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.]