The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 10

by William Cowper Brann

Thomas M. Harris, who claims to be 84 years old, has writ a little yellow pamphlet entitled, "Rome's Responsibility for the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln." I have expended almost 5 minutes glancing over Mr. Harris labored lucubations, and must confess that I have in that time acquired more information—of its kind—than I ever did in 5 hours before. Of the reliability of his statements there can be no question, as most of them are grounded on the testimony of "Father" Chiniquy—conceded to be the most accomplished liar since Ananias gave up the ghost. It was Chiniquy who first started the story that the Pope was responsible for the assassination of President Lincoln, and I am expecting him to prove that Guiteau who gave the death-wound to Garfield, was a Jesuit in disguise and acted on orders received from Rome. Harris says that agents of the Confederacy in Canada—whom he admits were not Catholics—employed Booth and his accomplices to do the bloody business; that John Wilkes Booth was a Catholic; that the priests were all Southern sympathizers; that but 144,000 Irishmen enlisted in the Federal army, of whom 104,000 deserted; that the cellars of Catholic cathedrals are filled with munitions of war to be used against the government, that Catholics hold the bulk of the offices and dominate the American press. Harris says other things equally awful and interesting. I much fear that he got to thinking how many of his A. P. Apes have broken into the penitentiary, and dreamed a bad dream.

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I once mentioned a little saweiety sheet, published in New York, under the title of Town Topics, because it afforded me a kind of languid pleasure to kick the feculent sewer-rat back into the foul cloaca from which it had crawled to beslime the ICONOCLAST. I must beg the patient reader's pardon for again soiling my sandal-shoon with what should only be touched with a shovel. I have been receiving through the mails for some time past, both from disgusted Northerners and indignant Southerners, a paragraph clipped from its epecine columns where in some mental misfit eager to do the Smart Alex act begs to be informed what right Mrs. Jefferson Davis had "to address a peculiar letter to the Queen Regent of Spain, demanding the release of a party accused of a serious crime," then adds: "If Miss Cisneros is released it will be because she is innocent, and not because her case has been meddled with by a party of irresponsible old freaks." I sometimes wish the ICONOCLAST had no lady readers, that I might freely express my opinion of such pestiferous pole-cats. I dearly love the ladies, but they are awfully in the way when only full-grown adjectives will do a subject justice. If the Tee-Tee editor had half the gumption of a Kansas Gopher he would know that neither Mrs. Davis nor any other American woman made such "demand." Perhaps he did not know it,—if it be possible for the editor of such a quintessential extract of utter idiocy to know anything—but couldn't resist the boorish impulse to insult an aged woman, because he's built that way. The case of Senorita Cisneros appealed to the sympathy of every manly man and noble woman throughout the world—to every living creature within whose hide there pulses one drop of human blood unblended with that of unclean breasts. Mrs. John A. Logan, Mrs. Jefferson Davis and other magnificent types of American womanhood, HUMBLY PETITIONED the Queen Regent of Spain in behalf of the Cuban heroine. And these noble women, whose names are respected in the very brothels and boozing kens of Boiler Avenue, are referred to by this foul parody on God's masterpiece as "a party of irresponsible old freaks." Christ! is it possible that aught born of woman—that any animal that can learn to walk on its hinder legs—should sink to such infamous depths of degradation! Yet this is the fellow who was so concerned for the feelings of certain sawciety she- males who personated French prostitutes at the Bradley-Martin debauch, that when I criticized their brazen bid for "business" he came near having hydrophobia. Did the Tee-Tee trogolodyte contain within his anthropodial diaphragm a single diatom of decency he would have applauded Mrs. Davis' womanly act, else blocked the yawning hole in his prognathic head with a flat-car load of compost. If Mrs. Davis is permitted to petition the King of Kings to have mercy on the miserable journalistic piano-pounder for Gotham's high-toned honk-a-tonks, certainly she may with propriety appeal to the substitute sovereign of a nation of bankrupt assassins to spare Senorita Cisneros.

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Lawd Chelmsfold, now inspecting the Canadian border to ascertain what resistance it could offer in case of a brush with Uncle Sam, is out with an interview in which he says one great element of John Bull's strength is to be found in the fact that our Anglomaniacs could never be convinced "of the justice of any war that might spring up between America and Britain." Lawd Chelmsford, like most Englishmen, is a large, juicy chump. Of course our Anglomaniacs are all traitors in posse, as their Tory forbears were in esse, and would sympathize with "deah old England, dontcherknow," should war be precipitated by her burning all our coast cities without provocation; but as Chimmie Fadden would say, "Dat cuts no ice." They are but a few thousand in number, and in the whole caboodle there's not a chappie who would fight should a Digger Indian fill his ear with a bushel of buffalo chips, squirt tobacco juice on his twousahs and throw alkali dust in his optics. Lawd Chelmsford has suffered himself to be deceived by the bloodless hermaphrodites employed on such papers as Josef Phewlitzer's Verrult and Belo's double-barreled Benedict Arnold. Still it is just as well to know that John Bull considers that he can depend upon the sympathy and assistance of our Anglomaniacs in case of war with this country. While these fellows are slobbering over "the mother country," the leading papers of London are sneering at the United States as "a fourth-class power" and proclaiming that if it doesn't conduct itself more to John Bull's liking, "it will soon feel the iron hand beneath the velvet glove." Turn loose your "iron hand," you old he-bawd—and you'll soon stick it further under your own coat-tails than you did at Yorktown. . . .

The New York Wail and Distress approves the scheme of Spain, Italy and Germany, to establish a penal colony for anarchists. Yes, yes, granny dear; but would it not be much better to alter those conditions that produce anarchists. Anarchy is simply a protest against oppression. When enough people in a revolt against tyranny it becomes a successful revolution and its promoters are enshrined in history as worthy patriots. When a few men strike blindly but desperately at the hydra and are over- powered, they are traitors or anarchists, rebels or rioters. The Wail and Distress was once edited by a party who, according to his father-in-law, "could be more kinds of a d—n fool than any other man in the country," and it is evidently maintaining its old-time reputation.

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It is reported that a British company is about to secure control of the Panama Canal. If it does so, John Bull will practically have Uncle Sam surrounded, and it is worthy of remark that, despite his tearful protestations of friendship, he fortifies every strategical point regardless of expense. What does he want with such Gibraltars as those at Van Couver, Halifax, Bermuda, St. Lucia and half a dozen other points if he loves us so dearly as Anglomaniacs would have us imagine? It costs hundreds of millions to construct and equip these fortifications, yet they are not worth a dollar to him except in case of war with this country. The fact is that he expects another tussle with the Western Titan—intends to precipitate it in his own good time—when India is quieted and he has naught to fear from the continental powers of Europe. Arbitration is the soothing lullaby which Anglomaniacs are to sing to his unsuspecting "cousin" until he gets his "iron hand" in order—weaves about him an anaconda-coil of cannon. Despite all the milk-sick drivel anent "ties of blood, language and literature," "community of interest of the ger-ate and gal-orious Anglo-Saxon race, ad infinitum, ad nauseam, the cold facts of history prove that for more than a century, England has been our implacable enemy. Why? Wounded pride in the first place, commercial rivalry in the second; but the chief reason is that England desires to perpetuate its supremacy as a world power, and sees growing up here a giant who will sooner or later, as Napoleon said, "clip the lion's claws." The best thing this nation can do is to quietly "fix" itself, and then at the first provocation compel J. B. to pull his freight completely out of the Western world. Uncle Sam is an idiot to go practically unarmed while British guns are pointing at his head from all directions. Arbitration the devil! Dismantle that cordon of forts which you have built for our benefit, and we may take some stock in your Pecksniffian professions of friendship. "Actions speak louder than words," says the old adage; and while J. B.'s words are those of Achates, his acts are those of an enemy. The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hand is the hand of Esau.

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If the dispatches from Hogansville, Ga. be correct, the present federal administration is depriving American citizens of their rights to an extent that suggests the impudence of Germany's swell-head emperor or the petty tyranny of the Turk. It appears that a nigger postmaster was appointed at that place who was persona non grata, and the people employed at their own expense the ex-postmaster to receive their mail for them from the moke. Although a man has an inalienable right to appoint what agent he pleases to receive his money or his mail, the ex-p. m. is to be prosecuted for "conducting a post-office." They then ordered their mail to an adjacent town and sent a private messenger for it, but this was prohibited on the plea that a only government has the right to establish a mail route." To crown the infamy the people were not permitted to mail their letters on postal cars. Here are three flagrant violations of the rights of American citizens, and to compel them to patronize a nigger Republican postmaster. The first agent employed by the people was no more "conducting a post-office" than is the ICONOCLAST, which receives and distributes the mail of a dozen or more people. The messenger sent to the adjacent town was no more running a mail route than is the farmer who brings to town the letters written by his neighbors and carries back those intended for them. The postal department has discharged its entire function when it receives mail, by whosoever presented, and delivers it to those for whom it is intended or to those duly authorized to receive it, and the postmaster-general who permits the department to exceed that simple duty and intermeddle with the rights of the people should not only be impeached and removed from office in one time and two motions, but taken by the slack of the pantalettes and pitched headlong into the penitentiary. It appears that the indignant people assaulted the nigger postmaster. That is indeed to be regretted; still I can but wonder that they do not shoot the whole umbilicus out of every impudent tool of a petty tyranny who attempts to prevent them mailing letters on postal cars while that right is freely accorded to others. The whole affair serves to accentuate the contention of the ICONOCLAST that postmasters should not be appointed by successful politicians, but elected by the people. If the latter can be trusted to choose presidents, congressmen, etc. they can certainly be trusted to select competent men to lick stamps and shuffle postal cards. As matters now stand the wishes of the people, who "pay the freight," are in no wise respected—the pie is shoveled out to a horde of hungry political heelers, not because of services rendered their country, but as payment for their pernicious activity in promoting the interests of a corrupt and conscienceless party. Thus it happens that in about half the cases federal officials are regarded with aversion by the people they are supposed to serve. It is to be hoped that every Southern white man who hereafter votes the Republican ticket will have his billets de amour clapper-clawed and liberally scented by some big fat coon.