De Mortuis

The living have the libel law, but the dead have no recourse to the law. A man's memory is in the gentle hands of the world he leaves behind.

More than a year ago Senator Frank B. Brandegee of Connecticut committed suicide in the Capital (TIME, Oct. 20, 1924, MILESTONES). His health had not been the best and it was reported that he had lost his fortune through unfortunate investments. His friends and colleagues spoke well of him, and his death was charitably regarded with the hope that it might be forgotten.

But last week scandalmongering, the Graphic (Manhattan), Bernarr Macfadden's gumchewers' sheetlet par excellence, dragged the memory of Mr. Brandegee from the grave-- began to publish a serial story of his "Wrecked Love," "Sad Secret" that led to the "Dramatic Death of Political Genius."

Apparently this great romance was nothing very odious from the hints in the first instalment: "When Senator Brandegee, then young and handsome, entered the drawing room where the gay party was being staged and saw his beloved ideal sitting on a table and smoking, he was so shocked that he turned on his heel and left without a word." This incident it appears doomed him to "gloomy bachelorhood" . . . until weighed down with sorrow and loneliness he ultimately committed suicide. It would be ridiculous, were it not that the dead man deserves better at the hands of the living.

But some of the living are paraded with the dead Senator across the ridiculous and scandalous scene--Helen Hay, Rebecca Knox, Edith Root, Elinor Wylie,* who "had not then distinguished herself by her poetry or her love affairs, save for occasional passionate little verses"--not to mention Brandegee's "beloved ideal" not mentioned by name but described as "the wife of another distinguished statesman." This unknown woman, poor thing, was described at length:

"Brandegee's sweetheart often set the capital aflame with her deeds of daring and unusuality. . . .

"Renowned for physical beauty, her larger claim was in her untrammeled spirit and soul. She might then, as now, if she desired, have become a great political leader or a champion of women's causes. . . .

"None could dress with more originality and abandon than she, though clothes gave her comparatively little concern, and she was forever flinging off her hat as soon as she reached a place where she could throw it.

"She could mix a cocktail as well as the veriest flapper of today. Dancing, as well as hurdling, was a passion with her. And she even hurdled over the tops of society's best ottomans and chairs, to the horror of maids and matrons more restrained than she.

"She possessed the courage of her convictions, and one of these convictions was concerning the free and unfettered liberty of the American girl. . . .

"The cave dwellers and aristocrats of Washington society might lift their lorgnets and sniff the air in silent protest at her capers, but, after all, wasn't she of their own, of a family than which there was none bluer blooded?"

*The Graphic ignorantly referred to Elinor Wylie as Elinor Wiley. Also the Graphic ignorantly referred to Mrs. Helen Hay Whitney as "the former Alice Hay."