Heritage, Volume 5, Number 1, Spring 1987 Page: 30
50 p. : ill. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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The Crusade of Dr. Francis Moore
by Suzanne Carlisle
(l/ /7e know of no manner of
death more appalling and
disgraceful with the exception of that of
the criminal, who expiates his offences
upon the gallows, than that of the duelist.
Houston Telegraph and Register, October
7, 1840
The era of the Texas Independence
that we celebrate so sentimentally today,
150 years later, was not as chivalrous as
many believe, but it was definitely as spirited.
William Ransom Hogan, author of
The Texas Republic, called it a time of "unbridled
lawlessness" and "rampant individualism."
Desperados, gamblers, and
gunbearing rowdies undeniably found
their way to Texas.
This unbridled lawlessness was much
greater after the Texas Revolution, "when
the war spirit still ran high, and the
organs of legal authority were in the process
of growth; when bars to immigration
were nonexistent." Not surprisingly, many
brawls, dirks, and affrays, as the newspapers
termed then, occurred among
these individualists. Dr. Francis Moore,
editor of Houston's Telegraph and Texas
Register, raised the consciousness of every
moral member of society against the foul
duelist:
The foolish devotee to this obsolete and barbarous
custom, pretends that he yields up his
life to preserve his honor, and yet he is no
sooner in his grave, that his name is sullied
with opprobrium and disgrace.
In his five-year crusade in the Register
against dueling and other vices, Moore
found the scoundrel in all walks of life:
the loafer, the immigrant, the gambler,
the drunkard, the editor.
Quite prematurely, on April 21, 1836,
Moore reported with pleasure that "not a
single duel has occured in this portion of
Texas for many months." He declared
"none more deserving of the scorn, contempt,
and abhorrence of all respectable
and moral citizens, than the professed duelist.
We had rather at any time see
twenty branded thieves sneaking at large
in a community than a single person of
this description." Moore, in this heated
editorial, even called upon the ladies to
condemn the duelist:
We look forward with pleasure to the daywhen the ladies of this county, whose pure
minds are imbued with everything which is
virtuous, refined, and noble, shall exert that
mighty influence which is mighty angelic, and
with that delicacy which is the characteristic
of innocence, shall refuse, in the ball room
and at the social board, to permit their snowy
fingers or rosy lips to meet the polluting touch
of the foul and loathsome wretch whose hands
have been thus defiled with one of the most
horrid of crimes.
To illustrate the disgraces of dueling,
Moore every now and then ran dueling
anecdotes from other papers. On June 9,
1838, he recounted a tale, reported by
The American Magazine, in which a Lord
Brudennell wrote him: "I think it encumbant
upon me to offer you the satisfaction
one gentleman owes to another in such
circumstances." The ex-husband replied:
My lord, in taking off my hands, a woman who
has proved herself a wretch, you have done me
the greatest favor which one man can do another,
and I think it encumbent upon me to
offer you the acknowledgement one gentleman
owes to another in such circumstances.
Wylie Moore in the Register repeatedly
reported duels and affrays and highly contextualized
them every chance he could,
many other papers reported them with
some of the same zeal as Moore, but with
little call for change. It was as though
they reported these incidences as the
spirit of the times. On June 1, 1840, The
Brazos Courier carried an article run by
the Austin Bulletin. It was an account of a
former client, named Peabody, who shot
his lawyer, Thomas Powell. The Bulletin
called the affray an "act of diabolical malice,
without anything to palliate or soften
the atrocity." On December 29, 1841, the
Bulletin reported more calmly a fight between
Willis Alston and a Dr. Stewart.
"The affair resulted in the wounding of
Alston so severely as probably to result in
his death. Dr. Stewart was a young man
who had acquired much character as a
physician and was highly respected for his
social virtues." However, the Bulletin had
asserted that the purpose of their paper
was to report the evils of falsehood. "In
this way, the Bulletin may do some good to
the cause of truth, and if it cannot reclaim
the assassin of character, it may at
least be able to turn aside the point of
his dagger." And on April 21, 1840, theBrazos Courier stated its moral even more
subtly: "We learn that in a rencontre
at the Houston races a few days ago,
a man named Vance, (a gambler) was
shot by Shelby Smith. Vance expired
immediately."
In this case, the Courier hinted that
gambling was the downfall of Vance.
Moore blatantly condemned gambling
and drinking and linked these vices to
duels and fights. On August 7, 1839,
Moore reported with pleasure "the town
council have been busily engaged for the
last week or two in disposing of the
gamblers and loafers." Moore was happy
to report that "it has not been necesary to
resort to lynchings to rid the town of this
nuisance."
In an age when cities advertised to increase
their population, a peaceful town
in turbulent times was quite an asset, and
this could be the appearance for which
Moore strove, however vainly. He stated,
"This city is now one of the most quiet,
orderly and peaceable places in any county
and the reformation has been solely
effected by the exertions of the peace officers
and the co-operation of the good citizens."
October 14, 1841, the Sentinel of
Austin joined Moore's campaign against
gambling by describing the downfall of
the gambler after losing:
He drinks to revive his spirits. His spirits revived,
he stakes to revive his loss . . . He becomes
a drunkard; he has become corrupt. Resources
fail him; his fortune is gone. Demon of
Despair takes possession of his bosom; he becomes
a maniac.
And then a specific incident occurred
in the city that Moore could use as an
example of the evils of gambling and
guns. A man named John Quick killed a
man named W. M. Brigham in a brawl at
a gambling table. Quick was jailed with a
man named David Jones, who had killed
three men. Moore insisted that "doubtless
these miscreants, confiding in the
statements of certain learned editors,
have supposed that Texas would prove
a safe asylum for murderers. This disgraceful
transaction may possibly convince
certain officers of justice that gambling
may be the productor of evil." On
March 24, 1838, Jones and Quick were
executed, and again Moore asserted that
their downfall was due to "the practicesof gambling and the practices of wearing
30
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Texas Historical Foundation. Heritage, Volume 5, Number 1, Spring 1987, periodical, Spring 1987; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth45438/m1/30/?rotate=270: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas Historical Foundation.