![]() | The Complete Works of Brann the Iconoclast, Volume 12 | ![]() |
[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
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
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 siècle 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
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
. . .
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;
. . .
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 æsthetics 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 Cæsar
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
. . .
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
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
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."
![]() | The Complete Works of Brann the Iconoclast, Volume 12 | ![]() |