Note 409 — Chapter XXV · The Shooting of Heney.

“Will they,” demanded The Call the morning after Heney had been shot down, “stop at nothing? Are not stealing, perjury, bribery, dynamiting, murder, enough? Must the course of justice in this community run the gamut of violence, as well as of slander and pettifogging obstruction?

“Apparently it must. But there is at least no longer any reason to doubt where the responsibility lies. A bare chance, the momentary tremor of an assassin’s hand, may have saved the life of Francis J. Heney to this community. There will be no tremor in the finger of scorn that points past the miserable wretch that did the shooting to the men that inspired it. A worthless crank, of course. It always is. Dirty hands for dirty work. But softer hands and keener brains plan it. And the community will waste no wrath on the miserable tool, now cowering in jail. It was not he who has dogged the steps of Francis J. Heney these two years with hired thugs. It was not he who has filled the courtrooms with professional ruffians. It was not he who dynamited Gallagher—or hired it done. Least of all was it he who made a joke of that crime and sought to make a joke and a byword of the heroic Heney—‘poor Beany.’”