3 A.M.—At this hour Mr. Tom E. Davis is rapidly sinking and it is thought that the end is near at hand. It may be possible for the wounded man to live as long as two hours; but all hope has fled and the end is watched for which may come at any minute. His physicians say he is dying.
* * * (Editorial)
THE LATE TRAGEDY.
The details of the awful tragedy of Friday evening are yet fresh in the minds of the people of Waco, and it is bootless to recount them. Two of the principals thereto have passed to the beyond and a third is in the hands of the outraged law. And with him let the law deal. In life Captain Davis was our friend. His assailant was our enemy. In death they take on the proportions of common humanity. Upon the bier of one we will lay the myrtle of never-dying remembrance. Over the coffin of the other let the mantle of forgetfulness rest. The Times-Herald makes no war upon the dead.
It is not with the dead we deal to-day, but the living— the citizenship, the municipality, the people of Waco who must suffer, who must endure, and who must survive the blow that has fallen upon us. Not because two brave men are dead, but because of the stain of blood guiltiness that has again besmirched our fair escutcheon. This tragedy has harmed Waco almost beyond the power of men to help; because it has again been blazoned to the world that here human life is cheapened; that men's passions rule rather than the written law and that our Christian civilization is but the thinnest veneer atop of the savage.
Yet out of this may yet come a blessing to Waco. If it shall teach men to rule their passions and their speech; if it shall show us the way to lean upon the arm of the law rather than upon the might of our own strength; if it shall make us more tolerant of the opinions of our neighbor; if it shall incline us to encourage the public weal, rather than private animosities, the shadow of tragedy may yet pass and the sunlight of humanity prevail.
The Times has no heart for moralizing. It will add no pang to the grief of those who mourn. It asks of the people of Waco that upon the two new mounds made in Oakland to-day the seeds of forgetfulness may spring into verdure, covering feud and hiding passion, and that the dead past will bury its dead, leaving to the present hope, and to the future fruition.
Here follow the contents of the May, 1898, ICONOCLAST published by Brann's friends after his death.