Richmond times-dispatch. [volume], April 18, 1915, Image 58

About Richmond times-dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1914-current

Image provided by: Library of Virginia; Richmond, VA

                
"THE
FATHERS
-^v
_ x ?' ...... ?-??>?.
?? ,s^t::::;Y ... -N>
. /"A
p**r? ?v
Liu>w .-.nnur tsrown, trom a Photo
graph Taken at the Time His
Mother Killed His Father and
Who Has Now Destroyed His
Own Half Brother.
The Late Senator Arthur Brown.
The Tragic
Working Out
of the
Stern Old
Biblical Decree
in the
Case of Mrs.
Bradley,
Whose Son by the Man She Killed Has
Murdered the Son by the Husband She Betrayed
44 T IHi: , 0,w r,n r;r>1}- n
I iV?ifoiM 'Vorf visiting the
f ini'iuitji nf the fnthers upon
the children unto the third mi/1 the
fourth, generations." saux the Bible.
MHS. ANNIE M. BRADLEY, leaving
the court room six years ago, in
which the jury had Acquitted her
of The murder of United States Senator
Arthur Brown, her lovc-r and the father of
her i'i'n children, exclaimed: "My sorrowe
0
frave just begun!"
The van. woe-sodden woman uttered
prophecy true as Miriam's, for last month
In a small mining town in Utah, her son
and the namesake of his father, Arthur
Brown, whose mother killed his own
father, himself killed Matthew Bradley,
his half brother by the father his mother
had betrayed!
The younger lad. now only fifteen, slew
the older, of twenty, because in a quarrel
the elder had taunted hint with the truth
about his ^.irth. At the word, the school
hoy, frer.7ied? seized a revolver arid, aim
ing at his brother's heart. shot to kill. To
Mrs. Bradley's owu crime o? lawless love
and its consequent murder, was added
fratricide. One of her bab<?s, not yet
gro'wn to manhood, hut grown to the full
aan<j terrible stature of hatred, had mur
dered the other
"The sins of the futher'
Matthew Bradley, the murdered youth,
was the first born of the woman and.
her husband. Clarence Bradley, a rail
road clerk. He had known poverty and
ignominy all his life, lie could not re
member the first three years of his life
In the cottage on K-ast First South street,
when Ihe railroad clerk and his wife, who
had been a bookkeeper in the office of
the Salt Lake < it;, waterworks, were as
happy as the average young wadded ;?j.ir
He remembered that there was a little
sister, Martha, and that there were roses
growing in the garden. But even across
tho roses in the garden had fallen a
shadow. It was not long after the tall,
thin, man of brilliant speech, Arthur
Brown, who cast that Fhadow, began call
ing at the humble little cottage, that
Matthew became ratlierless.
There had been a divorce. His father,
saying good-bye to him before the father
went to Nevada, had left his tears upon
the hoy's face. Those tears lay always
upon the boy's henrt. In the years that
passed they acquired weight They lay
heavier and heavier upon his spirit. The
neighbors said that Annio Bradley's oldest
boy was a morose child.
There was another burden It was
poverty. That Matthew tried with all his
boyish strength to lift. At seven he was
a newsboy. He ran on errands to earn
odd pennies. His face grew grave. He
became one of the saddest sights in the
world, "a child with an old face."
When. T)t>eember S, 1906. the dispatches
told how Annie M. Bradiev had fallowed
her distinguished betrayer to Washington
and shot him, Matthew Bradley was old
enough to read and comprehend. He was
twelve. His faco grew older and sadder.
But he kept, on working. It had become
n habit with him to work. They were
very poor. The money must be earned.
Fate forced the child to sell the news
papers that proclaimed his mother a
woman of shame and a murderess.
To her in Jail awaiting trial came this
Iptter from the child with the old faco:
"Dear Mamma:
"I have saved *2* and put It In bank.
I'll Fond it to you to pay your lawyer
when the trial begins
"Your loving son,
"MATTHEW."
This boy greeted her gladly when she
Tobacco as a Weather Prophet
ONE of the best and still the most
Elm pie barometers is to be had
in a little scrap tobacco Mois
ture in 'he atmosphere lnd!ca''s the
condition of the weather likely t > take
place durir.R the next few hours. If the
air is dry, there Is little or no danger
of precipitation, and ir the air is moist
to any degree, there is apt to bo falling
weather of some charaejf^r.
It Is quite difficult to detect the mots
tnre In o ,r atmosphere at limes. an?l
some materia ea-.il influenced by the
moisture In the is ,!ped to reveal tne
true condi: i r
Tobacco is very dry when it is dry,
and It If no> dry the atmosphere
Jb quite free from moisture.
A paper of rriinary scrap smoking
ttobaoco placed in a little box, and al
lowed to sit nciv?red where the out
side atmosphere -v; rea<h it, will in
dicate very a( ??<:. ?].<- fi nable con
dition of the wea .? ? ral hours
in advance.
When the tohit^o becoffif-f., very drv
and crisp. It is safe betting rain will
not come for a numuer of hours, verv
tfrequently for as m ich as Ircrn twenty
four to thirty-six hours. Should the to
bacco seem tough or not. dry and not
very crisp to the touch, rain is near at
hand if the rain does not come, it will
be found upon careful investigation that
showers were not many miles away, and
the atmosphere was moist on account of
?he low barometerlc condition which
usually causes precipitation.
Even ordinary tobacco leaves which
are -Imply allowed to dry out thoroughly
will accurately foretell the weather so
far a- rain or damp, cloudy weather,
or clear fair weather, devoid of rainfall.
In man of the. tobacco producing sec
tions growers and others rely absolutely
on the tobacco sign, which they con
sider more accurate than any kind of
barometer they can seoure.
Sailors have learned to rely on the
tobacco indications when out at sea. and
although there .? plenty of water at
hand to make moisture, when there is
Inipht fair weather the tobacco will he
dry and crisp to the touch, and it only
requires a mere running of the fingers
through the small pieces to show an ex
perienced sailor what kind of weather to
expect.
returned to Salt Lake City, by the chivalry
of a Southern Jury a free woman. With
her and his sister. Martha Bradley, and
the two children of Senator Brown. Arthur
and Mark Montgomery Brown, he lived in
a tumbledown house at the edge of Salt
Lake City. He worked harder than ever
trying to support the family on the meager
earnings of a little truck farm .
In Utah the children born out of wed
lock are heirs of their father as surely as
are those born by benefit of clergy. It
was one of the. last pleas made by the
late Judge Powers, whose eloquence saved
her from tho gallows, that secured for
the Brown lads a small fraction of their
murdered father's fortune. Twelve thou
sand dollars were granted by the jury to
these children. Mrs. Bradley determined
to use this sum for the education of her
younger children.
She secured employment with a book
shop. Matthew went on with his toil. A
weight heavy as the accumulated burden
of his father's remembered fears lay upon
his heart. His mother loved the Brown
children more than she oid him and his
sister, Martha.
"It Is but natural that a woman should
love best the children of the man she
loved."
3Ie knew she had said this. It was
printed in one of the newspapers he had
sold while she was in Jail. Thar knowl
edge embitteren the hoy's nature.
A "job" took him recently to the little
mining town, Price. There came the half
brother, Arth.:r Brown. There they quar
relled over some trifling matter and thero
they end what they represented faced each
other.
The boy drudge, old at twenty, lurned
a white face upon the youth whose mother
had taken such good care of him tiiat his
hands were soft and white as a woman's.
Tho Tailroad clerk's son looked into the
eyes of the child of tho United States
Senator. Eyes gray, tired, toilsome, looked
into bright, brown, erratic ones. Matthew
had grown to resemble startllngly his
father. Arthur was an epitome of the
famous lawyer who had served his State
in the United States Senate.
In that moment hntred that had been
smouldering for years burst into flame.
Matthew Bradley's protest against the cir
cumstances of his life broke forth. Ho
hurled an epithet at the pampered boy.
The spirit of tho boy's hot headed father,
whom life had never completely dis
ciplined. flamed tip in hltn.
Like his mother Arthur Brown became
a killer! He drew a pistol and shot down
the taunter. In tho next instant he stood
alone with the dead body of the boy. He.
whose own father had been killed in just
tho same way by his own mother, had
slain the 6on of that same mother by the
man she herself had destroyed. Tho
circle -was complete!
Tho old Biblical phrase, "The sins of the
fathers." refers not alone to male parents.
It includes the mothers. Their sins, too,
are to be heaped upon tho heads of their
children.
For the first fault of Senator Brown and
the woman of hiB translont love their son
was shamed again and again, until an
allusion to it caused him to burst into
fury. F"or her crime of murder she has
been punished by seeing her son, still a
child, n murderer. For both, her first born,
the lawful child of Innocence, has been
slain. Herself a murderess. Annio M.
Bradley is the mother of a murdered and
a murderer son.
Frenzied the woman goes from the grave
of one to the Jail where the other awaits
trial, a pendulum 'twirt two extremes of
grief. Those who watch her alternating
visits to the quick and the dead say that,
the strain is moro than one woman, and
that one of so frail a frame and bo tor
tured memories, can long bear.
Truly she spoke when leaving the Jail
whose doors had been opened for her by
that gallant jury: "My sorrows have just
begun."
The foreshadow of the tragedy that
has befallen her waa cast while
she waited in the United States Jail
in Washington, from a cell win
dow of which she could see the
cur fin
high gallows on which C.ulteau had ex
piated the murder of a President of the
United States; on which Mrs. Surrata. ac
complice in the murder of President Lin
coln, was hanged and between whose up
standing posts she knew not but. that she,
too, might take her flight to eternity. It
came in a letter from a relative. Writ
ing of tho crime that was still fresh upon
her hands, a relative wrote:
"We had kept it all from Arthur until
yesterday. He was playing with some boys
and they told him that his mother had
killed his father. Arthur turned very white
and said: 'My mother loves my dad. She
didn't kill him.' "
"I would rather die there," the amall,
black rohed woman said, pointing to the
high posts of tho gallows, "than to faco
my children when they are grown and
know my story."
When tho anguish into which this letter
had thrown her had been, in a measure,
controlled, Annie Bradley turned priestess
in her black robes and said:
"I who always admired tho majesty
and splendor of law now realize the stead
fastness of it. I realize that there is no
Mrs. Annie M. Bradley as She Was When She Shot
and Killed United States Senator Arthur
Brown Six Years Ago.
permanent happiness outside its pale.
Misery such as mlno is a great teacher. I
know at last that one can be happier fol
lowing the stern light of duty than the
alluring wlll-o'-the-wisp of love."
Annie M. Bradloy was crushed unc'or the
weight of her wretchedness. She feared
what awaited her in tho world outside her
jail walls. Poverty, Ignominy, the con
tempt and bitter blame of her children
when they reached the age of reason, she
expected would be hers. But. when she ex
claimed, "My sorrows have just begun,"
her tortured imaginings painted no such
picture as that of her first born lying with
his pale old young face turned to the sky,
and her younger and favorite child, stand
ing above him in maniacal rage, tho death
dealing revolver in his hand. She had no
foreknowledge that she had borne a Cain
to slay her Abel.
Yet the unfortunato woman sowed the
wind from which sho has reaped the triple
whirlwind. Tho honest wife of a railroad
clerk, she was not content with her humble
home, her two babes, her tasks as wife
and mother and housewifo Ambitious, she
thought and talked o'f a "wider sphere."
She fiecamo secretary of the Woman's Re
publican State Committee of Utah. In that
capacity she met its president, Mrs. Arthur
Brown. Mrs. Brown, an active philan
thropist and keenly interested in her hus
band's political career, entertained the
secretary often at her home. There Mrs
Bradley met the Senator, who quickly
fascinated her. When he failed of re
election to tho United States Senate she
tried to comfort him with the gift of her
self.
Brown left his home and sought to di
vorce Mrs. Brown, who a year later died
of n disease that in its incipiency the doc
tors declared was heart break. Brown
went from his wife's funeral to call on
Mrs. Bradley.
Mrs. Bradley waited for three years for
him to keep his promise to wed her. When
he finally refused in the room In the
Ualeigh Hotel to which she had followed
him she shot him.
Eight years after his father's death at his
mother's hand their son is a fratricide.
The Iniquities of the parents have been
visited upon the children to tha first gen
eration. Should. Arthur Brown, because
of his tender years, escape severe punish
ment and himself become a parent, his
future and that of his children and chil
dren's children is burdened by the proph
ecy of the ancient curse.
Copyright, 1915, the Star Company. Great Britain Rights Reserved.
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