University of Virginia Library

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.