columns he dared to be
himself. There was now no restraint imposed upon him by
timorous publishers. It belonged to him, and in it he
gave full wing to his own thought. It was this intellectual
freedom, sustained by the magic power and personality
of a real genius, that gave to it such widespread popularity.
Mr. Brann has been classed as a humorist. This he was,
and of a type peculiar to himself, but he was not content
with merely having amused or entertained the people, he
aspired to arouse public sentiment in the interest of
certain reforms. He was a hater of shams and defied every
form of fraud, hypocrisy and deceit. He made of his
humor a whip with which to scourge from the temple of
social purity every intruder there. He joined in no
partisan schemes for place or power, but, confident of his own
ground, he would stand alone in the defiance of popular
humbugs and frauds. This heroic independence, while
admired by many, made him a mark for the envy and
hatred of such as feared him, and in the end proved to be
the cause of his death.
But with all his uncompromising hatred of shams, there
beat in the bosom of W. C. Brann a warm and generous
heart for the world at large, and no man was ever a more
devoted friend to the poor and needy. No beggar was
ever turned away from his door empty handed, and no
worthy cause ever asked his help in vain. His religion
was to do whatever he believed to be right, and to defy the
wrong even though it should be found parading in the
garb and livery of righteousness.
Mr. Brann was fond of nature. He loved the mountains,
the lakes, the rivers and the billowy sea. He loved to
walk amid forest trees and watch the birds fly from bough
to bough and warble their songs of love, but in all the
wide, wide world, his home life was the most sacred object
of his devotion, and when prosperity gave him the means
to do so he found great delight in making it beautiful
and pleasant. He was fond of his friends, but the love he
bore his wife and children was sublimely beautiful, tender
and affectionate.
His sudden death was a shock not only to his immediate
friends, but to the hundreds of thousands who knew him
through the ICONOCLAST. Walking quietly along the
street, talking with a friend, he was shot in the back by
one T. E. Davis, a partisan on the Baylor side of the
Brann-Baylor trouble.
After receiving, without warning, his death wound, Mr.
Brann turned upon his assailant, drew a revolver and
vindicated his courage by delivering his fire with such deadly
aim as to leave Davis in the throes of death, which came
to his relief about twenty hours after the fray.
Mr. Brann received three wounds, from the first of
which he died at 1:55 a.m., April 2nd, surrounded by his
family and many sympathizing friends.
The impression has gone abroad that Mr. Brann was
without friends and admirers in Waco. The falsity of
this impression was made manifest, by the funeral
attendance, said, and generally believed, to have been the
largest ever seen here.
He was a believer in religion, therefore, it was not
improper that a religious service was held, conducted by
Rev. Frank Page, D.D., of the Episcopal church, though
the writer, acting in according with the wishes of the
family, spoke a few words at the grave.
In Oakwood Cemetery the body of Brann was laid to
rest in the embrace of our common mother earth, and
under a mound of floral offerings, which though profuse
and costly were but a feeble expression of the sincere
grief that struck dumb with awe the thousands upon
thousands who had learned to love him with an affection
accorded to few men.
. . .
My position as to Mr. Brann's style of journalism has
been freely expressed, and while he was still alive. I do
not approve of all he saw fit to write, nor of the spirit
in which he wrote, but that he was a real genius and a
benefactor of his race cannot be denied. It was with him,
as it is with all men of his type, he made strong and bitter
enemies, still his friends and admirers were numbered by
thousands, I may safely say hundreds of thousands.
The purposes, direction and character of the ICONOCLAST
were in many respects different from those of this
Pulpit, nevertheless there was between Mr. Brann and
myself a strong tie of friendship that, so far as I know,
never suffered the breach of a single moment, and I
sincerely mourn his loss as a personal friend whose kindly
greetings were to me as glimpses of the sun on a winter's
day.
Of humble birth, beset by poverty and environed by
many difficulties, he applied himself to the study of
literature with such diligence as to acquire abilities possessed
by few, and when once equipped for the field he occupied
with such consummate skill, no power of prejudice could
keep him from rising like a star of the first magnitude.
Alas! how soon that star has been obscured and by what
ignoble means! But, against great odds, its brief
existence was characterized by a brilliancy that no prejudice
or hatred can ever obliterate.
Having dealt candidly with Mr. Brann while living, I
will not now ignore the fact that he had faults, and his
inability to overcome these marred, here and there, the
splendor of his intellectual achievements. His faults,
though, were of a kind that may be permitted to pass into
the grave with his body. His virtues were many, and for
these he was loved, despite the imperfections he could not
always control. His services to mankind were numerous
and they were rendered with a devotion as ardent as that
of a lover; for these he will be remembered, nor can any
power rob him of his fame as a literary genius--a poet,
a humorist and a satirist.
Lectures and Addresses of Brann.
SPEAKING OF GALL.
Gall is a bitter subject, and I shall waste no time selecting
sweet words in which to handle it. There's no surplus
of sweet words in my vocabulary anyhow. I have
never yet been able to rent my mouth for a taffy mill.
Webster gives several definitions of Gall; but the good
old etymologist was gathered to his fathers long before
the word attained its full development and assumed an
honored place in the slang vernacular of the day. It was
needed. It fills what editors sometimes call a "long-felt
want." Gall is sublimated audacity, transcendent
impudence, immaculate nerve, triple-plated cheek, brass in
solid slugs. It is what enables a man to borrow five
dollars of you, forget to repay it, then touch you for twenty
more. It is what makes it possible for a woman to borrow
her neighbor's best bonnet, then complain because
it isn't the latest style or doesn't suit her particular type
of beauty. It is what causes people to pour their troubles
into the ears of passing acquaintances instead of reserving
them for home consumption. It is what makes a man
aspire to the governorship, or to air his asininity in the
Congress of the United States when he should be fiddling
on a stick of cordwood with an able-bodied buck-saw. It
is what leads a feather-headed fop, with no fortune but
his folly, no prospects but poverty--who lacks business
ability to find for himself bread--to mention marriage to
a young lady reared in luxury, to ask her to leave the
house of her father and help him fill the land with fools.
Gall is what spoils so many good ditchers and delvers to
make peanut politicians and putty-headed professional
men. It is what puts so many men in the pulpit who
could serve their Saviour much better planting the mild-
eyed potato or harvesting the useful hoop-pole. It is what
causes so many young ladies to rush into literature
instead of the laundry--to become poets of passion instead
of authors of pie.
Gall is a very common ailment. In fact, a man without
a liberal supply of it is likely to be as lonesome in this
land as a consistent Christian at a modern camp-meeting,
or a gold-bug Democrat in Texas. Nearly everybody has
it and is actually proud of it. When a young man is first
afflicted with the tender passion; when he is in the throes
of the mysterious mental aberration that would cause him
to climb a mesquite bush and lasso the moon for his
inamorata if she chanced to admire it, he is apt to think
it love that makes the world go round. Later he learns
that Gall is the social dynamics--the force that causes
humanity to arise and hump itself.
Gall has got the world grabbed. Politics is now a high-
class play, whose pawns are power and plunder; business
is becoming but a gouge-game wherein success hallows
any means. Our mighty men are most successful
marauders; our social favorites minister in the temple of
Mammon, our pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night
the follies and foibles of the "Four Hundred," our God the
Golden Calf. The standard by which society now measures
men is the purse; that by which it gauges greatness
the volume of foolish sound which the aspirant for
immortal honors succeeds in setting afloat, little caring
whether it be such celestial harp music as caused Thebe's
walls to rise, or the discordant bray of the ram's horn
which made Jericho's to fall. This century, which proudly
boasts itself "heir to all the ages and foremost in the files
of time," doffs its beaver to brazen effrontery, burns its
sweetest incense on the unhallowed shrine of pompous
humbuggery, while modest merit is in a more pitiable
predicament than the traditional tomcat in Tartarus without
teeth or toenails.
We make manifest our immeasureable Gall by
proclaiming from the housetops that, of all the ages which
have passed o'er the hoary head of Mother Earth, the
present stands preeminent; that of all the numberless
cycles of Time's mighty pageant there was none like unto
it--no, not one. And I sincerely hope there wasn't. Perhaps
that which induced the Deity to repent him that he
had made man and send a deluge to soak some of the
devilment out of him, was the nearest approach to it. We
imagine that because we have the electric telegraph and
the nickel-plated dude, the printing press and the campaign
lie, the locomotive and the scandal in high life; that
because we now roast our political opponent instead of
the guileless young missionary, and rob our friends by
secret fraud instead of despoiling our foes by open force,
that we are the people par-excellence and the Lord must
be proud of us.
Progress and improvement are not always synonyms. A
people may grow in Gall instead of grace. I measure a
century by its men rather than by its machines, and we
have not, since civilization took its boasted leap forward,
produced a Socrates or a Shakespeare, a Phidias or an
Angelo, a Confucius or a Christ. This century runs
chiefly to Talmages and Deacon Twogoods, pauper dukes
and divorce courts--intellectual soup and silk lingerie.
. . .
The poets no longer sing of the immortal gods, of war
and sacrifice, while the flame mounts to manhood's cheek,
red as the fires of Troy: They twitter of lovies and
dovies, of posies and goose-liver pie, while pretty men
applaud and sentimental maids get moonsick. Cincinnatus
no longer waits for the office to seek the man: He sells
his brace of bullocks and buys a political boom. No more
the Spartan mother gives her long black hair for bow-
strings: She blondines it, paints, powders and tries to
pass as the younger sister of her eldest daughter. The
Norse viking no longer plows the unknown wave, his
heart wilder than the wat'ry waste, his arm stronger than
tempered steel: He comes to America and starts a
saloon. No more the untamed Irish king caroms on the
Saxon invader with a seasoned shillalah: He gets on the
police force and helps "run the machine," or clubs the
head off the harmless married man who won't go home
till morning. In these degenerate days the philosopher
retires not to the desert, and there, by meditation most
profound, wrings from the secret treasure-house of his own
superior soul, jewels to adorn his age and enrich the
world: He mixes an impossible plot with a little pessimism,
adds a dude and a woman whose moral character has seen
better days, spills the nauseous compound on the public
as a "philosophical novel" and works the press for puffs.
Indeed we're progressing; going onward and upward--
like the belled buzzard dodging a divorce scandal. Greece
had her Pericles, but it was left for us to produce a
Parkhurst. Rome had her Cicero and her Caesar, but was never
equal to a Culberson or a Corbett. The princes of old
conquered the earth, but the modern plutocrats put a
mortgage on it. Cleopatra drank pearls dissolved in wine, but
whisky straight is said to be good enough for some of her
successors. Samson slew the Philistines with a jawbone of
an ass; but a modern politician, employing the self-same
weapon, would have got 'em to elect him governor. We've
got no Helen of Troy; but our "Hell'n Blazes" is a bird
o' the same feather. We've got to yield the palm in poetry
and philosophy, art and architecture; but when it comes
to building political platforms that straddle every important
issue and slinging princely style on a pauper income
we're out of sight.
How can the acorn become a mighty forest monarch if
planted in a pint pot and crossed with a fuzzy-wuzzy
chrysanthemum? How can the Numidian lion's whelp become
a king of beasts if reared in a cage and fed on cold
potatoes, muzzled and made to dance to popular music? How
can the superior soul expand until it becomes all-embracing,
god-like, a universe in itself, in which rings sweet
sphere-music and rolls Jovinian thunder--in which blazes
true Promethean fire instead of smolders the sulphurous
caloric of the nether world--when its metes and bounds are
irrevocably fixed for it--when it can only grow in certain
prescribed directions, painfully mapped out for it by
bumptious pismires who imagine that their little heads
constitute the intellectual Cosmos?
. . .
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, lamented that he lacked
Gall; but the melancholy Dane was dead years before the
present generation of titled snobs appeared upon the scene.
None of the princes or dukes of the present day appear to
be short on Gall; none of the nobility seem to be suffering
for lack of it. Not long ago a little Duke who owes his
title to the fact that his great-grand-aunt was the paramour
of a half-wit prince, kindly condescended to marry an
American girl to recoup his failing fortunes. A little
French guy whose brains are worth about two cents a
pound--for soap-grease--put up a Confederate-bond title
for the highest bidder and was bought in like a hairless
Mexican pup by an American plutocrat. Now half-a-dozen more
little pauper princelings and decadent dukelings
are trying to trade their worthless coronets for
American cash. But the fact that many a man boasting
of his American sovereignty will dicker with a titled young
duke, instead of using the forecastle of a No. 9 foot to
drive his spinal column up through his plug-hat like a
presidential lightning-rod; will actually purchase for his
daughter some disgusting little title upon which rests the
fateful bar-sinister of a woman's shame, and is encumbered
by a dizzy young dude, too lazy to work and too cowardly
to steal--too everlastingly "ornery" to raise a respectable
crop of wild oats-proves that the young lollipop
lordlings haven't a monopoly of the Gall of the Globe.
A most shameful exhibition of Gall is the practice now
coming into vogue with certain society ladies of encouraging
newspapers to puff their charms--even paying them so
much a line for fulsome praise. Not a few metropolitan
papers reap a handsome profit by puffing society buds
whom their fond parents are eager to place on the matrimonial
market, hoping that they will "make good
matches"; in other words, that they will marry money--
its possessors being thrown in as pelon. Even married
women, who are long on shekels but short on sense,
sometimes pay big prices to get their portraits in the public
prints--accompanied by puffs that would give a buzzard
a bilious attack.
But the Gall of the girl who puts her picture in the
papers, accompanied by a paid puff of her "purty," scarce
equals that of the conceited maid who imagines she has
only to look at a man and giggle a few times to "mash
him cold"--to get his palpitating heart on a buckskin
string and swing it hither-and-yon at pleasure. How the
great he-world does suffer at the hands of those heartless
young coquettes--if half it tells 'em be true! David said
in his haste that all men are liars. And had he carefully
considered the matter he would have come to the same
conclusion. Washington may have told his father the
truth about that cherry-tree; but later in life he became
entirely too popular with the ladies for a man unable to lie.
It is natural for men to pay court to a pretty woman
as for flies to buzz about a molasses barrel; but not every
fly that buzzes expects to get stuck, I beg to state. The
man who doesn't tell every woman who will listen to him
--excepting, perhaps, his wife--that she's pretty as a peri,
even though she be homely enough to frighten a mugwump
out of a fat federal office; that she's got his heart grabbed;
that he lives only in the studied sunshine of her store-
teeth smile and is hungering for an opportunity to die for
her dear sake--well, he's an angel, and he-seraphs are
almighty scarce I beg of you to believe. Since Adonis
died and Joseph was gathered to his fathers none have
appeared that I am aware of. These young gentlemen were
all right, I suppose; but I'd like to see either of them
get elected nowadays on the Democratic ticket in Texas.
But feminine conceit, fed on flattery, were as milk-shake
unto mescal, as a kiss by mail to one by moonlight compared
with the insufferable egotism of the "pretty man"
who puts his moustache up in curl-papers and perfumes
his pompadour; who primps and postures before an amorous
looking-glass and imagines that all Eve's daughters
are trying to abduct him. Whenever I meet one of these
male irresistibles I'm forcibly reminded that the Almighty
made man out of mud--and not very good mud at that.
The two-legged he-thing who makes a clothes-horse of
himself and poses on the street-corner perfumed like an
emancipation day picnic; who ogles a pretty woman until
the crimson creeps into her cheek, then prides himself on
having captured her heart like the boy caught the itch,--
because he couldn't help it--when she's only blushing for
the mother who bore the pitiful parody on manhood; who
imagines that every maid who deigns to waste a smile on
him is sighing her soul out for his sweet sake, has allowed
his Gall to go to his head and curdle his brains.
. . .
More than a moiety of our so-called great men are but
featherless geese, possessing a superabundance of Gall--
creatures of chance who ride like driftwood on the crest of
a wave raised by forces they cannot comprehend; but they
ride, and the world applauds them while it tramples better
men beneath its brutal feet. Greatness and Gall, genius
and goose-speech, sound and sense have become synonyms.
If you fall on the wrong side of the market men
will quote the proverb about a fool and his money: if on
the right side you're a Napoleon of finance. Lead a
successful revolt and you are a pure patriot whose memory
should be preserved to latest posterity; head an unsuccessful
uprising and you are a miserable rebel who should
have been hanged. "Nothing succeeds like success." Had
the Christian religion failed to take root, Judas Iscariot
would have been commemorated in the archives of Rome
as one who helped stamp out the hateful heresy, and had
Washington got the worst of it in his go with Cornwallis
he would have passed into history as a second Jack Cade.
Alexander of Macedon was great, as measured by the
world's standard of eminence. After two-and-twenty
centuries our very babes prattle of this bloody butcher, and
even his horse has been enshrined in history. In our own
day Father Damien left kindred and country and went
forth to die for the miserable lepers in the mid-Pacific,
but he is already forgotten--his name and fame have
faded from the minds of men. Yet greater and grander
than all the blood-stained princes and potentates of earth;
nobler, more god-like than all the proud prelates that ever
aired their turgid eloquence at Christian conference or
ecumenical council was that young priest; but no cenotaph
rises to commemorate his sacrifice--silent as his own
sealed lips is the trumpet of fame.
But for Gall of the A1, triple X brand, commend me to
the little pot-house politician who poses as a political
prophet and points out to wiser men their public duties.
We have to-day in this land of the free and home of the
crank, thousands of self-important little personages who
know as little of political economy as a parrot of the
power of prayer, prating learnedly of free-trade or
protection, greenbackism or metallic money. Men who
couldn't tell a fundamental principle from their funny-
bone, an economic thesis from a hot tamale--who don't
know whether Ricardo was an economist or a corn-doctor--
evolve from their empty ignorance new systems of
"saving the country," and defend them with the dogmatic
assurance of a nigger preacher describing the devil--make
gorgeous displays of their Gall. I have noticed that, as a
rule, the less a man knows of the science of government the
crazier he is to go to congress. About half the young
statesmen who break into the legislature imagine that
Roger Q. Mills wrote the Science of Economics, and that
Jefferson Davis was the father of Democracy.
But the Gall is not confined to the little fellows--the big
political M.D.'s have their due proportion. The remedies
they prescribe for Uncle Sam's ailments remind me of the
panaceas put on the market by the patent-medicine men--
warranted to cure everything, from a case of cholera-morbus
to an epidemic of poor relations. We have one school
of practitioners prescribing free-trade as a sure-cure for
every industrial ill, another a more drastic system of
protection. One assures us that the silver-habit is dragging
us down to the demnition bow-wows, another that only an
heroic dose of white dollars will save us from industrial
death. Political claptrap to corral the succulent pie--
"issues" to get office. We have had high and low tariff,
the gold and silver standard, greenbackism and "wild-cat"
currency; we have had presidents of all shades of political
faith and congresses of every kind of economic folly; yet
in a single century America has risen from the poorest of
nations to the wealthiest in all the world. True it is that
wealth is congested--that willful Waste and woeful Want
go hand in hand--that the land is filled with plutocrats and
paupers; but this distressing fact is due to the faults of
our industrial system itself, and can never be reformed by
placing fiddle-strings on the free list or increasing the
tariff on toothpicks.
Gall? Ye gods! Look at the platform promises of the
blessed Democratic party--then at its performances!
Look at the party itself--a veritable omnium-gatherum of
political odds and ends, huddled together under the party
blanket like household gods and barn-yard refuse after a
hurricane. High and low tariffs and free-traders; gold-
bugs, green-backers and bi-metallists; Cleveland and
Croker, Altgeld and Olney, Hill and Hogg, Waco's Warwick
and Colonel Culberson's kid, all clamoring to be dyed-
in-the-wool Democrats! When I get a new main-spring
put in my vocabulary I'm going to tackle the Gall of the
Populists and Republicans.
. . .
Some specimens of Gall amaze me by their greatness,
some amuse me, while others only spoil my appetite. Of
the latter class is the chronic kicker who is forever fuming
about feminine fashions. If the hoop-skirt comes in this
critic is in agony; if the "pull-back" makes its appearance
he has a fit and falls in it. Ever since Eve attired
herself in a few freckles and fig-leaves he's been reforming
the fashions. Don't mind him, ladies. Like a peacock
crying in the night, he's disagreeable, but not dangerous.
Adorn yourselves as you see fit; follow such fashions as
seem good in your sight, and have no fear that the sons of
men will ever forsake you because of your clothes. When
you find a man dictating to the ladies what they shall
wear you're pretty apt to see his head housed in a stove-
pipe hat--the most inartistic and awkward monstrosity
ever designed by the devil to make the Almighty ashamed
of his masterpiece. In all history there's no record of a
great idea being born in a beegum. I never saw a statue
of a hero or picture of a martyr with a plug hat on.
Imagine the Lord laying aside a silk cady preparatory to
preaching that Sermon on the Mount--or Napoleon
apostrophizing the pyramids in a plug! Before finding fault
with the fashions of the ladies just imagine Apollo in the
make-up of a modern society swell, loafing into court on
High Olympus! Why Jove would hit him with a thunderbolt
so hard there'd be nothing left of him but a wilted
chrysanthemum and a pair o' yaller shoes!
. . .
For a specimen of Gall that must amaze the very gods
commend me to a crowd of pharisaical plutocrats, piously
offering, in a hundred thousand dollar church, prayers to
him who had nowhere to lay his head; who pay a preacher
$15,000 per annum to point the way to Paradise, while in
the great cities of every Christian country children must
steal or starve and women choose between death and
dishonor. New York is crowded with costly churches that
lift their proud spires into the empyrean, that part the
clouds with golden fingers--monuments which Mammon
rears as if to mock the lowly Son of God. Their value
mounts up into the millions; yet I learn--from a religious
paper, mark you--that 100,000 men, women and children
were evicted in New York alone last year for the non-
payment of rent; turned into the streets to suffer summer's
heat or winter's cold--to beg, or starve, or steal, as they
saw fit. I find these startling statistics in the same column
with a tearful appeal for more money to send missionaries
to black barbarians--on the same page with a description
of a new church that must have cost a cold half-million of
cash. That's what I call sanctified assurance--gall
masquerading as grace. And what is true of New York is
true, in greater or less degree, of every town from
Plymouth Rock to Poker Flats, from Tadmor-in-the-
Wilderness to Yuba Dam. Everywhere the widow is battling
with want, while we send Bibles and blankets, prayer-
books and pie, salvation and missionary soup to a job-lot
of lazy niggers whose souls aren't worth a soumarkee in
blocks-of-five--who wouldn't walk into heaven if the gates
were wide open, but once inside would steal the eternal
throne if it wasn't spiked down. Let the heathen rage;
we've got our hands full at home. I'd rather see the whole
black-and-tan aggregation short on Bibles than one white
child crying for bread.
While Europe and America are peddling saving grace
in pagan lands--and incidentally extending the market for
their cheap tobacco, snide jewelry and forty-rod bug-juice
--they are also building warships and casting cannon--
preparing to cut each other's throats while prating of the
prince of peace! The idea of countries that have to build
forts on their frontiers and keep colossal standing armies
to avoid being butchered by their own Christian brethren;
that are full of divorce courts and demagogues, penitentiaries
and poorhouses, sending young theological goslings,
who believe that all of divine revelation can be found in
one book, to teach the philosophic Hindu the road to
heaven! Gall! Why the men we are trying to convert
were preaching the immortality of the soul when the
Hebrew prophets were putting people to the sword for
accepting it; they were familiar with all the essential
features of the Christian faith a thousand years before the
crucifixion of Christ. Charity begins at home. In our
own country children are coming up in ignorance and
crime, while sect vies with sect in the erection of proud
temples in which polite society may display its Parisian
finery while pretending to worship One who broke bread
with beggars and slept in the brush.
I haven't much use for gold-plated godliness. Christ
never built a church, or asked for a vacation on full pay,
--never. He indulged in no political harangues--never
told his parishioners how to vote--never posed as a professional
Prohibitionist. He didn't try to reform the fallen
women of Jerusalem by turning them over to the police,
a la Parkhurst. Although gladiatorial shows were common
in his country--and that without gloves--he didn't go
raging up and down the earth like some of our Texas
dominies, demanding that these awful crimes against
civilization should cease. There is no record of his
engineering a boycott against business men who dissented from his
doctrine. I think he could have read a copy of the ICONOCLAST
with far more patience than some of his successors.
Human or divine, he was the grandest man that ever
graced the mighty tide of time. His was a labor of love,
instead of for lucre. The groves were his temples, the
mountain-side his pulpit, the desert his sacristy, and
Jordan his baptismal font.
. . .
Then there's the unconscious Gall of the pious parrot
who is quite sure that the only highway to the heavenly
hereafter is outlined by his little sect, macadamized by his
creed; that you've got to travel that or get into trouble,
perhaps fall into the fire.
Just imagine that dear Lord, who so loved sinners that
he died to save them from death eternal, looking over
heaven's holy battlements and observing a miserable mortal
plunging downward to his doom, leaving behind him a
streak of fire like a falling star, his face distorted with
fear, his every hair erect and singing like a jewsharp.
He asks St. Peter:
"Who's that?"
"Oh," says the man on the door, "that's old John
Smith."
The Lord goes over to the office of the Recording Angel
and turns the leaves of the great ledger. He finds the
name, "John Smith, No. 11,027," and on the credit page
these entries: "He was fearless as Caesar, generous as
Macaenas, tender as Guatama and true to his friends as the
stars to their appointed courses. He was a knight of
nature's nobility, a lord in the aristocracy of intellect,
courtier at home and a king abroad. On the debit page
he reads: "Went fishing on Sunday. There was a miscue
on his baptism. He knew a pretty woman from an ancient
painting, a jack-pot from a prayer-book, and when smitten
on one cheek he made the smacker think he'd been smuck
by a cyclone." Good-bye, John!
It may be that the monarch of the majestic universe
marches around after every inconsequential little mortal,
note-book in hand, giving him a white mark when he prays
for the neighbor who poisons his dog, or tells his wife the
truth regardless of consequences; a black one when he bets
his money on the wrong horse or sits down on the sidewalk
and tries to swipe the front gate as it goes sailing by; but
I doubt it. If I could make the sun, moon and stars in
one day and build a beautiful woman of an old bone, I'd
just like to see the color of that man's hair I'd waste much
time and attention on.
. . .
Why should we quarrel about our faiths and declare that
this is right and that is wrong, when all religions are, and
must of necessity ever be, fundamentally one and the same
--the worship of a superior power, the great
"Father of all, in every age, in ev'ry clime adored,
By saint, by savage and by sage, Jehovah, Jove, or
Lord."
. . .
Man's cool assumption that the Almighty made him as
his "masterpiece" should be marked Exhibit A in the
mighty aggregation of Gall. That after millions of years
experience in the creation business--after building the
archangels and the devil; after making the man in the
moon and performing other wondrous miracles, the straddling
six-foot biped who wears a spike-tail coat and plug-
hat, a silk surcingle and sooner tie; who parts his name
on the side and his hair in the middle; who sucks a cane
and simpers like a school-girl struggling with her first
compliment; who takes it for granted that he knows it
all, when his whole life--including his birth, marriage and
death--is a piece of ridiculous guess-work; who insists
that he has a soul to save, yet labors with might and main
to lose it; protests that there's a better land beyond the
grave, yet moves heaven and earth to keep from going to
it so long as he can help it--the assumption, I say, that
this was the best the Creator could do, is prima facie
evidence of a plentitude of Gall of the purest ray serene.
The calm assurance of man that the earth and all it
contains were made for his especial benefit; that woman was
created solely for his comfort; that the sun was made to
give him light by day and the moon to enable him to find
his way home from the lodge at night without the aid of a
policeman; that the heavens were hung with a resplendent
curtain of stars and the planets sent whirling through
space in a majestic dance about the God of Day, simply to
afford him matter for wonder or for amusement when too
tired to talk politics or too bilious to drink beer, evinces an
egotism that must amuse the Almighty.
Masterpiece indeed! Why, God made man, and, finding
that he couldn't take care of himself, made woman to take
care of him--and she proposes to discharge her heaven-
ordained duty or know the reason why. Tennyson says
that, "as the husband is the wife is"; but even Tennyson
didn't know it quite all. When wives take their hubbies for
measures of morality, marriage will become an enthusiastic
failure and Satan be loosed for a little season. We
acknowledge woman's superiority by demanding that she be
better than we could if we would, or would be if we could.
We are fond of alluding to woman as "the weaker
vessel"; but she can BREAK the best of us if given an
opportunity. Pope calls man the "great lord of all
things"--but Pope never got married. We rule with a
rod of iron the creatures of the earth and air and sea;
we hurl our withering defi in the face of Kings and brave
presidential lightning; we found empires and straddle the
perilous political issue, then surrender unconditionally to
a little bundle of dimples and deviltry, sunshine and
extravagance. No man ever followed freedom's flag for
patriotism (and a pension) with half the enthusiasm that
he will trail the red, white and blue that constitute the
banner of female beauty. The monarch's fetters cannot
curtail our haughty freedom, nor nature's majestic forces
confine us to this little lump of clay; we tread the ocean's
foam beneath our feet, harness the thunderbolts of imperial
Jove to the jaunting car, and even aspire to mount the
storm and walk upon the wind; yet the bravest of us
tremble like cowards and lie like Cretans when called to
account by our wives for some of our cussedness,
But you will say that I have wandered from my text--
have followed the ladies off and got lost. Well, it's not the
first time it's happened. But really, I'm not so
inconsistent as I may seem; for if the gentler sex exceeds us
in goodness it likewise surpasses us in Gall. Perhaps the
most colossal exhibit of polite and elegant audacity this
world can boast is furnished by that female who has made
a marriage of convenience; has wedded money instead of a
man,--practically put her charms up at auction for the
highest bidder--yet who poses as a paragon of purity;
gathers up her silken skirts--the price of her legalized
shame--lest they come in contact with the calico gown
of some poor girl who has loved, not wisely, but too well.
Marriage is the most sacred institution ever established
on earth, making the father, mother and child a veritable
Holy Trinity; but it is rapidly degenerating into an
unclean Humbug, in which Greed is God and Gall is recognized
high-priest. We now consider our fortunes rather
than our affections, acquire a husband or wife much as we
would a parrot or a poodle, and get rid of them with about
as little compunction. Cupid now feathers his arrows
from the wings of the gold eagle and shoots at the stomach
instead of the heart. Love without law makes angels
blush; but law without love crimson even the brazen brow
of infamy.
. . .
But the fact that so many selfish, soulless marriages are
made is not altogether woman's fault. Our ridiculous
social code is calculated to crush all sentiment and sweetness
out of the gentler sex--to make woman regard herself
as merchandise rather than as a moral entity, entitled to
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The average
woman must select a husband from a narrow circle; must
make choice among two or three admirers or elect to live
a loveless old maid--to forego the joys of motherhood,
the happiness of a home. Man is privileged to go forth
and seek a mate. The world is before him, a veritable
"Dream of Fair Women." He wanders at will, as amid
a mighty parterre of flowers, sweet as the breath of morn,
and finally, before some fair blossom he bows the knee
--pours forth the incense of his soul to the one woman in
all the world he would make his wife. True, she may
refuse him and marry some other fellow; but he is at least
privileged to approach her, to plead his cause to employ
all the art and eloquence of love to bring her into his life.
Woman enjoys no such privilege. She must wait to be
wooed, and if her king comes not she must take the best
that offers and try to be content.
Every daughter of Eve dreams of an ideal,--of a man
tender and true, who will fill her life with love's own
melody; his word her law, his home her heaven, his honor
her glory and his tomb her grave. And some day, from
these castles in the clouds he comes--these day-dreams,
golden as the dawn, become the halo of a mortal man, to
whom her heart turns as the helianthus to the sun. At last
the god of her idolatry doth walk the earth; but she must
stand afar,--must not, by word or act, betray the holy
passion that's consuming her, lest "that monster custom
of habits devil," doth brand her bold and bad. Love
ofttimes begets love, as the steel strikes fire from the cold
flint, and a word from her might bring him to her feet;
but she must stand with dumb lips and assumed indifference
and see him drift out of her life, leaving it desolate
as the Scythian desert, when it should have budded and
blossomed like the great blush rose. So she drifts
desolate into old maidenhood and the company of Maltese cats;
else, when hope is dead in her heart--when the dream of
her youth has become dust and ashes--she marries for
money and tries to feed her famished heart with Parisian
finery, to satisfy her soul with the Dead Sea fruit of
fashion.
No; I wouldn't give woman the ballot--not in a thousand
years. I want no petticoats in politics--no she-senators
or female presidents; but I'd do better by woman; I'd
repeal that ridiculous social law--survival of female
slavery--which compels her to wait to be wooed. I'd put
a hundred leap-years in every century, give woman the
right to do half the courting--to find a man to her liking
and capture him if she could. Talk about reforms! Why,
the bachelors would simply have to become Benedicts or
take to the brush, and there'd be no old maids outside the
dime museums. But I was speaking of Gall.
. . .
Gall is usually unadulterated impudence; but sometimes
it is irremediably idiocy. When you find a man pluming
himself on his ancestors you can safely set it down that
he's got the disease in its latter form, and got it bad. I
always feel sorry for a man who's got nothing to be proud
of but a dead gran'daddy, for it appears to be a law of
nature that there shall be but one great man to a tribe--
that the lightning of genius shall not twice strike the same
family tree. I suppose that Cleveland and Jim Corbett,
Luther and Mrs. Lease, Homer and J. S. Hogg had
parents and gran'parents; but we don't hear much about
'em. And while the ancestors of the truly great are
usually lost in the obscurity of the cornfield or cotton-
patch, their children seldom succeed in setting the world
on fire. Talent may be transmitted from father to son;
but you can no more inherit genius than you can inherit
a fall out of a balloon. It is the direct gift of that God
who is no respecter of persons, and who sheds his glory on
the cotter's child as freely as on those of monarchs and of
millionaires.
We have in this country three aristocracies: The
aristocracy of intellect, founded by the Almighty; the
aristocracy of money, founded by Mammon, and the aristocracy
of family, founded by fools. The aristocracy of brains
differs from those of birth and boodle as a star differs from
a jack-o'-lantern, as the music of the spheres from the bray
of a burro, as a woman's first love from the stale affection
hashed up for a fourth husband.
To the aristocracy of money belong many worthy men;
but why should the spirit of mortal be proud? The
founder of one of the wealthiest and most exclusive of
American families skinned beeves and made weinerwurst.
The calling was an honest and useful one. His sausages
were said to be excellent, and at a SKIN game he was
exceptionally hard to beat; but his descendants positively
decline to put a calf's head regardant and a cleaver
rampant on their coat-of-arms. A relative much addicted to
the genealogical habit once assured me that he could trace
our family back 600 years just as easy as following the
path to the drugstore in a Prohibition town. I was
delighted to hear it, to learn that I too had ancestors--that
some of them were actually on the earth before I was born.
While he was tracing I was figuring. I found that in 600
years there should be 20 generations--if everybody did
his duty--and that in 20 generations a man has 2,093,056
ancestors! Just think of it! Why, if he had gone back
600 years further he might have discovered that I was a
lineal descendant of Adam, perhaps distantly related to
crowned monarchs--if not to the Duke of Marlborough.
As my cousin couldn't account for this job-lot of kinsmen
--had no idea how many had been hanged, gone into politics
or written poetry, I rang off. Those people who delight
to trace their lineage through several generations to
some distinguished man should be tapped for the simples.
When John Smith starts out to found a family and marries
Miss Jones, their son is half Smith and half Jones.
The next crop is nearly one-fourth Smith and at the end of
a dozen generations the young Smiths bear about as much
relation to the original as they do to a rabbit.
. . .
There are various grades of Gall, but perhaps the
superlative brand is that which leads a man to look down with
lofty scorn upon those of his fellow mortals who have
tripped on Life's rugged pathway and plunged into a
shoreless sea of shame. I am no apologist for crime--
I would not cover its naked hideousness with the Arachne--
robe of sentiment; but I do believe that many a social
outcast, many a branded criminal, will get as sweet a harp in
the great hereafter as those who have kept themselves
unspotted from the world. It is easy enough to say grace
over a good square meal, to be honest on a fat income, to
praise God when full of pie; but just wait till you get the
same razzle-dazzle the devil dished up for Job and see how
your halle-hallelujahs hold out before exalting your horn.
Victory does not always proclaim the hero nor virtue the
saint. It were easy enough to sail with wind and tide to
float over fair seas, mid purple isles of spice; but the
captain who loses his ship mid tempests dire, mid wreck and
wrath, may be a better sailor and a braver than the master
who rides safe to port with rigging all intact and every
ensign flying. With
"The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,"
it were easy enough to be a good citizen and a consistent
Christian. It is poverty and contempt, suffering and
disappointment that try men's souls--that proclaim of what
metal they are made. Faith, Hope and Charity are man's
triune transcendent--"and the greatest of these is
Charity." A pharisee is either a pious fraud or a hopeless
fool--he's either short on "gumption" or long on Gall.
. . .
Half the alleged honesty of this world is but Gall, and
must be particularly offensive to the Almighty. We have
oodles of men in every community who are legally honest,
but morally rotten. Legal honesty is the brand usually
proclaimed as "the best policy." Only fools risk the
penitentiary to fill their purse. The smart rogue is ever
"honest within the law"--infamous in strict accord with
the criminal code.
Dives may attire himself in purple and fine linen and
fare sumptuously every day, while Lazarus lies at his door
for the dogs to lick, vainly craving the crumbs that fall
from the millionaire's table, and still be legally honest, even
a church member in good standing; but his loyalty to legal
forms will avail him but little when he finds his coat-tails
afire and no water within forty miles.
The girl who flirts with a featherless young gosling till
he doesn't know whether he's floating in a sea of champagne
to the sound of celestial music, sliding down a
greased rainbow or riding on the ridge-pole of the aurora
borealis, then tells him that she can only be a kind of
Christmas-present, opera-ticket sister to him; who steals
his unripe affections and allows 'em to get frost-bitten--
carries him into the empyrean of puppy-love, only to drop
him with a dull plunk that fills his callow heart with
compound fractures--well, she cannot be prosecuted for petit
larceny nor indicted for malicious mischief; but the
unfortunate fellow who finally gets her will be glad to go to
heaven, where there's neither marrying nor giving in
marriage.
The man who preaches Prohibition in public and pays
court to a gallon jug of corn-juice in private; who damns
the saloon at home and sits up with it all night abroad,
may not transcend the law of the land, but if his Gall
should burst the very buzzards would break their necks
trying to get out of the country.
The druggist who charges a poor dunderhead a dollar
for filling a prescription that calls in Latin for a spoonful
of salt and an ounce of water, may do no violence to the
criminal code, but he plays ducks and drakes with the
moral law.
The little tin-horn attorney, whose specialties are
divorce cases and libel suits; who stirs up good-for-naughts
to sue publishers for $10,000 damages to 10-cent reputations;
who's as ready to shield Vice from the sword of
Justice as to defend Virtue from stupid violence; who's
ever for sale to the highest bidder and keeps eloquence on
tap for whosoever cares to buy; who would rob the orphan
of his patrimony on a technicality or brand the Virgin
Mary as a bawd to shield a black-mailer--well, he cannot
be put into the penitentiary, more's the pity! but it's some
satisfaction to believe that, if in all the great universe of
God there is a hell where fiends lie howling, the most
sulphurous section is reserved for the infamous shyster--that
if he cannot be debarred from the courts of earth he'll get
the bounce from those of heaven.
The woman who inveigles some poor fool--perhaps old
enough to be her father--into calling her his tootsie-
wootsie over his own signature, then brings suit for breach
of promise--or the Seventh Commandment; who exhibits
her broken heart to the judge and jury and demands that
it be patched up with Uncle Sam's illuminated anguish
plasters; who plays the adventuress, then poses in the
public prints as an injured innocent--sends a good reputation
to join a bad character in hope of monetary reward
--well, she too may be legally honest; but it's just as well
to watch her, for no woman worth powder to blow her to
perdition ever did or every will carry such a case into
court. When a woman's heart is really hurting her money
is not going to help it: when she's truly sorry for her sin
she tells her troubles to the Lord instead of to policemen
and reporters.
The man who sues a fellow-citizen for alienating his
wife's affections, instead of striking his trail with a bell-
mouthed blunderbuss and a muzzle-loading bulldog; who
asks the court to put a silver lining in the cloud of infamy
that hangs over his home; who tries to make capital of his
shame and heal with golden guineas the hurt that honor
feels--well, he too may be a law-abiding citizen; but ten
thousand such souls, if separated from their Gall, might
play hide-and-seek on the surface of a copper cent for a
hundred years and never find each other.
. . .
Dignity is but a peculiar manifestation of Gall. It is
the stock in trade of fools. If Almighty God ever put up
great dignity and superior intellect in the same package it
must have got misplaced. They are opposing elements, as
antagonistic as the doctrines of infinite love and infant
damnation. Knowledge makes men humble; true genius is
ever modest. The donkey is popularly supposed to be the
most stupid animal extant--excepting the dude. He's
also the most dignified--since the extinction of the dodo.
No pope or president, rich in the world's respect; no prince
or potentate reveling in the pride of sovereign power;
no poet or philosopher bearing his blushing honors thick
upon him ever equaled a blind donkey in impressive dignity.
As a man's vision broadens; as he begins to realize what a
miserable little microbe he is in that mighty immensity,
studded with the stupendous handiwork of a power that
transcends his comprehension, his dignity drains of and
he feels like asking to be recognized just long enough to
apologize for his existence.
When I see a little man strut forth in the face of heaven
like a turkey-cock on dress parade; forgotten aeons behind
him, blank time before him, his birth a mystery, his death
a leap in the dark; when I see him pose on the grave of
forgotten races and puff himself up with pomposity like
the frog in the fable; when I see him sprinkled with the
dust of fallen dynasties and erecting new altars upon the
site of forgotten fanes, yet staggering about under a load
of dignity that would spring the knee-joints of an archangel,
I don't wonder that the Lord once decided to drown
the whole layout like a litter of blind puppies.
. . .
A lecture on Gall were woefully incomplete without some
reference to the press, that "archimedean lever" and
"molder of public opinion." The average newspaper posing
as a "public educator" is a specimen of Gall that cannot
be properly analyzed in one evening. Men do not establish
newspapers for the express purpose of reforming the
world, but rather to print what a large number of people
in a particular community want to read and are willing
to pay for. A newspaper is simply a mirror in which the
community sees itself, not as it should be, but as it actually
is. It is not the mother, but the daughter of public
opinion. The printing press is a mighty phonograph that
echoes back the joy and the sorrow, the glory and the
shame of the generation it serves. I have no more quarrel
with editors for filling their columns with inanities than
casting shadows when they stand in the sun. They know
what kind of mental pabulum their people crave, and they
are no more in business for their health than is the
merchant. They know that should they print the grandest
sermon that ever fell from Massillon's lips of gold not
20 per cent., even of the professedly pious, would read it;
but that a detailed account of a fragrant divorce case or
international prize-fight will cause 99 per cent. of the
very elect of the Lord to swoop down upon it like a hungry
hen-hawk on an unripe gosling and fairly devour it, then
roll their eyes to heaven like a calf with the colic and
wonder what this wicked old world is coming to. The
editor knows that half the people who pretend to be filled
to overflowing with the grace of God are only perambulating
pillars of pure Gall. He knows that the very people
who criticize him for printing accounts of crimes and
making spreads on sporting events, would transfer their
patronage to other papers if he heeded their howling--
that they are talking for effect through the crown of their
felts.
Speaking of prize-fights reminds me that a governor
who, after winking at a hundred brutal slugging matches,
puts his state to the expense of a legislative session to
prevent a pair of gladiators pounding each other with soft
gloves, is not suffering for lack of Gall; that those pious
souls who never suspected that pugilism was an insult to
our civilization until they got a good opportunity to make
a grandstand play, then whereased and resoluted themselves
black in the face anent its brutality, should be presented
with a medal of pure brass. Politics is said to make
strange bed-fellows, but I scarce expected to see a shoe-
string gambler and would-be Don Juan lauded by ministerial
associations as "our heroic young Christian governor."
Gall? Why, Geo. Clark presumes to give Bismarck
pointers and congress advice. Nobody knows so well how
to manage a husband as an old maid. A bachelor can give
the father of a village pointers on the training of boys.
Our Northern neighbors know exactly how to deal with
the nigger. The man who would starve but for the industry
of his wife feels competent to manage the finances of
the country. People who couldn't be trusted to wean a
calf, tell us all about the Creator of the Cosmos. Sam
Jones wants to debate with Bob Ingersoll, and every forks-
of-the-creek economist takes a hard fall out of Henry
George. The A.P.A. agitators prate loudly of freedom of
conscience and insist on disfranchising the Catholics. We
boast of religious liberty, then enact iron-clad Sunday laws
that compel Jew and pagan to conform to our creed or go
to prison. The prohibs. want to confine the whole world to
cold water because their leaders haven't sufficient stamina
to stay sober. Men who fail to make a living at honest
labor insist on entering the public service. Political
parties charge up to each other the adverse decrees of
Providence. Atheists deny the existence of God because he
doesn't move in their set, while ministers assume that a
criticism of themselves is an insult to the Creator.
. . .
But to detain you longer were to give a practical
illustration of my text. I will be told that Gall is a necessary
evil; that a certain amount of audacity, of native
impudence, is necessary to success. I deny it. Fame and
wealth and power constitute our ideal of success--folly
born of falsehood. Only the useful are successful. Father
Damien was the grandest success of the century; Alexander
of Macedon the most miserable failure known to
human history--with the possible exception of Grover
Cleveland. Alexander employed his genius to conquer the
Orient and Cleveland his stupidity to ruin the Occident.
The kingdom of the one went to pieces, and the party of
the other is now posing as the lost tribe of the political
Israel!
Success? A Gould must give up his gold at the grave,
the sovereign surrender his sceptre, the very gods are in
time forgotten--are swallowed up in the voiceless, viewless
past, hidden by the shadows of the centuries. Why should
men strive for fame, that feather in the cap of fools, when
nations and peoples perish like the flowers and are forgotten--
when even continents fade from the great world's
face and the ocean's bed becomes the mountain's brow.
Why strive for power, that passes like the perfume of the
dawn, and leaves prince and pauper peers in death? Why
should man, made in the mortal image of immortal God,
become the subservient slave of Greed and barter all of
time for a handful of yellow dross to cast upon the threshold
of eternity? "Poor and content is rich," and rich
enough. With a roof to shelter those his heart holds
dear, and table furnished forth with frugal fare; with
manhood's dauntless courage and woman's deathless love,
the peasant in his lowly cot may be richer far than the
prince in his imperial hall.
Success? I would rather be a fox and steal fat geese
than a miserly millionaire and prey upon the misfortunes
of my fellows. I would rather be a doodle-bug burrowing
in the dust than a plotting politician, trying to inflate a
second-term gubernatorial boom with the fetid breath of
a foul hypocrisy. I would rather be a peddler of hot
peanuts than a President who gives to bond-grabbers and
boodlers privilege to despoil the pantries of the poor. I
would rather be a louse on the head of a lazar than lord
high executioner of a theological college that, to preserve
its reputation and fill its coffers with filthy lucre, brands
an orphan babe as a bawd. I would rather watch the stars
shining down through blue immensity, and the cool mists
creeping round the purple hills, than feast my eyes on all
the tawdry treasures of Ophir and of Ind. I would rather
play a corn-stalk fiddle while pickaninnies dance, than
build, of widows' sighs and orphans' tears, a flimsy bubble
of fame to be blown adown the narrow beach of Time into
Eternity's shoreless sea. I would rather be the beggar
lord of a lodge in the wilderness, dress in a suit of
sunburn and live on hominy and hope, yet see the love-light
blaze unbought in truthful eyes, than to be the marauding
emperor of the mighty world, and know not who fawned
upon the master and who esteemed the man.
* * *
BLUE AND GRAY.
AN ADDRESS TO THE OLD VETERANS.
[The following is a summary of Mr. Brann's address to
the United American Veterans, San Antonio, Feb. 22, 1894.]
It occurs to me that the time is not an appropriate one
for lengthy speeches. This is a love-feast, and I have
noticed that when people are much in love they are little
inclined to talk. Perhaps I have been called upon because
I'm a professional peacemaker, an expert harmony promoter.
Were I not as meek as Moses and patient as Job I
certainly would weary in well-doing--become discouraged
and give o'er the attempt to inaugurate an era of
universal peace and general good will; for when I go North
I am denounced by the partisan press as an unreconstructed
rebel seeking to rip the federal government up by
the roots, and when I come South I'm pointed out as a
dangerous Yankee importation with the bluest of equators.
The Democrats insist that I'm a Republican, but that
party declines the responsibility; the infidels call me a
religious crank, the clergy an Atheist, and even the
Mugwumps regard me with suspicion. But let me tell you right
here that whatever I may or may not be, I am an American
from the ground up--from Alpha to Omega, world-without-
end. I may be a man without a party and without
a creed; but so long as Old Glory blazes in God's blue
firmament I will never be a man without a country.
I can no more imagine a man loving only the north or
south half of his country than I can imagine him loving
only the right or left side of his wife. If I had to love my
country on the instalment plan I'd move out of it. The
man who is really a patriot loves his country in a lump.
There's room in his heart for every acre of its sunny soil,
its every hill upon which the morning breaks, its every
vale that cradles the evening shadows, its every stream
that laughs back the image of the sun.
When a man feels that way you can safely trust him
with an office--and most of us are perfectly willing to
be trusted.
As an American citizen I am proud of every man, of
whatever section, who, by the nobility of his nature or the
majesty of his intellect, has added one jot or tittle to the
fame of his fair land, has increased the credit of our common
country, has contributed new power to the car of
human progress. They are my countrymen, friends and
brethren. Are you of the North? Then I claim with you
a joint interest in your entire galaxy of intellectual gods.
At the shrine of Lincoln's broad humanity, of Webster's
matchless power, of the cunning genius of your Menlo
wizard I humbly bow. Are you of the South? Your Jefferson,
Jackson and Lee are mine as well as thine, for they
too were Americans--lords in that mighty aristocracy
of intellect that has, in four generations, made the New
World the wonder of the Old with its cumulative greatness
of forty centuries.
I have watched the progress of the United American
Veterans' Association with uncommon interest, because it
is distinctively a national organization, in which shriveled
sectionalism and party prejudice find no place. Its corner-
stone is American manhood, its object fraternity, its
principles broad as the continent upon which falls the shadow
of our flag. Do you know what that association means?
--had you thought of its significance? It means that
when brave men sheathe the sword the quarrel's done. It
means that peace hath its triumphs no less than war.
The world's annals furnish forth no parallel to that association
whose guests we are to-night. Men have fought ere
this and patched up a peace; but where, in all the cycles
of human history, have they waged war more relentless
than did Rome and Carthage, then, without a murmur,
accepted the arbitrament of the sword and swung into line,
shoulder to shoulder, a band of brothers, one flag, one
country, one destiny and that the highest goal of human
endeavor?
My attention has been especially attracted to this
association because it is a practical illustration of what I have
so often urged in print: That the pitiful sectional prejudices
which we see here and there coming to the surface
both north and south; that the petty hatreds, which
appear to transform some hearts into bitter little pools in
which Justice perishes and divine Reason is quite overthrown,
have no lot or part among the soldiers who made
the civil war the grandest event in modern history--one
from which the world will mark time for centuries yet to
be. I have yet to hear an ex-federal who met Lee's
veterans at the Wilderness or Gettysburg, speak
disrespectfully of the man who wore the gray. I have yet to
hear an ex-confederate who mixed it with "Old Pap"
Thomas at Chickamauga, or Joe Hooker above the clouds,
speak disparagingly of those who wore the blue. It is
those who stayed at home to sing, "We'll hang Jeff Davis
on a sour apple tree," and those who damned "Old Abe"
Lincoln at long range who are doing all the tremendous
fighting now. They didn't get started for the front until
after Appomattox; but having once sailed in for slaughter
all Hades can't head 'em off! If a merciful Providence
doesn't soon interpose, these mighty post-bellum warriors
will either break a lung or wreck the majestic world. They
are more dreadful in their destructive awfulness than the
farmer's two he-goats, that "fit an' fit" until there was
nothing left of 'em but a splotch o' blood and two
belligerent tails. Those who exchanged compliments at
Corinth and Cold Harbor; those who received informal
calls from Kilpatrick's cavalry, who we are told "rode like
centaurs and fought like devils"; those who saw Grant's
intrepid Westerners hurl themselves against Vicksburg's
impregnable heights; those who were slammed up against
Jackson's "Stone wall" or picnicked with Johnston's
cartridge-biters on grapeshot pie and deviled minnie balls,
now treat each other with the studied respect which the
Kansas farmer paid the cyclone. He felt sure that the
Lord was on his side and that with such help he could
more than hold his own; still he was in no wise anxious to
steer his theory against a condition that was making a
million revolutions a minute and hadn't yet brought up its
reserves.
In commingling thus in a common brotherhood, those
who followed the fortunes of the confederacy until human
fortitude could no further go, and those who, with the
sword's keen point, held every gleaming star in Old Glory's
field of blue, are furnishing a commendable example to all
our countrymen, to all humanity. It is an echo, nay, an
incarnation of those words of Grant, the grandest that
ever fell from victorious warrior's lips: "Let us have
peace." The battlefield was sown long since with kindlier
seed than dragon's teeth, has blossomed and borne the
fruits of Life where Death reigned paramount. The
flowers of our Southern fields are no longer dyed with the
blood of the contending brave, but drip with heaven's own
dews; the sullen battery has gone silent on our purple
hills and the crash of steel resounds no more amid our
pleasant valleys. No longer the Northern child waits
and watches for the soldier sire whose lips have felt the
touch of God's own hand; no longer the Southern woman
wanders with bursting heart amid the wreck and wraith
of the fierce simoon, brushing the battle grime from cold
brows, seeking among the mangled dead for all that life
held dear. The curse has passed: "Let us have peace."
The civil war was a national necessity. It was the fiery
furnace in which Almighty God welded the discordant
elements of the New World into one homogeneous people.
For generations the Puritan hated the Cavalier, and the
latter gave back scorn for scorn and added compound
interest. This mutual dislike was a rank, infectious weed
that first took root across the sea and ripened into that
revolution which sent Charles the First to the block and
invested Cromwell with more than regal power. Some of
this virus, distilled in stubborn hearts by religious and
political intolerance, was carried by the Puritan to Plymouth
and by the Cavalier to the banks of the James, and
it survived even the fires of patriotism and the frosts of
Valley Forge. Bone of the same bone and flesh of the
same flesh, the religio-political doctrinaires had succeeded
in casting our forefathers in different molds--each colossal,
masculine, heroic, but radically antagonistic. Together
they followed Washington through those eight long
years of blood and tears of which human liberty was born.
Together they laid broad and deep the foundation of the
Republic and reared thereon that wondrous superstructure
which--please God--shall endure forever, and together
they poured their blood in one unstinted tide upon its
sacred shrine. But the Puritan was still a Cromwell
and the Cavalier a lord. That people so widely divergent
in customs and character could long dwell at peace as one
political household were preposterous. The one had his
"convictions," the other his "institutions," and neither
would yield the right-o'-way. When such opposing trains
of thought try to pass on a single track there's going to
be trouble sure. The friction, evident even in the early
day of the Republic, grew and gathered fire until the nation
burst forth in that mighty conflagration whose pathetic
ashes repose in a million sepulchers. It had to come. Let
us thank God that the fierce baptism of fire is in the past
and not yet to be; that the bitter cup can never be pressed
to our children's lips; that never again while the world
stands and the heavens endure will Americans meet in battle-
shock! that never again will our rivers run red with
the blood of Columbia's brave, poured forth by her own
keen blade--that the last stumbling-block hath been
removed from our path of progress; that we can now move
forward with a giant's stride to that high destiny for
which the chastening hand of God hath fitted us, the
greatest nation and the grandest people in all the mighty
tide of Time!
I rejoice to see the veterans setting the example of
reconciliation, for they, more than all others, have most
to forgive and forget. I am doubly gratified that the
good work should have begun in Texas, which has such
cause to entertain the kindliest feeling toward every
section of our common country, for each and all contributed
to her past glory and present greatness. Among those
who cast their lot in Texas when every step was a challenge
to destiny and every hour was darkened by a danger;
who faced unflinchingly the trials of frontier life and
carved out an independent republic with the sword, were
men from every State of the American union. One instance
will suffice (though scores might be cited) to illustrate
the cosmopolitan character of that band of heroes
who made the early history of Texas one of the noblest
cantos in the mighty Anglo-Saxon epic. The New Orleans
Grays was the first military company to come from
the States to the aid of the struggling Texans. It got its
first baptism of fire in this city, being a part of that band
of 300 Spartans who followed Old Ben Milam to attack
General Cos and his 1,500 veterans. From the roster of
the Grays I learn that the company numbered but sixty-
four men, yet represented sixteen sovereign States and six
foreign countries! Think of it! Twenty-five came from
north of the Ohio, twenty-four from the Southern States,
fourteen across far seas to fight for Texas liberty, while
one brave lad came from God knows where, but he got
there just the same! General Cos never inquired where
Milam's men were born. He knew where his own were
dying, decided that San Antonio had been overrated as a
health resort and took to the chaparral.
As most of those daring spirits who flocked hither to
fight for Texas remained, and ever since a steady human
tide has poured in from all parts of the Union, and every
country of Western Europe, we have become a mixed people,
scarce daring to throw a rock in any direction lest
we hit our relatives. And the cosmopolitan character of
our people--the fact that the Puritan and the Cavalier
have blended here as nowhere else--will be found a powerful
factor in the attainment of a glorious future.
It is particularly appropriate that the Blue and the
Gray should unite in observing the day that marks the
birth of Washington, that soldier-statesman who marshalled
our fathers under one flag and led them forth to the
defense of human liberty. Whatever may have since mis-
chanced, the trials and the triumphs of the Revolution are
our common heritage. As the Greeks of old, divided
among themselves, united to face a foreign foe, so did the
American, North and South, unite beneath the banner of
Washington and hurl down the gage of battle to Britain's
mighty power, and no historian has yet presumed to say
which was the better soldier. Washington belongs to no
section. He was truly an American, pre-eminently a
patriot. The nobility of his character was his very own;
the dazzling splendor of his undying fame is the brightest
jewel in Columbia's crown of glory, for it was born of the
dauntless valor and nurtured with the priceless blood of
a people whom kings could not conquer nor sophists deceive.
A husband and wife, long estranged, met at the grave of
their firstborn, the child of their youthful strength. Their
strife had been bitter, their love had turned to hate, and
they elected to tread life's path apart. They stood, one
on either side, and looked coldly upon each other. Then
they looked down upon the little mound that held the
broken link with which God had bound their hearts. They
knelt and bowed their faces upon the cold sod that covered
the sacred dust of their dead. They stretched forth
their hands across the little grave, each to the other, and
the Angel of God washed all the bitterness of the years
from their hearts with a rain of penitential tears, and
sent them down life's pathway hand-in-hand, as in the old
days when Love was lord of their two lives and the lost
babe was cradled upon its mother's breast.
This day the North and the South kneel at the grave
of Washington, their best beloved. The estrangement is
forgotten, the bitterness of the years passes like an uneasy
dream, they reach their hands each to the other across
the tomb, and the benediction of God falls upon a re-
united people.
* * *
HUMBUGS AND HUMBUGGERY.
THE GREAT AMERICAN PRODUCT
Satan is supposed to have been the original Humbug; but
he's a back number now--must feel dreadfully antiquated
and useless among so many modern improvements.
That the American people love to be humbugged long
since passed into proverb. Humbuggery may be called
our national vice, our besetting sin. Like liberty, it
appears to be in the very air we breathe, and we take to it
as naturally as we go into politics. Our entire social
system has become saturated with it. It is the main-spring
of many acts we loudly praise, the lode-star of men we
apotheosize, is oftimes the warp and woof even of the
mantle of charity, which, like a well-filled purse--or a
tariff compromise--covers a multitude of sins.
There are various kinds and classes of Humbugs; but
reduced to the last analysis--stripped of the sugar-
coating by which they impose on the public--they are one and
all simply professors of falsehood.
I am sometimes inclined to the view that humbuggery
is a disease, and that some doctor will yet discover a gold-
cure for it--will demonstrate that the bad habit is due
to microbes that get into a man's mind and make trouble
trying to turn around, or to bacilli that bore holes in his
moral character and let his honesty leak out; for the medical
fraternity has gravely informed us that kleptomania
(sneak-thievery by eminently respectable people) and
dipsomania (sottishness by the social salt of the earth), are
simply diseases that should be treated with pills and
powders instead of with penitentiaries and whipping-posts.
Now if a man will steal a saw-mill and go back after the
site simply because his pericardium is out of plumb or his
liver has gone into politics; will nurse a juicy old jag
until it develops into a combined museum and menagerie,
because his circulation has slipped an eccentric or his
stomach got out of its natural orbit, I submit, in all
seriousness that he might be physically incapacitated for
telling the truth by an insidious attack on his veracity by
the dreadful falsehood fungi, and that the best way to
restore his moral equilibrium--to remove him from the
category of chronic Humbugs--would be to fumigate him.
The Lord once attempted to check the Humbug habit
by striking liars dead; but soon saw that such a plan
would prove more fatal than a second flood--that there
wouldn't be even a Noah's Ark picnic of us left--and
reluctantly relinquished it. Science has not yet succeeded
in mastering the disease; but just give it time and it will
save the world yet--will find a medical name for every
human frailty; will be able to tell, by looking at a man's
tongue, whether he's coming down with the mug-wump
malaria or the office-holding hysteria, and do something
for him before it's everlastingly too late.
The very best of people have a touch of the complaint
--"the trail of the serpent is over us all." Even our
young ladies are said to be, to a certain extent, Humbugs.
I have been told that many of them wear patent complexions,
"boughten" bangs, and pad out scrawny forms until
they appear voluptuous Junos, and thereby deceive and
ensnare, bedazzle and beguile the unsuspecting sons of
men. I have been told that many of them who are soft-
voiced angels before marriage can give a rusty buzz-saw
cards and spades and beat it blind after they have
succeeded in landing the confiding sucker. But perhaps such
tales are only the bitter complainings of miserable
Benedicts who have been soundly beaten at their own game of
humbuggery. Marriage is, perhaps, the only game of
chance ever invented at which it is possible for both players
to lose. Too often, after much sugar-coated deception,
and many premeditated misdeals on both sides, one draws
a blank and the other a booby. After patient angling in
the matrimonial pool, one lands a stingaree and the other
a bull-head. One expects to capture a demi-god who hits
the earth only in high places; the other to wed a wingless
angel who will make his Edenic bower one long-drawn sigh
of ecstatic bliss. The result is that one is tied up to a
slattern who slouches around the house with her hair on
tins, in a dirty collar and with a dime novel, a temper like
aqua-fortis and a voice like a cat-fight; the other a hoodlum
who comes home from the lodge at 2 a.m. and whoops
and howls for her to come down and help him hunt for
the keyhole, and is then snailed in by a policeman before
she can frame a curtain lecture or find the rolling pin.
. . .
False Pride is the father of humbuggery, the parent of
Fraud. We are Humbugs because we desire that our fellows
think us better, braver, brighter, perhaps richer than
we really are. We practice humbuggery to attain social
position to which we are entitled by neither birth nor
brains, to acquire wealth for which we render no equivalent,
to procure power we cannot wisely employ.
While proclaiming love of democracy we purchase peers
for our daughters. While boasting liberty of speech we
assail like demons those who presume to dissent from our
opinions in either religion or politics.
History is full of Humbugs and liberty itself oftimes
but a gilded lie. No man is really free who is dependent
upon the good will of others for employment. There can
be no true liberty where Prejudice usurps the throne of
Reason. Men are slaves instead of sovereigns when they
suffer themselves to be held in iron thrall by political
dogma or religious creed, blindly accepting the ipse dixit
of things instead of exercising to the utmost the intelligence
which God had given them.
I have said that charity itself is ofttimes a Humbug. It
is so when it becomes the handmaid of ostentation instead
of the true almoner of the heart; or when men give to the
poor only because it is "lending to the Lord," then expect
compound interest.
That philanthropist is a fraud who, after piling up a
colossal fortune at the expense of the common people,
leaves it to found an educational or eleemosynary institute
when death calls him across the dark river. Knowing
that Charon's boat is purely a passenger packet--that
carries no freight, however precious--he drops his dollars
with a sigh; but determined to reap some benefit from
boodle his itching hand can no longer hold, he decrees that
it be used to found some charitable fake to prevent himself
being forgotten--some pitiful institute where a few
of the wretched victims of his rapacious greed may get a
plate of starvation soup, or a prayer-book, and bless their
benefactor's name. The very monument erected over
bones of the sanctimonious old skin-flint is a fraud; flaunts
a string of colossal falsehoods in the face of the world;
piously points to heaven--perhaps to indicate that Satan
refused to receive him and sent him back to St. Peter with
a request that he make other arrangements.
Many of the martyrs whose memory we revere, of the
saints we apotheosize, of the heroes we enshrine in history,
are one-third fraud and two-thirds fake. The man who
ran grow in grace while his pet corn's in chancery, or lose
an election without spilling his moral character; who can
wait an hour for his dinner without walking all over the
nerves of his wife, or crawl out of bed in the middle of his
first nap and rustle till the cold, gray dawn with a brace
of colicky kids, without broadly insinuating that he was a
copper-riveted, nickel-plated, automatic, double-cylinder
idiot to ever get married, is a greater hero than he that
taketh a city.
The place to take the true measure of a man is not the
market-place or the amen-corner, not the forum or the
field, but at his fireside. There he lays aside his mask
and you may learn whether he's imp or angel, king or cur,
hero or Humbug. I care not what the world says of him
--whether it crown him with bays or pelt him with bad
eggs; I care never a copper what his reputation or religion
may be: If his babes dread his home-coming and his
better-half swallows her heart every time she has to ask
him for a five dollar bill, he's a fraud of the first water,
even tho' he prays night and morn till he's black in the
face and howls hallelujah till he shakes the eternal hills.
But if his children rush to the front gate to greet him,
and love's own sunshine illumes the face of his wife when
she hears his footfall, you can take it for granted that
he's true gold, for his home's a heaven, and the Humbug
never gets that near the great white throne of God. He
may be a rank atheist and a red-flag anarchist, a Mormon
and a mugwump; he may buy votes in blocks-of-five and
bet on the election; he may deal 'em from the bottom of
the deck and drink beer till he can't tell a silver dollar
from a circular saw, and still be an infinitely better man
than the cowardly little Humbug who's all suavity in
society, but who makes his home a hell--who vents upon the
hapless heads of wife and children the ill-nature he would
like to inflict on his fellow-men, but dares not. I can
forgive much in that fellow mortal who would rather make
men swear than women weep; who would rather have the
hate of the whole he-world than the contempt of his wife
--who would rather call anger to the eyes of a king than
fear to the face of a child.
The hero is not he that strives with the world for
witness--who seeks the bubble fame at the cannon's brazen
lip and risks his life that he may live forever.
"Think not that helm and harness are signs of valor true;
Peace hath higher tests of manhood than battles ever knew."
To bear with becoming grace the slings and arrows of
outrageous fortune; to find our heaven in others' happiness,
and for their sake to sacrifice and suffer wrongs that
might be righted with a thread of steel; to live an honest
life in a land where Truth doth feed on crusts while Falsehood
fattens at Lucullean feasts, requires more true manhood,
more moral stamina, more unadulterated SAND than
to follow a flag into the very jaws of hell or die for the
faith in the auto da fe. Heroes? Why unurn the ashes
of the half-forgotten dead and pore o'er the musty pages
of the past for names to glorify? If you would find heroes
grander, martyrs more noble and saints of more sanctity
than Rubens ever painted or immortal Homer sang;
who, without Achilles' armor, have slain an hundred
Hectors; without Samsonian locks have torn the lion; without
the sword of Michael have thrown down the gage to all
the embattled hosts of hell, seek not in the musty tomes
of history, but in the hearts and homes of the self-sacrificing
wives and mothers of this great world.
"God could not be everywhere," says the proverb,
"therefore he made mothers."
Let the heroes of history have their due; still I imagine
the world would have been much the same had Alexander
died of cholera-infantum or grown up a harmless dude.
I don't think the earth unbalanced would from its orbit
fly had Caesar been drowned in the Rubicon, or Cleveland
never been born. I imagine that Greece would have humbled
the Persian pride had there been no Thermopylae,
that Rome would have ruled the world had Scaevola's good
right hand not hissed in the Tuscan fire. It is even
possible that civilization would have stood the shocks had
"Lanky Bob" and "Gentleman Jim" met on Texas soil
--that the second-term boom of "our heroic young Christian
governor" would have lost no gas. One catfish does
not make a creek nor one hero a nation. The waves do
not make the sea, but the sea furnishes forth the waves.
Leonidas were lost to history but for the three hundred
nameless braves who backed his bluff. Had there been but
one Cromwell Charles the First would have kept his head.
In Washington's deathless splendor gleams the glory of
forgotten millions, and the history of Bonaparte is written
with blood of the unknown brave.
. . .
Humbuggery, fraud, deception everywhere.
"All the world's a stage
And all the men and women merely players"--
Momus the major-domo, the millions en masque. Even
friendship is becoming a screaming farce, intended to promote
the social fortune or fill the purse. We fawn that
thrift may follow; are prodigal of sweet words because
they cost nothing and swell the sails of many a rich
argosy; but weigh every penny we put forth, and carefully
calculate the chance of gain or loss. It's heads I win,
tails you lose, and when we cannot play it on that principle
we promptly jump the game.
"Who steals my purse steals trash."
That's Shakespeare.
"He that filches from me my good name . . . makes
me poor indeed."
That's nonsense. Reputation is but the ephemeral dew
on character's everlasting gold; but he that steals a
human heart and tramples it beneath his brutal heel; he
that feigns a friendship he does not feel; he that fawns
upon his fellows and hugs them hard and after scandals
them, is the foulest fraud in all this land of fakes, the
most hideous Humbug in all hell's unclean hierarchy.
I am sometimes tempted to believe that the only
friendship that will stand fire is that of a yellow dog for a
pauper negro. Strike a friend for a small loan and his
affection grows suddenly cold; lose your fortune and your
sweetheart sends you word that she will be a sister to you;
your brother will betray you for boodle, your father fights
you for a foolish flag and your heirs-at-law will dance
when they hear of your death; but the devotion of a
yaller dog for a worthless nigger hath all seasons for its own.
. . .
But the Humbug for whom I have least use is the man
who assiduously damns the Rum Demon; makes tearful
temperance talks; ostentatiously votes the prohibition
ticket; groans like a sick calf hit by a battering-ram
whenever he sees a young man come out of a barroom; then
sneaks up a dirty alley, crawls thro' the side door of a
second-class saloon; calls for the cheapest whiskey in the
shop, runs the glass over trying to get the worth of his
money; pours it down at a gulp and scoots in a hurry lest
somebody ask him to treat; who has a chronic toothache
--in the stomach--which nothing but drugstore whiskey
will relieve; who keeps a jug of dollar-a-gallon bug-juice
hid under his bed and sneaks to it like a thieving hyena
digging up a dead nigger--rents his property for saloon
purposes, then piously prays the Lord to protect the
young from temptation.
. . .
But perhaps the prince of Humbugs, the incarnation of
fraud, the apotheosis of audacity, is the street-corner
politician. He towers above his fellow fakes like Saul above
his brethren. I have been time and again instructed in
the most intricate problems of public polity--questions
that have perplexed the wisest statesmen of the world--
by men who had never read a single standard work on
political economy, and who could not tell to save their
souls--granting that they possess such perishable property--
whether Adam Smith wrote the "Wealth of Nations"
or the Lord's Prayer; who were not familiar with
the constitution of their own state, or the face of a
receipted wash-bill; who could scarce tell a sloop from a ship,
a bill of lading from a sight draft; a hydraulic ram from
a he-goat unless they were properly labeled. Yet no
question can arise in metaphysics or morals, government or
generalship, upon which these great little men do not presume
to speak with the authoritative assurance of a Lord
Chief Justice--or a six-foot woman addressing a four-foot
husband. They invariably know it all. They could teach
Solomon and the Seven Wise Men wisdom, and had they
been on earth when Almighty God wrote the Ten
Commandments they would have moved an amendment or
drafted a minority report.
And these are the fellows who frame our political
platforms and dominate our elections--whose boundless
cupidity, colossal ignorance and supernal gall bring about
starvation in a land of plenty--divide the most industrious
and progressive people that ever graced the footstool of
Almighty God into bloated millionaires and groveling
mendicants.
Even patriotism has become a Humbug--has been supplanted
by partisanship, and now all are for party and
none are for the state. On July 4 we shout for the old
flag, and all the rest of the year we clamor for an
appropriation. The man who is kicked by a nightmare while
dreaming of the draft demands a pension and every burning
patriot wants an office. Twice, yea, thrice within the
memory of men now living, America has been on the very
verge of an industrial revolution, a Reign of Terror; yet
we continue to hang our second Providence on a job-lot of
political Jacksnipes who carry their patriotism in their
pockets and their sense under their surcingles. While we
who feed three times a day; who have a cocktail every
morning and a clean shirt occasionally, are boasting of our
allegiance to "the grand old party," or prating of the
principles of Jeffersonian democracy--are blindly trailing
in the wake of some partisan band-wagon like a brindle calf
behind a Kansas hay-cart-this nation, born of our
father's blood and sanctified by our mothers' tears, is
dominated by political self-seekers who have taken for their
motto, "After us the deluge."
Once after holding forth at some length on Humbugs,
a physician said to me:
"Ah-er--you-ah--didn't mention the medical profession."
"No," I replied, "the power of language hath its limits."
The medical, mark you, is the noblest of all professions.
It contains many learned and able men who devote their
lives unselfishly to the amelioration of human misery; but I
much doubt whether one-half the M. D.'s now sending people
to the drug stores with cipher dispatches, could tell
what was the matter with a suffering mortal were he
transparent as glass and lit up by electricity. There are
doctors doping people with powerful drugs, who couldn't tell
whether a patient had a case of cholera-morbus or was
afflicted with an incurable itch for office--who have
acquired their medical information from the almanacs and
could not distinguish between a bunion and a stone-bruise
or find the joints in a string of sausage with a search-
warrant.
I have noticed that when the doctors took to writing
their prescriptions in Latin it quickly became a dead
language--that when I take the poet's advice and throw
physic to the dogs, their numbers rapidly decrease. But
the doctors are jolly good fellows. Let it be recorded to
their eternal credit, that, whatever may be their faults,
precious few of them will practice in their own families. I
have often wished that I was a doctor of medicine instead
of a doctor of divinity. There are several fellows for
whom I'd like to prescribe. There's a strong affinity
between the two professions. The D. D.'s deal in faith and
prayer, the M. D.'s in faith and pills.
I have been frequently asked why, in lecturing on
Humbugs, I skip the lawyers. There are some subjects to
which a lecturer must lead up gradually; so I discuss the
doctors in my discourse on Humbugs and save the attorneys
for my talk on Gall.
Even our boasted educational system is half a Humbug.
Too many of our professors fondly imagine that when
they have crammed the dry formulas of half a dozen
sciences into a small head--perhaps designed by the Deity
to furnish the directive wisdom for a scavenger cart; when
they have taught a two-legged moon-calf to glibly read in
certain dead languages things it can in nowise comprehend
--patiently pumped into it a whole congeries of things
that defy its mental digestive apparatus--that it is
actually educated, if not enlightened. And perhaps it is--
after the manner of the trick mule or the pig that plays
cards. The attempt of Gulliver scientists to calcine ice
into gunpowder were not more ridiculous than trying to
transform a fool into a philosopher by the alchemy of
education. If it be a waste of lather to shave an ass, what
must it be to educate an idiot? True education consist in
the acquirement of useful information; yet I have seen
college graduates--even men sporting professional sheep-
skins--who couldn't tell whether Gladstone's an English
statesman or an Irish policeman. They knew all about
Greek roots but couldn't tell a carrot from a parsnip.
They could decipher a cuneiform inscription, perhaps, and
state whether a pebble belonged to the paleozoic or some
other period; but couldn't tell a subpoena from a search-
warrant, a box of vermicelli from a bundle of fishworms.
We pore over books too much and reflect too little;
depend too much on others, too little upon ourselves. We make of
our heads cold-storage warehouses for other
people's ideas, instead of standing up in our own independent,
god-like individuality. Bacon says that reading makes a
full man. Perhaps so, but it makes a great deal of difference
what a fellow's full of. Too many who fondly imagine
themselves educated, much resemble Mark Twain's frog
with its stomach full of shot--they are crushed to earth
by the things they have swallowed.
Neither the public nor any other school system has ever
produced one really great man. Those who occupy the
dais-throne among the immortals, contended single-handed
with the darkness of ignorance and the devil of dogmatism.
Columbus scorned the schools and discovered a world.
Napoleon revolutionized the science of war and himself
master of Europe. Bismarck mocked at precedent, and
United Germany stood forth a giant. Jesus of Nazareth
ignored the learning of the Levites, and around the world
arose the fanes of a new faith.
Reading is the nurse of culture; reflection the mother
of genius. Our great religions were born in the desert.
Our grandest philosophers budded and burgeoned in the
wilderness. The noblest poesy that ever swept the human
harpsichord was born in the brain of a beggar, came bubbling
from the heart of the blind; and when all the magi
of the Medes, and all the great philosophers of Greece had
failed to furnish forth a jurisprudence just to all, semi-
barbarous Rome laid down those laws by which, even from
the grave of her glory, she still rules the majestic world.
I have been accused of being the enemy of education;
but then I have been accused of almost everything; so one
count more or less in the indictment doesn't matter. I
am not opposed to education that is useful; but why should
we pay people to fill the empty heads of fools with soap
and sawdust?
Perhaps the most aggressive fraud that infects the earth
is the professional atheist--the man whose chief mental
stock-in-trade consists of doubt and denial of revealed
religion, so-called.
About the time a youngster first feels an irresistible
impulse to make a fool of himself wherever a female smiles
upon him; when he's reached that critical stage in life's
journey when he imagines that he knows much more than
his father, he began to doubt the religion of his mother;
shrewdly asks his Sunday-school teacher who made God;
demonstrates by the aid of natural history diagrams, that
a large whale could in nowise swallow a small prophet--
that if he did succeed in relegating him to its internal
economy it were impossible for him to slosh around for three
days and nights in the gastric juices without becoming
much the worse for wear. He attempts to rip religion up
by the roots and reform the world while you wait, but soon
learns that he's got a government contract on his hands,
--that the man who can drive the Deity out of the hearts
and homes of this land can make a fortune turning artesian
wells inside out and peddling them for telegraph poles.
You can't do it, son. Religion is the backbone of the body
social. Sometimes it's unbending as a boarding-house biscuit,
and sometimes it's a bad quality of gutta-percha; but
we couldn't get far without it. Most youths have to pass
thro' a period of doubt and denial--catch the infidel
humor just as they do the measles and mumps, but they
eventually learn that the fear of God is the beginning of
wisdom.
There was never an atheistical book written; there was
never an infidel argument penned that touched the CORE of
any religion, Christian or Pagan. Bibles, Korans,
Zandevestas--all sacred books--are but the feeble efforts of
finite man to interpret the infinite; to speak forth the
unspeakable; to reduce to intelligible human characters
the flame-written hieroglyphs of the sky. Who made
God? Suppose, Mr. Atheist, that I find thee an answer?
Who will furnish thee with an intellect to understand it?
How will you comprehend the genesis of a God when the
wisest man for whom Christ died cannot tell why water
runs down hill instead of up--cannot understand the basic
principle of the law of gravitation--cannot even guess
why Gov. Culberson encouraged the managers of Corbett
and Fitzsimmons to bring the mill to Texas, then knocked
it out at a special session of the legislature at the expense
of the general public.
An atheist once solemnly assured me that he couldn't
possibly BELIEVE anything which he couldn't PROVE; but
when I asked him what led him to take such a lively
interest in the welfare of his wife's children, he became
almost as angry as a Calvinist whose confession of faith had
been called in question. Figure up how many things you
can PROVE of those you BELIEVE, and you'll find that you
have got to do a credit business or go into intellectual
bankruptcy.
But the man who denies the existence of the Deity
because he cannot comprehend his origin, is even less a
Humbug than the one who knows all about him--the pitiful
dogmatizer who devotes his life to the defense of some
poor little guess-work interpretation of the mysterious
plans of him who brings forth Mazaroth in his season and
guides Arcturus with his sons.
Dogmatism is the fecund mother of doubt, a manacle on
the human mind, a brake on the golden wheel of Christian
progress; and every dogmatizer, whether in science, politics
or religion, is consciously or unconsciously, a Humbug.
You KNOW, do you? Know what? And who told
you? Why, the man in whose mighty intellect was stored
the world's wisdom; whose words have come down to us
from the distant past as oracles, o'ershadowing even
Solomon and Shakespeare, wasn't quite sure of his own
existence. Men frequently tell me that what they SEE
they know. Well, they've got to drink mighty little
Prohibition whisky if they do; otherwise they are liable to
see things they'll need an introduction to. The wisest is
he that knows only that he knows nothing. Omniscient
God only knows. We--you and I--are only troubled with
morbid little-ideas, sired by circumstance and damned by
folly. We don't even know how the Democracy stands on
the silver question or what caused the slump in the late
election.
. . .
The average human head, like an egg--or a crock of
clabber--absorbs the flavor of its surroundings. It is
chiefly a question of environment whether we grow up
Catholics or Protestants, Republicans or Democrats,
Populists or political nondescripts. And yet we adhere to
opinions we have inherited with all the tenacity of a dog
to a bone or an American miser to a ten dollar bill. We
assume that our faith political and our creed religious are
founded upon our reason, when they were really made for
us by social conditions over which we had little control.
We even succeed in humbugging ourselves into the belief
that we are the people and that wisdom will die with us,
when the fact is that our head is loaded with out-of-date
lumber--our every idea moulded or modified by barbarians
who were in the bone-yard before Methusaleh was born.
Society is a vast organism in which the individual is but
an atom. It is a monstrous tree--a veritable Ygdrasyl--
penetrating both the region of darkness and the realm of
light. Whatever its peculiarities--whether monarchical
or republican, Christian or Pagan--it is a goodly tree
when it brings forth good fruit--when its boughs bend
with Apples of Hesperides and in its grateful shade is
reared the shrine of God. Be it of what shape it may, it
is an evil tree when its fruit is Apples of Sodom and it
casts a upas-shadow upon the earth. If we cannot gather
grapes of thorns or figs of thistles, how can a society that
is essentially false foster that which is literally true? The
body social, of which we proudly boast, is producing dodos
instead of King Davids, peanut-politicians instead of
heaven-inspired poets, cranks instead of crusaders,
Humbugs rather than heroes. Instead of exercising in the
campus martius our sons cultivate the Henglish hawkcent
and the London lope. In the olden days the glory of the
young man was his strength; now it is his chrysanthemum
and his collar. And it is going from bad to worse in a
ratio of geometrical progression; for how can effeminate
men--a canesucking, primping, mincing, affected
conglomeration of masculine inanity and asininity beget
world-compellers. How can women who care much what
is on the outside and little what is on the inside of their
heads, and whom a box of lily-white, a French novel, a
poodle-dog and another dude will make superlatively
happy, suckle aught but fops and fools?
Yet we boast of progress! Progress whither? From
the savage who knew nothing to the dude who know less.
From the barbarian who'd plundered your baggage, to the
civilized Shylock who'd steal the very earth from under
your feet. From that state wherein American sovereigns
however poor, considered themselves the equals of kings
and the superiors of princes, to that moral degradation
and national decay in which they purchase the scurvy
spawn of petty dukes as husband for our daughters. By
the splendor of God, I'd rather be a naked Fiji Islander,
dancing about a broiled missionary with a bull-ring in my
nose, than a simpering "sawciety" simpleton, wearing my
little intellectual apparatus to a frazzle with a study of
neckties!
. . .
Some of my critics have kindly suggested that the Lord
made a great mistake in not consulting me when he made
the world; thereby ascertaining just how I would like to
have it. I was not consulted anent the creation of the
Cosmos, and perhaps it is just as well for them that I
wasn't--they might not be here. Too many forget that
while the Lord made the world, the devil has been busy
ever since putting on the finishing touches. Why, he
began on the first woman before she was a week old, and he
has been playing schoolmaster to her sons ever since. I
confess to a sneaking respect for Satan, for he is pre-
eminently a success in his chosen profession. He's playing
a desperate game against omnipotent power and is
more than holding his own. He sat into the game with a
cash capital of one snake; now he's got half the globe
grabbed and an option on the other half.
I have been called a defender of the devil; but I hope
that won't prejudice the ladies against me, as it was a
woman that discovered him. I confess to the belief that
Satan is a gentleman compared with some of his very
humble servants. We are told that he is a fallen angel
who found pride a stumbling-block--that he tripped over
it and plunged down to infinite despair; but tho' he fell
further than a pigeon could fly in a week, the world is
full of frauds who could not climb up to his level in a
month; who can no more claim kinship with him in their
cussedness than a thieving hyena can say to the royal
beast of Bengal, "Thou art my brother." They are not
fallen angels; they are risen vermin. They didn't come
down from thrones in heaven like falling stars; they
crawled up from holes in the earth like vicious little
pismires. What can proud Lucifer have in common with
the craven hypocrite, who prays with his lips while
plotting petty larceny in his heart? Imagine the lord of the
lower world seeking the microscopic souls of men who
badger, brow-beat and bully-rag their better halves for
spending a dollar for a new calico dress, then blow in a
dozen times as much with the dice-box in a bar-room, trying
to beat some other long-eared burro out of a thimble-
full of bug-juice or a schooner o' beer! I don't believe
Satan wants 'em. I think if they dodged the quarantine
officers and got in amongst those erstwhile angels now
peopling the dark regions of the damned, the doctors of
that black abode would decide that they were cholera
microbes or itch-bacilli and order the place fumigated.
. . .
But speaking of the devil--were any of you ever in love?
I'm talking about the sure-enough, old-fashioned complaint
that makes a man miss meals and lose sleep, write spring
poetry and misplace his appetite for plug tobacco; not
of the new-fangled varioloid that yields to matrimonial
treatment. There's a great deal of sugar-coated hum-
buggery about this thing we call love. It reminds me of
the sulphur and molasses my careful Presbyterian parents
used to pour into me in the gentle springtime. I
don't remember why they gave it to me; but it was
probably because they didn't want it themselves. Perhaps
they thought foreordination hadn't done much for me, and
they had best get me used to sulphur gradually. I remember,
however, that, like the average case of matrimony,
it usually contained a good deal more sulphur than syrup.
Matches, we are told, are made in heaven; and I think
it likely, for Satan himself is said to have originated there.
I'll tell you how matches are usually made: By some
horrible accident John Henry and Sarah Jane become
acquainted. They have no more affinity than a practical
politician and pure spring water; but they dance and flirt,
fool around the front gate in the dark of the moon, sigh
and talk nonsense. John Henry begins to take things for
his breath and Sarah Jane for her complexion. The
young goslings get wonted to each other, and first thing
you know they're tied up until death or divorce doth them
part. And, had they missed each other altogether, they
would have been just as well--perhaps better--content
with other mates and made as enthusiastic a failure of
married life.
Most people marry without really knowing whether
they're in love or not--mistake the gregarious habit for
the mystic fire of Hymen's torch, the pangs of a bad
digestion for the barbed arrows from the love-god's bow.
But when a couple's really got what ailed Romeo and
Juliet they're in no more doubt about it than was the
man after he sat down on the circular saw to see if it was
running and found it the sole proprietor of a South American
revolution. They don't have to send their feelings
to a chemist for analysis and classification, nor take an
invoice of their affections to see if any have got away.
Love is really a very serious thing. Like sea-sickness,
everybody laughs at it but those who have got it. When
Cupid lets slip a sure-enough shaft it goes thro' a fellow's
heart like a Kansas cyclone thro' a colored camp-meeting,
and all the powers of hades can never head it off.
Love is the most sacred word ever framed by celestial
lips. It's the law of life, the harmony of heaven, the
breath of which the universe was born, the divine essence
increate of the ever-living God.
But love is like all other sweet things--unless you get
the very best brand it sours awful easy.
. . .
Of all the pitiful Humbugs beneath high heaven
commend me to those intellectual doodle-bugs who have
become Dame Fashion's devotees and devote all their
intellectuality to the science of dress--to the art of being
miserable a la mode. Thousands are today sailing about
in silk hats who are guiltless of undershirts; bedecked with
diamonds while in debt to the butcher for the meat on
their bones. Families that can scarce afford calico flaunt
Parisian finery, keep costly carriages while there's a
chronic hiatus in their cupboards, go hungry to bed six
nights in the week that on the seventh they may spread
a brave feast for fashionable fools. God have mercy on
all such muttonheads. They are the natural breeders of
good-for-naughts, for in such an atmosphere children
grow up mentally dwarfed and morally debased.
Fashionable mothers commit their children to the care
of serving-maids while they sail out to soirees and
receptions--put their babes on a bottle while they swing round
the social circle. No wonder their sons grow up sapheads,
as destitute of backbone as a banana, as deficient in moral
force as a firkin of fish. Think of an infant Napoleon
nursing a rubber nozzle, of rearing a Brutus on patent
baby food, of bringing a Hannibal up by hand! You
can't do it.
Why, if I had a woman of that kind to wife--a fashionable
butterfly whose heart was in her finery and her feathers;
who neglected her home to train with a lot of intellectual
tomtits whose glory was small-talk; who saved her sweetest smiles
for society and her ill-temper for the family altar--I say were I
tied to that kind of a female, do you know what I'd do? Eh? You
don't? Well--neither do I.
There are some Humbugs, however, who merit our respect
if not our reverence--men who are infinitely better
than they would have the world believe. As the purest
pearl is encased in an unseemly shell, so, too, is many a
god-like soul enshrined in a breast of seeming adamant.
Many a man swears because he's too proud to weep, hides
a quivering soul behind the cynic's sneer, fronts the world
like a savage beast at bay while his heart's a fathomless
lake of tears. Tennyson tells us of a monstrous figure of
complete steel and armed cap-a-pie, that guarded a castle
gate, and by its awful name and warlike mien affrighted
the fearful souls of men. But one day a dauntless knight
unhorsed it and clove thro' the massy helm, when forth
from the wreck there came not a demon armed with the
seythe of death, but a beardless boy scarce old enough to
break a pointless lance upon the village green. So, too,
when with the sword Excalibur of human sympathy you
shear down thro' the helm and harness of some rough-
spoken man who seems to hate all human kind, you find
the soul of a woman and the heart of a little child.
. . .
Even our religion is ofttimes a Humbug, else why is it
that the good Christian woman--who says her prayer as
regularly as she looks under the bed for burglars--says to
the caller whom she cordially detests, "I am delighted to
see you;" when she's wondering why the meddlesome old
gadabout don't stay at home when she's not wanted elsewhere?
Why is it that when a good brother puts a five-
dollar bill in the contribution box he flashes it up so all
may see the figures, but when he drops a nickel in the slot
to get a little grace he lets not his right hand know what
his left hand doeth? Why is it that when you strike a
devout deacon for the loan of ten dollars he will swear
by all the gods he hasn't got it, when his pockets are fairly
bursting with bills? If his religion is not hypocrisy--if
he is not a Humbug--why doesn't he tell you in plain
United States that he would rather have Uncle Sam's
promise to pay than yours? Oh, people are becoming such
incorrigible liars that I've about quit trying to borrow
money.
Too many people presume that they are full of the
grace of God when they're only bilious; that they are
pious because they dislike to see other people enjoy
themselves; that they are Christians because they conform to
certain creeds, just as many men imagine themselves honest
because they obey the laws of the land--for the purpose
of keeping out of the penitentiary. They put up
long prayers on Sunday; that's piety. They bamboozle a
green gosling out of his birthright on Monday; that's
business. They have one face with which to confront the
Lord and another with which to beguile their brethren.
They even acquire two voices--a brisk business accent and
a Sunday whine that would make a cub wolf climb a tree.
I am always suspicious of a man's piety when it makes him
look as tho' he had cut a throat or scuttled a ship and was
praying for a commutation of the death sentence. I could
never understand why a man who can read his title clear
to mansions in the skies--who holds a lien on a corner lot
in the New Jerusalem--should allow that fact to hurt him.
I have great respect for true religion; but for the brand
of holiness that's put on with the Sunday shirt--that
makes a man cry ahmen with unction, but doesn't prevent
him selling 5 and 10-cent cigars out of the same box, oleo-
margarine and creamery butter out of the same bucket,
benzine and bourbon whiskey out of the same barrel;
which makes long prayers on Sunday and gives short
weights on Monday; which worries over the welfare of
good-looking young women, but gives the old grandames
the go-by; which fathers the orphan only if he's rich and
husbands the widow only if she's handsome--for that kind
of Christianity I have no more use than for a mugwump
governor who saddles his state with the expense of a
legislative session to gratify a private grudge against a brother
gambler.
That religion which sits up o'nights to agonize because
a few naked niggers in equatorial Africa never heard Eve's
snake story, how Job scratched himself with a broken pie-
plate or the hog happened to be so full of the spirit of
hades; that robs childhood of its pennies to send prayer-
books to people whose redemption should begin with a bath,
while in our own country every town from Cattaraugus to
Kalamazoo--every city from the Arctic ocean to the Austral
sea--is overrun with heathen who know naught of the
grace of God or the mystery of a square meal; who prowl
in the very shadow of our temples of justice, build their
lairs in proximity to our public schools and within sound
of the collect of our churches, is an arrant Humbug, a
crime against man, an offense to God, a curse to the
world.
. . .
People frequently say to me, "Brann, your attacks are
too harsh. You should use more persuasion and less
pizen." Perhaps so; but I have not yet mastered the
esoteric of choking a bad dog to death with good butter.
Persuasion is well enough is you're acourting--or in the
hands of the vigilantes; but turning it loose on the average
fraud were too much like a tenderfoot trying to move a
string of freight steers with moral suasion. He takes up
his whip, gently snaps it as tho' he feared it were loaded,
and talks to his cattle like a Boston philanthropist to a
poor relation. The steers look round at him, wonder, in
a vague way, if he's worth eating, and stand at ease. An
old freighter who's been over the "divide" and got his
profanity down to a fine art, grabs that goad, cracks it
like a rifled cannon reaching for a raw recruit and spills
a string of cuss words calculated to precipitate the final
conflagration. You expect to see him struck dead--but
those steers don't. They're firmly persuaded that he's
going to outlive 'em if they don't get down and paw gravel
and they get a Nancy Hanks hustle on 'em. Never attempt
to move an ox-team with moral suasion, or to drown the cohorts of
the devil in the milk of human kindness. It won't work.
. . .
Oh, it's possible that you may disagree with me on
some minor points of doctrine. That's your blessed
privilege and I wouldn't deprive you of it if I had the power.
A pompous old fellow once called at the office of my
religious monthly to inform me that I was radically wrong
on every possible public question. He seemed to think
that I had committed an unpardonable crime in daring to
differ from him. I asked him to be seated and whistled
for the devil--the printer's devil, the only kind we keep
in the office of the ICONOCLAST. I told him to procure for
me a six-shooter, a sledge hammer and a boat. My visitor
became greatly alarmed.
"Wh-what are you g-going to d-do?"
"Do?" I replied. "I'm going to shoot the printers,
smash the press and throw the type into the river. What
in the name of the great Sanhedrin, is the use o' me
printing a paper if I can't please you?"
Mr. Pomposity subsided somewhat, and I proceeded to
talk United States to him.
"You say I'm wrong. Perhaps I am; but how in Halifax"--
I think I said Halifax; anyhow we'll let it go at
that--"how in Halifax did you find it out? Who
installed you as infallible pope in the realm of intellect and
declared it rank folly to run counter to the ideas that
roost in your nice fat head?"
He was one of those egotistical mental microbes or
intellectual animalculae who imagine that a man must be in
the wrong if he disagrees with him. And the woods are
so full of that class of fellows that the fool-killer has
become discouraged and jumped his job.
Those who chance to think alike get together and form
a political party, a society or a sect and take it for
granted that they've got all the wisdom of the world
grabbed--that beyond their little Rhode Island of intellect
are only gibbering idiots and plotting knaves. When
a man fears to subject his faith to the crucible of
controversy; when he declines to submit his ideas to the
ballistae and battering-rams of cold logic, you can safely set
it down that he's either a hopeless cabbage-head or a
hypocritical Humbug--that he's a fool or a fraud, is full of
buncombe or bile.
It is a difference of opinion that keeps the world from
going to the dogs. Independence of thought, doubt of
accepted dogmas, the spirit of inquiry--the desire to KNOW
--is the mighty lever that has lifted man so far above the
brute level that he has begun to claim kinship with the
Creator. Yet we say to our brother, "Thou fool," because
he takes issue with us on the tariff, or the proper
time in the moon to plant post-holes--even insist on
sending people to perdition who cannot see "the plan of
salvation" thro' our little sectarian telescope.
Men of a mind flock together just like so many
gabbling geese, or other foolish fowl of a feather, each group
waddling in the wake of some flat-headed old gander,
squawking when he squawks and fluttering when he flies.
Because I decline to get in among the goslings and be
piloted about the intellectual goose-pond, I'm told that I
have no POLICY. Well, I hope I haven't. If I thought I
had I'd take something for it, dontcherknow! When I cannot
live among my fellows without surrendering my independence--
forswearing freedom of speech and liberty of
thought; without having to play the canting hypocrite or
go hungry--to fawn like a flea-bitten fice to win public
favor--I'll make me a suit of leather, take to the woods
and chop bee trees. I'd rather my babes were born in a
cane-brake and reared on bark and wild berries, with the
blood of independence burning in their veins, than spawned
in a palace and brought up bootlicks and policy players.
. . .
I am sometimes inclined to believe that Life itself is a
Humbug--that the man who makes the best of it is the
one who escaped being born. We know not whence we
came or what for, whither we go or what we'll do when
we get there. True it is that life is not altogether labor and
lees--there's some skittles and beer; but the most of us
get more shadow than shunshine, more cholera-morbus
than cream. Man born of woman is of few days and full
of politics. The moment he hits the globe he starts for
the grave, and his only visible reward for long days of
labor and nights of pain is an epitaph he can't read and
a tombstone he don't want. In the first of the Seven
Ages of man he's licked, in the last he's neglected, and in
all the others he's a fair mark for the shafts of falsehood.
If he don't marry his first love, he's forever miserable, and
if he does, he wishes he were dead. By the time he has
learned wisdom he leaves the world, is hustled into a hell
of fire or an orthodox heaven, and for forty years I've been
trying to figure out which of these appalling evils to avoid.
In one place the climate is hot and unhealthy, in the other
the inhabitants never entertained an original idea--believed
everything they were told. Think of having to live
through all eternity with the strictly orthodox--people
who regard freedom of thought as foul blasphemy, millions
of immaculate bricks cast in the same mold! No
wonder there's neither marrying nor giving in marriage in
heaven. Just imagine a couple of love-sick loons having
nothing to do but spoon from everlasting to everlasting,
to talk tutti-frutti through all eternity--never a break
or breathing spell in the lingering sweetness long drawn
out! Amelia Rives Chanler or Ella Wheeler Wilcox
couldn't stand it. Nor could I. By the time I had lived
ten thousand years with a female who could fly, and had
nothing in God's world to do but watch me, I'd either raise
a revolution or send in my resignation. It is said that
Satan had an affaire d'amour while he was playing Seraph.
If the object of his affections wore feathers I don't much
wonder that he went over the garden wall.
I suspect that the orthodox heaven and hell, of which
we hear so much, are Humbugs. I should know something
of those interesting ultimates--be qualified to speak ex
cathedra--for a doctor of divinity recently denounced me
as a child of the devil. In that case you behold in me a
prince imperial, heir-apparent to the throne of Pluto, the
potential master of more than a moiety of mankind. But
don't tell anybody that I've got a title, that I belong to
the oldest nobility, or all the Goulderbilts will be trying to
buy me.
I promise you that when I come into my kingdom I'll
devise a worse punishment than physical pain. A soul is
an immaterial thing. You cannot flay it with aspic's
fangs nor kerosene it and set it on fire. A material hell
for immaterial mind were too ridiculous for a progressive
devil. But it is not necessary to be a son of Satan to build
a hell in which demons dance and sulphur-fumes asphyxiate
the soul. You may transform your own home into a valley
of Hinnom, a veritable Gehenna; or you may make of the
humblest cot a heaven, illumed by love and gilded with
God's own glory--a Beulah land where flowers forever
bloom, where perfumed censors swing and music throbs
and thrills sweeter far than Orphean lyre or song of
Israfeel.
The orthodox heaven is a pageant of barbaric splendor,
of gaudy tinsel and flaming gold to dazzle the eyes of
infants. It is a land of lotus-eaters, where ambition's star
is blotted from the firmament and the wild ecstasy of
passion beats no longer in the blood; an Oriental heaven, a
Paradise for tired people eternal dolce far niente for
niggers and yaller dogs. No Celt or Saxon with aspiring
mind, with swelling muscles and heart that flames with the
fierce joy of strong endeavor, that thrills with the sweetness
of sacrifice for others' sake that swells with the mad
glory of triumph in the forum or the field, could have
conceived such a futile farce.
Give me a land whose skies are lead and soil is sand, yet
everlasting life with those I love; give me a lodge in some
vast wilderness hallowed by children's laughter; give me
a cave in the mountain crag to house those dearest to my
heart; give me a tent on the far frontier, where, by the
lambent light of their mother's eyes, I may watch my
children grow in grace and the truth of God, and I'll build
a heaven grander, nobler, sweeter than was ever dreamed
of by the gross materialists of bygone days.
. . .
Life is a Humbug only because we make it so. We are
frauds because we are fools. This is a beautiful, a glorious
world, fit habitation for sons of the Most High God. It
is a fruitful mother at whose fair breast all her children
may be filled. There should be never a Humbug nor a
hypocrite, never a millionaire nor a mendicant on the great
round globe. Labor should be but healthful exercise to
develop the physical man--to furnish forth a fitting casket
for the godlike mind, appropriate setting for the immortal
soul. The curse of life arises from a misconception of its
significance. We delve in the mine for paltry gems, explore
old ocean's deep for pearls; we toil and strive for gold
until the hands are worn and the heart is cold; we attire
ourselves in Tyrean purples and silks of Ind and strut
forth in our gilded frippery on the narrow bridge of time,
between the two eternities; we despoil the thin purse of the
poor to erect brazen altars and priceless fanes, when the
whole earth's a sacred shrine, the universe a temple through
which rings the voice of God and rolls the eternal melody
of the spheres.
. . .
Perhaps it is unnecessary to state that I'm not posing
as a saint. I may eventually become an angel--of some
sort--but I'll wear no wings. We are accustomed to think
of seraphs flying from heaven to earth, flitting from star
to star--irrespective of the fact that feathers are useless
where there's no atmosphere. An angel working his wings
to propel himself through a vacuum were as ridiculous as
a disembodied spirit riding a bike down a rainbow.
I do not expect to reform all Humbugs, to banish all
Fakes, to exterminate all Folly. If the world should get
too good, I might have to hunt another home. I can
understand every crime in the calendar but the crime of
greed, every lust of the flesh but the lust for gain, every
sin that ever damned a soul but the sin of selfishness. By
all the sacred bugs and beasts of ancient Egypt, I'd rather
be a witch's cat--or even a politician--and howl in sympathy
with my tribe; I'd rather be a tramp and divide my
handouts with one more hungry; I'd rather be a mangy
yellow dog without a master and keep the company of my
kind, than to be a multi-millionaire, with the blood of a
snake, the heart of a beast, and carry my soul, like Pedro
Garcia, in my purse.
When I think of the three thousand children in the single
city of Chicago without rags to shield their nakedness
from the keen north wind; of the ten thousand innocents,
such as Christ blessed, who died in New York every year
of the world for lack of food; of the millions in every
country whose cries go up night and day to God's great throne
--not for salvation, but for soup; not for the robe of
righteousness, but for a second-hand pair of pants--and then
contemplate those beside whose hoarded wealth the riches
of Lydia's ancient kings were but a beggar's patrimony,
praying to Him who reversed the law of nature to feed
the poor, I long for the mystic power to coin sentences
that sear like sulphur-flames come hot from hell, and weave
of words a whip of scorpions to lash the rascals naked
through the world.
We humbug our parents, the public, and then, as far as
possible, our wives; though the latter are seldom so blind
as they seem. The wife who cannot tell when her lord and
master is lying--whether he's been sitting up with a sick
friend or nursing a Robert-tail flush--well, she must be
the newest kind of a "New Woman," with a brain built
for bloomers and bike. The New Woman is--she is all
right; just the Old Woman in disguise, a paradox and a
coat of paint.
Whenever I tackle this subject I'm reminded of a broth
of a boy who in days agone drove the team afield on my
father's farm. One rare June day, when the sun was
slowly sinking in the west, as the novelists say--and I
believe that's where Old Sol usually sinks--he got mixed up
with a bevy of industrious bumble-bees who were no
respecters of persons--would sting an honest delver as
quickly as they'd put the gaffles to a scorbutic duke. In
about two minutes Mike came over the hill a-whooping like
a segment of the Southern Confederacy reaching for a
nigger regiment, his head the size and shape of a red peck
measure that had been kicked by a roan mule.
"Sure, now, they didn't do a thing t' me," he said. "An
ould bumblebug came a bizzin' an' a buzzin' aluken fer all
the wurruld like an' Orangeman wid wings, so I up an'
hit him a biff. Thin all the 'rist av the haythen tuk up his
foight--an' Oi kem home."
Hit one Humbug and every Fraud and Fake in Christendom
is ready for the fray. They attempt to crush
their critic with calumny, to defeat him with falsehood.
When you hear a fellow railing at the ICONOCLAST, just
look through its stock of caps and you'll find one that will
fit the knot on the end of his neck.
Truth and only truth is eternal. It was not born and
it cannot die. It may be obscured by the clouds of falsehood,
or buried in the debris of brutish ignorance, but it
can never be destroyed. It exists in every atom, lives in
every flower and flames in every star. When the heavens
and the earth shall pass away and the universe return to
cosmic dust, divine truth will stand unscathed amid the
crash of matter and the wreck of worlds.
Falsehood is an amorphous monster, conceived in the
brain of knaves and brought forth by the breath of fools.
It's a mortal pestilence, a miasmic vapor that passes, like
a blast from hell, over the face of the world and is gone
forever. It may leave death in its wake and disaster dire;
it may place on the brow of purity the brand of the courtesan
and cover the hero with the stigma of the coward;
it may wreck hopes and ruin homes, cause blood to flow
and hearts to break; it may pollute the altar and disgrace
the throne, corrupt the courts and curse the land, but the
lie cannot live forever, and when it's dead and damned
there's none so poor as to do it reverence.
* * *
[The following remarks, apropos local politics, were
included in Mr. Brann's Lecture on Humbugs, as delivered
at the Dallas, Texas Opera House, Oct. 17, 1895.]
A discourse on political humbugs were incomplete without
some reference to the young man whom Texas, in a
moment of mental aberration, raised to the chief
magistracy. I learn from a sermon recently inflicted on the
long-suffering inhabitants of this city, that Son Charles
is "our heroic young Christian governor." How he must
have changed during the last few months! Shakespeare
was probably viewing the Texas politician with prophetic
eye when he declared that in the great Drama of Life
a man plays many parts. Culberson is the only one,
however, who has yet succeeded in playing them all at one
and the same time. A man who can run with the hare
politically while holding with the hounds personally, is
almost too versatile to be virtuous. "Our heroic young
Christian governor!" That preacher evidently doesn't
know Charles. Or if he does his idea of Christianity is not
so altitudinous that he can stand on its apex and keep the
flies off the man in the moon. Culberson is a politician who
enjoyed excellent health before he entered the public service.
He is all things to all men and--"nothing to nobody."
He's so slippery that he couldn't stand on the
partisan platform to which he owes his political elevation.
In the last gubernatorial election pretty much every man
who voted for Culberson felt that he had a lead-pipe
cinch on a fat office, and the remainder were certain he
would work four-and-twenty hours a day to put in effect
their pet reforms. They are wiser now. In 1890 Charlie
sailed into the attorney-generalship on the ample coat-
tails of one J. S. Hogg, and in less than thirty days he
was conspiring to retire his chief after one term and slip
into his official shoes. The trouble appears to be that the
youngster was pulled before he was ripe--before his
political integrity had time to harden, or his crop of wild
oats was well in the ground.
Now I want it distinctly understood that I am not the
apologist of pugilism; I am the apostle of the white-
winged Goddess of Peace. I always carry a cruse of oil
in my hip-pocket to cast upon the troubled waters. I have
a pacific effect on all with whom I come in contact.
Children quit crying when they see me coming, women speak
well of their neighbors, men respect each other's political
opinions, preachers engage in silent prayer and the lion
and the lamb lie down together. And that's no lie. But
as between pugilism and hypocrisy I prefer the former.
I would rather see men pound each other for a fat purse
than play the canting Pharisee to promote their political
fortunes.
. . .
Let us look to the record of "our heroic young Christian
governor." During the four years he officiated as attorney-
general he made no determined effort to enforce the
law then in effect prohibiting pugilism. Prizefights were
pulled off at Galveston, San Antonio, El Paso and other
Texas points after having been duly advertised in the
daily press. He was elevated to the chief magistracy of
the state, and the slugging matches continued--mills
between brawny but unskilled boxers, who relied upon
brute strength, and pounded each other to a pumice to
make a hoodlum holiday. Some of these meetings were
especially brutal--as matches between amateur athletes
are likely to be; but "our heroic young Christian
governor" saw no occasion to get his Ebenezer up. He
simply sawed wood--didn't care a continental whether there
was a law prohibiting bruising bouts or not.
And the ministerial associations were too busy taking
up collections to send Bibles and blankets, salvation and
missionary soup to the pagans of the antipodes to pay
much attention to these small-fry pugs. They let our
blessed "Texas civilization" take care of itself, while they
agonized over a job lot of lazy negroes whose souls ain't
worth a sou-markee in blocks of five; who wouldn't walk
into heaven if the gates were wide open, but once inside
would steal the eternal throne if it wasn't spiked down.
No Epworth Leaguers or Christian Endeavorers whereased,
resoluted or perorated until their tongues were
worn to a frazzle, trying to "preserve the honor of our
ger-rate and gal-orious State by suppressing feather-
pillow pugilism." Why? I don't know; do you? Of
course some carping critics declare it was because the world
was not watching these brutal slugging matches between
youths to pugilistic fortune and fame unknown; that it
was because the professionally pious had no opportunity
to make a grandstand play and get their names in print--
no chance to POSE in the eye of the universe as the
conservators of our fin de siecle civilization. But then these
Doubting Thomases are ever ready to make a mock of
the righteous and put cockleburrs in the back hair of the
godly. I dislike to criticize "the cloth." I am prone to
believe that the preachers always do the best they know
how; still, I must confess that I am unable to muster up
much admiration for the brass band variety of "religion"
or the tutti-frutti trademark of "respectability."
Had the belief not been bred in my bones that there
is a God in Israel, these little 2x4 preachers, with their
great moral hippodrome--their purblind blinking at
mountains and much-ado about molehills--would drive
me to infidelity. By their egregious folly, their fiery
denunciation of all men who dare disagree with them, their
attempt to make the State subservient to the church, to
establish an imperium in imperio--by their mischievous
meddling in matters that in nowise concern them, they
are bringing the beautiful religion of Christ into contempt--
are doing more to foster doubt than did all the
Humes and Voltaires and Paines that ever wielded pen.
Now don't get the idea that I am antagonistic to the
preachers. Far from it. I am something of a minister
myself; and we who have been called to labor in the
Lord's vineyard--at so much per annum--must stand together.
I admire the ministers in a general way--and
"whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth." I feel that it is
my duty to pull them tenderly but firmly back by the
little alpaca coat-tails whenever they have made mistakes
--to reprove them in all gentleness when I find them
fanning themselves with their ears for the amusement of
the mob.
But to return to "our heroic young Christian governor."
When it was first proposed to bring the great fistic carnival
and a million dollars to Dallas, Gov. Culberson had
nothing to say. It was popularly supposed that he
understood the law and would respect it. The impression got
abroad that he felt rather friendly to the enterprise
because it would put 500 scudi in the depleted coffers of the
public and turn a great deal of ready money loose within
the confines of Texas. He may not have been directly
responsible for this popular idea, but he certainly did
nothing to discourage it. Arrangements were perfected,
important contracts entered into, a vast amount of money
invested that would prove a complete loss if the enterprise
collapsed. Then Culberson began to complain. He suddenly
discovered that pugilism was a brutal sport, which
should be suppressed. His conversion was as instantaneous
as that of Saul of Tarsus. It were an insult to the
intelligence of a hopeless idiot to say he did not know the
Corbett-Fitzsimmons affair would prove far less brutal
than a hundred fistic encounters which he, as attorney-
general and governor, had tacitly encouraged--but his
jewel of consistency had evidently gone to join his diamond
stud. Col. Dan Stuart didn't appear inclined to do
anything to ease the young man's agony, and it rapidly went
from bad to worse. The Hurt decision was rendered, and
the moral volcano of "our heroic young Christian governor"
began to erupt in earnest. He declared that he
would override the court of criminal appeals "if men
enough can be found in Texas to do it"--gave an excellent
imitation of an anarchist who is hungering for canned
gore. After this blood-to-horses'-bridles bluff he grew
quiescent--waited, Micawber-like, for something to turn
up. And still Dan Stuart didn't say a word. Then "our
heroic young Christian governor" broke out in a new
place. The legislature was convened in extraordinary
session to prevent a brace of pugilists smashing the immortal
ichor out of modern civilization. It was a great moral
aggregation--almost equal to Artemus Ward's Wax
Wurx! I am convinced of this, for it employed two doctors
of Divinity--at public cost, of course--to pray over
it a minute each morning, for $5 per diem each. Everybody
expected the president of the Florida Athletic Club
to go to Austin and make an earnest free silver speech.
Even the lawmakers were looking for him; but he didn't
go--and the result was what might have been expected.
The law-builders with the worst private records had the
most to say about public morality. Men whose I.O.U.'s
are not good in a game of penny ante; whose faces are
familiar to the inmates of every disreputable dive between
the Sabine and the Rio Bravo; who go to their legislative
duties from the gambling-room and with six-shooters in
the busts of their breeches, grew tearful over the
prospective "disgrace of Texas" by a manly boxing bout.
Hell hath no fury like a legislative humbug scorned--
while he's holding his hand behind him.
. . .
But the wrath of "our heroic young Christian governor"
did not abate with the enactment of a law forbidding
prizefights--such a law as he had flagrantly failed
to enforce. The promoters of what the court of criminal
appeals declared a lawful enterprise were arrested and
dragged before the grand jury of Travis County, which
appears to have taken the entire earth under its
protectorate. Failing an opportunity to prosecute them for an
offense against the laws of the land, the powers at Austin
proceeded to prosecute them on the hypothesis that they
were conspiring to wreck the universe.
And what was their offense? They had "conspired" to
pay $500 into the public treasury and bring a million more
to Dallas. They had "conspired" to bring several thousand
respectable business men to Texas from all parts of
the Union and furnished employment at good wages for
hundreds of hungry men.
While I do not much admire pugilism as a profession,
I must say that the promoters of the enterprise conducted
themselves much better than did "our heroic young Christian
governor," and those alleged saints who proposed to
shoulder their little shotguns and help him override the
courts--to butcher their brethren in cold blood to prevent
an encounter between brawny athletes armed with pillows;
to sustain "modern civilization" by transforming the
metropolis of Texas into a charnel-house--to prevent, by
brutal homicide in the name of Christ, their neighbors
exercising those liberties accorded them by the laws of
the land.
. . .
Curious, this modern civilization of which we hear so
much. During the palmy days of Roman grandeur and
Grecian glory, their athletes fought with the terrible
cestus to win a crown of oak or laurel; but then Rome never
produced a Rev. Seasholes, nor Greece a Senator Bowser.
The Imperial City did manage to breed a Brutus and a
Cato, but never proved equal to a Culberson. Think of a
Texas legislature, composed chiefly of illiterate jabber-
whacks who string out the sessions interminably for the
sake of the $2 a day--imagine these fellows, each with a
large pendulous ear to the earth, listening for the
approach of some Pegasus to carry him to Congress--teaching
the aesthetics of civilization to the divine philosophers
of Greece and the god-like senators of Rome! Think of
Perry J. Lewis pulling the Conscript Fathers over the
coals--of Senator Bowser pointing out civic duties to
Socrates; of Attorney-General Crane giving Julius Caesar
a piece of his mind; of Charley Culberson turning up his
little two-for-a-nickel nose at the Olympian games! But
perhaps that is not the game "our heroic young Christian
governor" is most addicted to.
. . .
Prizefighting--even with pillows, for points--is bad
enough, no doubt; but there are worse things. Making
the Texas people pay for an abortive little second-term
gubernatorial boom is one of them, and canting hypocrisy
by sensation-seeking preachers is another. Can the church
and state find no grander work than camping on the trail
of a couple of pugilists? Are Gentleman Jim and Kangaroo
Bob the upper and nether millstones between which
humanity is being ground? Are these the only obstacles
to the inauguration of the Golden Age--that era of Peace
on Earth and Good Will to Men? The world is honey-
combed with crime. Brother Seasholes says there are 800
fallen women in this city alone--and I presume he knows.
But if there be half so many, what a terrible story of
human degradation--more appalling even than soft-glove
pugilism! Our streets swarm with able-bodied beggars--
young men, most of them, whom want may drive into
wickedness. Human life is cheap. Men are slain in this
alleged Christian land for less silver than led Judas to
betray Christ. Young girls are sold to shame, and from
squalid attics comes the cry of starving babes. The Goths
and Visigoths are once more gathering, imperiling civilization
itself, and belief in God is fading slowly but surely
from the earth. Want and wretchedness skulk in the
shadows of our temples, ignorance and crime stalk abroad
at high noon--the legions of Lucifer are overrunning the
land, transforming God's beautiful world into a veritable
Gehenna. The Field of Blood is filling, the prisons and
poorhouses are overflowing--crowded with wretched
creatures who dared dream of fame and fortune. The
great Sea of Life is thick-strewn with wrecks--millions
more drifting helpless and hopeless upon the rocks. From
out the darkness there come cries for aid; men pleading
for employment, women shrieking in agony of soul, little
children wailing with hunger and cold. And the winds
wax ever stronger, the waves run higher and higher, the
wreck and wraith grow ever more pitiful, more appalling.
And church and state pause in this made vortex of chaos
to prate of the ills of pugilism; to legislate and perorate
anent bloodless boxing bouts; to prosecute a brace of
harmless pugs. The people ask bread of the church and
it gives them a stone; they ask of the state protection of
their lives and liberties, and it gives them a special session
of the legislature--shoots doodle-bugs with a Gatling gun
--and sends them the bill!
. . .
But to recur for a moment to the fistic carnival: Have
any of you been able to determine how the Dallas News
stood in regard to that great enterprise? Sometimes, when
I want to go on an intellectual debauch, I read the News--
or Ayer's Almanac. It appears to entertain but two
opinions, namely, that Uncle Sam should black the boots
of John Bull, and that Grover Cleveland carries the brains
of the world in his beegum. This brace of abortive ideas
constitute its confession of faith--the only things of which
it feels absolutely certain. When it tackles anything else
it wobbles in and it wobbles out like an unhappy married
man trying to find his way home at five o'clock in the
morning. A great diplomat once declared that language
was made to conceal thought; but the Dallas News
employs it to disguise an intellectual vacuum. It can use
more language to say less than any other publication on
earth. In this particular it is like Napoleon--it stands
wrapt in the solitude of its own originality.
The eating of thirty quail in thirty days was once a
popular test of human endurance; but I can propose a
more crucial one--one that will attract more people to
Dallas than would even the Corbett-Fitzsimmons fight.
Let the people of this city offer a fat purse for the man
who can read the editorial page of the Dallas News thirty
days in succession without degenerating into a driveling
idiot. It is a mental impossibility, of course; but perhaps
my good friend "Dorry" can be persuaded to attempt
it--to hoist himself with his own petard. No man born
of woman will ever accomplish it. Massillon would
become a mental bankrupt within the month and Socrates
have to be tapped for the simples before reaching the half-
way house.
The News is troubled with a chronic case of Anglo-
mania. Whenever Columbia has a controversy of any
kind with Britannia, the News hastens to ally itself with
the Britisher; but in matters concerning the welfare of
the city of Dallas it has little to say. It did manifest a
slight inclination to take up for the fistic enterprise--
fearfully slid one foot to terra-firma; but when the success
of the carnival became doubtful the News hastened to
resume its time-honored position astride the fence, and it
has hung there ever since--like a foul dish-rag across a
wire clothes line. It's the greatest journalistic 'Fraid on
the face of the earth. It doesn't dare to risk the opinion
that water is wet. But probably it isn't sure of it. It is
just as well, however, for if it did know, it couldn't leak
the information in less than a column. The editorial page
of the Dallas News reminds me of the Desert of Sahara
after a simoon--it is such an awful waste of space. If I
had a five-year-old boy who couldn't say more in fifteen
minutes than the Dallas News has said in the last dozen
years, I'd refuse to father him.
One of the greatest frauds of modern times is the policy-
playing newspaper. The "Archimedean lever," as applied
to daily journalism is a fake of the first magnitude.
There is not a morning newspaper in Texas possessing
sufficient political influence to elect a pound-master. In
fact, their support will damn any politician eternally, for
the people wisely conclude that what the alleged "great
dailies" support is a pretty good thing for them to
oppose. Hogg would not have reached the governorship
but for the blatant opposition of the morning press. Its
friendship for George Clark was the upas-shadow in
which he perished politically. There hasn't been an
important law enacted in Texas during the last ten years
that it didn't oppose. And yet men actually imagine that
they cannot succeed in politics, business or letters without
the assistance of that great "molder of public opinion!"
Let me tell you that every success this country has
witnessed during the past three decades was achieved despite
the morning press. To paraphrase Owen Meredith:
"Let a man once show the press that he feels
Afraid of its bark, and 'twill fly at his heels;
Let him fearlessly face, 'twill leave him alone;
But 'twill fawn at his feet if he flings it a bone."
* * *
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.
OR THE LADIES AND THE APOSTLE.
[A synopsis of Mr. Brann's address to the Ladies'
Reading Club, San Antonio, Texas.]
I have been asked to lecture to the ladies of the Reading
Club, but shall do nothing of the kind. That were to
admit that you require improvement, and I would not have
you better than you are. We would have to clip your
wings or keep you in a cage. Besides, I never saw a
woman whom I could teach anything--she already knew it.
I have been going to school to the ladies all my life. My
mother carried me through the kindergarten, lady
preceptors through the intermediate grade, and my wife is
patiently rounding off my education. When I graduate
I expect to go direct to heaven. As near as I can figure
it out, the inhabitants of the New Jerusalem will consist of
several million women--and just men enough to fill the
municipal offices.
"I would not live always, I ask not to stay."
No lecture then, but an informal talk, without text or
subject--a vagrant ramble through such fields as tempt
us. If we should find fruit, or even flowers, let us be
thankful. If we encounter only briars, it will not be the
first half hour we have wasted.
The fact that you are members of the Reading Club
indicates that you are seeking knowledge. I trust that
you are finding it,--that every stroke of the intellectual
pick turns up a golden nugget; but do not make the mistake
of supposing that all the wisdom of the world is
bound in calf. You may know all that was ever penned in
papyrus or graved on stone, written on tablets of clay
or preserved in print and still be ignorant--not even know
how to manage a husband. As a rule people read without
proper discrimination, and those who are most careful
often go furthest astray. I once knew a woman with no
more music in her soul than a rat-tail file, who spent three
laborious years learning to play the piano, then closed the
instrument and never touched it again. One day I said to
her:
"Mary, what good did all the patient practice do you?"
"Lot's o' good," she replied; "I used to be dreadfully
ashamed to have people know that I COULDN'T play." And
a great deal of laborious reading is undertaken on the same
principle that Mary learned to play the piano--and is of
just as little benefit. Many people are with books as with
medicine--imagine that whatever is hardest to get down
will do them the most good. No mortal man--and, as the
preacher correctly stated, the men embrace the women--
ever yet got any permanent good out of a book unless he
enjoyed its perusal. Jno. J. Ingalls says that everybody
praises Milton's Paradise Lost, but nobody reads it.
Ingalls is mistaken. Everybody making any pretension to
culture has read the book--as a disagreeable duty; but
that man don't live--at least outside of the lunatic asylum
--who can quote a dozen lines of it. Same with Dante's
Divine Comedia and a host of other books with which
people are expected to inflict their brains. Read few
books and those of the very best,--books that you enjoy.
Read them thoroughly; make them your very own--then
forget them as soon as possible. Having submitted to the
mental or moral discipline of another, decline to lean on
him, but stand up in your own independent individuality.
Don't be a copy. There is on earth no more pitiable person
than
"The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read,
With loads of learned lumber in his head."
Do not interpret too literally. What I warn you against
is the habit, all too common, of imagining ourselves rich
because we have counted the golden hoard of others. One
may admire the Medicean Venus without becoming a sculptor,
or have Plato at his fingers' ends and ever remain a
fool. Were I an artist I would study with attention the
works of all the great masters; but when I put my hand to
my own task I would turn my back upon them all and my
face to nature. My work would then be a "creation,"
not a copy. Did I aspire to be truly learned I would
study the words of the world's wisest--then dig for wisdom
on my own behoof, I would thus become a philosopher
instead of a parrot.
. . .
I have been frequently called an iconoclast, and bad as
the title is popularly supposed to be, I trust it is not
altogether undeserved. I have striven to break foolish idols
and shatter false ideals, to hurl unclean gods from their
pedestals in the public pantheon. A work of destruction
is not, I admit, of a high order. Anybody may destroy;
it requires genius to build up. The wonder of the ancient
world sank to ruin irremediable beneath the torch of a
morbid dude who had rather be "damned to everlasting
fame" than altogether forgotten. A hungry wolf may
destroy a human life which Almighty God has brought
to perfection through long years of labor. But destruction
is sometimes necessary. The seas must be cleared
of pirates before commerce can flourish; the antiquated
and useless building must come down before the school-
house or business block can occupy the site. In the great
cities are men who do nothing but destroy old buildings--
professional wreckers of those works of man that have
outlived their usefulness. They build nothing; but are
they, therefore, to be condemned? So in the social world,
a man may be a professional wrecker, without the constructive
ability to build a political platform on a piecrate,
and still be useful, indispensable. The wrecker of bad
buildings does not contract to put good ones in their
places; nor is the iconoclast under any obligation to find
a heavenly grace for every false god that falls beneath
his hammer, a saint for every sinner he holds up to scorn,
a new truth for every old falsehood he fells to earth. He
may, if he thinks proper, leave that labor to others and
go on, with brand and bomb, bludgeon and bill-hook,
wrecking, destroying--playing John the Baptist to a
greater to come after.
A great many good people have taken the trouble to
inform me that I am a pessimist. Perhaps so; but I am
not worrying much about it. A pessimist is a person
somewhat difficult to define. The fool who smokes in a
powder-house, or believes that his neighbors always speak
well of him behind his back; the wife who encourages her
husband to pay court to other women on the supposition
that no harm can ensue; the banker who accepts a man's
unsecured note because he is a church member and powerful
in prayer, and the servant girl who lights the fire
with kerosene--then goes to join the angels taking your
household goods and gods with her--are certainly not
pessimists; they are only idiots.
It is easy enough to say that a pessimist is a person
afflicted with an incurable case of mulligrubs--one whom
nothing in all earth or heaven or hades pleases; one who
usually deserves nothing, yet grumbles if he gets it. But
we should not forget that every reform this world has
known; every effort that has lifted man another notch
above the brute level; every star in our flag of freedom;
every line and letter in our constitution of human liberty;
every gem of knowledge that gleams in the great world's
intellectual crown of glory; every triumph of science and
religion, philosophy and mechanics was the work of
pessimists, so-called--of men who were not satisfied with the
world's condition and set determinedly to work to better it.
They strove with their full strength against those conditions
panegyrized and poetized by the smirking optimists
of their time, and thereby incurred the enmity of pedants
and self-sufficient purists,--were denounced and denied,
belittled and belied.
But, says the enthusiastic optimist, things are not what
they used to be. When a college of cardinals gave Galileo
to the gaoler for maintaining that "the world do move;"
when Christ cast forth the money manipulators and purged
the porches of the temple of the disreputable dove dealers;
when Luther raised the standard of revolt and the Puritan
packed his grip there were cruel wrongs to right. But look
at us now! We've got a constitution and a Confession of
Faith, prize rings and Parisian gowns, sent missionaries to
Madagascar and measured Mars' two moons. Of course
we've made some mendicants, but please admire the
multifarious beauty of our millionaires! Who can doubt that
we've triumphed over the world, the flesh and the devil?
Have not the Spanish inquisition and the English Court of
High Commission gone glimmering? Do we bore the
tongues of Quakers or amputate the ears of non-conformists
as in Auld Lang Syne? Do we not run troublesome
wives into the divorce court instead of into the river, as
was once our wont,--scientifically roast our criminals with
electricity instead of pulling their heads off with a hair
halter? Do we not fight our political battles with wind
instead of war clubs? Have not our great partisan paladins
substituted gall for Greek fire?
Progressing we certainly are, but the devil has adapted
the Fabian tactics and is leading us a wild dance through
unprofitable deserts. While we have been shattering
ethnic images he has been building new idols. While we
have been dragging the Phalaris Bull from its pedestal the
Golden Calf of ancient Israel has reached maturity and
maternity and its progeny is now worshipped in a thousand
pantheons.
Everywhere the false and the true, the good and the evil,
the lambent light of heaven and the sulphurous shadows
of hell meet and blend. Nowhere, yet everywhere, floats
the white veil and flaming ensign of the modern Mokanna--
and we stand wrangling about the proper cut of a collar;
debating whether the Gadarenes, whose swine the outcast
devils drowned, were Jews or Gentiles; dogmatizing anent
the proper form of baptism; doubting with which hand we
should tip the hat; wondering if Joseph's coat were a sack
or a swallow-tail--ninety-and-nine out of every hundred
wasting upon childish trifles the strength given us to do
the work of demi-gods--and every foolish breath, every
heartbeat bearing us across Time's narrow sands into the
broad bosom of that sea which hath no shore!
What does the all-seeing sun that has for so many
centuries glared down upon this wretched farce-tragedy, think
of it all? And yet man boasts that he is the mortal image
of immortal God! It was for this trifling, straddling
biped, intent only upon getting his goose-head above the
foolish geese, that the Regent of the universe suffered
ignominy and death. I sometimes think that had the
Almighty cast the human horoscope he would never have
given Noah a hint to go in out of the wet.
I am no perfectionist. I do not build the spasmodic sob
nor spill the scalding tear because all men are not Sir
Galahads in quest of the Holy Grail, and all women angels
with two pair o' reversible wings and the aurora borealis
for a hat-band. I might get lonesome in a world like
that. I do not expect to see religion without cant, wealth
without want, and virtue without vice; but I do hope to
see the human race devote itself to grander aims than
following the fashions and camping on the trail of the cart-
wheel dollar. I want to see more homes and fewer hovels,
more men and fewer dudes. I want to see more women with
the moral courage to brave the odium of being old maids
rather than the pitiful weakness to become loveless wives.
I want to see more mothers who would rather be queens
of their homes than the favorites of fashionable circles;
women who would rather have the love of their husbands
than the insolent admiration of the whole he-world--women
who do not know too much at 15 and too little at 50.
I want to see more men who are not a constant reminder
of a monkey ancestry. Some philosopher once remarked:
"As between men and dogs, give me dogs." I have been
often tempted to indorse the sentiment--and I am not
much of a lover of dogs either. I want to see men who are
not fops in their youth, fools in their prime and egotists
in their old age--a race of manly men to whom life is not
a lascivious farce; whose god is not gold; who do not
worship at the shrine of the Pandemian Venus nor devote
their lives to the service of Mammon, "the least erect of
all the angelic host that fell from heaven." I want to see
men who scorn the pusillanimity of the policy-prayer, who,
--like Caesar, dare tell greybeards the truth e'en though
it cost a crown; men of leonine courage, men of iron mould,
men strong of hand and heart, who defiantly throw down
the gage to destiny--who can trample hell itself beneath
their proud feet, even while it consumes them.
. . .
The dream may be Utopian. I much fear it will never
be made a blessed reality by either philosophy or religion.
We have had both for forty centuries, yet the fool has
become ever more offensive and the liar has overrun the land.
Yet we imagine that because we no longer live in caves and
fight naked with the wild beasts of the forest for our food
we are away up at the head of the procession, with Greek
civilization distanced and all the other times and half times
nowhere.
Human development, like the earth, the sun, the stars--
like all things brought into being by the breath of Omnipotent
God--travels ever in a circle. Savagery and ignorance,
barbarism and ambition, civilization and sybaritism,
dudeism and intellectual decay; then once more savagery
and ignorance proclaim the complete circle,--that we have
traveled from nadir to zenith and from zenith to nadir--
when once again we begin with painful steps and slow to
repace the path which carries us to the very verge of
godhood and wreathes our brows with immortal bays, then
brings us down--even while we think we mount--until we
touch a level beneath the very brute. Such has ever been
the world's history, and such it will ever be until a force
is found that can transform this circle into a straight line
--that can blend the rugged manhood of the barbarism
with the graces of our higher civilization and give us
wisdom without weakness and culture without cowardice; that
can incorporate us as corpuscles in the social organism
without eliminating every spark of God-like individuality,
making us helpless dependents upon social, political and
religious precedent.
If the Car of Progress travels in a circle--and history
says it does; if neither science, philosophy nor religion can
deflect it from its seemingly predestined path--and the
condition of their birth-place proclaims their failure so to
do--where is hope? Must the human race forever go the
weary round of birth and death, like Buddhist souls wandering
through all that's fair and foul, until it finds Nirvana
in the destruction of the world? Not so, for there
is a hope--a blessed hope--that like.
"A poising eagle burns above the unrisen morrow."
That hope is in the union of all the mighty forces that
make for the emancipation of mankind,--a union of religion
and philosophy, science and woman. And of these
the first is the last and the last is the first in point of
power and importance.
. . .
When I reflect that until within comparatively recent
times women were slaves, I don't much wonder that the old
civilizations went to the dogs--that the millennium is not
yet due. Trying to make a civilization that would stick
without the help of woman were like building a cocktail
with a basis of buttermilk. God gave her to man to be an
helpmeet, not a plaything. I don't think that she can help
him much by going into politics, or becoming a crusading
she-Peter-the-Hermit while her own children need her care,
but I do believe that the wife and mother--that erstwhile
ignorant drudge, raised by God's great mercy to royalty--
made Queen of the home, and thereby absolute Empress of
the great round earth--is to be the dynamics of a new and
grander civilization that can never recede; that the
womanly woman, self-poised as a star, pure as the polar
snows, fit companion for the true nobleman of nature, is
to be the Providence that will lead humanity, step by step,
ever onward and upward, until our cruel age of iron is
transformed into an age of gold in which there'll be neither
millionaire nor mendicant, master nor slave--in which
Selfishness will be considered the worst of crimes and Love
the all-powerful law.
Such, ladies, is my dream of the future. You see, with
true mannish instinct, I throw the work of the world's
salvation upon the women. I don't know, however, but
it's retributive justice. If you got us fired out of the first
Paradise it is your duty to find another and put us in
possession. But really with all due respect to Sacred
Writ, I could never accept that serpent story without
considerable salt. My observation--and experience--has
been that men are much more addicted to the snake habit
than are women. I gather from Genesis that after the
Edenic reptile had done the damage it was condemned to
go upon its belly all the days of its life. That indicates
that it was not only a good conversationalist, but had legs.
Now I submit it to you in all seriousness: which member of
the original family was most likely to see such a serpent
as that? I think I should have given Adam the Keeley
cure, then crossexamined him a little before laying the
burden of the blame on Eve. If the latter was really the
tempter she was probably trying to reach the heart of
her hubby by that direct route, the stomach--lost heaven
for love, as too many of her daughters have since done.
The fact that Adam was not willing to father her fault
proved him unworthy of his wife, and the bad example he
set is too often followed by many of his sons--who attribute
all their trials and tribulations to the patient wives
whose watchful care keeps them out of the penitentiary.
Whatever may have been Eve's fortune, Adam was no great
loser by being ejected from Eden, for the man who
possesses the love of a good woman carries Paradise with
him wherever he goes. A woman's love can transform a
hovel into a heaven and fill it with supernal sunshine--and
her scorn can make perdition of a palace and put in all the
fancy touches.
Woman is the only thing extant, if Genesis be believed,
that was not evolved from a solid slug of nothing. That
I presume, is why she amounts to something. Nothing was
good enough raw material of which to make the father
of mankind; but when the Almighty came to create our
common mother he required something more substantial
than a hole in the atmosphere.
I always bank on a boy who has a good mother, regardless
of what the old man may be. The fathers of philosophers
have sometimes been fools, but their mothers never.
A wise man may beget dudes or a good man practical
politicians; but it's his misfortune, not his fault. The good
Lord expects no man to gather grapes of thorns or figs of
thistles. I have yet to hear of a single man who became
distinguished in any line of human endeavor according to
his father the credit for his greatness. Character is
moulded at the mother's knee, and in the light of her loving
eyes is born that ambition which buoys man up in a sea of
troubles--that drive him on through dangers and
difficulties, straight to the shining goal.
The Nineteenth century marks the culmination of an era
of human triumphs, a brilliant coruscation of victories over
the cohorts of Ignorance and Prejudice; but its crown of
imperishable glory is the recognition that woman was
created to be man's companion and co-laborer instead of
his chattel, his joint sovereign of the earth instead of his
slave. Fronting the dawn of a grander day, her hand
ungyved and her brain unfettered; with broader opportunities
for usefulness and boasting a nobler beauty than
during the dark and dreary centuries that lie behind her
like a hideous dream--such is the woman of the Nineteenth
century, and upon the shapely shoulders of this new
Pallas I hang my second Providence, to her loving hands
I commit the destiny of the race, to her true heart the
salvation of the world.
* * *
BRANN'S REPLY TO SLATTERY.
[Ex-Priest Joseph Slattery, in his lecture at Waco,
Texas, in the interest of the A.P.A., bitterly denounced the
ICONOCLAST. During the Slattery lecture Brann rose,
pointed his finger at Slattery and said: "You lie and you
know it, and I refuse to listen to you." Brann then turned
on his heel and walked out. He then hired the same opera
house at his own expense and replied to Slattery.]
Fellow Americans: The ICONOCLAST does not please ex-
Priest Slattery, "Baptist minister in good standing," and
I am not surprised. Its mission, as its name implies, is to
expose Frauds and abolish Fakes, to make unrelenting war
upon Humbugs and Hypocrites, hence it is not remarkable
that Slattery should regard its existence as a personal
affront. It is ever the galled jade that winces; or, to
borrow from the elegant pulpit vernacular of the Rev. Sam
Jones, "it's the hit dog that yelps."
Slattery would have you believe that I'm a rank atheist
who's trying to rip religion up by the roots and bang it
across a barbed wire fence in close companionship with the
hides of Protestant preachers. This charge has been
hurled at me by various sectarian papers and malicious
ministers; but not one iota of evidence has ever been
submitted. It is simply a bald assertion born of sanctified
malice, a brazen libel, similar to that which charges the
Pope with trying to subvert the American government. I
defy Slattery and all that unclean brood of moral vultures,
assassins of character and thieves of reputation which trail
in his wake and applaud his infamies, to produce one line
I ever wrote, or quote one sentence I ever uttered disrespectful
of ANY religion, Pagan, Protestant or Catholic.
If in the wilds of Central Africa I should find a man bowing
down to a dried toad, a stuffed snake or a Slattery,
I'd remove my hat as a tribute of respect, not to his
judgment, but to his honesty. I have no word of condemnation
for any religious faith, however fatuous it may appear
to me, that has comforted the dying or consoled the living
--that has cast one gleam of supernal sunshine into the
dark vale where grope, each beneath his burthen of sorrow,
the sons of men. I am not warring upon religious faith,
but on falsehood; not upon Christ, but on those who disgrace
his cause--who mistake bile for benevolence, gall for
godliness and chronic laziness for "a call to preach."
Nor have I taken the Pope of Rome under my apostolic
protection. The Popes managed to exist for a great many
years before I was born, and, despite the assaults of
Slattery, will doubtless continue in business at the old
stand for several years to come. I was raised a Protestant,
and--thank God!--I'm no apostate. I learned Protestantism
at my mother's knee, and from my father's pulpit;
but I did not learn there that the Church of Rome is the
"Scarlet Woman," nuns unclean creatures and priests the
sworn enemies of my country. I learned that but for the
Church of Rome the "glad tidings of great joy," which
Christ brought to a dying world, would have been irredeemably
lost in that dismal intellectual night known as the
Dark Ages. I was taught that for centuries the Church
of Rome was the repository, not only of the Christian
faith, but of civilization itself. I was taught that the
Catholic is the mother of the Protestant church, and that
no matter how unworthy a parent may be, a child should
not become the herald of its mother's shame.
And while being taught my duty as a Protestant, my
education as an American citizen was not neglected. I was
taught that this was a land of religious liberty, where
every man is privileged to worship God in his own way, or
ignore him altogether: that it was my duty to insist upon
this right, both for myself and for my fellows.
That is why I am the uncompromising enemy of the A.P.A.
Any attempt to debar an American citizen from the
honors and emoluments of a public office because of his
religious faith, or non-faith, is a flagrant violation of a
fundamental principle of this Republic. And no patriot;
no man in whose veins there pulses one drop of the blood of
the Conscript Fathers, or who would recognize the Goddess
of Liberty if he met her in the road; no man imbued with
the tolerant spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ will aid or
abet such an un-Christian and un-American movement.
The A.P.A. is the bastard spawn of Ignorance and
Intolerance, was conceived in sin and brought forth in
iniquity.
There may be some honest men connected with the
movement; but if honest they should get their heads
trepanned to give their brains room to grow. They are as
unable as a mule-eared rabbit to comprehend either the
broad principles upon which this government is grounded,
or its political and religious history. No man--not even
Judas Iscariot Slattery--is to blame for his ignorance;
so we should humbly pray, Father forgive them, they
know not what they do. Nor is the Church of Rome
responsible for the shameless apostate's lack of information.
It did all that it could to transform him from an
ignorant little beggar into an educated gentleman--but
even the Pope cannot make a silk purse of a sow's ear. It
is no fault of the Church of Rome that he's densely ignorant
of the very text-book truths of history; that he knows
nothing of that Reformation of which he talks so glibly;
that he is unable to comprehend the genius of the government
upon which he has conferred his more or less valuable
citizenship. The fault, if fault it be, lies with the
Almighty, who gave him a bad heart and a worse head.
. . .
American Protective Association, eh? That signifies
that Uncle Sam is in need of protection. I had hitherto
supposed that the gentleman in the highwater pants and
star-bespangled cutaway was able to protect himself; but
it now appears that unless he crawls under the aegis of the
redoubtable Slattery he is--to again borrow from the
most popular of all Protestant divines--"a gone sucker."
Think of placing Uncle Sam under the protection of a
man who is an apostate in religion and a renegade in
politics--of an Irishman who apostrophizes the British flag!
Think of that kind of a bird presuming to tell the grandsons
of Revolutionary soldiers their duties as American citizens.
Slattery assures us that we need protection from the
Pope. There was a time when the proudest monarchs of
Europe trembled at the Papal nod; but gradually the Pope
has been shorn of temporal power, confined ever more to
the realm of spiritual, until to-day he exerts about as little
influence on the political destiny of this world as does Dr.
Cranfill with his little Prohibition craze. But Slattery
will have it that the Pope is gradually undermining American
institutions--leads us to infer that, sooner or later,
he'll blow our blessed constitution at the moon and scatter
fragments of the Goddess of Liberty from Dan to Beersheba,
from Cape Cod to Kalamazoo. The Pope, it appears,
is a veritable Guy Faux, who is tunnelling beneath
our national capitol with a keg of giant powder in one hand
and a box of lucifer matches in the other. What's the
evidence? Why, out in San Francisco, so Slattery says--
but as Slattery's been convicted of lying it were well to
call for papers--a Catholic school-board was elected and
employed only Catholic teachers. The same awful thing
happened in Detroit--if Slattery's telling the truth, which
is doubtful in the extreme. Then what? With a pride
worthy a more American act, this illogical idiot informs us
that "when the Protestants captured the school-boards
of those cities they discharged every one of the Catholic
teachers and put only good Protestants on guard." And
at that Baptist brethren--with water on the brain--who
boast of Roger Williams, cheered so loudly as to be in
danger of lockjaw. In the exuberant imagination of
Slattery and his dupes there appears to be a wonderful
difference between tweedledum and tweedledee. It doesn't
seem to have occurred to them that what is sauce for the
Protestant goose should be sauce for the Catholic gander.
They damn the Catholics for doing the very thing for
which they commend the Protestant. That's the logic of
the A.P.A.--the Aggregation of Pusillanimous Asses. In
my humble opinion both were engaged in very small business.
The only difference in the offenders that I can see
is that while the Catholics are saying nothing, the Protestants
are loudly boasting of their vicious subversion of
the American principle of religious liberty. The circumstance
is a sharp reminder that if we are to preserve a government
of the people, for the people and by the people,
we've got to keep religion of ALL kinds out of our politics,
just as the framers of the federal constitution intended
that we should do. Mixing religion and politics is like
mixing whiskey and water--it spoils both.
Slattery would have you believe that our Catholic
citizens are simply emissaries of the Pope, to whom they owe
allegiance both spiritual and temporal, and that they will,
at the first opportunity, subvert American institutions and
make this Nation simply a satrapy of the Vatican.
The American Catholic takes his theology from Rome;
he takes his politics from the ecumenical council of his
party--from the national convention of that partisan
organization to which he may chance to belong.
That there can be no "Catholic conspiracy" against
the free institutions of this country must be evident to
every man of common sense from the simple fact that
Catholics are divided among all the political parties--
are continually voting against each other. Now I appeal
to your judgment--lay aside your religious prejudices for
the moment and look at the matter from a non-partisan,
non-sectarian standpoint: If our Catholic fellow-citizens
be under the thumb of the Pope politically, as the apostate
now evangelizing for the A.P.A. would have us believe;
and if the Pope desires to make himself temporal ruler of
this land, or in any manner direct its affairs, would they
not be found voting as a unit--a mighty political machine
--instead of being as badly divided on secular questions
as the Baptists themselves? San Antonio is a Catholic
stronghold, yet a prominent Roman Catholic was overwhelmingly
defeated in the last mayoralty election. And
I could cite you hundreds of instances where Catholics have
voted against men of their own religious faith and elected
Protestants or infidels.
Again: If the Pope is plotting against America; and if
all manner of crime be considered a virtue when committed
by Catholics in furtherance of his ends, as Slattery would
have you believe, then it were well to keep a sharp eye on
apostate priests. How are we to know that they are not
emissaries of the Vatican, commissioned to stir the
Protestants up to persecute their brethren in Christ and thereby
solidify the Catholic vote? No one, not even Slattery, has
accused the Pope of being a fool; and certain it is that the
A.P.A. movement, if persisted in, will have the effect of
driving the Catholics of this country to political unity in
self-defense. Persecution, political ostracism for religious
opinion's sake, will infallibly bring about those very
conditions which Slattery, Hicks, et al. declare that the Pope
desires. The communicants of the Church of Rome will no
longer vote as Democrats or Republicans, but as Catholics
--and then? With unlimited wealth, and such a political
machine at the command of a man so ambitious and unscrupulous
as we are asked to believe the Pope to be, the
capture of the federal government and the political domination
of this country were as easy as lying! The Protestants,
divided into a hundred warring factions, many of
them farther apart theologically than Episcopalianism
and Catholicism, could offer no resistance to such a
political machine, and they would receive but cold comfort from
the liberal element, which has suffered so long from their
petty persecutions.
And I tell you Protestants right here, that if it be the
intention of the Church of Rome to transform this government
into a theocracy by fair means or by foul, then the
Pope is the real founder of the A.P.A. and Slattery's a
Papal spy.
. . .
According to the story of this self-constituted protector
of the American government, he studied Roman Catholic
theology for years, then officiated as a priest for eight
more before discovering anything immoral in the teachings
of the Mother Church, when it suddenly occurred to him
that it was but a tissue of falsehoods, a veritable cesspool
of rottenness. His transformation appears to have been
almost as sudden as that of Saul of Tarsus--or that of
Judas Iscariot. I have no objection to his leaving the
Catholic priesthood--his bishop stopped his pay. Like
the servant maid caught pilfering, he "gave notice, with
the missus a pintin' at the door." If Slattery believes
that the Protestant Through Line runs more comfortable
cars to the great hereafter, he's welcome to take his ticket
over that route; but I would have thought better of him
had he made the change quietly and refrained from
assaulting with the vindictiveness of a renegade that church
to which he owes his education, such as it is; had he
treated the religion of his mother with decency if not with
respect.
I thought I had met all manner of men; men hardened
in crime--men destitute of even a semblance of shame; but
never before did I behold one with the hardihood to stand
up before American women and boast that he had incurred
a mother's curse. When a man falls so low in the scale
of human degradation that his own mother disowns him it
were well to watch him. When a creature asks strangers
to accept him because his relatives have rejected him;
when, for the sake of gain, he snaps like a mangy fice at
the hand that once fed him, and stings like a poisonous
adder the bosom that once nurtured him; when, to promote
his personal ends, he will use his best endeavors to
exterminate religious liberty and precipitate a bloody
sectarian war, I tell you he was not born a man but begotten
a beast.
From the very foundation of this government the Catholics
have been its firm defenders. Their wisdom and eloquence
have adorned its councils from the signing of the
Declaration of American Independence to this good day,
and its every battlefield, from Lexington to the Custer
massacre, has been wet with Catholic blood. Nine Roman
Catholics signed the Declaration of Independence, and the
Roman Catholics of New York contributed so liberally of
their blood and treasure to the cause of the new-born
Nation that Washington wrote them a letter praising their
patriotism. Several Roman Catholics helped frame the
Federal Constitution, and the interpretation of that
wonderful instrument by a Roman Catholic chief-justice to-
day constitutes the fundamental law of the land. Yet
Slattery and that ridiculous organization of which he
boasts himself a member, would have you believe that the
American Catholics would, at a nod from the Pope, ruthlessly
trample under foot that flag in whose defense they
pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor--
that they would wreck without remorse and ruin without
regret that Nation they helped place on the map of the
world. How do you old Confederates, who followed Pat
Cleburne, relish having this blatant tramp defame your
dead commander? Can you believe, on the unsupported
testimony of this mendacious mountebank, that Father
Ryan's tribute to the Stars-and-Bars was rank hypocrisy
--that the poet-priest was the political tool of a foreign
power? Sherman died a Catholic. Fighting Phil Sheridan
was a Catholic. Old Pap Thomas, "the Rock of
Chickamauga," was a Catholic. The "Bloody Sixty-ninth" New
York was a Catholic regiment, and its heroism at the
Battle of Bull Run forms one of the brightest pages in the
military history of this nation. Strange it never occurred
to those demoralized Protestant regiments which took
refuge behind the bayonets of the Sixty-ninth that they
were throwing the Vatican between themselves and the
Confederate forces!
Slattery assures us that the number of Irish Catholics
on the police force of our great cities is evidence that the
Church of Rome is on mischief bent. I am not surprised
that an Irish Catholic with a club in his hand should prove
rather alarming to Bro. Slattery. But, although he says,
"meet a policeman and you'll see the map of Ireland in
his face," those same policemen have several times saved
his worthless bacon. When he was mobbed in St. Louis
for defaming Catholic nuns, the police formed a cordon
around his infamous carcass and saved him from a well-
merited trouncing at the hands of the slandered women's
relatives. Probably the police did not relish the job
overmuch, but they had sworn to uphold the laws, and although
Slattery insists that a Catholic oath amounts to nothing,
they risked their lives in his defense.
We have many nationalities in this country, and each
of them, as every observant man well knows, manifests a
predilection for some special occupation. Thus the Jews
take to trade, the Germans to agriculture, the Norwegians
to lumbering, the French to catering and the Irish to
politics. Make a Freewill Baptist or a Buddhist of an
Irishman and you do not change his nature--he'll turn up
at the next political convention just the same. And the
man who's too good to take a hand in practical politics;
who's too nice to mingle with the horny-handed at the
ward primaries; who's too busy to act as delegate to the
convention--who deliberately neglects his duty as an
American citizen--finds that Pat's activity has been
rewarded with a place on the police force, and blames it all
on the Pope.
. . .
It is not my province to defend Roman Catholic theology
--I suppose that Slattery said all that could be urged in
its behalf before he apostatized. Perhaps the Catholics
really believe the Pope infallible; and if they do, it is
certainly no worse than for certain Waco Protestants to believe
that Slattery's infallible. I noticed that at his lecture
last week they cheered every charge he preferred against
either the Pope or the "Apostle," and that without asking
for an iota of evidence. When I arose at the stag party
with which he wound up the intellectual debauch, and
questioned his infallibility, the good brethren cried,
"Throw him out!" Why did they so unless they believed
that to question the supernal wisdom and immaculate
truth of aught a Baptist minister might say, were sacrilege
--a sin against the Holy Ghost?
Here was I, their fellow citizen of Waco, I had done
them no harm; yet when a strolling vagabond, wearing
God's livery, and whose forte is the defamation of women,
made a statement, which if true, would forever disgrace
me in the eyes of the world; when he preferred this charge
against me within two blocks of where my babies lay sleeping,
they wanted to mob me for branding him then and
there as an infamous liar and a cowardly blackguard.
Mark you, I'm no tramp in America. This is the house
of my fathers. They helped hew it out of the Virginia
wilderness. They helped put Old Glory in the heavens,
and to keep it there for more than a hundred years, still
it appears that I have no rights in this country which a
foreigner with the smell of the steerage still upon him is
bound to respect, if he chances to be a Baptist preacher.
Talk to me about the Church of Rome muzzling free
speech when the A.P.A. would mob an American citizen
for defending his character from the infamous falsehoods
of a foreign tramp! "Throw him out!" Why throw him
out? I'll tell you: The sanctified buzzards had gone there
with appetites sharpened for a mess of carrion, and they
were afraid I'd kill their cook. "Throw him out!" But I
noticed that those who were splitting their faces as wide
as Billy Kersands' were glued to their seats. They wanted
somebody else to throw him out. They were anxious to see
a gang of three or four hundred sanctified hoodlums
trample upon me, but there was not one among the self-
constituted protectors of this mighty American Nation
with sufficient "sand" to lead the mob. If there were no
better Americans than those trailing in the wake of the
Rev. Joseph Slattery, like buzzards following a bad smell,
I'd take a cornstalk, clean out the whole shooting-match
and stock the country with niggers and yaller dogs. If
such cattle were sired by Satan, damned by Sycorax and
born in hell they would dishonor their parents and disgrace
their country.
Slattery insists that Catholics believe thus-and-so, and
that no man with such a faith concealed about his person
can be a good American citizen. I don't know about that;
but I do know that if the Catholics act in strict accordance
with their religious creed they are the only people in this
country that do so. I've learned that you can't judge a
man by his catechism. Slattery assures us that he has
discarded the Pope and taken Christ for his immediate guide.
The latter commands his followers to pray for those who
despitefully use them; but if Slattery did any praying
for the "Apostle" during his sojourn in this city he
managed to keep that fact a profound secret. Christ
enjoins patience and humility. He tells his followers to turn
the other cheek to the smiter; yet Slattery assured the
ladies Wednesday night that he was "a great believer in
muscular Christianity." Then he placed his 250 pounds
of stall-fed beef in fighting attitude and declared he'd
"like to have his enemies come at him one at a time"--to
be prayed for, I presume. If Christ taught "muscular
Christianity" I have inadvertently overlooked a bet.
Christ commands us to love our enemies, but doesn't
suggest that we should manifest our affection by lying about
'em. He rebuked those who tattled about a common
courtesan, yet Slattery defamed decent women. No, you
can't judge a man by his creed. If the allegiance of the
Catholics to the Pope is of the same character as that of
Slattery to the Lord Jesus Christ, Uncle Sam need not
lie awake o' nights to worry about "Papal plots."
Had Slattery been truly a Christian, instead of black-
guarding me when protected by the presence of ladies, he
would have put up a fervent prayer for my immediate
conversion to the Baptist faith. But his milk of human
kindness had soured--he was short on Christian charity
and long on gall.
"Faith, hope and charity," says St. Paul; "and the
greatest of these is charity." And he might have added
that it's also the scarcest. Perhaps that's what makes it
so valuable--the supply is ever equal to the demand.
Speaking of charity reminds me of my experience with
the Protestant preachers of San Antonio, some of whom, I
understand, are aiding and abetting this A.P.A. movement,
"designed to preserve the priceless liberty of free
speech." While editor of the morning paper of that city
I was in the habit of writing a short sermon for the Sunday
edition, for the benefit of those who could not go to
church, I supposed that the ministers would sanction my
clerical efforts, but they didn't. They wanted no
assistance in saving souls, considered that they should be
accorded a monopoly in that line and were entitled to all
the emoluments. They proceeded to thunder at me from
the pulpit, and sometimes three or four perspiring
pulpiteers were pounding away at me at the same time--and
incidentally making me very popular. I dropped into a
swell church one Sunday morning to get a little grace--
a building that cost up in the six figures while people were
living in $4 jackals and subsisting on 50 cents a week
within sound of its bells--and the minister was holding a
copy of the Express aloft in one hand and a Bible in the
other and demanding of his congregation: "Which will
you take--Brann or God?" Well, they seemed to think
that if they couldn't have both they'd best take God,
though some of the sinners on the back seats were a trifle
subsequent in making up their minds.
I kept hammering away--preaching to my little congregation
of fifteen or twenty thousand readers every Sunday,
as I now do to ten times that many a month--until
finally the Ministerial Association met, perorated,
whereased, resoluted and wound up by practically demanding
of the proprietor of the Express that I be either muzzled
or fired. And all this time the Catholic priests said never
a word--and San Antonio is a Catholic city. But the
Baptist ministers were running a sneaking boycott! Yet
the Church of Rome is the boa-constrictor that's trying to
throttle the American right of free speech!
The Y.M.C.A. invited me to lecture on Humbugs, and
that scared the Ministerial Association nearly to death.
They thought I was after 'em now sure, so they went to
the officials of the Y.M.C.A. and made them cancel the
date. And the only Protestant minster in the entire city
who did not join in this attempt to throttle free speech
was an Episcopalian--and the Episcopalians are not
Protestants to hurt. Yet when these ministers, who are
now so fearful that the Church of Rome will muzzle
somebody, found that they couldn't drive me out of town;
that they couldn't take the bread from the mouths of my
babes because I had dared utter my honest thoughts like
a freeman; that I was to continue to edit the Express
so long as I liked, they came fawning about me like a lot
of spaniels afraid of the lash! But not one of them ever
tried to convert me. Not one of them ever tried, by kindly
argument, to convince me that I was wrong. Not one of
them ever invited me to church--or prayed for me, so
far as I could learn. Perhaps they thought I was past
redemption.
Slattery cautions you not to send your children to
convent schools, declaring that he "never yet saw a nun who
was an educated woman." That statement, standing alone,
ought to convince every one blessed with a thinking apparatus
that Slattery's a fraud. Some of the best educated
women in this world have entered convents. Women
upon whose tuition fortunes have been expended are now
making convent schools deservedly popular with the
intelligent people.
He says ignorance is the correlative of Catholicism, and
points to Spain as proof of this startling assertion. There
was a time when Spain stood in the very forefront of
civilization, in the van of human progress, the arbiter of
the world's political destiny,--and Spain was even more
Catholic then than it is to-day. Nations and civilizations
have their youth, their lusty manhood and their decay,
and it were idle to attribute the decline of Spain to
Catholicism as the decadence of Greece to Paganism. The
Catholic church found Spain a nation of barbarians and
brought it up to that standard of civilization where a
Spanish monarch could understand the mighty plans of
Columbus. It was her Catholic Majesty, Queen Isabella,
who took from her imperial bosom the jewels with which
to buy a world--who exchanged the pearls of the Orient
for the star of Empire. The Catholic church found England
a nation of barbarians and brought it up, step by
step, until Catholic barons wrung from King John at
Runnymede the Great Charter--the mother of the American
Constitution. It found Ireland a nation of savages
and did for it what the mighty power of the Caesars could
not--brought it within the pale of civilization. But for
the Roman Catholic Church Slattery might be wearing a
breech clout, digging roots with his finger nails and gorging
himself with raw meat in Ireland to-day instead of
insulting the intelligence of American audiences and wringing
money from fanatics and fools by warring upon the
political institutions of their fathers.
. . .
Slattery was horrified to learn that some of the nuns
were inclined to talk about each other. I sincerely trust
that he will find none of the Baptist sisters addicted to
the same bad habit.
From what I could gather of his discourse,--before I
was "put out"--and from the report of his alleged wife's
lectures, I infer that this delectable twain impeach the
virtue of the Roman Catholic sisterhoods. Malice, like
death, loves a shining mark, and there is no hate so
venomous as that of the apostate. But before giving credence
to such tales, let me ask you: Why should a woman
exchange the brilliant parlor for a gloomy cell in which to
play the hypocrite? Why should a cultured woman of
gentle birth deliberately forego the joys of wife and
motherhood, the social triumph and the freedom of the
world and condemn herself to a life of labor, a dreary
round of drudgery, if her heart's impure? For shame!
Who is it that visits the slums of our great cities
ministering to the afflicted, comforting the dying, reclaiming
the fallen? When pestilence sweeps over the land and mothers
desert their babes and husbands their wives, who is it
that presses the cup of cold water to the feverish lip
and closes the staring eyes of the deserted dead? Who
was it that went upon the Southern battle-fields to minister
to the wounded soldiers, followed them to the hospitals
and tenderly nursed them back to life? The Roman
Catholic sisterhoods, God bless them!
One of those angels of mercy can walk unattended and
unharmed through our "Reservation" at midnight. She
can visit with impunity the most degraded dive in the
White-chapel district. At her coming the ribald song is
stilled and the oath dies on the lips of the loafer. Fallen
creatures reverently touch the hem of her garments, and
men steeped in crime to the very lips involuntarily remove
their hats as a tribute to noble womanhood. The very
atmosphere seems to grow sweet with her coming and the
howl of hell's demons to grow silent. None so low in the
barrel-house, the gambling hell or the brothel as to breathe
a word against her good name; but when we turn to the
Baptist pulpit there we find an inhuman monster clad in
God's livery, saying, "Unclean, unclean!" God help a
religious denomination that will countenance such an
infamous cur!
As a working journalist I have visited all manner of
places. I have written up the foulest dives that exist on
this continent, and have seen Sisters of Charity enter
them unattended. Had one of the inmates dared insult
them he would have been torn in pieces. And I have sat
in the opera house of this city--boasting itself a center of
culture--and heard a so-called man of God speak flippantly
of the Catholic sisterhoods, and professing Christians
applaud him to the echo.
Merciful God! if heaven is filled with such Christians,
send me to hell, with those whose sins are human! Better
everlasting life in a lake of fire than enforced companionship
in Paradise for one hour with the foul harpies that
groaned "awmen" to Slattery's infamous utterances.
God of Israel! to think that those unmanly scabs, those
psalm-singing vultures are Americans and our political
brethren!
. . .
I know little about the private lives of the Catholic
priesthood; but this I do know: They were the first to
plant the standard of Christian faith in the New World.
They were the first to teach the savages something of the
blessings of civilization. I do know that those of them
who were once Protestants are not making a specialty of
defaming the faith of their fathers. I do know that neither
hardship nor danger can abate their holy zeal and that
hundreds of them have freely given their lives in the service
of the Lord. And why should a man devote his body
to God and his soul to the devil? I do know that one of
them has given us the grandest example of human sacrifice
for others' sake that this great world affords. Even
Christ prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, "If it be
possible, let this cup pass from me"; but Father Damien
pressed a cup even more bitter to his own lips and drained
it to the dregs--died for the sake of suffering mortals a
death to which the cross were mercy.
The Protestants admit that they are responsible for the
inoculation of the simple Sandwich Islanders with the
leprosy; yet when those who fell victims to the foul disease
were segregated, made prisoners upon a small island
in the mid-Pacific, not a Protestant preacher in all the
earth could be found to minister to them. The Lord had
"called" 'em all into his vineyard, but it appears that he
didn't call a blessed one of them to that leper colony where
people were rotting alive, with none to point them to that
life beyond the grave where all the sins and corruptions of
the flesh are purged away and the redeemed stand in robes
of radiant white at the right hand of God. I blame no
man for declining the sacrifice. To set foot upon that
accursed spot was to be declared unclean and there
confined until death released you--death by leprosy, the most
appalling disease in all the dreadful catalogue of human
ills, the most dreaded arrow in the quiver of the grim
Destroyer. Yet Father Damien, a young Roman Catholic
priest, left home and country and all that life holds dear,
and went deliberately forth to die for afflicted barbarians.
There he reared an humble temple with his own hands to
the God of his fathers, there, through long years of
confinement, he ministered to the temporal and spiritual wants
of the afflicted; there he died, as he knew he must die, with
his fingers falling from his hands, his flesh from his bones,
a sight to appall the very imps of hell. No wonder the
Protestant ministers held aloof. Merciful God. I'd rather
be crucified!
We are all brave men when the war-drum throbs and
the trumpet calls us to battle beneath the eyes of the world,
--when, touching elbows with our fellows and clad in all
the glorious pomp and circumstance of war we seek the
bubble of fame e'en at the cannon's mouth. When the
music of the battery breeds murder in the blood, the electric
order goes ringing down the line, is answered by the
thrilling cheer, the veriest coward drives the spur deep
into the foaming flank and plunges, like a thunderbolt,
into the gaping jaws of death, into the mouth of hell; but
when a man was wanted to go forth alone, without blare
of trumpet or drum, and become a life-prisoner in a leper
colony, but one in all the world could be found equal to
that supreme test of personal heroism, and that man was
a Roman Catholic priest. And what was his reward?
Hear what Thos. G. Sherman, a good Protestant, says in
the New York Post:
"Before the missionaries gained control of the islands;
leprosy was unknown. But with the introduction of
strange races, leprosy established itself and rapidly
increased. An entire island was properly devoted to the
lepers. No Protestant missionary would venture among
them. For this I do not blame them, as, no doubt, I should
not have had the courage to go myself. But a noble
Catholic priest consecrated his life to the service of the
lepers, lived among them, baptized them, educated them,
and brought some light and happiness into their wretched
lives. Stung by the contrast of his example, the one
remaining missionary, a recognized and paid agent of the
American Board, spread broadcast the vilest slanders
against Father Damien."
So it appears that the world is blessed with two Slatterys.
There are three kinds of liars at large in the land: The
harmless Munchausen who romances for amusement, and
whose falsehoods do no harm; the Machiavellian liar, whose
mendacity bears the stamp of original genius, and the
stupid prevaricator, who rechews the fetid vomit of other
villains simply because he lacks a fecund brain to breed
falsehoods to which he may play the father. And Slattery's
a rank specimen of the latter class. When he attempts
to branch out for himself he invariably comes to
grief. After giving a dreadful account of how Catholics
persecute those who renounce the faith, declaring that they
were a disgrace to the church while within its pale, he
produced a certificate from a Philadelphia minister to the
effect that he--the Philadelphian--had visited Slattery's
old parish in Ireland and the Catholics there declared that
he was a good and faithful priest! What Slattery seems
to lack to become a first-class fraud is continuity of
thought. He lies fluently, even entertainingly, but not
consistently.
The apostate priest would have the various Protestant
denominations throw down the bars that separate them
and mark off their theological bailiwicks "with little beds
of flowers." The idea is a good one--and I can but
wonder where Slattery stole it. Still I can see no cogent
reason for getting all the children together in happy union
and leaving their good old mother out in the cold.
Throw down all the bars, and let every division of the
Great Army of God, whether wearing the uniform of
Buddhist or Baptist, Catholic or Campbellite, Methodist
or Mohammedan, move forward, with Faith its sword,
Hope its ensign and Charity its shield. Cease this foolish
internecine strife, at which angels weep, swing into line as
sworn allies and, at the command of the Great Captain,
advance your standards on the camp of the common foe.
Wage war, not upon each other, but on Poverty, Ignorance
and Crime, hell's great triumvirate, until this beautiful
world's redeemed and bound in very truth,
"With gold chains about the feet of God."
THE LOCAL OPTION LUNACY.
[Mr. Brann was billed to lecture at Hillsboro, Texas,
on the eve of the local option election. The Antis took
possession of the opera house and changed his subject.
Following is a synopsis of his address.]
Ladies and Gentlemen: I came here to talk on "Gall,"
and I find that I must speak on "Prohibition"--a
distinction without a difference. I hold in my hand a printed
challenge from the Prohib committee to meet Hon. W. K.
Homan in joint debate to-night--a challenge issued when
they were well aware that I was to lecture here this
evening. They felt certain that I would not forego a lecture
fee to mix it with them without money and without price;
but they didn't know their man. I'm always willing to
make some sacrifice to secure the luxury of a red-hot
intellectual scrapping match. We proposed to make it a
Midshipman Easy duel, a three-cornered fight--Brothers
Homan and Benson vs. the "Apostle," but they wiggled in
and they wiggled out, they temporized and tergiversated
until we saw there wasn't an ounce of fight in the whole
Prohibition crew--that, after their flamboyant defi, we
couldn't pull 'em into a joint debate with a span of mules
and a log-cabin. I last saw Bro. Bill Homan at Hubbard
City. He was getting out of town on the train I got in on
--after promising that he would remain over and meet me.
In his harangue the night before he told his auditors that
I'd simply "abuse the church and make ugly faces."
Well, I didn't abuse the church on that occasion, nor upon
any other, albeit I sometimes make it a trifle uncomfortable
for some of its unworthy representatives. I cannot
help "making ugly faces." It's my misfortune, not
my fault. I was born good and Bro. Bill was born beautiful.
He's the Adonis of the rostrum, the Apollo Belvidere
of the bema. He's so dodgasted "purty" that the children
cry for him. Had he come to earth two thousand years
ago some Grecian goddess would have stolen him. Bro.
Bill couldn't make an ugly face if he tried. If he ever
catches sight of his own personal pulchritude as reflected
in some translucent lake, I much fear that he'll meet with
the fate of Narcissus. Some of you Prohibs don't know
who Narcissus was. Well, he was one of those fellows
whom cold water killed.
I'm no professional anti-Prohibition spouter, and have
been jumped up here without preparation; but it occurs
to me that it requires no careful rehearsal of set orations
before an amorous looking glass, no studied intermingling
of pathos, bathos and blue fire to demolish the Prohibition
fallacy. Liberty is ever won by volunteers; the shackles
of political and religious slavery are forged by the hands
of hirelings. Prohibition cannot withstand the light of
logic, the lessons of experience, nor the crucible of the
commonest kind of common sense.
Milton tells us that the angel Ithuriel found the devil
"squat like a toad," distilling poison in the ear of sleeping
Eve; that he touched the varmint with his spear, and
forthwith Satan resumed his proper shape and fled shrieking
out of Paradise. Prohibition is another evil spirit that
is breeding trouble in man's Eden; but when touched by
the spear-point of legitimate criticism its disguise falls
away, and we see, instead of a harmless toad, a malicious
Meddlesome Mattie stirring up strife and bitterness among
brethren.
Whenever a man opposes the plans of the Prohibs he is
forthwith denounced as an enemy of morality, a slave of
the saloons, a hireling of the Anheuser-Busch Brewing
Association. Well, I had rather be the emissary of the
saloons than the assassin of liberty, the slave of a brewer
than the blind peon of ignorant prejudice, while if morality
consists in attending to my neighbor's business to the neglect
of my own, then I'm ferninst it, first, last and all the
time. As a good German friend of mine once remarked:
"Dot beoples who lives py stones of mine shouldn't trow
some glass houses, haind id?" Who is making money out
of this agitation? The Professional Prohibs. Did you
ever know of one of these gentry making a Prohibition
speech except for filthy lucre--unless he was electioneering
for office or taking subscribers for a cold-water
journal? They are the cattle who are OUT FOR THE STUFF;
they are the mercenaries--the men who pump foul air
through their faces for a fee. Did you ever hear of a
man getting paid for defending the doctrine of personal
liberty? Did you ever see a collection taken up at an
anti-prohibition meeting to pay some important spouter
for pointing out to the people their political duty? (A
voice: "Nix.") And you never will. These prohibition
orators have the impudence to denounce me as "the peon
of the rum power" while I am fighting the battles of
personal liberty at my own cost, yet not a dad-burned one of
'em will open his head unless paid for his wind-power!
They are "reformers" for revenue only.
I have noticed that, as a rule, men who speak against
Prohibition have never been in the gutter, while those who
pick up a precarious livelihood by chasing the "Rum Demon"
around a stump have usually been his very humble
slaves. I have noticed that the men who oppose Prohibition
are usually the solid, well-to-do men of the community,
the heavy tax-payers the men upon whom the schools, the
churches and the state chiefly depend for support, while
those who champion it on the rostrum are usually living
in some way upon the industry of others. The man who
has brains enough to make money and keep it usually has
too much sense to be a Prohibitionist. It is the fellows
who have made a failure of life; who live on donations;
who weep over the world's wickedness, then take up a
collection to enable them to get to the next town; who haven't
sufficient moral stamina to stay sober, that are prating of
Prohibition. If we required a property franchise you
couldn't muster five thousand Prohibition votes between
the Sabine and the Rio Grande.
And yet we are told that licensing the saloons is a bad
business investment; that it costs more than it comes to;
that the way to abolish poverty is to abrogate the liquor
license law. Strange that the Prohibs should possess such
transcendent business heads and such empty stomachs!
Doubtless the drinking of liquor adds to the cost of our
judiciary; doubtless it is responsible for some crime; but
the question at issue is not one of liquor-drinking vs.
teetotalism--it is a question of drinking licensed liquor
or Prohibition aquafortis. It is not a question of reducing
the cost of our courts, but of making liquor bear its due
proportion of the burdens it foists upon the people.
I am neither the friend nor enemy of liquor, any more
than I am the enemy or friend of buttermilk. I have drunk
both a third of a century and have been unable to see that
they did me any especial good or harm. I was never
befuddled on the one nor foundered on the other, and have
managed to get along very well with both. Whether in
eating or drinking, a man should keep his brains above
his belt, and if he cannot do that he's a precious poor
excuse for an uncrowned King, an American Sovereign.
The statistics furnished by the Prohibition orators are
fearfully and wonderfully made. It has been asserted in
this campaign that a million Americans die every year
of the world from the effects of strong drink--and all this
great army goes direct to hell. The man who made that
statement is a preacher, and presumably familiar with the
Bible; but he has evidently overlooked the story of
Ananias and Saphira. I learn from the United States census
report, which I hold in my hand, that in the very year in
which this Prohibition apostle claims a million Americans
were slain by strong drink, the statistical experts could
find but 1,592 victims of John Barleycorn. The doctors
have ever claimed that more people die of over-eating than
of over-drinking, and the census report bears out the
assertion, for in the year in which 1,592 people were filed
away by "alcoholism," 30,094 deaths are accredited to
"diseases of the digestive organs." What causes indigestion?
Over-eating, or eating food difficult of digestion.
Now I submit that if Brothers Benson, Homan, et al, are
trying to save the people of this land from premature
graves and bear the stock of the coffin trust, they should
direct their crusade against indigestible food,--reduce the
people of this Nation by means of statutory law to a diet
of cornbread and buttermilk. Let them bring all their
ballistae and battering-rams to bear upon the toothsome
mince pie, the railway sandwich, the hard-boiled egg and
pickled pigs' feet--that pestilence that walks in darkness.
Indigestion is indeed a fruitful source of crime. It casts
the black shadow of chronic pessimism athwart the sunniest
soul and transforms happy homes into dens of despair.
It makes men irritable, morose, and prompts them to
homicide. Who can tell how much misery and crime the
wretched cookery of female Prohibitionists is responsible
for? How the cost of our criminal courts might be reduced
if these she-reformers would but attend to their
kitchens and dish up for their lords and masters grub
that would more easily assimilate with the gastric juices!
If a man be fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils when
loaded with a half a pint of red licker, what must be the
condition of his mind and morals when he's full of sodden
pie, half baked beans and soda-biscuits that if fired from
a cannon would kill a bull?
The theory that strong drink is an unmixed evil that
must be abolished, is not in accord with the genius of this
government, which would give to the individual untrammeled
liberty in matters concerning only himself. Experience
has proven Prohibition a rank failure and the
customs of mankind from the very dawn of history brand
it a rotten fraud. The people of every age and clime
have used stimulants, and we may safely conclude that,
despite the Prohibs, they will be employed so long as man
exists upon the earth. Banish liquor and man will find a
substitute even though it be opium, morphine or cocaine.
It is said that Thor, the great northern god of war, once
tried to lift what he supposed was an old woman, but
found to his sorrow that it was a mighty serpent which,
in Norse mythology, encircles the world. The Prohibs
are warring upon what they foolishly imagine to be
frivolous habit of man, but will yet learn that they are
running counter to an immutable decree of God--are
trying to alter the physical constitution of the human race
by means of local option elections.
So far as I am personally concerned, I would care but
little if every ounce of liquor was banished from the earth
and its method of manufacture forever be forgotten; but I
object to having a lot of he-virgins and female wall-flowers
sit at my muzzle and dictate how I shall load myself. If
I'm an American sovereign I propose to be supreme autocrat
of my own stomach. When I want advice regarding
what I shall eat and what I shall drink I'll consult a
doctor of medicine instead of a doctor of divinity.
I do not oppose Prohibition because I am the friend
of liquor, but because I am the friend of liberty. I would
rather see a few boozers than a race of bondmen. I am
not interested in preserving the liquor traffic, but I am
interested in the perpetuation of those principles that
ennoble a people and make manly men--men who rely upon
themselves for their social salvation rather than upon a
public policy which may change with the phases of the
moon or the arrival of some new demagogue from distant
parts. I have but little use for men who must swing to the
apron-strings of a public grand-dame or go to the dogs.
Let us reserve the nursery for children. Men whom we
cannot trust with the guardianship of their own appetites
should not be allowed to run at large. How would you
young ladies like to marry "American Sovereigns" who
must be tied up, like a lot of mangy cayuses when white
clover is in blossom to keep 'em from catching the
"slobbers"?
But, the Prohibs inform us, the brightest men of the
world are ruined by strong drink. They assure us that
"it is not a question of intellect, but of appetite." What
was judgment given us for if not to control our appetites?
If Appetite be paramount to judgment why do we hang
rape-fiends? Let me tell you the idea that the brainiest
men of the world die drunkards is the merest moonshine.
If only men of genius drank liquor a one-horse still would
supply the demand and be idle six months in the year.
Take the thousand greatest men the world has produced
--the Thousand Immortelles--and not 2 per cent. of them
died drunkards, yet 98 per cent. of them drank liquor. If
the Prohibs have ever produced an intellect of the first
class they must have hidden it under a bushel. Its
possessor is probably one of those village Hampdens or mute
inglorious Miltons of whom the poet sings. The Prohibs
don't run to great men--they run to gab.
Stripped of all its superfluous trappings, the thesis of
Prohibition is simply this: "Some men drink to excess;
therefore no one should be permitted to drink at all. The
human race must reserve its inherent tastes and time-honored
habits lest some wild-eyed jay get on a jag." The
question at issue, the riddle for us to unravel, is simply
this: Can we afford to sacrifice human liberty to save the
sots? Is the game worth the candle, and if we burn the
candle will we win the game?
The Pros assure you that Prohibition prohibits. It
does. It prohibits the sale of liquor and supplies its place
with coffin paint. It prohibits the sale of good, ice cold
beer and gives us forty-rod bugjuice. Theories are
not worth a continental when slammed up against conditions.
What I hear I take with a grain of salt; but what
I see that I do know. I tell you candidly that next to a
pretty woman I love a cocktail. If the liquor is good and
the barkeeper understands his business, I consider it a
thing to thank God for--occasionally. Like religion, a
little of it is an excellent thing, but an overdose will put
wheels in your head. I have never yet been in a Prohibition
precinct where I needed to go thirsty if I had the
price of a pint flask concealed about my person--and my
stomach could stand the poison.
When high license prevailed in Hillsboro you had a
dozen saloons, each contributing to the revenues of the
state, the country, the municipality and the school fund.
You voted local option in, and now you've thirty-two
unlicensed and unregulated doggeries selling rot-gut to
schoolboys and contributing not one cent to the public
revenues. The cost of your courts has increased,
drunkenness was never so common, brawls never so frequent.
It is said that even fools can learn in the bitter school of
experience; but there be idiots upon whom even such lessons
are lost. But you say, "Vote local option in again
and we'll elect officers who will enforce the laws." Have
you yet to learn that a law cannot be enforced that is not
steadily upheld by public opinion? And do you not know
that there's not a considerable town in Texas where public
opinion demands at all times a strict enforcement of such
a law? If you really desire to have a sober city, raise
a purse and hire the operators of your blind tigers to place
their booze on the sidewalk in buckets, accompanied by
tin dippers and signs, "Help yourself--funerals furnished
free." Men would then run away from the very smell of
the stuff who now sneak up dirty alleys and pay 15 cents
for the privilege of poisoning themselves. On the same
principle some men--and they are not all anti-Prohibs
either--will leave a beautiful and charming wife to mope
at home while they are flirting with some female whose
face would frighten a freight-train. Man is just like a
dog--only more so. Perhaps a marauding old muley cow
would be a better comparison. A muley cow will eat
anything on this majestic earth that she can steal, from a
hickory shirt to a Prohibition newspaper, and if she can't
get it through her neck she will chew it and suck the juice.
That's human nature to a hair. Man values most what is
hardest to get. And until you reverse the law of nature
the legitimate effect of Prohibition will be blind tigers and
back-door sneaks, the breeding of spies and the sale and
consumption of an infinitely meaner brand of booze.
That liquor has done a vast amount of damage I freely
concede; but shall we banish everything that has added to
the mighty tide of human ills? Then what have we left?
A hole in the atmosphere, God has not bequeathed to man
an unmixed blessing since he expelled him from Paradise.
Even woman, his last, best gift, hath grievous faults. The
very first one brought into this world, according to Pagan
legend and Holy Writ, was the author of all our ills. But
for her we would be to-day in a blessed state of innocence,
where mothers-in-law and millinery bills, political issues
and itinerant preachers, mental freaks and professional
reformers, jim-jams and jag cure joints disturb us not.
Instead of all this toil and trouble we would lie like gods
reclining on banks of asphodel, pull the heavenly bell-cord
when hungry and live on from age to age, ever young
Apollos. Perhaps the Almighty made a mistake when he
gave to man a wife, and another when he gave him the
vine; but when he corrects 'em I'll crawl off the earth.
Woman has filled the world with war's alarms, and the
bacchic revel has ended in the brawl. Troy flamed because
Menelaus' wife was false, and Philip's all-conquering
son surrendered to the brimming bowl. Ever is our dearest
joy wedded to our direst woe. The same air that comes
stealing round our pillow, laden with the sensuous perfume
of a thousand flowers, rips our towns to pieces and
turns our artesian wells inside out. The same rains that
fructify the earth pour the destructive flood. The same
intellectual power that bends nature's mighty forces to
man's imperial will, enables him to trample upon his
brethren. The same reckless courage that breaks the
tyrant's chain ofttimes stains the hand with a brother's
blood. The same longing for woman's sweet companionship
that leads these to rear happy homes--sacred shrines
from which incense mounts night and day to the throne
of Omnipotent God--goads those to lawless love. The
empurpled juice that warms the cold heart and stirs the
sluggish blood that gives to the orator lips of gold, to the
poet promethean fire abused doth breed the hasty quarrel
and make the god a beast.
It was said of old that a middle course is safest and
best, and the axiom still holds good. All the Utopias thus
far inaugurated were greased at the wrong end. The
fact that since the dawn of history--aye, so far back that
legend itself is lost in the shadows of the centuries--the
winecup has circulated about the social board, proves that
it supplies a definite, an inherent human want--that it fills
a niche in the world's economy. One of the first acts of
a people after passing the pale of savagery is to supply
itself with stimulants. Why this is so, I do not pretend
to know; but so it is, and it argues that the Prohibition
apostles have tackled about as big a contract as did Dame
Partington--that they had best "pluck a few feathers
from the wing of their fancy wherewith to supply the tail
of their judgment."
The Prohibs declare that 999 out of every 1,000 crimes
are caused by liquor. Suppose this to be true: Does it
take the cussedness out of liquor to drive it from the front
room into the back alley? Is it not a fact that the worst
brand of "fighting booze" is dispensed at the illicit
doggery? But the Prohibs are as badly at sea anent their
criminal statistics as in the mortuary report. Comparatively
few of the great criminals of this country ever
drank liquor to excess. But a small per cent. of those in
our penitentiaries were confirmed drunkards when accorded
the hospitality of the state. When a man is convicted
of crime he naturally seeks a scapegoat. Adam
threw all the blame of that apple episode on Eve, simply
because liquor had not then been invented and he could
not plead an Edenic jag in extenuation. I was once interviewing
a man who had just been sentenced to the penitentiary
for horse-theft. I thought that perhaps a cocktail
would cause him to talk freer, and had one smuggled
to his cell. He declined it, saying that he had never taken
but one drink of liquor in his life, and that made him sick.
"But," said I, "you told the court that you were crazy
drunk when you committed the crime."
"Yes," he replied, "I'd rather be thought a drunkard
than a natural born d----d thief."
That led me to investigate. I interviewed the recorder
of Galveston, the chief of police, the sheriff of the county,
the district attorney and several other officials. We went
over the records, and the habits of each offender were
carefully inquired into. As a matter of course the
"drunks and disorderlies" made an imposing list; but we
were unable to trace the influence of liquor in more than
3 per cent. of the serious crimes committed in Galveston
city and county during five years.
The great cry of the Prohibs is, "Save the boys; remove
temptation from their path." Well, that's all right,
if you've got a putty boy; but if I had a boy who wanted
to go on a whizz and wasn't smart enough to find the
means despite all the Prohibs in Christendom, I'd send
him to the insane asylum. I was reading the other day of
some college youths who were watched so closely that
they couldn't obtain liquor, and proceeded to fill up on
illuminating gas. If the supply of gas holds out those
youngsters are likely to develop into great Prohibition
orators. If you want to keep your boy from filling a
drunkard's grave, begin by getting a sure-enough boy--
one whose brain-pan lies above instead of below his ears.
Then raise him right. Don't tell him that every man who
sells liquor is an emissary of hell, and that every man who
drinks it is a worthless sot. If you do, he'll soon find out
that you are a liar without sufficient intelligence to build
a dangerous falsehood, and he'll take off the muzzle. Tell
him the truth and thereby retain his confidence. Tell him
that liquor is a pretty good thing to let alone, but that
millions of better men than his daddy have drank it and
lived and died sober and useful citizens.
Prohibition was first tried in the Garden of Eden. It
proved a failure there, and it has proven a failure ever
since. It is not in accord with the Christian Bible, the
fundamental law of the land or the lessons of history.
Wine has been used in almost every religious rite except
Mohammedanism and devil worship. St. Paul recommends
it, Christ made and used it and God saved Noah
while letting all the good Prohibitionists drown. The
Saviour came eating and drinking. Abraham Lincoln
declared Prohibition "a species of intemperance within
itself" and "a blow at the very principles on which our
government was founded." General Grant, Thomas
Jefferson, Horatio Seymour and John Quincy Adams
denounced it in unmeasured terms. Who's taking issue with
these giants of the intellect? Redlicker Benson of Ingeanny,
who has come all the way to Texas to tell us barbarians
what to do to be saved--and incidentally pick up
enough money to pay for another "jag"; Whoopee
Kalamity Homan, the pretty man of Dallas, whose chief
argument is that I abuse the churches--which is an
infernal falsehood; and Jehovah Boanerges Cranfill, an
ex-bum who aspires to the presidency of the United States,
but couldn't be elected pound-master in his own precinct.
I have been asked why, if as much liquor is sold under
Prohibition as under high license, the saloonists insist
upon contributing to the public revenues. The answer's
dead easy. The men who engineer blind tigers vote the
Prohibition ticket. They contribute to the campaign
fund. They help pay the fees of the cold water spouters
and sputers. More liquor is sold under local option than
under high license, because of man's natural hankering for
forbidden fruits; but it is sold by a different class of men
and is a different kind of booze. It is sold by chronic law-
breakers, by men who have little to lose, by toughs for
whom the bat-cage hath no terrors. The man who is capable of
straddling an unlicensed keg of bug-juice in a back-room and
ladling out liquid hell to little boys, is quite naturally in
favor of Prohibition. A man of respectability, and who is
financially responsible for offenses, desires to keep within the
limits of the law. That's the reason that respectable saloon men
are the enemies of Prohibition.
Legalize the sale of liquor and you will have some
crime, no doubt. You will have paupers and criminals to
provide for, but you'll have a revenue to help bear the
burdens. Prohibit it and you'll have the burdens without
the revenue. Permit its sale and you will have law-abiding
citizens engaged in the traffic, men who will try to
make it decent, who will take a pride in the purity of their
wares and the orderliness of their places; prohibit it, and
you will have a lot of law-breakers on the one hand selling
slumgullion made of cheap chemicals and general cussedness,
and a gang of spies and informers on the other stirring
up strife and entailing costly litigation.
When driven to the wall; when it is clearly demonstrated
that their doctrine does not accord with the genius
of this government; when it is amply proven that wherever
tried it has proven an expensive failure, an arrant
fraud, the Prohibs fall back upon the Bible. You may
prove five hundred different religious dogmas by the Bible,
but Prohibition is not one of them. Bro. Homan declares
that the Old Testament prohibits the drinking of wine.
It does not; but it does not make circumcision obligatory,
and a sin of omission is as bad as a sin of commission. If
Bro. Homan proposes to be guided by the Old Testament I
beg to suggest that he is overlooking a very important bit.
The Old Testament commands no class of people to
abstain from wine, except the Jewish priesthood, and
they ONLY WHILE PERFORMING THEIR SACRED OFFICES. An angel
of the Lord did command the barren Manoah to stay sober
awhile and she should conceive and bear a son; and I
imagine that something equally as miraculous might happen
to Luther Benson under similar circumstances.
David recounts as one of God's mercies that he giveth
water to the wild ass and wine to make glad the heart of
man. Solomon sings to the wine cup with all the ardor
of Anacreon, while the prophets kept the morals of Israel
toned up by threats that a lapse from virtue would prove
disastrous to the vineyards. St. Paul advised bishops and
old women to take but little wine. He also suggested to
the first that they should not fly into a passion, and to the
latter that spreading false reports about their neighbors
was not considered good form. The Prohibs, as a last
resort, insist that the wine of Biblical days was very
different from our own--a kind of circus lemonade; but it
seems to have gotten in its graft on old Noah in most
elegant shape. If the wine of Biblical times was so harmless
why did the sacred writers consider it necessary to caution
people against drunkenness, bid them be temperate in all
things--while avoiding teetotalism? The only beverage
I can find mentioned in the Bible that affected a man like a
Prohibition drink, was that given Col. Lot in the cave by
his two daughters. It accomplished what medical men
assure me was a miracle--and the Prohibs run largely to
the miraculous.
* * *
OLD GLORY.
(Address at San Antonio, July 4, 1893.)
FELLOW CITIZENS--I have done pretty much everything
that a man may do and dodge the penitentiary, except run
for office and make Fourth of July speeches. Eulogizing
the Goddess of Liberty were much like adding splendor to
the sunrise or fragrance to the breath of morn. She needs
no encomiast, star-crowned she stands, the glory of
America, the admiration of the world.
I shall make a bid for your gratitude by being brief. In
July weather the song of an electric fan and the small voice
of the soda fount were more grateful to the soul than the
grandest eloquence that ever burned on a Grady's lips of
gold. It is customary, I believe on July 4th, to "make the
eagle scream,"--to fight o'er again all the gory battles of
the Republic, from Lexington's defeat to the glorious victory
of the last election; but I am no Gov. Waite, and
blood to horses' bridles delights me not. I would rather
at any time talk of love's encounters than of war's alarums
--rather bask in the smiles of beauty than mount barbed
steeds to fright the souls of fearful adversaries. I have
ever had a sneaking respect for Grover Cleveland for
sending a substitute to remonstrate with the Southern
Confederacy while he played progressive euchre with the
pretty girls. His patriotism may not have soared above
par, but there were no picnic ants on his judgment. Much
as I love my country, I would rather be a living president
than a dead hero.
I address you as "fellow Americans," for in this land
no man of Celtic or of Saxon blood can be an alien.
Whether he was born on the banks of the blue Danube or
by Killarney's lovely lakes, 'mid Scotia's rugged hills or
on the sunny vales of France, he is bound to us with ties
of blood; he hath a claim upon our country, countersigned
by those brave souls who, in the western wilds, gave to
Liberty a habitation and a name--who declared that
Columbia should ever be the refuge of the world's
oppressed,--that all men, in whatever country born, should
be equal before the law wherever falls the shadow of our
flag. There has of late arisen a strange new doctrine that
we should close our ports against the peoples of other
lands, however worthy they may be; but I say unto you
that such a policy were to betray a sacred trust confided
to us by our fathers,--that every honest man beneath
high heaven, every worshipper at Liberty's dear shrine
hath an inheritance here, and when, with uplifted hand he
pledges his life, his fortune and his sacred honor to the
defense of freedom's flag he becomes as much an American
as though to the manner born.
On occasions such as this we of America are apt to
glorify ourselves too much,--to overlook the origin of
those elements that made us great. When exulting over
our victories in war and our still more glorious triumphs
in peace, our progress and our prosperity, we should not
forget that had there been no Europe there would be no
great American nation; that all the courage that beats
in the blood of Columbia's imperial sons, and all the
wondrous beauty with which her daughters are dowered;
that all the tireless energy of which she proudly boasts,
and all the genius that gilds her name with glory were
nurtured for a thousand years at white bosoms beyond the
ocean's brine.
The American nation is the fair flower of European
civilization, the petted child of the world's old age.
Princes may be jealous of her progress and tyrants read
in her rise their own downfall; but the great heart of the
people of every land and clime is hers; to her they turn
their faces as the helianthus to the rising sun,--she is
their beacon light, their star of hope, guiding them to the
glories of a grander day.
It is natural, it is right that on the nation's natal day
we should felicitate ourselves on the sacred privileges we
enjoy--should pay the tribute of our respect to those
whose courage crowned us with sovereignty and made us
masters of our fate; but we should not, as too often
happens, make it the occasion for senseless bravado and
foolish bluster. We should rather employ it to promote
good will among the nations of the earth, to link together
in a kindlier brotherhood the various families of the great
Caucasian race, to beat the barbarous sword into peaceful
plowshares and forever banish strife.
I sometimes dream that God has, in his mercy, raised
this nation up unto the world's salvation,--the immediate
instrument of His grace to usher in that age of gold,
"When the war-drum throbs no longer and the battle-flags are
furled,
In the parliament of man, the federation of the world."
I delight to trace in the rise and fall of nations the finger
of God, and strive to read the Almighty's plan in the
historic page. In the farthest east appeared the first
faint light of civilization's dawn, and westward ever since
the star of empire hath ta'en its way, while each succeeding
nation that rose in its luminous paths like flowers in
the footsteps of our dear Lord, has reached a higher plane
and wrought out a grander destiny. The cycle is complete--
the star now blazes in the world's extreme west
and by the law of progress which has preserved for forty
centuries, here if anywhere, must we look for that millennial
dawn of which poets have fondly dreamed and for
which philanthropists have prayed.
The awful responsibility of leadership rests upon us.
We have shattered the scepter of the tyrant and broken
the shackles of the slave; we have torn the diadem from the
prince's brow and placed the fasces of authority in the
hands of the people; we have undertaken to lead the human
race from the Slough of Despond to the Delectable Mountains,
where Justice reigns supreme and every son of
Adam may find life worth living. Can we make good our
glorious promises? Are we equal to the task to which we
have given our hand? Ten thousand times the world has
asked this question, but there is neither Dodona Oak nor
Delphic Oracle to make reply--the future alone can
answer. All eyes are upon us, in hope or fear, in prayer
or protest. The fierce light that beats upon a throne were
as the firefly's dull flame to the lightning's flash compared
with that which illumes the every act of this champion of
human progress, this knight par excellence, this Moses
of the nations.
It is an important role which God hath assigned to us
in the great drama of life, yet into a part so pregnant
with fate we too often inject the levity of the farce.
While preaching equal rights to all and special privileges
to none, we pass laws that divide the people of this land
into princes and paupers, into masters and slaves. On
July 4th we shout for the old flag, and all the rest of the
year we clamor for an appropriation. While boasting
that we are sovereigns by right divine and equal unto
kings, we hasten to lay our hair beneath the feet of every
scorbutic dude who hither drifts,
"Stuck o'er with titles and hung around with strings."
The soldier who serves the state demands a pension, and
every burning patriot wants an office. We boast that the
people rule, and office-holders are but public servants; yet
more than a moiety of us would hang our crowns on a
hickory limb and swim a river to break into official bondage.
Here in Texas seven distinguished citizens are already
chasing the governorship like a pack of hungry
wolves after a wounded fawn, while the woods are full of
brunette equines who have taken for their motto,
"They also serve who only stand and wait."
Yes, our office-holders are indeed our public servants--
and my experience with servants has been that they usually
run the whole shebang.
Theoretically we have the best government on the globe,
but it is so brutally mismanaged by our blessed public
servants that it produces the same evil conditions that
have damned the worst. Even Americans whose forefathers
dined on faith at Valley Forge, or fought at
Lundy's Lane, have become so discouraged by political
bossism, so heartsick with hope deferred that they quote
approvingly those lines of Pope,
"For forms government let fools contest,
Whate'er is best administered is best."
While boasting of popular government, we suffer
ourselves to be led about by self-seeking politicians like a
blind man by a scurvy poodle; we made partisanship
paramount to patriotism--have reserved the poet's line,
and now
"All are for a party and none are for the state."
It were well for us to make July 4th less an occasion
for self-glorification than for prayerful consideration of
the dangers upon which we are drifting in these piping
times of peace--dangers that arise, not in foreign courts
and camps, but are conceived in sin by the American
plutocracy and brought forth in iniquity by our own political
bosses. We have no longer aught to fear from the outside
world. Uncle Sam can, if need be, marshal forth to
battle eight million as intrepid sons as those who crowned
old Bunker Hill with flame or bathed the crests of
Gettysburg with blood. Upon such a wall of oak and iron
the powers of the majestic world would beat in vain. Our
altars and our fanes are far beyond the reach of a foreign
foe; but the rock that recks not the thunderbolt nor bows
to the fierce simoon, is swept from its base by the
unconsidered brook.
No man can be a patriot on an empty stomach; no
country can be secure, I care not if Moses makes its
constitution and Solon frame its laws, when half its people
are homeless and brawny giants must beg their bread. As
far back as history's dawn the rise of the plutocracy and
the impoverishment of the common people have heralded
the downfall of the state. Thus fell imperial Rome, that
once did rule the world, and Need and Greed are the
ballistae and battering-rams that are pounding to-day with
tremendous power upon every throne of Europe and rocking
the very civilization of the world from turret to
foundation stone.
We have achieved liberty, but have yet to learn in this
strange new land the true significance of life. We have
made the dollar the god of our idolatry, the Alpha and
Omega of our existence, and bow the knee to it with a
servility as abject as that of courtiers kissing the hand of
Kings. As the old pagans sometimes incorporated their
lesser in their greater deities that they might worship all
at once, so have we put the Goddess of Liberty and Saving
Grace on the silver dollar that we may not forget them.
But before God, I do believe that this selfish, this
Mammon-serving and unpatriotic age will pass, as passed the
age of brutish ignorance, as passed the age of tyranny. I
believe the day will come--oh blessed dawn!--when we'll
no longer place the badge of party servitude above the
crown of American sovereignty, the ridiculous oriflamme
of foolish division above Old Glory's star-gemmed promise
of everlasting unity; when Americans will be in spirit and
in truth a band of brothers, the wrongs of one the
concern of all; when brains and patriotism will take
precedence of boodle and partisanship in our national politics;
when labor will no longer fear the cormorant nor capital
the commune; when every worthy and industrious citizen
may spend his declining days, not in some charity ward,
but in the grateful shadow of his own vine and fig-tree,
the loving lord of a little world hemmed in by the sacred
circle of a home. There was a time, we're told, when to be
a Roman was greater than to be a King; yet there came
a time when to be a Roman was to be the vassal of a slave.
Change is the order of the universe and nothing stands.
We must go forward or we must go backward--we must
press on to grander heights, to greater glories, or see the
laurels already won turn to ashes on our brow. We may
sometimes slip; shadows may obscure our path; the boulders
may bruise our feet; there may be months of mourning
and days of agony; but however dark the night, Hope,
a poising eagle, will ever burn above the unrisen morrow.
Trials we may have and tribulations sore; but I say unto
you, oh brothers mine, that while God reigns and the
human race endures, this nation, born of our father's blood
and sanctified by our mother's tears, shall never pass away.
* * *
THE LONE STAR.
These balmy days, I often recall my ideas of Texas before
I had the pleasure of mingling with its people,--of becoming
myself a Texan. I regret to say that I had accepted
Phil Sheridan's estimate of the State--an opinion that
still prevails in too many portions of our common country.
After living in Texas for ten years I paid a visit to my
people beyond the beautiful Ohio. The old gentlemen sized
me up critically, evidently expecting to see me wearing
war-paint and a brace of bowie-knives.
"So, young man, you're living in Texas?"
"Yes, paw."
"Fell kinder t'hum 'mong them centerpedes, cowboys 'n
other varments, I s'pose?"
"Y-y-yes, paw."
"Well, Billy, you allers was a mighty bad boy. I kinder
cackalated as how you'd go t'hell some day; but, praise
God, I never thought y' was bound fer Texas!"
I assured him that were I certain hell were half as good
as Texas, I wouldn't worry so much about my friends who
were in politics for their health.
Texas could well afford to spend a million dollars a
year for a decade to disabuse the minds of the Northern
people--to work it through their hair that the southwest
produces something besides hades and hoodlums, jack-
rabbits and jays. Were it generally known exactly what
Texas is,--what her people, climate and resources--there
are not railroads enough running into the state to handle
the men and money that would seek homes and investments
here. The year 1900 would see ten million prosperous
people between the Sabine and Rio Grande; and it would
be a people to be proud of,--the young blood of America,
the cream of Christendom, the brain and brawn of the
Western World.
The light of the Lone Star cannot be much longer
hidden; it is breaking even now upon the earth. True
knowledge of Texas is spreading,--spreading over the icy
North, spreading over the barren East, spreading over
crowded Europe--and knowledge of Texas is power unto
her salvation.
I was north last summer, and talked Texas, of course.
One day a long, lank, lingering eternity of a gawk sidled
up to me, as though he feared I was loaded, and said:
"Great state, that Texas, I 'spose?"
"Rather."
"Purty big, I heer'n tell?"
"Look at the map."
"Gewhillikins, Maria! 'Tis purty dogon gosh-all-fired
big, haint she?"
"That's whatever."
" 'Spose you're a gineral, or a corporal, or suthin
nuther when you're t'hum?"
"Nop."
"N-no? Jedge, p'haps?"
"No, sir; I am simply a plain, every-day citizen of
Texas,--not even a member of the legislature or candidate
for congress."
"Hump! Say, Maria, I kinder thought as how that
slab-sided galoot was a lyin' when he said he was frum
Texas."
He could not conceive of a Texan without a title. But
Texas will come out all right. I have faith in her future,
for many reasons; but chiefly because she has unbounded
confidence in herself--because nowhere will you find such
local patriotism, such state pride, such love of home as
beneath the Lone Star. There are rivalries, but they are
not born of bitterness. A Texas is all for Texas.
Within the memory of living men, Oppression's fangs
wounded Freedom's snowy breast, and from the ruddy
drops Almighty God did make a star, the brightest that
ever blessed the world; but ever have the clouds of
calumny and the mists of malice obscured its matchless
beauty. Slowly but surely the rank vapors are rolling by,
and brighter and ever brighter blazes our astral emblem
--born in the field of battle, its lullaby the cannon's
thunder, its cradle the hearts of the brave, its nurse
necessity, its baptismal rite a rain of blood and tears. May it
forever be another beacon of Bethlehem to guide us on to a
grander future--a harbinger of hope and happiness, an
emblem of love and liberty, and in its deathless splendor go
ever shining on.
* * *
SLAVE OR SOVEREIGN.
STATUS OF THE AMERICAN CITIZEN.
[Synopsis of an address delivered by Mr. Brann,
August 10, 1895.]
FELLOW CITIZENS: If I had a million o' money--carefully
protected from the income tax by a plutocratic supreme
court--I would probably not be here to inquire whether
you are Slaves or Sovereigns. And if you could draw your
check for seven figures--with any probability of getting it
cashed--you would not be here to answer. You'd do just
as Dives did: lean back in your luxurious chair and absorb
your sangaree, while Lazarus scratched his Populist fleas
on your front steps and exploited your garbage barrels for
bones. You'd turn up your patrician nose at the lowly
proletaire, and if he did but hint that, having created this
world's wealth, he was entitled to something better than
hand-outs, you'd have an anti-communistic cat-fit and
denounce him as an insolent hoodlum who should be
comfortably hanged. That's human nature to a hair, and you
are all human,--I suppose--even if the politicians do buy
you with gas and sell you for gold.
I tell you frankly that I'm complaining, not because of
the other fellow's colossal fortune, but because I can't
strike the plutocratic combination. I'm dreadfully anxious
to accumulate a modest fortune--of about fifty millions--
that I may build a comfortable orphan asylum for that
vast contingent of Democratic politicians whom the next
election will deprive of their "pap."
I'm no philanthropist who's trying to reform the world
for the fun of the thing--who's willing to starve to death
for the sake of an attractive tombstone. I want to so
amend industrial conditions that I won't have to hustle so
hard--and so long--between meals; and when they are
bettered for me they will be bettered for you, and for
every man who--with pick or pen, brain or brawn--
honestly earns his daily bread.
I want more holidays; more time to sit down and reflect
that it is good to be alive; more time to go fishing--not
fishing for men, but for sure--enough suckers. Here in
America if the average mortal aspires to fill a long-felt
want with first-class fodder, he's got to chase the almighty
dollar on week-days like a hungry coyote camping on the
trail of a corpulent jack-rabbit, and spend Sunday figuring
how to circumvent his fellow-citizen. Life with the
American people is one continental hurry, and rush from
the cradle to the grave. We're born in a hurry, live by
electricity and die with scientific expedition. Half of us don't
take time to become acquainted with our own families.
We've even got to courting by telephone, and I expect to
see some enterprising firm put up lover's kisses in tablet
form, so that they can be carried in the vest pocket and
absorbed while we figure cent per cent. or make out a
mortgage.
. . .
For a score of years I had been listening to the boast
of the American people that they were Sovereigns by right
divine, and at last it occurred to me to swear out a search
warrant for my crown and go on a still-hunt for my
scepter; but soon found that the jewels of my throne-room,
the rod of my authority and my purple robe of office
were conspicuous by their absence and I wasn't married at
the time either. The American citizen is a sovereign, not
to the extent of his voice and vote, but to the exact amount
of Uncle Sam's illuminated mental anguish plasters at his
command. Money is lord paramount, Mammon our
prophet, our god the golden calf.
The dollar is indeed "almighty." It's the Archimedean
lever that lifts the ill-bred boor into select society and
places the ignorant sap-head in the United State Senate.
It makes presidents of "stuffed prophets," governors of
intellectual geese, philosophers of fools and gilds infamy
itself with supernal glory. It wrecks the altars of
innocence and pollutes the fanes of the people, breaks the
sword of Justice and binds the Goddess of Liberty with
chains of gold. It is lord of the land, the uncrowned king
of the commonwealth, and its whole religious creed is
comprised in the one verse, "To him that hath shall be given
and he shall have abundance, while from him that hath
not shall be taken even that which he hath."
"We, the people, rule"--in the conventions; but our
delegated lawmakers have a different lord. In 1892 we
demanded "tariff reform" with a whoop that shook the
imperial rafters of heaven, and declared for the minting
of gold and silver without discrimination against either
metal. But our so-called "public servants," instead of
hastening to obey our behests, spent months manufacturing
excuses for disregarding their duty. Placed between
the devil of the money power and the deep sea of public
opinion, they wobbled in and they wobbled out like a
drunken boa-constrictor taking its jag to a gold cure
joint. They were like the little boy who put his trousers
on t'other side to--we couldn't tell whether they were
going to school or coming home. But our doubts were all
dispelled last November. They are the fellows who were
going to school--to that school of experience where fools
are educated.
. . .
Slave or Sovereign? The last is an individual entity, a
controlling power, his will is law. The first goes and
comes, fetches and carries at the command of a master;
creating wealth he may not possess, bound by laws he
does not approve, dependent upon the pleasure of others
for the privilege of breaking bread. Is not the latter
condition that of a majority of the American people to-day?
Are they not at the subsequent end of a financial hole, the
sides soaped and never a ladder in sight?
In a country so favored--a veritable garden of the gods,
where every prospect pleases and not even the politician
is wholly vile--the lowliest laborer should be a lord, and
each and all find life well worth the living. But it is not
so. People starve while sunny savannas, bursting with
fatness, yield no food; they wander houseless through
summer's heat and winter's cold, while great mountains of
granite comb the fleecy clouds and the forest monarch
measures strength with the thunderstorm; they flee naked
and ashamed from the face of their fellow-men while fabrics
molder in the market-place and the song of the spindle is
silent: they freeze while beneath their feet are countless
tons of coal--incarnate kisses of the sun-god's fiery youth;
they have never a spot of earth on which to plant a vine
and watch their children play--where they may rear with
loving hands lowly roof and rule, lords of a little world
hemmed in by the sacred circle of a home; yet the common
heritage in the human race lies fair before them and
there is room enough.
The people of Texas do not realize how terrible is the
industrial condition of the world to-day--how wide the
gulf that separates Dives and Lazarus, how pitiful the
poverty of millions of their fellowmen. The Texas merchant
complains of dull trade, the farmer of low prices,
the mechanic of indifferent wages; yet Texas is the most
favored spot on the great round earth to-day. I defy you
to find another portion of the globe of equal area and
population where the wealth is so well distributed, where so
few people go hungry to bed without prospect of breakfast.
But the grisly gorgon of Greed and the gaunt
specter of Need are coming West and South in the wake of
the Star of Empire. Already Texas has begun to breed
millionaires and mendicants, sovereigns and slaves.
Already we have an aristocracy of money, in which WEALTH
makes the man and want of it the fellow, and year by year
it becomes easier for Dives to add to his hoard and for
Lazarus to starve to death.
We appeal to New York for capital with which to
develop our resources; and New York has it in abundance--
countless millions she is eager to let out at usury; yet it is
estimated that ten thousand children perish in that city
every year of the world for lack of food--and how many
are kept alive by the bitter bread of a contemptuous
charity God only knows. In one year 3,000 children were
debarred from the public schools of Chicago because of lack
of clothing to cover their nakedness--and Chicago boasts
herself "the typical American city." The despised
Salvation Army trying to feed a thousand homeless and hungry
men on the sandlots of San Francisco proves that already
the curse has travelled across the continent.
And people who are not only permitted to run at large,
but actually elected to office, prattle of "overproduction"
--while people are starving in nakedness; proposes to
eliminate pauperism and inaugurate the industrial
millennium by placing fiddle-strings on the free-list or
increasing the tariff-tax on toothpicks--to relieve the country
of the commercial jim-jams by means of the gold cure. And
the fool-killer still procrastinates!
. . .
The American citizen is called a sovereign--by those
patriots who are preparing to sacrifice themselves on the
altar of a nice fat office. And perhaps he is; but I'm free.
We are frequently told that the condition of labor is
better to-day than a century ago. That is half a truth,
yet wholly a falsehood. A century ago the workman knew
naught of many comforts and conveniences he now enjoys
--when he happens to have a job; but that was one
age, this quite another. Progress gives no man new wants,
and the luxuries of one generation become the necessities
of the next. To deny this--to limit the laborer to actual
necessaries as measured by a former age--were to relegate
him back to barbarism, to nomadism and nakedness. If
we should be content with what our fathers had, then they
should have been satisfied with the comforts enjoyed by
THEIR progenitors, and so on back until man digs roots
with his finger nails, attires himself in a streak of red
paint for winter overcoat and a few freckles for summer
ulster. It is by comparison with his fellows and not with
his fathers that man determines whether he's fortunate or
unfortunate--whether he's receiving his proper proportion
of the world's increase of wealth. A century ago there
was no such glaring inequality as now exists. There were
no fifty million dollar fortunes and no free-soup joints. If
the workman's piano was a jews-harp and his Pullman
car a spavined cayuse, his employer was not erecting
palaces in which to stable his blood stock, nor purchasing
dissolute princes for his daughters to play at marriage and
divorce with. If the farmer's wife wore linsey-woolsey and
went barefoot to save her shoes, her neighbor did not
import $5,000 gowns from "Paree" and put jeweled
collars on her pet cur. The difference in the condition of
Dives and Lazarus is more sharply defined than ever
before. It is not so much the pitiful poverty of the many
as the enormous wealth of the few that is fostering
discontent. Pride dallying with Sin begot Death; willful
waste is breeding Anarchy in the Womb of Want. The
lords and ladies of the house of Have revel in luxury such
as Lucullus never knew, while within sound of their feasting
gaunt children fight like famished beasts for that which
the breakfast garbage barrels afford. Private fortunes
make the famed wealth of Lydia's ancient kings appear but
a beggar's patrimony, while brawny giants must beg or
steal and starving mothers give the withered breast to
dying babes.
Labor now seeks employment, not as a right, but as a
privilege. It has come to such a pitiful pass in this
"land of liberty," this "refuge of the world's oppressed,"
that to afford a man an opportunity to employ his strength
or skill in the creation of wealth, a portion of which he
may retain for his own support, is regarded rather as a
privilege than a free contract between American Sovereigns
--an act of charity, for which the recipient should be duly
grateful.
No man can be a freeman while dependent upon the
good will of an other for his bread and butter. He may be
a Sovereign dejure, but he's a Slave defacto. And under
present conditions the more labor-saving machinery he
invents, the tighter he rivets his chains.
We had hoped and believed that human ingenuity was
about to lift the curse laid on Adam by his angry Lord;
the angel of Intellect to reimparadise the poor slave, place
his fetters on nature's tireless forces and declare that
never again should bread be eaten in the sweat of the brow;
but man proposes--and is sued for breach of promise.
Were a man to declare labor-saving machinery and the
general development of the country a curse to the poor, he
would be branded as a "moss-back" or budding candidate
for Bedlam; yet it is unquestionably true that the further
the average individual gets from the so-called blessings of
civilization--the less he is affected by our boasted industrial
system--the smaller his danger of starving to death.
Many of us can remember when we had little labor-
saving machinery in Texas; when railways were scarce as
consistent Christians at a colored camp-meeting, goods
were carried down from coast on the backs of burros and a
full-dress suit consisted chiefly of buckskin breeches and
a brace of angel makers. And we remember also that a
pauper was a curiosity; that the very cowboys played
poker at $10 ante with the sky for limit, the common
laborer carried coin in his belt and the merchant had
money to burn. Texas has developed wonderfully during
the last few decades. We now have improved machinery
--and extensive poor-farms; railways--and political
rings; a $3,000,000 capitol--and an army of unemployed.
We have built fine schools and finer churches, made the
black man our political brother and bought his vote. We
have exchanged our buckskin for broadcloth, our hair-
raising profanity for the hypocrite's whine, straight corn-
juice for the champagne-jag and the hip-pocket court for
the jackass verdict of the petit jury. But the cowboy now
plays penny-ante on credit or shoots craps for small coin;
the common laborer carries in his belt only a robust
appetite, while the merchant who dodges bankruptcy for
a dozen years considers himself the special favorite of
fortune.
And what is true of Texas is true in greater or less
degree of every State in the Union. Development, so dear
to the heart of the patriotic and public-spirited citizen, has
a tendency to transform an independent and moderately
prosperous people into masters and slaves. But this is
not the fault of labor-saving machinery, nor of capital,
nor of development by itself considered. The more wealth
labor creates, the more it should enjoy. When the reverse
is the case distribution is at fault.
The substitution of expensive machinery for hand-labor
eliminated the independent artisan. His productive power
was multiplied; but his independence--his ability to care
for himself without the cooperation of large capital--
was gone. The wheelwright could not return to his shop
nor the shoemaker to his last and live in comfort.
Competition with the iron fingers of the great factory were
impossible. Labor must now await the pleasure of capital--
the creature has become lord of its creator. The fierce
competition of idle armies forces wages down, and slowly
but surely the workman is sinking back to the level
occupied before the cunning brain of genius harnessed the
lightning to his lathe and gave him nerves of steel and
muscles of brass with which to fight his battle for bread.
With the improved machinery with which he is provided,
the American workman can create as much wealth in a
week as he need consume in a month; but he goes down
on his knees and thanks God and the plutocracy for an
opportunity to toil 300 days in the year for a bare
subsistence.
. . .
Unfortunately, I have no catholicon for every industrial
ill--but the political drug-stores are full of 'em. All
you've got to do is to select your panacea, pull the cork
and let peace and plenty overflow a grateful land--so we're
told. Instead of the cure-me-quicks prescribed by the
economic M.D.'s, I believe that our industrial system has
been doped with entirely too many drugs. I'd throw
physic to the dogs, exercise a little common-sense and
give nature a chance. There's an old story of an Arkansaw
doctor who invariably threw his patients into fits
because he was master of that complaint; but the economic
M.D.'s can't even cure fits. When they attempt it the
patient goes into convulsions.
Instead of going to so much trouble to bar out cheap
goods by means of tariff walls, I'd bar out cheap men. If
you're making monkey-wrenches at $2 a day and some
fellow abroad is building 'em for 50 cents, your boss
comes to you and says:
"Jim, we've got to have a tariff to keep out the product
of pauper labor or our nether garment's ripped from
narrative to neck-band. I can't pay you $2 and compete with
an employer who pays but 50 cents."
That sounds reasonable and you swing back on the
G.O.P. tow-line and lay a tariff-tax on monkey-wrenches
that looms up like an old-time Democratic majority in
Texas. And while you are burning ratification tar-barrels
and trying to shake hands with yourself in the mirror
at the Mechanic's Exchange, that 50 cent fellow crosses
the briny and robs you of your bench. Your old employer
is protected all right, but where do you come in? You
don't come in; you simply stand out in the industrial
norther. You count the railroad ties from town to town
while your wife takes in washing, your daughter goes to
work in a factory at two dollars a week and your son
grows up an ignorant Arab and gets into ward politics
or the penitentiary. You can't compete with the importation,
because you've been bred to a higher standard of
living. You must have meat three times a day, a newspaper
at breakfast and a new book--or the ICONOCLAST
--after supper. You must have your plunge bath and
spring bed, your clean shave and Sunday shirt. How can
you hope to hold your job when a man is bidding for it
who takes up his belly-band for breakfast, dines on slum-
gullion and sucks his breath for supper; to whom literature
is an unknown luxury, a bath a deplorable accident,
and a crummy old blanket a comfortable bed? You can't
do it, and if you'll take the Apostle's advice you'll quit
trying.
No; I wouldn't prevent the immigration of worthy
Europeans--men of intelligence, who dignify labor. We have
millions such in America, and they are most estimable
citizens. Our ancestors were all Europeans, and that
man who is not proud of his parentage should have been
born a beast. But I'd knock higher than Gilderoy's kite
the theory that America should forever be the dumping-
ground for foreign filth--that people will be warmly
welcomed here whom no other country wants and the devil
wouldn't have.
We have made American citizenship entirely too cheap.
We permit every creature that can poise on its hind legs
and call itself a man, to sway the scepter of American
Sovereignty--to become an important factor in the formation
of our public polity; and then, with this venal vote on
the one hand, eager to be bought, and the plutocrat on the
other anxious to buy, we wonder why it is that the invariable
tendency of our laws is to make the rich man a prince
and the poor man a Populist--why we are "great only in
that strange spell, a name."
In this work of reform we've got to begin at the bottom
--with the body politic itself. You can't make a silk
purse of a sow's ear, nor Sovereigns of men who were born
to be Slaves. We've got to grade up or we're gone. Only
superior Intelligence is capable of self-government--
Ignorance and Tyranny go hand in hand. You may theorize
until the Bottomless Pit is transformed into a skating
park; you may vote tariffs high or low and money hard or
soft; you may inaugurate the Single-Tax or transform the
American Republic into a commune, but the condition of
the hewers of wood and the drawers of water will never be
permanently bettered while Ignorance and Vice have access
to the ballot-box.
We have carried the enchanting doctrine of "political
equality" entirely too far and are paying the penalty.
The rebound from the monstrous doctrine of the divine
right of monarchs has hurried us into equal error. Disgusted
with the rottenness of the established religion, the
French people once crowned a courtesan as Goddess of
Reason; maddened by the insolence of hereditary officialism,
our fathers placed the rod of power in the hoodlum's
reckless hand and bound upon the stupid brow of hopeless
nescience Columbia's imperial crown. That the greater
must guide the lesser intelligence is nature's immutable
law. To deny this were to question our right to rule the
beast and God's authority to reign King of all mankind.
Self-preservation will yet compel us to guard the sacred
privileges of American sovereignty as jealously as did
Rome her citizenship.
. . .
Do this, and all other needed reforms will follow as
surely and as swiftly as the day-god follows the dawn.
Knowledge is power. When those who vote fully understand
that every dollar expended by government, federal,
state or municipal, must be created by the common people
--that first or last, labor must furnish it forth--we'll cease
having billion-dollar Congresses. We'll cease paying a
hundred and forty millions per annum in federal pensions;
we'll cease wasting a King's ransom annually in pretending
to "improve" intermittent creeks and impossible harbors
solely for political navigation; we'll cease borrowing
money in time of peace to bolster up that foolish financial
fetich known as the "gold-reserve"; we'll cease making so
many needless laws and paying aspiring patriots fat
salaries to harass us with their enforcement; we'll cease
exempting from taxation the half-million dollar church
and laying a heavier mulct on the mechanic's cottage and
the widow's cow; we'll cease paying preachers five dollars
a minute to stand up in our legislative halls and insult
Almighty God with perfunctory prayers; we'll cease building
so many palatial prisons where thieves and thugs
may be cared for at the expense of honest people, but
will divide criminals into classes--those who should be
peremptorily hanged, and those who should be whipped and
turned loose to hustle their own hash. Nothing knocks
the sawdust out of false sentiment so quickly as the
realization that it's an expensive luxury and that we must pay
the freight.
Billion-dollar Congresses, eh? Do you know what that
means? There are less than fifteen million wealth creators
in this country, and the last farthing of it comes out of
their pockets--something over $66 apiece! If you had it
in silver dollars--and I suppose that most of you would
accept silver--you couldn't count it in a century. Lay the
coins edge to edge and they'll belt the world. Pile them
on top of each other and you'll have a silver shaft more
than 1,750 miles high. Sand your hands and climb it.
Perchance from the top you'll see many things--among
others what is oppressing the poor. And while up in that
rarefied atmosphere, where the vision is good and thinking
probably easy, you will look around for those other pyramids
of expense annually erected by state, county and
municipal government, then come down firm in the faith
that if this isn't a great government it ought to be,
considering what it costs. No wonder the workman carries in
his pocket only an elegant assortment of holes!
We're governed entirely too much--Officialism is
becoming a veritable Old Man of the Sea on the neck of Labor's
Sinbad. About every fifth man you meet is a public servant
of some sort, and you cannot get married or buried,
purchase a drink or own a dog except with a by-your-leave
to the all-pervading law of the land. In some states suicide
itself is an infraction of the criminal code, and if the
police don't cut you down in time to put you in jail the
preachers will send you to hell. Every criminal law this
state and county and city needs can be printed in a book
no larger than the ICONOCLAST, and that so plain that he
who runs may read and reading understand. And when
so printed and so understood, without the possibility of
misconstruction, they could be enforced at one-fifth the
cost of the present judicial failure. We have so many
laws and so much legal machinery that when you throw a
man into the judicial hopper not even an astrologer can
tell whether he'll come out a horse-thief or only a homicide
--or whether the people will weary of waiting on the
circumlocution office and take a change of venue to Judge
Lynch.
This can never be a land of religious liberty--the atheist
can never be considered as on a political parity with his
ultra-orthodox brother--until we compel church property
to bear its pro rata of the public burdens.
And right here let me say a word about the "Apostle."
I have been accused by people--for whom no cherry-tree
blooms or little hatchet is ground--of being a rank atheist
and a red-flag anarchist. It has been broadly intimated
that I'm trying to rip the Christian religion up by the
roots, rob trusting hearts of their hope and deprive the
preacher of his daily bread. Now I might just as well
confess to you that I'm no angel. If I were I'd fly out of
Texas till the bifurcated Democratic party has another
"harmony" deal. When you hear people denouncing me
as an atheist, just retire to your closet and pray, "Father
forgive them, for they know not what they do." And you
might add, that nobody cares. No mortal son of Adam's
misery can produce one line I ever wrote, or quote one
sentence I ever uttered, disrespectful of ANY religion--and
that's more than you can say of most of the ministers.
But it is not right, it is not just that the little holdings
of the poor should be relentlessly taxed and costly temples
exempted--palatial edifices in which polite society pretends
to worship One who broke bread with beggars and
slept in the brush. Such an arrangement signifies neither
good religion nor good sense. It's the result of sanctified
selfishness. I believe in taxing luxuries, and a costly
church is not a necessity. At least Christ did not think so,
for he never built one.
Congregations that can afford to erect fine churches and
export saving grace to the pagans of foreign climes, can
afford to pay taxes and thereby help American heathern
out of the hole. A million men out of employment, pacing
our streets in grim despair; a million children coming
up in ignorance and crime; a million women hesitating
between the wolf of want and the abundance of infamy,
and the church--supposed to be God's ministering angel--
crying, "Give, give! If you can't give much, give little.
Remember the widow's mite"--so acceptable to a pauper
deity.
Give for what? To build fine temples in whose sacred
shadows will lurk the gaunt specter of Famine and the
grisly gorgon of Crime. To buy grand organs and costly
bells to peal praises to One who had nowhere to lay his
head. To pay stall-fed preachers five, ten, twenty thousand
dollars a year to expound the doctrine of a poor
carpenter who couldn't have kept a silver dollar in his
jeans a single day while there was poverty and suffering
in the world.
While the wealth-producer is robbed to pension
millionaires who suffered mental anguish because of the draft,
and to administer worse than useless laws, still the amount
so unnecessarily abstracted would be but a mere bagatelle
if labor was steadily employed and reaped its just reward.
With the mighty energies of this nation in full play and
the wealth remaining with its producers, we could give
even all the candidates an office, with plenty to get and
little to do, and still have pie in the pantry and corn in
the crib. There is something more the matter than governmental
waste--there's something RADICALLY wrong.
. . .
In tracing the causes of panics and periods of business
depression, we invariably find our currency more or less at
fault. Now don't get frightened. I'm not going to dose
you with free silver nor give you the gold cure. This is
neither Coin's Financial School nor a gold-bug incubator.
The currency question is one you know all about. Everybody
does--especially the corner-grocery politician. He
understands it from A to Izzard--knows almost as much
about it as a hello-girl does of the nature of electricity.
Prof. Jevon truly says that "a kind of intellectual vertigo
appears to seize people when they talk of money." Perhaps
the Goddess of Liberty on the silver dollar has 'em
Trilbyized.
We hear a great deal of late about the "science of
money." It's supposed to be something very esoteric--
something that a fellow can only master by drawing heavily
on his gray matter, by working his think-machine up
to the limit and sweating blood. Now let me tell you that
there is no "science of money," any more than there's a
science of harvesting hoop poles or fighting flies. When a
man begins to give you an interminable song and dance
about the science of money, just you send for the police
and have him locked up as a dangerous lunatic.
Here's a ticket good for so many meals at a restaurant
--an order for so much wealth; and here's a silver dollar
--no 'tisn't; it's a check on a--er--on a "resort"; in fact,
on a saloon; an I.O.U. for 11 cents, the price of a
cigar--or something--I suppose. "Man should not live
by bread alone." Now what's the difference between this
ticket and check and the currency issued by the government?
Simply this: These are the I.O.U.'s of individual's
money, the I.O.U.'s of the entire American people. These
are orders for certain kinds of wealth at particular places;
money is an order for all kinds of wealth at any place
within the jurisdiction of the federal government. This
ticket is the check of one American, drawn against his
personal wealth and credit; this bill is the check of all
Americans, drawn against the collective wealth and credit
of the nation. That's all the difference between a cocktail
check and a coin, between a meal ticket and a ten
dollar bill. Neither is worth a rap unless it can be
REDEEMED. Like sanctification caught at a camp-meeting,
there must be a hereafter to it or its a humbug. But don't
you metallists take that as a premise and jump at conclusions
or you're liable to sprain your logical sequence.
What kind of redemption did I have in view when I
acquired this che--I mean this ticket? I expected that it
would be redeemed in something that would expand my
surcingle and enable me to cast a shadow--in eggs and
oleomargarine, corn-bread and buttermilk. And if so
redeemed on demand, is it not a GOOD TICKET--is it not
WORTH ITS FACE? What kind of redemption did I expect
when I acquired this bill? I expected it to be redeemed
in the necessaries of life--or possibly the luxuries. Who
issued it? The government. Who's the government?
The people. And when the people have given me bread
and butter, tobacco and transportation, clothing and
cocktails, and afforded me police protection to the extent
of my ten dollars hasn't it been REDEEMED in the manner
I anticipated--in the only way in which money can be
redeemed? If I exchange this bill for a gold eagle what
have I got? Another governmental drink-check or meal-
ticket that awaits redemption. And there you have the
whole "science of money," over which politicians have so
long puzzled their brains that their think-tanks have got
full of logical wiggletails. A dollar, whether it be made of
gold, silver or paper, is simply an order which the people
in their official capacity give against all the wealth, actual
and potential, of the nation; and unless the holder can
get it promptly redeemed in food and clothing, he's in a
terribly bad fix.
. . .
Every few years our industrial system gets the jim-jams.
Capital flies to cover, factories close and labor goes
tramping across the country seeking honest employment and
receiving a warm welcome--from militia companies with
shotted guns. Cheerful idiots begin to prattle of "over-
production," the economic M.D.'s to refurbish all the old
remedies, from conjure bags to communism. They all
know exactly what caused the "crisis" and what to do for
it; but despite the doctors the patient usually--survives.
And the M.D. who succeeds in cramming his pet panacea
down its throat claims all the credit for the recovery. We
are slowly emerging from the crash of '93, and the cuckoos
are cock-sure that Cleveland hoodooed with that financial
rabbit-foot known as the gold-reserve--that a country
fairly bursting with wealth was saved from the demnition
bowwows by the blessed expedient of going into debt; that
labor found salvation by shouldering an added burden in
the shape of interest-bearing bonds. Hereafter when a
burro tries to lie down beneath a load that's making him
bench-legged, we'll just pile a brick house or two on top
of him, and, with ears and tail erect, he'll strike a Nancy
Hanks gait and come cavorting down the home stretch.
When a statesman can see such things as that while wide
awake and perfectly sober, he ought to consult a doctor.
No wonder the Democratic party spilt wide open--transformed
from an ascendent sun into a bifurcated Biela's
comet, wandering the Lord knows whither.
The gold reserve, we are told, is to "protect the credit
of our currency." Protect it from whom? You and I
are making no assault upon it--wouldn't hurt it for the
world. When we get a paper or silver dollar we don't trot
around to the treasury to have it "redeemed" in a slug of
yellow metal--we make a bee line for the grocery store
and have it redeemed in a side o' bacon. Who is it that
chisels desolation into the blessed gold reserve--the so-
called "bulwarks of our currency?" The fellows who
want bonds--the capitalistic, the creditor class; the men
who own the mortgages and have millions of dollars corded
up in bank--the men who have most to LOSE by any bobble
in the credit of our currency. And every time the capitalist
tries to hoist himself with his own petard, the
administration smothers the blaze with a block of interest-
bearing bonds. If he wants to make a sky-rocket of himself,
let him kerosene his coat-tails and apply the match.
If the gold reserve were really necessary to the credit of
our currency, capitalists would no more make war upon
it than they would bestride a buzz-saw making a million
revolutions a minute. Instead of systematically draining
it they would, whenever it struck "the danger-line,"
gather all the gold they could get and send it on to
Washington. The capitalists are not crazy; they've simply got
a soft snap in that "bulwark" business and are working
it for an it's worth.
Calico is sold by the yard, kerosene by the gallon, coffee
by the pound. These measures are immutable, and those
who buy and sell by them make their contract in perfect
confidence. But suppose they altered from day to day
or from year to year,--the yard ranging from 25 to 50
inches, the pound from 10 to 20 ounces; would our
exchanges be effected without much friction, think you?
Would not such a ridiculous system of weights and
measures paralyze exchange and demoralize industry?
Would not those who could juggle the system to suit
themselves--buying by a long and selling by a short yard--
accumulate colossal fortunes at the expense of the common
people? Would we not have "panics" in plenty and
"depressions" galore? Well, that is exactly what is
happening to the dollar, our measure of value, the most
important of all our trade tools. And mark you, a change
in the purchasing power of the dollar is equivalent to an
alteration of every weight and measure employed by
commerce. Understand? When the purchasing power of the
dollar expands or contracts it has the same effect on
exchange as would the expansion or contraction of the yard,
the gallon and the pound.
A shifting measure of value is the nigger in our
industrial woodpile. We have got to have a measure of value
that's as immutable as our measure of quantity; a dollar
as reliable as an official pound; a dollar that's the same
yesterday, and to-day and forever, before we see the last
of these panics and periods of business depression. We
have got to have a currency that will adapt itself
automatically and infallibly to the requirements of commerce--
that will constitute an ever-effective exchange medium--
before we can obtain a smooth working industrial machine
and the maximum employment of labor.
We know from experience that gold will not supply us
with such a currency, that silver will not do it, that bi-
metallism will not do it--that greenbackism, as we understand
the term, will not come within a mile of it. Then
what will do it? That's the problem. Solve it, and you
forever put an end to commercial panics in a land of
plenty; you deprive capital of its power to oppress labor;
you assure industry a constant friend where it has so often
found an insidious foe. Solve it and Columbia can furnish
happy homes for half the world--homes unhaunted by the
wolf of want, but crowned with sweet content and gilded
with freedom's glory.
For a century economists have been seeking the solution
of this all-important problem. Even conservative old
Adam Smith dreamed of the emancipation of the world
from the multifarious ills of metallic money; but we still
cling with slavish servility to the silver of Abraham and
the gold of Solomon.
I do not claim to have found the philosopher's stone, for
which so many wiser men have sought in vain; but the
currency plan I proposed in 1891--and which was again
outlined in the ICONOCLAST for May of this year--has
been carefully examined by the ablest financiers of Europe
and America, and they have been unable to point out a
fundamental fault. It is known as the interconvertible
bond-currency plan, by which our circulating media would
be bottomed on the entire wealth of the nation instead of
upon fragments of metal of fluctuating value; by which the
volume of the currency would depend, not upon the
fecundity of the mines, the fiat of Congress or the greed
of Wall street, but upon the needs of commerce itself.
By this plan the proportion between the money-work to be
done and the money available to do it is always the same;
hence it would afford an immutable measure of value. In
studying the plan it is well to bear in mind that our foreign
trade--that bogy man of the metallists--has no more to
do with our currency than with our pint cups and bushel-
baskets--no more than with our language and religion;
that we can pay our foreign debts and collect our foreign
credits only in commodities; that the prattle indulged in
by the metallists anent "money that is good the world
over" is mere goose-speech--that there is no such money.
We buy and sell with England and France to the extent
of tens of millions annually; yet I haven't seen a British
guinea or a French franc in fifteen years. And if you
had a foreign coin and should go around to a resort, and
call for a glass of--er--of buttermilk, and plank the little
stranger down on the counter, the party in the white apron
and Alaska dazzler would say:
"Wot yer givin' us?"
You'd reply: "I'm givin you gold--money good the
world over."
"Wot is it--watch charm? Dis ain't no pawn shop."
"But that's money."
"Eh?"
"Money--gold coin that maketh the heart glad."
"Wot kind o' money?"
"It's a British guinea."
"Well, why don't you go to Great Britain to blow yourself?"
"But my dear sir, this is money of final payment. This
is value itself. This does not depend on the stamp of
government, but circulates throughout the world on its
intrinsic merit."
"Well, it don't circulate in this joint. See?"
Slam your THEORIES up against CONDITIONS before you tie
to them.
. . .
You all know that in this country there should be no
such thing as able-bodied pauperism. You know that until
the last arable acre is brought to the highest possible
cultivation, every mine developed, every forest made to
contribute to the creature comfort of man, there should be
remunerative work for all. You know that, with the aid
of wealth-creating machinery every laborer should be able
to acquire a competence to comfort his declining days.
You know that until Need is satisfied and Greed is gorged
there can be no such thing as overproduction--that under
normal conditions when there's a plethora of necessaries,
the surplus energy of the nation turns to the creation of
luxuries and the standard of living advances. You know
that with such wonderful resources, touched by the magic
wand of genius, the golden age of which poets have dreamed
and for which philanthropists have prayed, should be even
at our doors.
I hope to contribute in some slight degree to the
establishment of conditions that will enable us to utilize to the
utmost the free gifts of a gracious God; to the proper
distribution of wealth; to the emancipation of labor, not by
the law of blind force, but enlightened self-interest--not
by riotous revolution, but peaceful evolution. I want to
see every American Citizen in very truth a Sovereign, to
whom life is a joy instead of a curse. I want to see every
rag transformed into a royal robe, every hovel into a cultured
home. I want to hasten, if by ever so little, the day
when we can boast with the proud sons of imperial Rome,
that to be an American is greater than to be a king.
And when we so amend industrial conditions that each
can find employment at profitable prices, we do more to
eliminate crime and foster morality than have all the
prophets and preachers, from Melchizedeck the mythical to
Talmage the turgid.
No man can be either a patriot or a consistent Christian
on an empty stomach--he's merely a savage animal, a
dangerous beast. You must get a square meal inside of a
man and a clean shirt outside of him before he's fit subject
for saving grace. You must give him a bath before
he's worth baptizing. And when you get him clean and
well clothed, fed and housed as a reward of his own honest
industry, he's not far from the Kingdom of God. But
if you want to degrade a people beyond redemption; if you
want to transform them into contemptible peons and whining
hypocrites who encumber the earth like so much unclean
vermin, educate them to feed on the crumbs from
Dives' banquet-board and accept his cast-off clothing with
obsequious thankfulness.
The concentration of wealth in the hands of the few and
the impoverishment of the common people until it was the
bread of charity or the blood of the revolution, has ever
been the herald of moral decay and of national death. So
passed the glory of Greece and the grandeur of Rome, and,
if we may judge the future by the past, so will perish the
greatest republic that ever gleamed like a priceless jewel
on the skeleton hand of Time. Self-interest, humanity,
patriotism, religion itself, admonish us to weigh well the
problem of the hour--a problem born of human progress,
forced upon us by the mighty revolution wrought in the
industrial world by the giant Steam--and that problem is:
Shall the average American Citizen be a Slave or a
Sovereign?
Don't imagine for a moment that I'm an anarchist--
that I'm going to wind up this seance by unfurling the red
flag and throwing a hatful of bombs. I admit that I
haven't much respect for law--there's so much of it that
when I come to spread my respect over the entire lot it's
about as thin as one of Sam Jones's sermons. Still, I don't
believe in strikes, and riots and bloodshed. I'm for peace
--peace in its most virulent form. I've had a sneaking
respect for Cleveland ever since he employed a substitute
to put a kibosh on the Southern Confederacy while he
remained at home to play pinochle with the pretty girls. He
may not be much of a statesman in time of peace, but
there's no picnic ants on his judgment in time of war.
It is time that capital and labor realized that their
interests are really commutual, as interdependent as the
brain and the body; time they ceased their fratricidal
strife and, uniting their mighty forces under the flag of
Progress, completed the conquest of the world and doomed
Poverty, Ignorance and Vice--hell's great triumvirate--to
banishment eternal. Unless labor is employed, capital
cannot increase--it can only concentrate. Unless property
rights are held inviolable and capital thereby encouraged
to high enterprise, labor is left without a lever with
which to lift itself to perfect life and must sink back to
barbarism.
It is time that American citizens of alleged intelligence
ceased trailing blindly in the wake of partisan band-
wagons and began to seriously consider the public welfare
--time they realized that the people were not made for
parties, but parties for the people, and refuse to sacrifice
their patriotism on the unclean altar of partisan slavery.
Blind obedience to party fiat; the division of the people
of one great political family into hostile camps; subjection
of the public interest to partisan advantage; placing
the badge of party servitude above the crown of American
sovereignty--the ridiculous oriflamme of foolish division
above Old Glory's star-gemmed promise of everlasting
unity--have brought the first nation of all world to the
very brink of destruction.
. . .
It is difficult for people here in Texas to understand the
industrial condition of the American nation today; to
appreciate the dangers upon which it is drifting. We are
too apt to imagine everybody as prosperous and conservative
as ourselves; or if not so, it's because they do not
vote the Democratic ticket--that panacea for all the ills
that flesh is heir to. Here in Texas we have hung our
second providence on the Democratic party--it has become
a religion with us. If a man is orthodox in his political
faith all things are forgiven him; but if there's any doubt
about his Democracy we are inclined to regard him as an
alien, if not an anarchist. Most of us enjoy the shadow
of our own vine and fig tree--which it is impossible to
mortgage. We feed three times a day, have a cocktail
every morning, a clean shirt occasionally and even when
cotton goes so low it doesn't pay for the paris-green to
poison the worms, we blame it on the Lord instead of on
our political leaders. But it's different in other sections
of the Union.
America contains more than a million as desperate men
as ever danced the Carmagnole or shrieked with brutal
joy when the blood of French aristocrats reddened the
guillotine. The dark alleys and unclean dives of our great
cities are crowded with dangerous sans-culotte, and our
highways with hungry men eager for bread--though the
world blaze for it. Pauperism is rampant, the criminal
classes increasing and everywhere the serpent of Socialism
is leaving it's empoisoned slime. Suppose that these
desperate elements find a determined leader--a modern Marat,
who will make the most of his opportunities for evil: how
many of that vast contingent now clinging with feeble
grasp to the rotten skirts of a doubtful respectability,
would be swept into the seething vortex of unbridled
villainy? Note the failure of public officials to protect
corporate property; the necessity of calling for federal
bayonets and batteries to suppress labor riots; the
dangerous unrest of the common people; the sympathy of the
farmer--that Atlas upon whose broad shoulders rests our
political and industrial world--with every quasi-military
organization that throws down the gage of battle to the
powers that be, then tell me, if you can, where Dives may
look for defenders should the rabble rise in its wrath, the
bullet supplant the ballot in the irrepressible conflict
between the Cormorant and the Commune! And what are
we doing to avert the danger? Distributing a little dole
and preaching patience to starving people; quarreling
about the advisability of "counting a quorum" or coining
a little silver seigniorage; wrangling over the "rights" of
a mid-Pacific prostitute to rule Celts and Saxons, and
trying to so "reform" the tariff that it will yield more
revenue with less taxation! We are bowing down before
various pie-hunting political gods and electing men to
Congress who couldn't tell the Federal Constitution from
Calvin's Confession of Faith. We are sending street-
corner economists to state and national conventions to
evolve from their innate ignorance and gild with their
supernal gall political platforms which we are pledged
beforehand to accept as the essence of all worldly wisdom.
Our patriotism has been supplanted by partisanship, and
now all are for a party and none are for the state. On
July 4 we shout for the old flag and all the rest of the
year we clamor for an appropriation. The man who is
kicked by a nightmare while dreaming of the draft demands
a pension and every burning patriot wants an office.
And while our ship of state is threading with unsteady
course the stormy straits between the Scylla of Greed
and the Charybdis of Need; its canvas torn by contending
winds; its decks swept by angry waves, we boast of the
strength of our "free institutions"--as though Republics
had never fallen nor revolutions erased from the map of
the world proud Empires that imagined themselves immortal.
But before God I do believe this selfish and unpatriotic
age will pass, as passed the age of brutish ignorance, as
passed the age of tyranny. I believe the day will come--
oh blessed dawn!--when the angel of Intellect will banish
the devil of Demagogy; when Americans will be in spirit
and in truth a band of brothers, the wrongs of one the
concern of all; when labor will no longer fear the Cormorant
nor capital the Commune--when all men will be equal
before the law wherever falls the shadow of our flag.
* * *
RAINBOW-CHASERS.
[This is the lecture that Mr. Brann delivered and was
to continue on his lecture tour, which was cut short by his
death.]
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: There are many things which I
very cordially dislike; but my pet aversion is what is known
as a "set" lecture--one of those stereotyped affairs that
are ground out with studied inflection and practiced gesture
and suggest the grinding of Old Hundred on a hurdy-
gurdy; hence I shall ask permission to talk to you tonight
as informally and as freely as though we were seated in
friendly converse around the soda fount of a Kansas drug
store; and I want you to feel as free to talk back as
though we had gotten into this difficulty by accident
instead of design. Ask me all the questions you want to, and
if I'm unable to answer offhand I'll look the matter up
later and telegraph you--at your expense. With such
unbounded liberty there's really no telling whither we will
drift, what subjects we may touch upon; but should I
inadvertently trample upon any of your social idols or
political gods, I trust that you will take no offense--will
remember that we may honestly differ, that none of us are
altogether infallible. Lest any of you should mistake me
for an oratorical clearing-sale or elocutionary bargain-
counter, expect a Demosthenic display and be disappointed,
I hasten to say that I am no orator as Brutus
was, but simply a plain, blunt man, like Mark Antony,
who spoke right on and said what he did know, or thought
he knew, which was just as satisfactory to himself. He's
dead now, poor fellow! Woman in the case, of course.
Shakespeare assures us that "men have died from time to
time and worms have eaten them, but not for love." However
that may be, Antony's just as dead as though he had
died for love--or become a gold-bug "Democrat." Yes,
Mark Antony's gone, but we still have Mark Hanna. One
threw the world away for Cleopatra's smile, the other
threw Columbia's smile away for a seat in the Senate, and
so it goes. Of the two Marks, I think Antony was the
easiest.
. . .
But let us take a look at our text. The rainbow is a
sign, I believe, that the Prohibitionists once carried the
country and would have made a complete success of the
cold water cure had not the Rum Demon engineered the
Ark. Still it does not necessarily follow that a rainbow
chaser is a fellow on the hot trail of a blind tiger. He
may be one who hopes to raise the wage rate by means
of a tariff wall, or expects John Bull to assist Uncle Sam
in the remonetization of silver. A rainbow-chaser, in the
common acceptance of the term, is a fellow who mistakes
shadow for substance and wanders off the plank turnpike
into bogs and briar patches. Satan appears to have been
the first victim of the rainbow-chasing fad--to have bolted
the Chicago convention and run for president on the reform
ticket. At a very early age I began to doubt the
existence of a personal devil, whereupon my parent on my
father's side proceeded to argue the matter in the good old
orthodox way, but failed to get more than half the hussy
out of my hide. But we will not quarrel about the existence
or non-existence of a party who Milton assures us slipped
on a political orange peel. We know that frauds and
fakes exist, that hypocrites and humbugs abound.
Whether this be due to the pernicious activity of a horned
monster or to evil inherent in the human heart, I will not
assume to say. We may call that power the devil which
is forever at war with truth, is the father of falsehood,
whether it be an active personality or only a vicious
principle.
. . .
Under the direction of this devil, real or abstract, the
world has gone rainbow chasing and fallen deep into the
Slough of Despond. Conditions have become so desperate
that it were well for you and I, who are in the world and
of it, to abate somewhat our partisan rancor, our sectarian
bitterness, and take serious counsel together. Desperate,
I say, meaning thereby not only that it becomes ever more
difficult for the workman to win his modicum of bread
and butter, to provide his own hemlock coffin in which to
go to hades--or elsewhere; but that honor, patriotism,
reverence--all things which our fathers esteemed as more
precious than pure gold--have well-nigh departed, that the
social heart is dead as a salt herring; that all is becoming
brummagem and pinch-beck, leather and prunella; that a
curse hath fallen upon the womb of the world, and it no
longer produces heaven-inspired men but only some pitiful
simulacra thereof, some worthless succedona for such, who
strive not to do their god-given duty though the world
reward them with a gibbet, but to win wages of gold and
grub, to obtain idle praise by empty plausibility. They
aspire to ride the topmost wave, not of a tempestuous
ocean which tries the heart of oak and the hand of iron,
but of some pitiful sectarian mud-puddle or political goose
pond. Under the guidance of these shallow self-seekers we
have abandoned the Ark of the Covenant with its Brotherhood
of Man, its solemn duties and sacred responsibilities,
and are striving to manage matters mundane on a basis
of brute selfishness, with a conscience or a creed of following
the foolish rainbow of a fatuous utilitaria and getting
even deeper into the bogs.
. . .
I have frequently been called a "chronic kicker," but do
not object to the epithet. There's need of good lusty
kickers, those whose No. 1 tootsie-wootsies are copper-
toed, for the world is lull of devilish things that deserve
to die. Lest any should accuse me of the awful sin of
using slang, and thereby break my heart, I hasten to say
that the Bible twice employs the word "kick" in the same
sense that I used it here. In fact, a goodly proportion of
our so-called slang is drawn from the same high source,
being vinegar to the teeth of pietistical purists, but quite
good enough for God. Some complain that I should build
instead of tearing down, should preserve and not destroy.
The complaint is well founded if it be wrong to attack
falsehood, to exterminate the industrial wolves and social
rottenness, to destroy the tares sown by the devil and give
dollar wheat a chance to arise and hump itself. In
determining what should be preserved and what destroyed,
we may honestly disagree; but I think all will concede that
what is notoriously untrue should be attacked, that we
should wage uncompromising war on whatsoever maketh or
loveth a lie. I think all will agree that this is pre-eminently
an age of artificiality--that there is little genuine
left in the land but the complexion of the ladies. Even
that has been called in question by certain unchivalrous
old bachelors, those unfortunates whom the ladies of Boston
propose to expel from politics for dereliction of duty.
Somehow an old bachelor always reminds me of a rainbow;
not because he looks like one in the least, but rather
because he's so utterly useless for all practical purposes.
He also reminds me of a rainbow-chaser, because what he
is compelled to admire is beyond his reach. When hope
deferred hath made him heart-sick he begins to growl at
the girls--and for the same reason that a mastiff barks at
the moon. You will notice that a mastiff seldom barks
much at anything he can get hold of and bite.
. . .
We are solemnly assured that the world is steadily
growing better; and I suppose that's so, for in days of
old they crucified men head downwards for telling the
truth, while now they only hammer them over the head
with six-shooters and drag 'em around a Baptist college
campus with a rope. All that a reformer now needs is a
hard head and a rubber neck. The cheerful idiot, alias the
optimist, is forever prating of the world's progress.
Progress is a desirable thing only when we make it in the
right direction. It may be sure and swift down a soaped
plank into wild ocean depths; or it may be with painful
steps and slow toward the eternal mountain tops where
breaks the great white light of God, and there's no more
of darkness and of death. Progress industrial, the
productive power of labor multiplied by two, by ten; and
with such improved weapons for waging war upon the
grisly gorgon of want, nearly nine millions of the
industrial army in India alone died upon their shields.
Hosannahs mounting in costly churches here, the starving babe
tugging at the empty breast of the dead mother there!--
and we send to the famine-sufferers many bibles and hymn-
books, little bacon and beans. Bibles and hymn-books
are excellent things in their ways, but do not possess an
absorbing interest for the man with an aching void
concealed about his system. Starving people ask a Christian
world for grub, and it gives them forty'leven different
brands of saving grace--each warranted the only genuine
--most of these elixirs of life ladled out by hired
missionaries who serve God for the long green, and who are
often so deplorably ignorant that they couldn't tell a
religious thesis from an ichthyosaurian.
Progress in religion until there's no longer a divine
message from on high, no God in Israel; only a fashionable
pulpiteering to minister to languid minds, the cultivation
of foolish fads and the flaunting of fine feathers--
the church becoming a mere Vanity Fair or social clearing-
house, a kind of esthetic forecourt to hades instead of the
gate to heaven. At the opposite extreme we find blatant
blackguardism by so-called evangelists, who were educated
in a mule-pen and dismissed without a diploma, yet
who set up as instructors of the masses in the profound
mysteries of the Almighty. Men who would get shipwrecked
in the poetry of Shakespeare, or lost in the philosophy
of one of his fools, pretend to interpret the plans
of Him who writes his thoughts in flaming words on the
papyri of immensity, whose sentences are astral fire.
Progress in science until we learn that the rainbow was
not built to allay the fears of the roachin family, but is
old as the sun and the sea; that bourbon whisky drills
the stomach full o' blow-holes and that the purest spring
water is full o' bacteria and we must boil it or switch to
beer; that Havana cigars give us tobacco heart, pastry is
the hand-maid of dyspepsia, while even the empurpled
grape is but a John the Baptist for appendicitis; that a
rich thief has kleptomania and should be treated at a
fashionable hospital instead of a plebian penitentiary,
while even the rosebud of beauty is aswarm with bacilli,
warning the sons of men to keep their distance on pain of
death. If all the doctors discovered be true then life isn't
half worth living--is stale, flat and unprofitable as a
Republican nomination in Texas. When the poet declared
that men do not die for love, the doctors had not yet
learned that a cornfed kiss that cracks like a dynamite
gun may be equally dangerous. I think the bolus-builders
are chasing rainbows--that if I wait for death until I'm
killed with kisses old Methuselah won't be a marker.
Our car of progress, of which we hear so much, has
carried us from the Vates' vision of Milton and Dante to
Alfred Austin's yaller doggerel--to the raucous twitterings
of grown men who aspire to play Persian bulbul
instead of planting post-holes, who mistake some spavined
mule for Bellerophon's Mount and go chasing metrical
rainbows when they should be drawing a fat bacon rind
adown the shining blade of a bucksaw; from the flame sighs
of Sappho, that breed mutiny in the blood, to the green-
sick maunderings of atrabilarious maids who are best
qualified to build soft-soap or take a fall out of the
corrugated bosom of a washboard. We now have poetry,
so-called, everywhere--in books and magazine innumerable,
even sandwiched in between reports of camp-meetings,
political pow-wows and newspaper ads. for patent liver
pills. O, that the featherless jaybirds now trying to
twitter in long-primer type would apply the soft pedal
unto themselves, would add no more to life's dissonance
and despair! Most of our modern poets are bowed down
with more than Werterean woe. Their sweethearts are
cruel or fate unkind; they've got cirrhosis of the liver or
palpitation of the heart, and needs must spill their
scalding tears over all humanity. It seems never to have
occurred to the average verse architect that not a line of
true poetry was ever written by mortal man; that even
the song of Solomon and the odes of Anacreon are but as
the jingling of sweet bells out of tone, a dissonance in the
divine harmony; that you can no more write poetry than
you can paint the music of childhood's laughter, or hear
the dew-beaded jasmine bud breathing its sensuous perfume
to the morning sun. The true poets are those whose
hearts are harps of a thousand strings, ever swept by
unseen hands--those whose lips are mute because the soul
of man hath never learned a language. Those we call
master-poets and crown with immortelles but caught and
fixed some far off echo of deep calling unto deep--the lines
of Byron or a Burns, a Tasso or a Tennyson are but the
half-articulate cries of a soul stifling with the splendor of
its own imaginings.
But we were speaking of progress when diverted by the
discordant clamor of featherless crows. I am no pecterist
with my face ever to the past. I realize that there has
been no era without its burden of sorrow, no time without
its fathomless lake of tears; that the past seems more
glorious than the present because the heart casts a glamour
over days that are dead. From the dust and glare of the
noon of life we cast regretful glances back to the dewy
morn, and as eve creeps on the shadows reach further
back until they link the cradle and the grave and all is
dark. I would not blot from heaven the star of hope, nor
mock one earnest effort of mankind; but I would warn
this world that its ideals are all wrong, that it's going
forward backwards, is chasing foolish rainbows that lead
to barbarism. Palaces and gold, fame and power--these
by thy gods, O! Israel--mere fly-specked eidolons worthy
no man's worship.
. . .
When we have adopted higher ideals; when success is
no longer a synonym for vain show; when the man of
millions who toils and wails for more is considered mad;
when we realize that all the world's wealth cannot equal
the splendor of the sunset sky 'neath which the poorest
trudge, the astral fire that flames at night's high noon
above the meanest hut; that only God's omnipotence can
recall one wasted hour, restore the bloom of youth, or bid
the loved and lost return to glad our desolate hearts with
the lambent light of eyes that haunt all our waking
dreams, the music of laughter that has become a wailing
cry in memory's desolate halls; when we cease chasing
lying rainbows in the empty realm of Make-Believe and
learn for a verity that the kendal green of the workman
may be more worthy of honor than the purple of the prince
--why then the world will have no further need of iconoclasts
to frankly rehearse its faults, and my words of censure
will be transformed into paeans of praise.
"Sweet as the smile when fond lovers meet
And soft as their parting tear."
We have "progressed" from the manly independence
and fierce patriotism of our forebears to a namby-pamby
foreign policy that compels our citizens abroad to seek
protection of the consuls of other countries from the
spirit that made our flag respected in every land and
honored on every sea, to the anserine cackle of "jingoism"
whenever an American manifests a love of country or
professes a national pride. What is "jingoism?" It is
a word coined by enemies of this country and used by
toad-eaters. It is a term which, under various titles, has
been applied to every American patriot since our gran'-
sires held the British lion up by the caudal appendage and
beat the sawdust out of the impudent brute--since they
appealed from a crack-brained king to the justice of
heaven and wrote the charter of our liberties with the
bayonet on the back of Cornwallis' buccaneers. Its synonym
was applied to Thomas Paine, the arch-angel of the
Revolution, whose pen of fire made independence
imperative--who through seven long years of blood and tears
fanned Liberty's flickering flames with his deathless faith
that the Omnipotent arm of God would uphold the banner
of the free. From the brain of that much-maligned and
long-suffering man Columbia sprang full-panoplied, like
Minerva from the brow of Olympian Jove. And what has
been his reward? In life he was bitterly belied by the
foes of freedom and the slaves of superstition; in death a
mighty wave of calumny rolls above his grave. Greater
men have lived and died and been forgotten, but a nobler
heart ne'er beat and broke--grander soul ne'er struggled
toward the light or bowed before the ever-living God.
When the colonists stood debating whether to bear their
present ills or fly to other they knew not of, he seized
the gage of battle and flung it full and fair in Britain's
haughty face. When defeat followed defeat, when the
new-born nation was bankrupt and its soldiers starving
in the field; when coward lips did from their color fly
and men brave as Roman tribunes wept tears of grim
despair, his voice rang out again and again like that of
some ancient prophet of Israel cheering on the fainting
legions of the Lord, and again, and again, and yet again
the ragged barefoot Continentals set their breasts against
the bayonet, until from the very ashes of defeat dear
Liberty arose Phoenix-like, a goddess in her beauty, a
titan in her strength.
The term "jingoist;" or its equivalent, was applied to
Washington and Henry, to Jefferson and Jackson. It
was applied to James G. Blaine, the typical American of
his time--a man from beneath whose very toe-nails enough
intellect might be scraped to make an hundred Clevelands
or McKinleys. All were jingoes in their day and generation,
because all preferred the title of sovereign to that
of subject; because all believed that Columbia should be
mistress of her own fate, the architect of her own fortune,
instead of an appendage of England, or political orphan
under a European protectorate, because all believed that
she should protect her humblest citizen from wrong and
outrage wheresoever he may be, though it cost every dollar
of the nation's treasure and every drop of the nation's
blood--and if that be jingoism then I, too, am a jingo
from alpha to omega, from beginning to end.
. . .
Who are those who recalcitrate about jingoism? They
are people who have never forgiven Almighty God for
suffering them to be born American sovereigns instead
of British subjects. They are those whose ideal man is
some stupid, forked, radish "stuck o'er with titles, hung
'round with strings," and anxious to board with a wealthy
American wife to avoid honest work. They are the people
whose god is the dollar, their country the stock exchange,
and who suspect that a foreign policy with as much
backbone as a scared rabbit would knock some of the
wind and water out of their bogus "securities." It is
those who would sell their citizenship for a copper cent
and throw in their risen Lord as lagniappe, who are forever
prating of "jingoism" and pleading for peace at
any price. And these unclean harpies of greed and gall
have been too long permitted to dominate this government.
The result is that the greatest nation known to
human history--the sum and crown of things--is an
object of general insult. If it be rumored that we
contemplate protecting American citizens in Cuba, every
European government emits a growl--there's talk of
rebuking Uncle Sam's "presumption," of standing him in
a corner to cool. If it be suggested that we annex an
island--at the earnest request of all its inhabitants worth
the hanging--there more minatory caterwauling by the
European courts, while even the Mikado of Japan gets
his little Ebenezer up, and the Ahkound of Swat, the
Nizan of Nowhere and the grand gyasticutus of Jimple-
cute intimate that they may send a yaller-legged policeman
across the Pacific in a soap-box to pull the tail-
feathers out of the bird o' freedom if it doesn't crawl
humbly back upon its perch. If a fourth-class power
insults our flag we accept a flippant apology. If our
citizens are wrongfully imprisoned we wait until they are
starved, shot, or perish of blank despair in dungeons so
foul that a hog would die therein of a broken heart; then
humbly ask permission to investigate, report that they
are dead, and feel that we have discharged our duty.
Why? Because this nation is dominated by the dollar--is
in the hands of those who have no idea of honor unless
it will yield somewhat to eat, no use for patriotism unless
it can be made to pay. When we concluded to protect
our citizens from Weylerian savagery, instead of sending
a warship to Havana to read the riot act if need be in
villainous saltpetre we had our ambassador crawling about
the European courts humbly begging permission of the
powers, and as we got no permission we did no protecting.
When the church people elect me president of this
Republic I'll have ante-mortem investigations when
American citizens are held prisoners by foreign powers, and
those entitled to Old Glory's protection will get it in
one time and two motions if Uncle Sam has to shuck his
seer-sucker and fight all Europe to a finish. I shall
certainly ask no foreign prince, potentate or power for
permission to protect American citizens in the western world.
There'll be one plank in my platform as broad as a
boulevard and as long as a turnpike, and it will be to the
effect that the nation which wrongs an American citizen
must either apologize with its nose in the sand or reach
for its six-shooter. I'd rather see my country made a
desolation forever and a day, its flag torn from the heavens,
its name erased from the map of the world and its people
sleeping in heroes' sepulchres, than to see it a mark for
scorn, an object of contempt.
In continually crying "Peace! Peace!" Uncle Sam is
chasing a rainbow that has a dynamite bomb under either
end. If history be philosophy teaching by example what
is the lesson we have to learn? In little more than a
century we've had four wars, and only by the skin of our
teeth have we escaped as many more, yet we not only
refuse to judge the future by the past, but ignore the
solemn admonitions of Washington and Jefferson and stand
naked before our enemies. We have no merchant marine
to develop these hardy sailors who once made our flag
the glory of the sea. We have a little navy, commanded
chiefly by political pets who couldn't sail a catboat into
New York harbor without getting aground or falling
overboard. We have an army, about the size of a comic
opera company, officered largely by society swells who
cannot even play good poker, are powerful only on dress
parade. We have a few militia companies, scattered from
Sunrise to Lake Chance, composed chiefly of boys and
commanded by home-made colonels, who couldn't hit a
flock o' barns with a howitzer loaded to scatter; who show
up at state encampments attired in gaudy uniforms that
would make Solomon ashamed, and armed with so-called
swords that wouldn't cut hot butter or perforate a rubber
boot. And that's our immediate fighting force. Uncle
Sam is a Philadelphia tenderfoot flourishing a toy pistol
at a Mexican fandango. When I succeed Mr. McKinley
I'll weed every dude and dancing master out of the army
and navy and put on guard old war dogs who can tell
the song of a ten-inch shell from the boom-de-aye of a
sham battle. I'll call the attention of my Hardshell
Baptist Congress to Washington's advice that while avoiding
overgrown military establishments, we should be careful
to keep this country on a respectable defensive posture,
and that if that advice is not heeded, I'll distribute the
last slice of federal pie among the female Prohibitionists
of Kansas. If this is to be a government of, for and by
a lot of nice old ladies, I'll see to it that none of my
official grannies grow a beard or wear their bronchos
clothespin fashion. And I'll warrant you that were this
nation ruled by sure-enough women instead of by a lot
of anaemic he-peons of the money-power, Columbia would
not be caught unprepared when "the spider's web woven
across the cannon's throat shakes its threaded tears in
the wind no more."
. . .
To the American patriot familiar with the rapid development
of this country it seems that the hour must assuredly
come when its lightest wish will be the world's law--
when foreign potentates will pay homage to the sovereigns
of a new and greater Rome; but let us not be too
sanguine, for nations, like individuals, have their youth,
their lusty manhood and their decay; and despite the rapid
increase in men and money there are startling indications
that Uncle Sam has already passed the zenith of
his power.
"First freedom, then glory, when that fails,
Wealth, vice, corruption--barbarism at last."
Freedom we have won, and glory, yet both have failed--
we have become, not the subjects of native Caesars, but
the serfs of foreign Shylocks. Wealth we now have, and
Oriental vice, and corruption that reaches even from the
senate chamber through every stratum of society. That
we are approaching barbarism may be inferred from the
magnificence of the plutocrat and the poverty of the
working people. The first reaps where he has not sown
and gathers where he has not strewn, while if the latter
protest against this grievous injustice they are branded
as noisy Bryanites or lampooned as lippy Populists. To
the superficial observer, a nation seems to be forging
forward long after it has really begun to retrograde.
There's an era of splendor, of Lucullus feasts, of Bradley-
Martin balls and Seeley dinners; there's grand parade of
soldiery and ships, miles of costly palaces, and wealth
poured out like water in foolish pageantry; there's
refinement of manners into affectation, dilettantism,
epicureanism--but 'tis "the gilded halo hovering 'round decay."
The heart of that nation is dead, its soul hath departed,
and no antiseptic known to science will prevent putrefaction.
How is it with us? Forty thousand people own
one-half of the wealth between two oceans, while 250,000
own more than 80 per cent. of all the values created by
the people. What is the result? Money is omnipotent.
Power is concentrated in the hands of a little coterie of
plutocrats--the people are sovereigns de jure and slaves
de facto. A mongrel Anglomaniaism is spreading among
our wealthy, like mange in a pack o' lobo wolves. Our
plutocrats have become ashamed of their country--probably
because it permits them to practice a brutal predacity
--and now cultivate foreign customs, ape foreign fashions,
and purchase as husbands for their daughters the upper-
servants of European potentates--people who earned their
titles of nobility by chronic boot-licking or sacrificing
their female relatives to the god of infamy. Year after
year these titled paupers--these shameless parodies on
God's masterpiece--paddle across the pond to barter their
tawdy dishonor for boodle, to sell their shame-crested
coronets to porcine-souled American parvenues, who if spawned
by slaves and born in hell would disgrace their parentage
and dishonor their country. Our toadies and title-
worshippers now have a society called the "Order of the
Crown," composed of puppies who fondly imagine that
they have within their royal hides a taint of the impure
blood that once coursed through the veins of corrupt and
barbarous kings. Perchance these dudelets and dudines
will yet discover that they are descended in a direct line
from King Adam the First and are heirs to the throne
of Eden. Our country is scarce half developed, yet it is
already rank with decadence and smells of decay. Our
literature is "yellow," our pulpit is jaundiced, our society
is rotten to the core and our politics shamefully corrupt
--yet people say there's no need of iconoclasts! Perhaps
there isn't. The iconoclasts used hammers, while those
who purify our social atmosphere and make this once
again a government of, for and by the people may have
to empty gatling guns and load them with carbolic acid.
National decay and racial retrogression may be inferred
from the fact that alleged respectable white women have
been married to black men by eastern ministers who insist
on solving the race problem for God and the South by
giving to the typical American of the future the complexion
of a new saddle and the perfume of a Republican powwow.
When these ethnological experts tire of life, they should--
come to Texas. When white people lose their racial pride
they've nothing left that justifies the appointment of a
receiver. We hear a great deal about "race prejudice,"
and I want to say right here that there's just enough of it
in my composition to inspire an abiding faith that the
white man should be, must be, will be, lord paramount of
this planet. I promise you that when you elect me to the
presidency, nothing that's black, yaller or tan gets an
office under my administration. I shall certain not follow
Mark Hanna's understudy and fill the departments at
Washington with big, fat, saucy blacks, to employ white
women as stenographers and white men as messenger boys.
There's lots of good in the Senegambian--lots of it; but
not in a thousand years will he be fit for American
sovereignty. Half the white people are not fit for it, else
instead of a wooden-headed hiccius doctius we'd have Billy
Bryan in the presidential chair today. Whenever I look
at McKinley, I think of Daniel Webster--not because Bill
resembles old Dan, but because he doesn't. I like the
negro in his place and his place is in the cotton patch,
instead of in politics, despite the opinion of those who have
studied him only through the rose-tinted lorgnette of
"Uncle Tom's Cabin." I also like the Anglomaniac in
his place, and that is the geographical center of old
England, with John Bull's trade-mark seared with a hot iron
on the western elevation of his architecture as he faces
the rising sun to lace his shoes. As between the nigger
and the Anglomaniac, I much prefer the former. The
full-blooded nigger is a fool positive, but the Anglomaniac
is an ass superlative. The first is faithful to those
who feed him; the latter is a sneaking enemy to the
country that has conferred upon him every benefit.
Despite the optimistic cackle anent the march of science,
industrial progress, and all that sort o' thing, it appears
to be the general consensus of opinion that there's something
radically wrong. There's no lack of remedies--
the political drug store is full of panaceas, each with the
trade-mark of some peculiar school of therapeutics blown
in the bottle. Strange that all these catholicons for
earthly ills propose to inaugurate the millennium by
improving the pecuniary condition of the people--as though
the want of money in this or the other pocket were the
only evil. Certainly a better distribution of wealth were
desirable, but a general dissemination of God's grace were
far preferable. Given that, all worthy reforms will
follow; without it we will continue to chase foolish
rainbows to our fall, Dives becoming more insolent, Lazarus
left more and more to the care of the dogs. I do not
mean that by acquiring a case of the camp-meeting jerks
we will solve the riddle which the Sphinx of Time is
propounding to this republic--that we will find the solution
of all life's problems in the amen-corner. Not exactly.
The average church is about the last place to which we
need look for relief. It's too often a lying rainbow painted
on the dark mist of ignorance by the devil's own artist.
It promises more and performs less than a Republican
candidate for Congress. I've noticed that shouting
hosannahs has little tendency to make one more truthful
--that when a man professes himself the chief of sinners,
he may feel obligated to substantiate his statement. I've
never known a man to borrow any money of the bank
on the unctuosity of his amen, but I have known people
who could double-discount Satan himself at dodging an
honest debt, to weep real water because I declined to come
into their sectarian penfold and be measured for a suit of
angelic pin-feathers. There are many church people who
will slander you unmercifully for dissenting from their
religious dogma, then seize the first opportunity to stick
you with a plugged dime or steal your dog. There are
worshippers who do not consider in outward rites and
specious forms religion satisfied; but these never
accumulate vast fortunes. The path to heaven is too steep to
be scaled by a man weighted down with seven million
dollars. He may be long on hope and faith, but he's
short on charity, and without charity religion is as big
a fraud as McKinley's international bimetallism. Charity
is a word that is awfully misunderstood. If a man's
income be $5,000 a year and he gives half of it to the
less fortunate, he's a pretty decent fellow, but if he
reserves for himself half of a $100,000 income while people
are going hungry to bed, he's simply a brute. With a
world full of woe and want, what right has any professed
follower of Jesus to shove $50,000 a year down his jeans?
The true test of a man's charity is the sum which he
reserves for himself; hence when Jno. D. Rockefeller--my
good Baptist brother who's building collegiate monuments
to his own memory with other people's money--reserves
tens o' millions in excess of his needs and imagines himself
full to the muzzle with the grace of God, he's simply
chasing a rainbow that may land him in Malebolge with the
dull sudden plunk of a Republican campaign promise hitting
the tidal wave of prosperity. Imagine Jesus Christ
with John D.'s money--loaning it at 5 per cent. a month!
Why if he'd had half so much cash he'd never have been
crucified. Those who clamored for his death would have
run him for mayor of Jerusalem on the reform ticket
and tried to work him for his last dollar.
. . .
If all who call themselves Christians were Christlike,
then indeed might there be hope for humanity; but what is
there to inspire belief that the church will ever win the
world from a foolish quest of rainbows? What hope in
Talmage, with his nightmare visions and stertorous dreams,
his pilgrimings to Palestine and rummaging among the
mummified cats and has-been kings of ancient Egypt for
"Scriptural evidence?" What hope for a people so mentally
emasculate that they can patiently listen to his
jejune wind-jamming, can read and relish his irremediable
tommyrot? What hope in Sam Jones and other noisy
ignorami of that ilk, with their wild war on dancing and
the euchre deck, the drama and decollete? Be these the
strongholds of Abriman in his ceaseless war on Oromasdes?
Does the Prince of Darkness, who once did fill the wondering
cosmos with the clangor of celestial steel, now front
the hosts of Heaven armed with a euchre-deck? Is Tara
Boom-de-aye the battle-hymn and the theater hat the
blazing gonfalon of him who strove with Omnipotence for
universal empire? Does Lucifer expect to become lord
paramount of all the gleaming worlds that hang like
jewels pendant in heaven's imperial concave by persuading
some miserable son of Adam to work his toes on Sunday,
dance with the girls on Monday or play seven-up for the
cigars? O Jonesy, Jonesy! would to heaven that thou
and all thy brother blabsters and bubblyjocks would go
hang yourselves, for you know naught of the war that
rages ever like a sulphurous siroc in the human soul. Ye
are but insects that infest great Igdrasyl, the ash tree
that upholds the universe. One atheistical Stephen
Girard playing Good Samaritan in a plague-swept city
while the preachers hit the turnpike; one deistical Tom
Paine, braving the guillotine for the rights of man; one
Father Damien, freely laying down his life for the miserable
lepers of Molokai; one sweet-faced sister of charity
bravely battling with the reeking slums of a great city,
striving to drag souls from that seething maelstrom of
sin, were worth legions of those sanctified lollypops who
prate of sacrificing all for their Savior, yet never risk life
or gold in the service of their God.
. . .
"Work is worship," said the old monks who carried the
cross into the Western wilds despite all hardships, in
defiance of all dangers--men for whom life was no Momusmasque,
but a battle and a march, men who sacrificed all
for other's sake, accepting without a sigh disease and
death as worldly reward. Those monks were real men,
and real men are ever the world's heroes and its hope.
The soul of a real man is never hidden behind the cowardly
superficies of policy or expediency--his heart is an open
book which he who runs may read. Deceive he cannot, for
the lie blooms only on the lips of cowards. Public opinion
he may treat with kingly contempt, but self-respect is
dearer to him than life, though dowered with a monarch's
scepter and all the wealth of Ormus and of Ind. There's
something in the words of a woman, spoken during the civil
war, which indicates that despite all artificiality and folly,
beneath the cheap gilding and showy lacquer of life, the
heart of the race still beats steady and strong; that above
the infinitude of goose-speech and the trumpeting of tin-
horns on the housetops may still be heard "the ever-pealing
tones of old Eternity." From out the mad hell of the
fight a wounded hero was borne to the hospital. Neither
pain nor approaching death could break the courage of
that heart of oak, but a prurient little preacher, one of
those busy smooth-bore bigots whose mission seems to be
to cast a shadow on the very sun, convinced the stricken
man that he was an awful sinner, whereupon he began
crying out that he was doomed to be damned. The nurse,
a muscular woman who believed with the old monks that
"work is worship," took the parson by the pendulous
8 x 10 ear, led him aside and sweetly said: "Mr. Goody
Two-Shoes, if I catch you in this ward again I'll
throw you out of the window." The brimstone
peddler felt that he had an urgent "call" to other fields.
He stood not upon the order of his going, but hit the dim
and shadowy distance like Nancy Hanks. He couldn't
even wait to pray for his persecutor or take up a collection.
In vain the nurse strove to soothe her patient by
telling him that the man who gave his life for his native
land cannot miss heaven's mercy--he but wailed the louder
that he was lost. "You came to me a hero," she cried,
"and you shall not leave me a coward. If you must go
to hell, go like a man." If Romans nursed by a she-wolf
became demigods, what might not Americans be sprung
from the loins of such a lioness! Milton has almost made
Satan respectable by endowing him with an infernal heroism,
by making him altogether and irremediably bad,
instead of a moral mugwump--by giving him a heart for
any fate instead of picturing him as willing to wound
and yet afraid to strike.
. . .
By God's grace, I mean not the kind you catch at camp-
meetings with sand-fleas, wood-ticks and other gifts of the
Holy Ghost; but rather an end everlasting to brummagem
and make-believe, a return to the Ark of the Covenant,
a recognition of that fact that the soul is not the stomach
--that a man owes debts to his fellows which cannot be
cast up at the end of the month and discharged with a
given number of dollars. Man was not made for himself
alone, but all were made for each and each for all. The
doctrine which now prevails of "every man for himself,"
is the dogma of the devil. It means universal war, shameful
wrong and brutal outrage--the strong become intolerable
tyrants, the weak go to the wall. It transforms
this beautiful world into a basket of adders, each biting,
hissing, striving to get its foolish head above its fellows.
If the Christian religion contained naught else of worth,
its doctrine of self-sacrifice should earn for it the respect
of every Atheist in the universe. Through the fogs of
ignorance and the clouds of superstition that enshrouded
the Biblical ages that touch of the divine shines like a
pilot star.
. . .
That Persian poet who prated of "the sorry scheme of
things" would deserve pity were he not beneath contempt.
He imagined that there was a screw loose in the universe
because his quest of pleasure slipped its trolley-pole and
could not make the bubble Joy to dance in Folly's cup.
Millions make continual moan that they are not happy
when they ought to be thankful that they are not hanged.
They shake their puny hands at heaven because not provided
with a terrestrial Paradise, when they ought to be
giving thanks that I'm not the party who holds the sea in
the hollow of his hand. I'd make good Baptists of the
whole caboodle--would hold them under water long enough
to soak out the original sin. A man complains because
Fortune doesn't empty her cornucopia into the pockets of
his pantalettes while he whittles a pine box and talks
municipal politics instead of humping himself behind an
enterprising mule in the cotton-patch. If his sweetheart
jilts him, he's in despair, and if she marries him he wishes
he were dead. He has the mulligrubs because he cannot
plant himself on a Congressional cushion, or because he
finds his wife awake and nursing a curtain lecture to keep
it warm when he falls through the front fence at 5 o'clock
in the morning. It seems never to have occurred to these
Werterian wailers that the happiest existence is that of
the lower animals--that the human being of fine brain and
keen sensibilities cannot possibly be content. It is this
very unrest, this heart-hunger that drives a man on to
noble deeds--that lifts him out of the gutter where wallow
the dull, dumb beasts and places him among the gods. Of
suffering and sorrow were born all life's beauty. The kiss
of Pyramus and Thisbe is an ecstasy of pain. The hope
of immortality sprang from breaking hearts. Nations rise
through a mist of tears. Every great life-work is an
agony. Behind every song there lurks a sigh. There's
an element of sadness in humor itself. The Virgin Mother
is known as Our Lady of Pain. The cult of Christ is
hallowed by the blood of self-sacrifice and known as the
Religion of Sorrow. The first breath of life and the last
gasp are drawn in suffering; and between the cradle and
the grave there lies a monster-haunted Sahara. Yet men
choose the ignis-fatuus called Happiness, and mourn that
they cannot cover it with a No. 6 hat. They should pray
the gods to transform them into contented goats and turn
them out to grass. People who cannot find happiness here
begin to look for it in heaven. Eternal beatitude is
another ridiculous rainbow. Nirvana is nonsense. If there
be a life beyond the grave, it means continued endeavor,
and there can be no endeavor unless there's dissatisfaction.
The creature cannot rise superior to its creator--and the
universe is the result of God's unrest. Had he been
perfectly content he would not have made me.
Carlyle--not Mugwump Carlisle of Kentucky, but Thos.
Carlyle of Great Britain-the lord of modern literature--
says the hell most dreaded by the English is the hell of not
making money. We have imported this English Gehenna,
duty free, despite Mr. Dingley, and now the man who
doesn't succeed in accumulating dollars is socially damned.
How many of this generation can understand the remark
of Agassiz that he had no time to make money?--can
realize that such occupation is not the sole end of man?--
that time expended in the accumulation of wealth beyond
the satisfaction of simple wants is worse than wasted?
It is so because from our numbered days we have stolen
years that should have been devoted to soul-development,
filled with the sweets of knowledge; hallowed by the
perfume of love, made gracious by noble deeds--because we
have blasted life's fair fruitage with the primeval eldest
curse. Omar strikes one true chord when he doth sing:
"A book of verses, underneath the bough,
A jug of wine, a loaf of bread, and thou
Singing beside me in the wilderness--
O wilderness were Paradise enow!"
. . .
Diogenes was content with a tub while Alexander sat him
down by the ever-moaning sea and wept his red bandanna
full of brine because he didn't know that the empire of
Czar Reed yet remained unconquered. And now both
Diogenes and Alexander have "gone glimmering through
the dream of things that were," and little it matters to
them or to us whether they fed on honey of Hymettus and
wine of Falernus or ate boarding house hash off a pewter
plate and guzzled Prohibition busthead out of a gourd.
The cynic who housed in a tub and clothed himself with
a second-hand carpet is as rich to-day as he that reveled
in the spoil of Persia's conquered king and kicked the
bucket while enjoying a case of katzenjammer. King and
cynic, tub and palace, lantern and scepter--all have
perished; and he that butchered thousands to glut his
greed for what fools call glory, shines less brightly through
the murky shadows of the century than he that made a
nobler conquest of himself. The haughty empires one did
rear have long since crumbled into dust; the wild goat
browses in their deserted capitals, the lizard sleeps upon
their broken thrones, and the owl hoots from their forgotten
altars and ruined fanes; but the philosophy of the
other lives on from age to age, to point the folly of such
mad rainbow-chasing as that of him who thought to make
the world his monument.
. . .
Know ye not that the poorest beggar is an earth-
passenger also, that thy brother, traveling his millions of
miles per day?--where, think you? Among the stars.
For him as for thee does Aurora gild the morning and
Apollo hang the evening sky with banners of burnished
gold; for him as for thee doth Selene draw the limpid
waters behind her silver car around the rolling world
and Bootes lead his hunting dogs afield in their leash of
celestial fire. Ten centuries hence the dust of the
millionaire will have mingled with that of the mendicant, both
long forgotten of men; ten centuries hence the descendants
of those now peddling hot wiener-wurst may proudly wear
the purple, while the posterity of present monarchs creep
through life as paupers. A thousand years are but as one
tick of the mighty horologe of time--and the allotted life
of man but three score years and ten! And this brief
period we expend, not in living, but in providing the means
of life; not as creation's lords, but as slaves to our own
avarice, the most pitiful passion that ever cursed mankind.
If there be a God, be thou his messenger unto men;
if there be no God, then have thy unfortunate fellows the
more need of thee. Wait not until a man is driven to
crime by the iron law of necessity, a woman to dishonor, a
child to beggary, then organize some fake relief society for
thine own glory, but put forth a helping hand in time to
avert the sin and shame. The most pitiful failure in all
God's universe is the man who succeeds only in making
money. A thieving fox will grow fat by predacity while
an honest dog starves in the path of duty. And we have
too many sleek Reynards prowling 'round the sheep-pens
and dove-cotes of this people, too few faithful Gelerts
doing stubborn battle with predaceous beasts.
There's one class of people whom we cannot brand as
arrant knaves and put in the pillory, yet who are a curse
to any country. These are your Laodiceans in religion
and politics, your luke-warms, your namby-pamby milk-
and-cider set who are neither cold or hot. These are your
eminently proper people, your stereotyped respectables.
They accept the Gospel as true, not that they can comprehend
it, but rather because they lack sufficient mental
vigor to deny it. They join the church and align themselves
with that political party to which the local nabobs
belong. "What will people say?" is to them the all-
important problem. They have followed some old bell
weather or lead-gander into the wire-grass pasture of
Respectabilia. They observe all the proprieties--at least
in outward appearance. These are the animals whose vis
inertia perpetuates all the abuses of wealth and power--
whatsoever has the approval of two or more generations
of infamous rascals is so eminently respectable. These
are the people who are so profoundly shocked by the
alleged slang of Hugo and vulgarities of Goethe, while
compelling their daughters to read the Canticles. They
have a conniption fit and fall in it because some shapely
danseuse kicks up her rhythmic heels on the vaudeville
stage, then organize Trilbys auctions, kissing bees and
garter raffles for the glory of God. Their ideal is
expediency and their moral law the Eleventh Commandment--
Don't get caught. These are the people who stone the
prophets of progress. They are to the social organism
what a pound of putty would be to the stomach of a
dyspeptic. They are a mill-stone slung about the neck of
the giant of civilization. "What will people say?"
Well, if you tell them a new truth, they will say that you
are a demagogue or a blasphemer, an anarchist or a
Populist; but when your new truth has been transformed by
Time's great alembic into an old falsehood, they will have
absorbed it--it will have become respectable--and you
couldn't purge it from their soggy brain with Theodorus'
Auticyrian hellebore. They said of Galileo, "Imprison
him!" because he denied the old falsehood that the world
is flat; of Servetus, "Burn him!" because he dissented
from the ipse dixit of another heretic; of Socrates,
"Poison him!" because he laughed at the too amorous
gods of Greece; of Robert Emmett, "Hang him!" because
he wasn't a Cleveland-Bayard Anglomaniac; and
they said of Jesus Christ, "Crucify him!" because he
intimated the fashionable preachers of his time were a set
of splenetic-hearted hypocrites. That's what people say;
but occasionally there's one to answer that 'tis not in the
power of all Xerxes' hosts to bend one thought of his
proud heart--"they may destroy the case of Anaxarchus,
himself they cannot reach." It is not what foolish sound
is shaped by a deal of stinking breath and blown adown
the wind to be forgotten like the bray of an asthmatic
burro, to perish like the snows of yesteryear, that should
be our concern--not what the idle gabble of Mrs. Grundy
proclaims us, but what we actually are. Public opinion
is an ever-shifting rainbow. The "heretics" of one age
are the saints of the next: the "cranks" of our own time
may be the philosophers of the future; the despised rebels
of a century ago are the men whose graves we bedeck with
our garlands. Soon or late, those who court the many-
headed monster, who "flatter its rank breath and bow
to its idolatries a patient knee," are trampled beneath its
iron heel; but those who take duty for guiding star and
are strong enough to withstand the gibes of malice and the
jeers of ignorance will find that the years are seldom
unjust. It has been well said that one eternity waited for
us to be born, that another waits to see what we will do
now that we are here. Do what thou canst and do it
with all thy might, remembering that every fice that doth
bark at thee this day, every goose that stretches forth its
rubber neck to express its disapproval, will be dead in hell
a hundred years hence, its foolish yawp gone silent
forevermore, but that thy honest act affects in greater or less
degree all God's universe.
I am neither a Jeremiah with a lung full o' lamentations,
nor a Jonah rushing round like a middle of the roader
and proclaiming, "Yet forty days and the woods will
be on fire." I do not believe that we can pick ourselves
up by our own embroidered boot-straps and hop blithely
astride a millennium built to order by McKinley, Bryan,
or any other man; but I do believe that the human race
is slowly but surely working the subsoil out of its system,
is becoming ever less the beast and more the god. Nations
grown corrupt with wealth and age may fall, but others
strong in youth and innocence will arise. Old faiths may
be forgotten, but from other and purer altars will ascend
the smoke of sacrifice. Freedom may be wounded grievously
in her very temple by Anglomaniacs who needs must
have a royal master, yet her banner, torn but flying, will
stream triumphant over the grave of tyranny. The black
night of barbarous ignorance may often engulf the world,
but "Thou, Eternal Providence, wilt cause the day to
dawn." The Star of Bethlehem cannot go down in everlasting
darkness--the bow of promise gleams softly luminous
behind the thunderbolt. I care not whether the
Noahian tale be true that never again will the shifting
axis of the earth pour the sea upon the plain--the rainbow
is nature's emblem of peace, her cestus of love, and in its
splendor I read a promise that never again will this fair
earth of ours be swept with sword and fire, deluged with
blood and tears. Not to the past, but to the future, do
I look for the Saturnian age, when the demons of need and
greed will be exorcised, when love will be the universal
law, the fatherhood of God the only faith. Such, my
friends, is the rainbow to which I have turned my feet.
It lies afar, across dismal swamps o'er whose icy summits
only the condor's shadow sweeps--across arctic vast and
desert isles beyond tempestuous ocean rank with dead men's
bones and the rotting hulls of ships. I shall not attain
it, nor shall you; but he that strives, though vanquished,
still is victor. A dreamer, say you? Ah yes, but all life is
but a dream, mystic, wonderful, and we know not when we
sleep nor when we wake. I love to dream so when the
storm beats upon the great oaks, hoary with their hundred
years, and they put forth their gnarled arms and grapple
with the blast, when the lightning cleaves the inky sky
with forked flame and the earth rocks neath the thunder's
angry roar. When the dark clouds roll muttering unto
the East and the evening sun hangs every leaf and twig
and blade of grass with jewels brighter than e'er gleamed
in Golconda's mines; when the mock-birds renew their
melody and every flower seems drunken with its own incense,
I look upon the irisate glory that seems to belt the
world with beauty and my heart beats high with hope that
in years to be the storm-clouds that o'ershadow the souls
of men will recede also--that time shall come when the
human race will be one universal brotherhood, containing
neither a millionaire nor a mendicant, neither a master
nor a slave.
INDEX TO THE TWELVE VOLUMES OF BRANN THE ICONOCLAST
All titles of articles appear in this index in capitals--except
"Salmagundi," "Editorial Etchings," "Political Pot-pourri,"
and a few other stock titles which were used in the ICONOCLAST as
general headings for groups of untitled short articles. The more
important of these untitled brief articles are indexed under the
theme or subject.
The index entries appearing in small or lower case type comprise
a subject index of the leading topics discussed by Brann. As the
same subject may be variously phrased the student of Brann is
advised to glance through the index to familiarize himself with
the terminology used. Articles relating to individuals are not
indexed under the proper names unless the individuals are
generally known to the reading public. Articles contributed to
the ICONOCLAST by others than Brann are indexed under title and
name of contributor but not by theme or subject.
ADAM AND EVE, I, 226
ADDITIONAL OBSERVATIONS IX, 206
ADVERTISING ADVENTURES III, 210
AGE OF CONSENT, THE, II, 30
AGE OF POISON, THE, XI, 202
AIR-JAMMING JINGOES, THE, III, 300
Allegorical Tales, I, 32, 1. 9, 203
AMATEUR EDITOR, THE, X, 179
AMBASSADOR BAYARD, IX, 37
AMELIE'S NEW MARRIAGE, IX, 209
AMERICAN DRUMMER, THE, II, 188
AMERICAN MIDDLEMAN, THE, VII, 122
AMERICAN PRESS, THE, VII, 52
AMERICAN SOVEREIGN, THE, V, 69
Anarchy, VI, 115; IX, 254; X, 11
ANGLO-AMERICAN INFAMY, VIII, 126
Anglomaniacs (see also England),
III 73, IV, 37, 260, V, 6, VI
254; VII, 226, VIII, 30, 126,
281; IX, 153
ANTHONY THE ABOMINABLE, XI, 235
ANTI-DANCING DERVISH, AN, IX, 183
ANTONIA TEIXEIRA, II, 286
A.P.A. (see also Catholicism),
11, 111, 187, 215; III, 12, 229;
IV, 41, 135, 264, 311; V, 242,
299, 312, VI, 4, 159, 232, VII
27, 87, 223, 295, VIII, 161
A.P.A. IDIOCY, THE, III, 12
APOLOGY FOR PATRIOTISM, AN, V, 201
"APOSTLE" AS POLYGAMIST, THE, III, 198
APOSTLE'S BIOGRAPHY, THE, II, 103
APOSTLE IN PERDITION, THE, IV, 97
APOSTLE vs. PAGAN, I, 37
APOSTLE'S RAG BABY THE, VI 154
ARE SECOND MARRIAGES LAWFUL? VI, 284
ARMENIAN MUDDLE, THE, III, 271
ARE WOMEN DEVOID OF DESIRE? I, 135
Army, Social Snobbery in, VII, 1
ASSIGNATS vs. INSANITY, VII, 42
Atheism (see also Faith; Immortality),
I, 37; III, 207; IV, 53;
V, 54; VI, 288; IX, 296, 308;
XI, 95.
ATHEISM AND ORTHODOXY
ATHEISTS AND IGNORANCE, XI, 282
AT THE EXPO., III, 148
ATKINSON'S FINANCIAL FOLLY, III, 200
AUTHOR OF EPISCOPALIANISM, THE, X, 115
BACHELORS vs. BENEDICTS, II, 134
BAILEY AND THE DAL-GAL, VI, 52
BAPTIST BELLIGERENCY, IV, 135
BAPTIST BOYCOTT, A, III, 144
BARDWELL SLOTE OF COHOSH, THE HON., X, 155
BARONS vs. BARONS, IX, 250
BAYLOR IN BAD BUSINESS, III, 29
BAYLOR'S REJOINDER, III. 150
BEANS AND BLOOD, III, 240
BEAUTEOUS REBECCA, THE, II, 12
BEAUTY AND DEATH, VII, 205
Beauty Contest, VII, 120 VIII, 307
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, VI, 312
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, IV, 93
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, XII, 193
BEECHER AND THE BIBLE, IV, 147
Beecher, Henry Ward, IV, 147; VII, 206
BEHIND THE SCENES IN ST. LOUIS, X, 205
BEHIND THE SMOKESTACK, VI, 60
Bible Stories Revised, I, 1, 226,
285; II, 94, 277; VI, 193; VII, 243
Bible, Criticism of, I, 285; IV,
147; VII, 9, 115, 195; VIII, 201
BIBLICAL BEAR STORY, A, II, 277
Bicycle Craze, I, 252; III, 146;
IV, 258, V 11, 218; VI, 161;
VII, 79
BICYCLING AND BAWDRY, III, 146
BIGOTED ARCHBISHOP, A, X, 270
BIKE BACILLUS, THE, I, 252
BILLY HOWELL'S BAD BREAK, VIII, 299
Bishop, Julia Truitt, Articles by,
VII, 143, 309; VIII, 93; X,
222; XI 25, 159. 193
BISMARCK, II. 50
Blasphemy, V, 134; VI, 122
BLUE AND GRAY, XII, 143
BOLTING POPULIST BOSSES, VII 19
BONDS vs. BUNCOMBE. IV, 56
BOOZE AND BABY SHOES. V, 39
BRACE OF BELLYACHERS, A, II, 159
BRACE OF MISSOURI BEAUTS, A, V, 109
BRADLEY-MARTIN BALMASQUE, I, 81
BRANN AND BAYLOR, XII, 29
Brann, Life of, 11, 103; VII, 25;
X, 143; XII, pages 1 to 114
BRANN IS NO MORE, XII, 74
BRANN OF THE ICONOCLAST, XII, 77
BRANN THE FOOL, XII, 106
BRANN, WILLIAM COWPER, XII, 109
BRANN'S BRAVE BATTLE, XII, 73
Brann's Death, XII, 11
Brann's Death (and events leading
thereto; see also Teixeira Case)
Brann's Lectures, XII, pages 115 to :2013
BRANN'S REPLY TO SLATTERY, XII, 204
BRANN vs. BAYLOR, X, 77
BRANNAN vs. SEASHOLES, VI, 32
BRASS COLLAR DEMOCRAT, A, VI, 57
BRAVE AND BRAINY BRANN, XII, 76
BRAZEN HUMBUG, A, V, 275
BRER. CRANFILL'S LITTLE BLUFF, VIII, 250
BRER. JONES ABILIN, IV, 297
BRITISH vs. BOERS, IV, 119
BRO. EARLY'S BAZOO, IV, 242
BROTHERLY REBUKE, A, II, 78
BRYAN, D. D., VII, 39
BRYAN PANIC PENDING, A, VI,
BRYAN. WILLIAM JENNINGS,
V 253, VI, 78, 85, 221, 308;
VII, 34, 111, 238; VIII, 47, 139
BUCK NEGRO, THE, II, 15
Business, Corruption in V 234; VII 218
BUSINESS REVIVAL, THE, III, 58
BUSINESS WOMAN THE, VII, 143
BUZZARDS ON THE WING, III, 114
CALVINISTIC CALF, THE, IV, 309
CAMPBELLITE FAMA CLAMOSA, A, IX, 268
CANDIDATE FOR CASTRATION, A, IV, 307
CARNIVAL OF CRIME. A, II, 99
CARNIVAL OF CRIME, A, VI, 301
CASH vs. COIN, II, 293
CASTOR AND POLLUX, II, 125
CAT, THE, II, 201
Catholicism (see also A. P. A.), II,
111; III, 190; V, 118, 163; VI,
33- VII, 87, 295- VIII, 1, 181;
IX, 1, 173; X, 8, 195, 270; XII, 204
CATHOLIC vs. PROTESTANT "CRANKS," V, 163
Canfleld, H. S., Articles by, X, 149; XI, 139
CHAPTER WRITTEN IN THE LIFE BLOOD, A, XII, 1
CHARITY, I 16
CHILDREN OF POVERTY, THE, XI, 25
CHRIST COMES TO TEXAS, I, 70
CHRISTIAN, THE, X, 222
CHRISTIAN COURIER, THE, V, 41
CHRISTIAN ENGLAND IN INDIA, I, 48
Christian Science VII, 253
Christmas, X, 274
CHRISTMAS CRIMES, IV, 34
Chrone, H. F., Articles by. XI, 266
CHURCH OF ENGLAND, THE, IX, 1
CHURCH AND STAGE, VII, 63
Church (see Religion, Catholicism, Preachers, etc.)
CIVILIZATION. IV, 184; I, 129
Civil War, The, I, 116 V, 5, 201;
VII, 114, VIII, 159, 272, XII, 143
Cleveland. Grover. II, 3 III, 21,
257; IV, 56, 161; V, 138; VII,
5; VIII 232: X 5
CLEVELAND AS CATO, III, 143
COINING BLOOD INTO BOODLE
COLCHIAN DAYS, II, 308
Colonel, The (Pseudonym) Articles
by, X, 105- XI, 223, 240
COMMISSION CRAZE, THE, IV, 137
COMMON COURTESAN, THE, IV, 5
CONCERNING HELL, III, 196
Connolly. M. W., Articles by, VII,
132, 283- VIII, 84- X, 185; XI,
69, 272, 297
Consent, age of, XI, 90
CONSTRUCTION vs. DESTRUCTION, VIII, 1
CONVICTION OF DURRANT, THE, III, 295
CORBETT-FITZSIMMONS AFFAIR, III. 52
CORBETT-FITZSIMMONS FIGHT, THE, III. 161
CORONATION OF THE CZAR, I, 118
CORRESPONDENT'S CURIOSITY, A, V, 46
COSTLY KISS, A, IV, 217
"COUNTESS" CASTELLANE, THE, IV, 1
COURAGE OF WOMENKIND, THE, VIII, 170
COURTESIES AND CORRUPTION, II. 260
Courts, Criticism of, XI, 99; III,
34, 295- V, 316- IX, 27; X, 257
COUPLE OF HIGH-TONED KIDS, A, IX, 128
COUPLE OF UNCLEAN COYOTES, A, X, 257
CREDIT AND PRICES, IX, 237
Crime, Suppression of, II 99, 113;
VI, 301; X, 31
CRUSADE OF CALUMNY, A, VI, 78
Cuban Question, VII, 232
CUBAN STRUGGLE, THE, IV, 203
CUCKOO CONFERENCE, THE, II, 247
CUCKOOS AND COME-OUTERS, VIII, 84
CUPID vs. CHRIST, XI, 174
Currency (see also Free Silver)
II, 3, 59, 85, 109, 162 176, 243
247; III, 58, 114, 149 200; IV,
56, 161; V, 187, 261; VI, 154,
168 V 11, 42, VIII, 5. IX, 10.-,.
237, X, 1; XI, 133 137, XII, 249
CURRENCY AND COMMON SENSE, II, 162
CURRENCY AND COMMON SENSE, II, 243
CURRENCY AND COMMON SENSE, XI, 146
CURRENCY CRAZE, THE, V 261
CURRENT COMMENT, V, 124
CURSE OF KISSING THE, III, 68
CYCLONES AND SANCTIFICATION, V, 148
Damien, Father, II, 76; III, 158
DAMNABLE DECISION, A, II, 273
Dancing, III. 1 IX, 183; XI, 52
DANIEL WEBSTER'S PREDICTION, IV, 198
DAVIS FOLLOWS BRANN, XII, 13
DAVID AND BATH-SHEBA, VI, 193
DEADLY PARALLEL. THE, V, 4
DEAN HART OF DENVER, IX, 144
DEATH OF BRANN, THE, IX, 94
DEATH OF W. C. BRANN, XII, 64
DEATH OF DOUGLASS. II. 118
DEFENDER-VALKYRIE FIASCO, THE. III, 185
DEITY IN DANGER, THE, V, 134
DEMOCRACY DISINTEGRATING, III, 63
DEMOCRATIC DEFEAT, THE, III, 257
Depew, Chauncey, VIII, 222
DESTRUCTIVE RUM DEMON, THE III, 186
Devil, The II, 74; V, 43
DISGRACE TO CIVILIZATION, A, V II, 140
Divorce. III. 250; VII, 140
DIXIE'S DALIA-LAMA, V, 138
DOGMATISM, THE MOTHER OF DOUBT, I, 163
DOLCE FAR NIENTE AND DOLLARS, X, 1
DOWN IN DIXIE. IX, 166
Dress (see Nudity)
DRUMMER'S NUMBER, II, 168
DUTCH, DEITY, AND THE DEVIL, V, 256
ECONOMIC IDEA ORPHANED, AN, VIII, 286
ECONOMICS (see Poverty; Finance;
Free Silver; Single Tax, etc.)
EDITOR'S ERROR, AN, II, 85
Education, I. 234; III. 202, 275;
IV, 47, 310: VI, 140; IX, 153
EGYPT vs. ARKANSAS, VI, 188
England (see also Anglomaniacs)
I, 48; III, 73, 185, 300, 303,
IV, 119, 133, 1$15, 220; V, 95,
142, 209; VI, 12, 123, 254; VIII
30, 126, 200, 228, 273, 281; IX
1, 101; X, 10, 12, 200; X, 114
ENGLISH WOMAN'S IDEA, AN, V 6
ENGLISH AS SHE IS SPOKE, III, 275
EPICTETUS AND REBECCA, IV, 3
Episcopal Church, IV, 223; VII,
112; VII, 30; IX, 1, 65, 144;
X, 115, 298
EPISCOPALIAN MISTAKE, AN, X, 238
EUGENE FIELD, 11, 242
Eunuch, The (see Philip and the Eunuch)
EVIDENCES OF MAN'S IMMORTALITY I, 257
EVOLUTION OR REVOLUTION, I, 58
Faith (see also Atheism; Immortality),
I, 104, 257; IL 1; V, 148
FAITH AND FOLLY, II, 1
Faith Healing, III, 268, VI, 9 186; IX, 50
FAKE JOURNALISM, III, 105
FARMING AS A PROFESSION, V, 76
FATHER BRANNANS'S NEW DEPARTURE III, 190
FATHER BRANNAN vs. WILLIAMSON, VII, 295
FATHER DAMIEN'S SUCCESSOR III, 158
FAVORITE FALSEHOODS, II, 181
FAVORITE FALSEHOODS, VII, 35
Feminism (see The New Woman;
Woman's Suffrage)
Finance (see Currency; Free Silver)
FINANCIAL FETICH, A, II, 3
FINGAL'S DOG, II, 220
FISTIC PHOBIA FOLLY, THE, IV, 155
FOOLS AND REFORM, II, 176
FOOLS AND REFORM XI, 110
FOOTLIGHT FAVORITES X, 282
"FOR WOMAN'S EYE," VIII, 98
Foreign Missions, II, 77; III, 107
271, IV, 242, V, 29, 225, VI
112, 170: VII. 26
FOREIGN MISSION FAKE, V, 29
France, XI, 91
FRANK CONFESSION, A, V, 95
FRANK CONFESSION, A IX 258
FREE COINAGE OF INTERVIEWS, VI, 48
Free Silver (see also Currency)
II, 58, 247, 293, IV. 247, V
106, 228, 253, 261, 275; VI 43,
60, 202, 227, 247 260; VII, 138;
VIII, 141, IX, 278; X, 101
FREEDOM OF SPEECH, AS TO, VI, 232
FRIED IN HIS OWN FAT, V, 192
FRIEND OF THE FAMILY, A, IX,
FROM THE GODS TO THE GUTTER, VIII, 102
Gall, Brann's Lecture on, XII, 115
GAMBLERS INSULT ALMIGHTY GOD, VIII, 265
GARDEN OF THE GODS, THE, I, 184
GARTERS AND AMEN GROANS, I, 173
George, Henry (see Single Tax)
GEORGIE CLARK'S COMPOSITION, VI. 95
Germany, VIII, 192
GILLY WHO GABS, THE, IV, 33
GINX'S BABY, X, 288
Girard Stephen, VIII, 254
GLORY OF THE NEW GARTER, X, 241
GODEY'S MAGAZINE FOR MOKES, IX, 149
GOING FORWARD BACKWARDS, IX, 224
GOLD BRICK GAME, THE XI, 220
GOLD, SILVER, AND GAB, IV, 247
GOLDEN BOOK, A, XI, 12
GONE MATHEMATICALLY MAD, IV, 40
GOO-GOOS AND TAMMANY TIGER, THE, X, 149
137 V 11, 177; XI, 110
Government Ownership, VIII, 208; IX, 85
GOVERNMENTAL EDUCATION, IV, 310
GOVERNMENTAL FIRE INSURANCE, IX, 301
GRAMMAR SHARP, THE, III, 98
Grant, U S.. VIII, 244
GREAT "REFORM" JOURNAL, A, V, 140
GRECIAN GAMES, THE, V, 56
Greece, VIII, 188
GREENWALL GRAFT THE IV, 129
GROVER'S NEW GIRL, III, 21
GYPSY GENIUS, A, X, 117
HANG THE LIBELERS, III, 199
Hanna, Mark, VI, 162, 279
Harrison, Benjamin, IV, 75
HAS THE SALOONIST A SOUL? IV, 287
Hawaii, Annexation of, IX, 52
Heaven, II, 83, 22 IX, 67
HEAVEN AND HELL, III, 65
Hell, IV 97, IX, 76
HELLAS AND THE IMPS OF HADES, VIII, 188
HENRY GEORGE HOODOO, THE, IX, 133
HER BEAUTIFUL EYES, II, 222
HEROES OF HISTORY, THE, II, 123
High Society I, 81, 118 231, 11
51 116; III, 142, 174; IV, 11
93, 130, 167 201, 269, 272; V
38 109, 132, 145, 183, 192, 195
291; VI 2 111; VII 174 228,
239, 251, 252 VIII, 51, 167, 225,
277; IX, 128, 186, 264, 291, X
21, 145; XI, 7, 187, 189
Hogg, Governor II, 43
HOLY BIBLE, THE, VII, 9
HOMILY ON HELL, A, IX 76
HONESTY vs LAW, II. 130
HORP vs HARVEY, III, 55
HOWELL'S NEW HORROR, V, 159
Hubbard-Kernan, Will, Article by, XI, 235
Hubbard, Elbelt, Article on Brann XII, 106
HUMBUGS AND HUMBUGGERY, XII 151
HUMOROUS STORIES AND ARTICLES,
I, 43 II, 12, 105, 181,
201 III, 45; VI, 242; VII, 35
to 42
HUNTING FOR A HUSBAND, V, 3
Huston, Ethelyn Leslie, Articles by,
VIII. 102: X, 133, 163, 282; XI
44, 174, 306
HYPNOTIC POWER OF HER, I, 146
ICONOCLAST'S BEAUTY CONTEST, VII, 120
ICONOCLAST AND THE CLERGY, THE, V, 278
ICONOCLAST TOLD TO LEAVE TOWN, THE, IX, 199
IF OUR COUNTRY WERE CATHOLIC? V, 118
Immortality! (see also Faith), I
56, 257; II, 69; III, 196
Income Tax, II, 147, 273
INCOME TAX DECISION, II, 147
India, I, 48
INFERNAL FRAUD, AN, IV, 239
infidelity (see Atheism)
Ingalls, John J., VIII 156, 240
INGERSOLL, ROBERT GREEN
I, 37: II, 88, 174; IV, 53 222,
275; V, 1, 18, 133, 136; VI 288;
IX, 54
INGERSOLL'S COWARDICE, COLONEL, V, 136
INGERSOLL'S TEXAS ITINERARY, IV, 275
Initiative and Referendum, VIII, 62
INSULT TO OMNIPOTENCE, AN, VII, 271
Insurance (see Life Insurance)
INSURANCE AND SUCKERS, IX, 85
Ireland, II, 206; VI, 33
IS BRYAN A BOODLER? VI, 85
IS CIVILIZATION A SHAM? IV, 184
IS GOD AN INDIAN? V, 21
IS IT A CRIME TO BE RICH? VII, 125
IS IT A FAKE? III, 113
IS SUICIDE A SIN? V, 24
ISLAND CITY ANGEL, AN, V, 234
ISLE OF CHANEPH, THE, VI, 107
ISRAEL AS IT IS, II, 224
ITALIAN HERO, AN, VIII, 168
IT'S GONE AGLIMMERING, VIII, 274
Jackass Department, VII, 32; IX, 113
Jefferson, Thomas, IV, 303
JEFFERSONIAN DEMOCRACY, IV, 303
JEKYLL ISLAND JACK RABBITS, THE, XI, 240
JESUS AND JUDAISM. IX, 962
JEW-BAITER ABROAD, THE, IV, 21
Jews, The, II. 224; IV, 210; IV
264, IX, 188, 260
JINGOES AND JABBERWOCKS, VII, 70
JINGOES AND JOHN BULL, III, 73
Jingoism (see Preparedness)
JOHN BULL'S BIG BLOW-OUT, VIII, 281
JOHN BULL'S BLUFF IV, 133
JOHN BULL'S CHEAP BLUSTER, IV, 195
JOHN BULL'S CHRONIC BELLY-ACHE, XI, 114
JONAH'S GOURD, II, 94
Jones, Sam, II, 174; X, 278
Journalism (Criticism of) I, 231
250; 11, 39, 1.,9; 111, 21, 56
105, 132 210; IV, 214, 255, V
16 62, 109; VI, 48, 165; VII
52 118, 190 315 VIII, 75, 143
156, 235; IX, 101; X, 179; XI,
40, 95, 96
"JOYS OF THE JAG," VI, 305
JUDGE LYNCH AND THE LAW
Junius (Pseudonym), Articles by
X, 155; XI, 210
JUNIUS LETTERS THE II, 218
JURY SYSTEM, THE, III, 34
Kaiser, The, VII, 227
KANSAS CITY ARISTOCRAT, A, X, 21
KANSAS CURIOSITY, A, V, 100
Kansas, the Home of Cranks, VIII, 145
KANSAS TRINITY, V, 239
KENTUCKY'S DEGENERACY, XI, 37
KILLING OF CANOVAS IX, 254
"KING CHARLES, THE MARTYR," VIII, 47
22, 184, XI, 164
"KREUTZER SONATA," THE, II, 211
Kyut, Iseult, Article by, X, 205
Labor (see also Poverty; Revolution
Threatened), I, 58 VI, 220
VIII, 181; IX, 118, 303; X, 18
247; XI, 92
Labor, political coercion of, VI, 60
VII, 109, 185
Labor Unions VII 945
Ladies, Brann's lecture to, XII, 193
LADONIA'S AMAZONIAN GUARD,
LADY AND THE TIGER, THE, XI, 306
LADY AS LORD, THE, III, 195
LAIR OF THE MINOTAUR, IN THE, XI, 255
LAST LESSON, THE, XII, 85
LAST OF OUR LIBERTIES, THE, IX, 304
LATE TRAGEDY, THE, XII, 41
LATEST TRAGEDY, THE, XII, 26
LAW OF LOVED, THE, XI, 58
Lawyers (see Courts)
LECTURE TO YOUNG LADIES, A, VII. 103
LEGISLATIVE INSANITY, XI, 261
LEGISLATIVE LIMNINGS, VII, 300
LES ENFANTS TERRIBLES, VI, 260
Leslie, Maud M., Article by, XI, 129
LIFE AND DEATH I, 179
Life Insurance, VIII, 208; IX, 85; X, 264
LIGHTS AND SHADOWS, II, 69
LIFE INSURANCE INIQUITY, THE, VIII, 208
Literary Criticisms, I, 107, 149; II,
28, 211, 218, 222, 239, 242; III,
98 180; IV 139 210: V, 13,
20: VI, 266; VII, 254; VIII,
158, 207, 224, 299; IX, 173; X,
28; XI, 1
LITERARY LEPER, A, II, 313
LITERARY RARA AVIS, A, II, 239
LIVE JACKASS, A, vs. DEAD
LION OPTION AND INFAMY, IV 25
LOCAL OPTION LUNACY, THE, XII, 225
LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEER, THE, II, 141
Lone Star, The, XII, 246
LONG FELT WANT, A, IV, 213
LOOKING BACKWARD, I, 129
LOST TRIAD, THE, VI, 288
Love (see also Sex), I, 32, 101,
135, 146, 157; II, 37, 307; III,
68, 254; IV, 3, 209, 217; V, 36;
VIII, 196; X, 249
LOVE AS AN INTOXICANT? X, 249
LOVE LETTERS, V, 36
LUNATIC AT LARGE, A, V, 106
Luther, Martin, IX. 173
Lying (see Truth)
Lynch Law (see Negro Problem)
MACHIAVELLI, X, 168
MAID'S MISTAKE, A, II, 105
MAJOR MOSE HARRIS, VII, 38
MANIMON'S HIGH MUCK-A-MUCK, V, 93
MAN IN THE IRON MASK, THE, VIII, 244
MAN IN THE MOON, THE, III, 121
MANKIND'S MOCK MODESTY, IV, 84
MAN'S GUST FOR GORE, X, 31
MAN'S IMMORTALITY, I, 56
MARLBOROUGH-VANDERBILT MARRIAGE, III, 174
Marriage (see also Love; Divorce;
Sex), II, 134; III, 198; VI, 284;
X, 270
MARRIAGE AND MISERY, III, 250
MARRIAGE AND MISERY, X, 133
MARTYR TO FREE SPEECH, A, XII, 78
MAYBRICK MOVEMENT, THE, V, 142
MAYOR CAMPBELL'S MENDACITY, VI, 247
M'COON-LOGAN CONTROVERSY, THE VIII, 277
McKINLEY AID SOCIETY, THE, VI, 177
McKINLEY AND THE APES, V, 312
McKinley, William, IV, 279; V
102, 211, 270, 312; VI, 78
MEANEST MAN IN AMERICA, THE, VIII, 254
MEMORIAL TO W. C. BRANN, A, XII, 61
MESSAGE TO MARY, A. IV, 151
MEXICAN ANNEXATION, III, 297
Mexico, II, 41; III, 297
Middleman, The, VII, 122
MIDDLE-OF-THE-MUCKERS, IX, 178
"MINISTERIAL SPORTS," IV, 89
Ministers (see Preachers)
Missions (see Foreign Missions)
MONDE AND DEMI-MONDE, X, 163
MODERN MICAWBER, A, IX, 173
MODERN SIMON MAGUS, A, VI, 186
MODERN SPHINX, THE, VII, 157
MODERN THAUMATURGIS, A, VIII, 55
MODERN HE-MAIDEN, A, V, 316
Modesty (see Nudity; Love; Sexual Morality)
Monroe Doctrine, I, 23; II, 137
III, 236, 303 IX, 45
MONROE DOCTRINE, THE, II, 137
MORAL STATUS OF TEXAS, V, 91
MORALITY vs. RELIGION, III, 290
MORMONS OF MEXICO, THE, IV, 15
Morris, John A., Articles by, X,
241; XI, 202, 261
MOUTH OF HELL, THE, VI, 244
NATIONAL POEM, A, II, 28
NATIONAL POEM, A III, 180
Negro Problem, II, 15, 118, III,
240; IV, 307; V, 3; VI, 55;
VII, 5, 113, 180, 182 216 305;
IX, 27, 38, 149, 164 209 298,
X, 13, 279; XI, 54
NELL GWYN, XI, 98
NEW MESSIAH, THE. III, 268
NEW POET LAUREATE, THE, IV, 139
NEW SASSIETY SHEET A, V, 38
NEW SOUTH, THE, I, 161
NEW WOMAN, THE, III, 134
New Woman The, I, 252; III, 195
V, 62, 100, 206; VI, 20; VII, 84;
VIII, 136
NEW YORK'S NIGHT LIFE XI, 152
NEW YORK SAWCIETY SHEET, A, VIII, 167
Nobility (see Royalty; High Society)
NO CROSS-EYED CLERGYMEN, II, 186
NO LIMIT TO "LALLYGAGGING," III, 254
NUDE ART AT CHICAGO, I, 201
Nudity, 1, 201; IV, 84; VII, 103; IX, 48
OBSCENE CONVERSATION, VII, 60
OBSCENE RELIGIOUS RITES, VII, 195
Obscenity, I, 173; II, 78, 87, 215,
313; IV, 255; VI, 234; VII, 60;
VII. 195
OBSEQUIES, THE, XII, 19
OLD GLORY, XII, 239
OLD MAID'S AUCTION, AN, V, 286
OLGA NETHERSOLE'S OSCULATION, IV, 117
OPTIMISM vs. PESSIMISM, I, 221
Oratory, VIII, 245
ORDER OF THE CROWN, THE, XI, 7
OTHER STATEMENTS, XII, 6
OUR AMERICAN CZARS, V, 170
OUR CODFISH ARISTOCRACY, IV, 272
OUR FRIEND THE ENEMY, VIII, 316
OUR H. Y. C. GOVERNOR, III, 265
OUR HEROIC YOUNG CHRISTIAN GOV., VI, 215
OUR JACKASS DEPARTMENT, IX, 113
OUR PLASTER-OF-PARIS NAPOLEON, V, 211
OUR PUBLIC PANDERS, IV, 255
OUR "SISTER REPUBLIC," II, 41
OVERDOING REFORMATION, III, 140
PADEREWSKI'S PULL, IV, 130
PAGET-THOMAS CONTROVERSY, V, 54
PAINE AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, IX, 308
PAINS OF ORATORICAL PARTURITION, VIII, 240
PANACEAS FOR POVERTY, IV, 68
PANIC AND ITS LESSONS THE, XI, 159
PANTHERVILLE PATRIOT, A, III, 229
PARVENUE IN "PAREE," A, III, 142
PASSING OF WILLIAM COWPER BRANN, THE, XII, 43
PASSING OF HOGG, THE, II, 43
PASSING OF PARNELL, II, 206
PASSING OF PINKIE, THE, IV, 214
PASSING OF PROTESTANTISM, THE VIII, 181
PASSING OF THE REPUBLIC, THE, VII, 95
PASSING OF THE STUFFED PROPHET, VIII, 20
PAT DONAN'S PROGNOSTICATIONS VI 43
PEN PICTURE OF BRANN, A, XII, 68
Pension System, III, 39, IV, 239; XI, 134
"PERFUMES OF PASSION, THE," VIII, 175
PERFUNCTORY PRAYER, II, 30
PETTICOAT AS A PALLADIUM, THE, XI, 129
PHILADELPHIA'S FEMALE FOOLS, XI, 199
PHILIP AND THE EUNUCH, VII, 45
PICTORIAL PAIN-KILLER, X, 28
PILGRIMAGE TO PERDITION, A, I, 91
PILLS AND POLITICS, X, 200
PLAGUE OF POETS, A, VI, 266
PLATONIC FRIENDSHIP FAKE, THE, I, 101
PLEA FOR PATRICIATE, A, IX, 154
POET PRIEST, THE, XI, 193
Poetry, 1, 104, III, 223; VI, 266;
Political Corruption, II, 260; VII,
95, 225, 300; VIII, 5
POLITICAL HIPPODROME, A, IV, 191
POLITICAL OLLA-PODRIDA, A, V, 113
POLITICAL PARTIES, III, 63
112; IV, 299; V, 69, 88; VIII
62, 81, 199, 204, 304; IX, 157
178, 250
POLITICAL POINTERS, VI, 29
POLITICIANS AND PENSIONERS, III, 39
Polities (see Texas Politics, Poverty; Currency; etc.)
POLITICS IN THE PULPIT, VI, 174
Polygamy, IV, 15
POOR OLD TEXAS, I, 207
POOR OLD TEXAS, VI, 205
POSTAL INEPTITUDE, III, 192
POTIPHAR'S WIFE, I, 1
Poverty (and Wealth), I, 58, 81
91; II, 51; IV, 68, 198; V, 93
170; VI, 23, 144, 218, 277; VII,
125, 157, 245; VIII, 65, 105,
134, 310; IX, 118, 224; XI, 163;
XII, 249
POWER OF PRAYER, THE, VII, 211
Prayer, II, 30; IV, 305; VII, 211,
PRAYERS FOR THE PAGAN, IV, 63
Preachers, I, 197; II, 156; III,
101, 117, 261, 290; IV, 43, 89
219, 222, 297, 314; V, 232, 278;
VI, 1, 120, 174; VII, 14; VIII,
98 152, 154, 254; IX, 95, 111,
114, 144, 268, 295, XI, 169
PREACHER IN POLITICS, III, 117
PREACHERS AND FREE PASSES, IV, 219
PRECIOUS PAIR, A., IV, 314
Preparedness, Military, I, 23; II,
137; III, 303; IV, 226; V 237;
VII, 70 IX, 45, 283; X 228,
XI, 215
Press (see Journalism)
PRICE'S PREDICAMENT, II, 215
Private Vengeance, XII, 100
Prize Fighting, II, 281; III, 52,
113, 161, IV, 155; V, 199, VIII,
49, 156 194; X, 15
PRIZE IDIOT OF THE EARTH, IX, 278
PROFESSIONAL FAILURES, V, 76
PROFESSIONAL REFORMER, THE I, 270
Prohibition, II, 254; III, 186; IV,
21, 233, 281, 287; V, 8, 39, 41,
130; VI, 17, 305; VII, 242,
VIII, 137, 148, 162, 203; IX,
194; X, 277; XI, 127; XII, 225
PROHIBITION PLAGUE THE, II, 254
Prostitution (see also Sexual Morality),
I, 187; III, 101; IV, 5,
89, 270
PROTECTION vs. FREE TRADE, IV, 229
Protestantism (see Catholicism)
PRURIENT TEXAS PREACHER, A, IX, 111
PUBLIC PEDAGOGUE, THE, I, 234
PUBLIC SCHOOL FARCE, THE, III, 202
PUFFERY OF THE PRESS, I, 250
PUGILISM AND HYPOCRISY, II, 281
PURELY POLITICAL, III, 235
"QUO VADIS," XI, 1
Race Problem (see Negro Problem)
RAINBOW CHASERS, XII, 276
Rape (see Negro Problem)
RAPE FIEND REMEDY, THE, IX, 38
RECIPROCITY IN PRAYER, IV, 305
RECIPROCITY IN SUGAR PLUMS, VII, 190
RECTOR PAGE'S PROTEST, IV, 223
Reed, Tom, V, 314
Reedy, Wm. Marion, Articles by
VII, 205; X, 117, 168, 288, 302;
XI, 12, 58, 80, 98, 118; XII, 94
Reformers, I, 270 III, 140; VII,
157; IX, 224, XI, 110
REIGN OF THE RED NECKS, THE, XI, 250
RELIGION A DISEASE, IV, 36
Religion and Science, I, 129, 163, 171
RELIGIOUS BOYCOTT, A, III, 298
Religious (or Church) Criticism,
I, 16, 70, 125, 163, 171, 285; II,
1, 22; III, 65, 290, 294; IV, 36;
V, 21 148; VII, 63; VIII, 20,
181, IX, 1, 67, 76; X, 253, XI,
180, 282, 310
Religious Intolerance vs. Religious
Freedom, II, 30, 149, 264, III,
61, 111, 144, 298; V, 256; VI,
27, 229; VII, 235, 271; VIII,
52, 150; IX, 57, 63
Religious Press, II, 78, 112; IV,
79, 182 VII, 30, VIII, 250
REMARKABLE PUBLIC EDUCATOR, A, VI, 140
REPUBLIC IN DANGER, THE, II, 233
REPUBLIC IN PERIL, THE, IX, 45
REPUBLIC'S TEXAS ITINERARY, THE, III, 182
REQUIESCAT IN PACE, I, 118
REST--REST IN PEACE, XII, 56
RESTRICTED IMMIGRATION, XI, 118
RETORT COURTEOUS, THE, X, 72
REVOLT OF HEN-PECKED HUSBANDS, V, 206
Revolution Threatened, I, 23, 58;
91; IV, 68; V, 170; VI, 144;
VII, 157; IX, 118, 303
Rich, The (see High Society; Poverty and Wealth)
RIDDLE STILL UNRAVELING, DR., IV, 222
RIDDLE UNRAVELING, THE, IV, 43
RIGHT ROYAL ROAST, A, X, 38
ROASTING THE SHEMALE RANTIPOLERS, VII, 49
ROGER LAWSON'S BOMBSHELL, IV, 211
Rockefeller, John D., XI, 172
Royalty (see also High Society
Anglomaniacs), I, 118; VII, 49;
VIII, 277, 281
Rudyard Kipling, Maker of Writings XI 139
SACRED LEG SHOW, A, V, 34
SACRIFICE FOR COUNTRY'S SAKE, A, IV, 39
SALVATION ARMY NUISANCE THE, V, 45
SALVATION NO LONGER FREE, III, 294
SANCTIFICATION AND THE SWORD, II, 149
SANCTIFIED SHARK, A, V, 232
"SASSIETY" IN NEW YORK CITY, VI, 211
SATAN LOOSED FOR A SEASON, V, 43
SAVIOURS OF TEXAS, THE, II, 310
SAW-MILL CHECK SYSTEM, THE, X, 247
SCIENCE OF KISSING, THE, I, 157
Schools (see Education)
SCHOOLS OF JOURNALISM, III, 194
SECOND EPISTLE OF THE "APOSTLE," IV, 182
Second Wife The, XI, 266
SEMPER VIVAT IN MEMORIAM, XII, 70
SENATOR'S WOES, A, II, 39
SEVEN VIALS OF WRATH, THE, I, 23
SEVENTH COMMANDMENT, THE, I, 209
Sexual Morality (see also Prostitution),
I, 1, 135, 173, 209, 271,
274; II, 90, 170; III, 1, 146,
279, IV, 5; V, 34, 66; VII, 149
VIII, 20, 196; IX, 218, 246
SEXUAL PURITY AND GUN-POWDER, V, 66
SEXUAL SINS OF AMERICAN SOCIETY, VII, 149
SHEOL TO PAY AT PARIS, VI, 229
SHERMAN AND CLEVELAND, IV, 161
Short Stories (see also Allegorical
Tales; Humorous Stories), II
125, 69, 141
SHOULD "BOB" BE HANGED? V, 1
SIGNS OF THE TIMES, THE, IX, 118
SIMPLE STATEMENT OF FACTS, XII, 82
Single Tax, III, 78; VIII, 68, 105
286 IX, 133; X, 38: 230
SINGLE TAX, THE, VIII, 105
SINGLE-TAXERS, THE, III, 78
SISTER'S SHAME, A, III, 101
SIX-SHOOTER, THE, IV, 51
SLANDERING THE SOUTH, VII, 5
SLATTERY AND HIS DUPES, II, 187
Slattery, Brann's Reply to, XII, 204
SLAVE OR SOVEREIGN, XII, 249
SLIPPERY BILL McKINLEY, V, 270
SMASHING THE IDOL-SMASHER, VII, 315
SOCIAL SWIM, THE, IV, 167
SOCIETY'S FEMALE CARD SHARPS, XI, 182
SOLDIERS OF PEACE, THE, IV, 315
SOME CHEERFUL LIARS, VII, 277
SOME ECONOMIC IDIOCY, X, 236
SOME EDUCATIONAL IGNORANCE, IV, 47
SOME ENGLISH POETS, XI, 80
SOME GOLD-BUG GUFF, X, 101
SOME KANSAS CITY CULTURE, XI, 187
SOME MILLIONAIRE MENDICANTS, VI, 277
SOME MISTAKES ABOUT MONEY, IX, 105
South, The, I, 161, III, 315, V
127; VII, 5; IX, 166
SPEAKING FOR MYSELF, X, 183
SPEAKING OF BRANN, XII, 62
SPEAKING OF GALL, XII, 115
SPEARING OF NIGGER BABIES, VI, 1
SPEAKING OF PEDIGREES, III, 188
SPEAKING OF SPIRITUALISM, X, 96
SPEARING OF TEXAS, IV, 143
SPECIMEN APE, A, IV, 135
Spiritualism, X, 96
Stage, the, IV, 117, 129, VII, 63
STAGE AND STAGE DEGENERATES, THE, X, 214
Stock Exchange, The, VIII, 265
STORY OF THE OUTRAGED BROWN, XI, 223
STORY OF THE SEA, A, I, 32
Suicide, V, 24
SUNDAY IN NEW YORK, III, 61
SUNDAY IN WACO, III, 111
SUNDAY JOURNALISM. III, 56
Sunday Laws (see Religious Intolerance
vs. Religions Freedom)
Swindle, Gold Brick, IV, 64
SWORD AND THE CROSS, THE, X, 253
Talmage I, 187; II, 83; IV, 140;
V, 93; IX, 67
TALMAGE'S INDIGESTION IX, 67
TALMAGE THE TURGID, I, 197
TALMAGE'S WAR TALK, IV, 140
Tammany Hall, IV, 1
Tariff, IV, 229
Taxation (see also Single Tax), X, 236
TEDDY'S DAGOS, VII, 51
TEIXEIRA AFFIDAVIT, THE, VI, 125
Teixeira Case, II, 286; III, 29, 150
222; V, 81: VI, 125; X, 63, 77
TEIXEIRA-MORRIS CASE, THE, III, 222
TEIXEIRA-MORRIS CASE, THE, V, 81
TEMPESTUOUS RELIGIONISTS AT TEMPLE, XI 108
TERRIFIC DEADLY CONFLICT, XII, 32
Texas, I, 184, 207; II 159, 310;
IV, 143, 167; IX, 189; XII, 246
TEXAS AND TOLERANCE, II, 264
Texas Politics, II, 43 59, 247;
III, 161, 265; IV, 39, 285, 312;
V, 2, 91, 113, 198, 220, 224; VI,
52, 57, 95, 205 215, 236; VII,
19, 87; VIII, 147; X, 66
TEXAS SINGER, A, IV, 210
TEXAS TOPICS, X, 63
THAT TEXAS TESTIMONIAL, IV, 312
"THE CAT CAME BACK!" IV, 1
THERE'S ONE COMES AFTER, I, 203
THIRD TERM CONSPIRACY, V, 59
THOSE CHINESE OUTRAGES, III, 107
THOMAS CARLYLE, I, 107
THOU SHALT NOT, V, 243
THREE-CORNERED CONTROVERSY A, II, 174
THREE-CORNERED CONTROVERSY, A, III, 112
THOSE FASHIONABLE FORNICATORS, V, 145
THROWING STONES AT CHRIST, I, 125
TIENS TA FOI, I, 104
Tipping System, V, 159
THY BROTHER'S WIFE, XI, 245
TO GOV. CHARLES ANSERINE CULBERSON, V, 2
Tolstoi, II, 201
TOM REID'S CANDIDACY, V 314
TOMMIE WATSON'S TOMMY-ROT, X, 195
"TOO MUCH WORLD," VI, 144
TOUCH OF HIGH LIFE, A, II, 51
TOUR AMONG THE TITANS A, VII, 254
Trenholm, John Swope, Article by, XI, 255
TRILBY AND THE TRILBYITES, I, 274
TRILBY PARTIES AND PIETY, VIII, 30
TRUE LOVE TRIALS, III, 43
Truth vs. Lying, II, 34, 305 VII, 277
TWO "GREAT" ISSUES, THE, V, 68
TWO OF A KIND, X, 246
"TYPICAL AMERICAN TOWN, THE," X, 105
UNCLE SAM IN THE SOUP, V, 209
"UNCLE WILLIAM" CAMERON, IV, 64
UNDER WHICH FLAG? VII, 138
Unemployment (see Labor; Poverty;
Revolution Threatened)
UNFAITHFUL LORD, THE, XI, 44
UNITED STATES ARMY ASININITY, VII. 1
UNPROFITABLE CONTROVERSY, AN 1, 171
UNRAVELED RIDDLE, AN, III, 261
"UNWRITTEN LAW, THE," IX, 218
VERY BAD BREAK, A, VI, 202
VICTOR HUGO'S IMMORALITY, I, 149
Victoria, Queen, VII, 49, VIII
281; IX, 61
VISION OF HEAVEN, A, II, 22
VISIONS AND DREAMS, II, 83
VOICE FROM THE GRAVE, A, V, 237
Waco (Texas), Description of, VII
290; XI, 31
WACO'S "WARWICK" II, 59
WAIL FROM THE A. P. A. V, 299
Wanamaker, John, XI, 97
WANTED: ONE WORD, IX, 209
War and Religion, X, 253
WAR OR WIND? III, 303
War, Prophecy of World War, I, 23
WARD, W. H., XII, 17
WASHINGTON'S WICKEDNESS, XI, 210
WATSON, J. L., VII, 41
Watterson, Henry, VII, 137; VIII, 270
WAYSIDE SERMON, A, III, 207
Wealth (see Poverty; High Society)
WEALTH OF NATIONS, THE, IV, 226
Weapons, Carrying of, IV, 51
WEARY MUGWUMP, A, IX 158
"WEDDING OF THE SEASON, THE," V, 291
WHAT IS A JINGO? IX, 283
WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH MISSOURI? X, 302
WHO IS MARK HANNA? VI, 279
WHY AND WHEREFORE, THE, XI, 31
WHY THIS IS THUS, VIII, 81
"WHY WE HATE GREAT BRITAIN," IX 101
WILDE AND HIS WORSHIPERS, II, 170
WILLY WALLY TO WED, IV, 201
WILLY WALLY TO WED, V, 183
WITHIN CONVENT WALLS, VII, 87
Woman, Courage of, VIII, 170
WOMAN IN JOURNALISM, V, 62
Woman's Suffrage (see also New
Woman, The), I, 66; IV, 151;
VI, 7
WOMAN THOU GAVEST ME, THE, I, 66
WOMAN'S WICKEDNESS, I, 190
WORD ABOUT WACO, A, VII, 290
WORKING FASHION'S FOOLS, I, 231
WORKING WOMAN, THE, VII, 309
Wyche, Robert Lee, Articles by, X,
214; XI, 152
End of Project Gutenberg's Etext of Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast
