Advocatus Diaboli

ADVOCATUS DIABOLI BY ADOLPH E. MEYER HEN, on a frigid day in January, printer, reporter, editorial writer, and 1855, the Rev. Noble Brann emitted finally owner of his own periodical. Mean- Whis humble thanks to God for hav- while, he undertook the task of filling in ing hallowed his household with an infant the rather conspicuous holes of a neglected son, the good gentleman little realized education. These were large, for Pa Haw- that God was in an ironical mood, and that kins had never been more than a lukewarm he was being pitilessly duped. For, despite friend of learning. Brann's pursuit of cul- the purifying insulation of a pious paternal ture was, however, without the friendly environment, the new-born William was help of the handy night-school, or corre- destined eventually to enroll as a shame- spondence-school, both now so common. less disciple of Satan. Tragically and un- Thus he was thrust into the dual r61e of wittingly the lad's mother played a part learner and teacher. After a fashion this in bringing about his unforseen apostacy. self-instruction of his was successful. For Her untimely death, when he was but two- today his collected writings require a and-a-half years old, completely disrupted dozen volumes to hold them, and his the Brann home. So thoroughly, indeed, vocabulary is rated as larger than that of did it demoralize her reverend relict that any other writer ever heard of South of the he found himself unequal to the task of Potomac. The reader who dares to ap- rearing little Willy, so the boy was handed proach him without a dictionary of phrase over to Pa Hawkins, a laborious peasant and fable at hand is either very learned or of Coles county, Illinois, and a good very foolhardy. Brann was a colossal Christian of the sterner, straight-laced reader, and he had a perfect memory. variety. For the next ten years William Of the various vocations at which he stayed with his foster-father. It was a dec- tried his hand that of the newspaper man ade of toil and while it rolled wearily on made the strongest appeal to him. Gradu- the boy gradually learned that while Pa ally he worked up a considerable reputa- Hawkins was without question a God- tion as an editorial writer on the smaller fearing man, he was nevertheless much Illinois papers. Then he wandered to Mis- more appreciative of the immediate needs souri, where he wielded his pen for the of his hogs and horses than of the remoter benefit of the once-eminent St. Louis surgings of adolescent boyhood. So, one Globe-Democrat. Finally he landed in Texas. dark night, William Cowper Brann quietly In the Lone Star State there were, at that slipped away. time, hardly more than three newspapers Endowed with the peculiar vocational of any appreciable glory. In point of news versatility that has been typical of nearly the Houston Poff and the Galveston-Dallas every self-made American, young Brann News ranked first, and of the two, the PosJ confidently started upon his life career as was the more stalwart. It was the favored a bell-boy. From that profession he emi- journal of the haughty Houston noblesse, grated in more or less rapid succession to and was immaculately conservative. Be- the status of painter, grainer, drummer, side its news items, it also ran the usual 68 PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED ADVOCATUS DIABOLI assortment of patent-medicine announce- good sized portion of the human race wish ments, church notices, and editorial moral- they or it had never seen the light of day. izings. When occasion demanded there Brann's paper, said the Statesman, "strikes was included a directory of Houston's red- at pretty much everything it sees and at light district, with the names and ad- quite a number of things it don't (JZC) see, dresses of the more prominent madames but imagines it does, and it strikes below and their internes. Brann joined the Potf, the belt with both hands, and doesn't and soon his pen earned for him the title— scruple to use its teeth." There were many but not the salary—of chief editorial other more caustic and also several more writer. But for so conservative a journal grammatical objections and on the whole, his outlandish views, expressed as they there was little doubt that the inhabitants were in a lush and scintillating lingo, were of Austin did not care very much for the the source of frequent annoyance and no IconoclaSt. For a time Brann stuck to his inconsiderable embarrassment. Stirring up guns, but soon his lack of cash forced him cesspools and allowing the resultant to suspend publication. stenches to shock the squeamish was ever He returned to the Globe-Democrat in St. one of his delights. Fortunately for the Louis, but stayed only long enough to be- owners of the Pott, their chief editorial come initiated into the mysteries of the writer was already a Benedict with a lecture platform. Then the deserts of Texas family, and thus for a time at least his called him once more. This time it was to superiors were able to keep him within San Antonio, where he proceeded to serve bounds with the cudgel of threatened dis- a couple of years as editor of the Express. missal. But the patience of even a Benedict Here, again, he raised the ire of numerous with a family has its limits, and so, finally readers—especially of the gentlemen of worn weary by the constant necessity of the cloth, who did not relish his pronounce- checking his opinions to suit those of ments that "too many preachers imagine somebody else, Brann quit the "fecular that a criticism of themselves is an insult Poif." This was in 1891—the time when, to the Almighty," and that a certain well- as he calls it, he suddenly "became preg- known Baptist divine was "not even an nant with an idea." Concerning this un- itch bacillus." On the Houston Poff such usual predicament he later said: malicious persiflage would certainly have wrought its author's immediate dismissal. Being at that time the chief editorial writer on On the Express, however, matters were the Houston PoSt, I felt dreadfully mortified, as nothing of the kind had ever occurred before in somewhat different. Not that its owners that eminently moral establishment. Feeling were more tolerant or more fearless. Theirs that I was forever disqualified from the place by was merely a better business sagacity. For, this untoward incident, I resigned and took sanctuary in the village of Austin, and as swad- after all, hundreds of sinful readers bought dling clothes for the expected infant I established the Express simply to enjoy the heretical the honoclaS. shots of its editor. And so the owners did the wise thing—for their pocket-books: II openly they remonstrated with their fiery money-getter, and secretly they supported In July of the same year appeared the first him. issue of the Iconoclaft. It is doubtful whether the good people of the "village of Austin" Brann's services as a lecturer were now have ever quite recovered from the shock. in great demand, for the infidels of those Critical opinion at the time was almost wastes had all heard of him. With ever undivided. Only the Austin Statesman increasing profit he discoursed to them on showed any leniency. It saw the new "Gall," "Humbug," and "Iconoclasm." monthly's mission as an attempt "to make By 1894 he had apparently lost all save a a large quantity of Sheol, and to make a nominal interest in the idea with which PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 7° THE AMERICAN MERCURY he had once been so scandalously preg- circulation of ninety thousand. It was al- nant. Now, for a consideration, he re- most devoid of advertising, had no covers, linquished even this little. Before the end and contained no illustrations. Right, in- of the year he sold his disused printing deed, was the befuddled Waco critic when press and the name Iconoclaft to O. Henry, he described it as "as much a miracle as then a druggist's clerk at Austin, but al- the parting of the Red Sea." ready full of literary yearnings. Only two Which side Brann would take on any numbers were ever issued by the new question no one could ever accurately fore- owner. Then, of a sudden, the editor of tell. The safest guess was that it probably the Express once again became pregnant would be the unpopular side. Thus he pro- with his idea. The fact that O. Henry had ceeded to tell his readers that "Alexander transformed the once bitter Iconoclast into a of Macedon was the most miserable failure humorous weekly may or may not have known to human history—with the pos- been one of the causes of his relapse. At sible exception of Grover Cleveland." He any rate Brann repurchased his paper, and hurled his thunderbolts, too, at the then by February, 1835, he moved to Waco and popular "Quo Vadis." which he called a resumed its publication. He called it, sar- "mental moon-calf," which, where "it is donically, "The Official Organ of the not morally corrupt and bestially bad, is Texas Ministers." either puerile or blasphemous." Upon Brann believed, and very shrewdly, that "Trilby," then being devoured by all the for his business of assailing quacks and Texas intelligentsia, he bestowed a similar shams no more suitable place than Texas order of merit.

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