Chapter 7

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.