The Brownsville daily herald. [volume] (Brownsville, Tex.) 1897-1910, 1903-10-22
One View Of TilIman's Case.
Editor Says It's No Wonder North
Carolina Pays Little Attention
to Trial.

A'A1O3 wv IL. A4O
editor of the Capital of this city,
came out in his paper with strong
review of the Tillman-Gonz
affray. The article caused much
comment, and is being widely
copied. The Capital said:
THAT the Tillman trial is at
tracing little attention in South
Carolina is not to be wondered at
when all the circumstances are
considered. Such incidents as the
killing of eating editor by a
politician who is also somewhat of
u salamander himself by nature
and environment is not uncom-
mon. yellow newspapers in the
North sought to arouse a sentiment
that would, whether or no, secure
tire conviction of l'illman, but have
achieved little success. 1t was by
no means a case of cold blooded
murder.
Gonzales, the victim, was a
renegade Spaniard, who had always
lived among hot bloOded and hot
headed people, and possessed the
genius to make the atmosphere so
much more tropical than normal
by his vindictive style of journal
istic writing that he found it
healthful to shift his residence at
occasional intervals in his career.
Such man could have been no
tenderfoot. He knew what it meant
to hound and abuse such men as
the Tillmans, men, who, honorable
and upright as the average man,
and as clean as the run of politicians
in this day and age, are thoroughly
imbued with the Southern idea
that personal quarrel can only
be rightly settled between gentle
men with lead or steel.
The State, the newspaper which
Gonzalez edited, is a Democratic
paper, so that its constant vituper-
alive TRADE against the Tillmans
was in the nature If party bolt,
and these factional affairs always
engender the worst of bad blood.
After President Roosevelt sighted
Senator Tillman by cutting him off
the White House list of invitations
when his position entitled him to
recognition, because of the Tillman-
McLaurin encounter, his nephew,
Lieut.. Gov. James Tillman,
retaliated by refusing to allow the
President to present a sword, voted
by the legislature, to an officer of
the Philippine service, as had been
arranged for during his visit to the
Charleston Exposition.
The State took this incident as
an excuse for reopening its mud
batteries on Tillman, and exceeded
all its fprner efforts in the personal
and abusive nature OF lis editorials.
he object of this attack was
furious, and Gonzales was warned
by his friends that he must fight
Tillman. a matter that he intinlat-
ed would not be disagreeable to
him. They met on the street. and
Gonzales made gesture, perhaps
an involuntary shrinking from
fear, but Tillman AYERS he thought
it meant his hip pocket and Il gun
and true-hlue men of the South
would not have lhpir honor tainted
with the stigma ihat the other 'fel-
low could draw quicker or fire
faster.
That is the Tillman- Gonzales
case in a nutshell, the counterpart
of hundreds in the annals of the
brave, and bloody, and hot-temper-
ed Southland. The two leading
counsel for the prosecution have
each KILLED their man" and been
acquitted and a poll of the jury
men on the same point would prob
ably snow that majority OF them
are not without at least one notch
in their gunstocks,
II Gonzales was not a fighter, the
verdict of the coroner's jury should
have been that he committed
because he deliberately
pursued policy that could have
bat one hnality he dead man
may have been clean and upright
in his personality, but he could not