Part 10

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.