Since Mr. Brann's assassination I have seen it charged
in some papers, notably one bearing the word Christian
at its head, that he was killed because he had slandered
his slayer's daughter, and then follows a lot of hypocritical
rot about regretting bloodshed, but that there was an
unwritten law that required the death of a man who
would slander the female relatives of another. A greater
falsehood was never published in even a pious Christian
weekly. He never mentioned the name of any woman connected
with Baylor except the Brazilian girl, and her case
was in the courts, and while his friends deeply regretted
his unfortunate expression it neither justified his mobbing
or his murder. And in the judgment of all fair-minded
men, under the circumstances could have been more readily
construed to mean Antonio Tiexera than any other woman
on earth, for within Baylor's sacred precincts she had
been reduced to that condition to which, when a woman
arrives, men call her a Magdalene. If this was the motive
that prompted his slayer, I ask why he did not appeal
to the unwritten law sooner; he who appeals to it must
do so at the first information has been conveyed to him
that the wrong has been done and he cannot wait for
months and then use it as a defense, and I do not hesitate
to say that hundreds besides myself in this city do not
believe that this prompted his assassin, except to be used
as an excuse.

Mr. Brann loved Waco as he never loved any other
place; for he knew that within its borders could be found
as many brave, liberal-hearted men, pure and noble women