LCV Spring 2013 - (Page 30)

LOUISIANA RESEARCH COLLECTION, TULANE UNIVERSITY FINAL EDITION 1887 was a tumultuous year for The Mascot. In May, Bossier severed ties with the newspaper to focus on business ventures. Osmond, who took the most beatings of any editor, had difficulty with his part in Brewster’s death. He moved to Pointe-à-la-Hache and become editor of the Plaquemines Protector. Unfortunately, his quest for peace and solitude did not last long. In June, Osmond joined a posse to capture Ed Wilson, an escaped “lunatic” on a killing spree. From behind a barn door at Woodland Plantation, Wilson shot Osmond in the neck and killed him. Zenneck served as one of his pallbearers. Zenneck, who had been promoted to editor after Osmond’s departure, was now co-proprietor with William “Billy” Mack after Bossier’s withdrawal, but it was not a position he would hold for very long. On August 13, 1887, “Mrs. Mulcahey’s Contributions,” a column in The Mascot that featured letters to Bridget Magee, claimed that 22-year-old Dan Brown of Algiers was having an affair with his married landlord, Mrs. Armand Frilot. Enraged, Brown entered the crowded Mascot office and attacked Zenneck, who managed to push Brown down the stairs. From the landing, in a crowd of 50 spectators, Brown fired up at Zenneck, hitting him in the left thigh. The wound was not thought to be serious, but Zenneck soon died from a hemorrhage. Although the “sympathy of the entire community” was with Brown for being injuriously slandered, he was found guilty of 30 LOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES • Spring 2013 No one was immune from the poison pen of The Mascot. Rich and poor alike found themselves exposed on the pages of the newspaper, and moral hypocrisy was a common focus. manslaughter. The jury pleaded for mercy and volunteered to sign a petition for Brown’s pardon. It wasn’t necessary; Brown was sentenced to six months in jail for killing Zenneck but only served two weeks before Gov. McEnery pardoned him. Ironically, back in May of 1882, The Mascot had run a cover story on McEnery chiding him for being the “pardoning governor” and a “grievous disappointment.” The Mascot went through more editorial changes. After Zenneck’s death, Mack became sole proprietor but died less than a year later, leaving P. J. Kelly to take the reigns. In November 1888, Francois Bildstein, one of the engravers, joined Kelly in co-ownership. Under their direction, the newspaper remained a political watchdog for the most part, but in the early 1890s, the paper whose original mission was to “correct evils” eventually shifted into the exploitation of evils. In spite of its various legal and gun battles, The Mascot did not miss a single issue in its first 10 years. The newspaper appeared less frequently, however, in its later years. In 1891 it fought multiple libel suits. The same year, lawyer Arthur Dun killed Mascot reporter Frank Waters in a street gun battle. In 1892, Kelly, Bildstein and editor Alex Caruthers were sentenced to six months in jail for 

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