The story of the Sun, New York: 1833-1928 / by Frank M. O'Brien ; with an introduction by Edward Page Mitchell ...

268

THE STORY OF "THE SUN"

against the small of his back. It is the plain truth
that he took the blow without a quiver. After a
second, it may be, he coughed just a little; a mere
clearing of the throat. But his mouth was firm. His
dark face lost no vestige of color. His black eyes
turned toward the jurymen, who still avoided his
glance, who looked everywhere but at the man they
had condemned.
Frank W. O'Malley's story of the killing of Policeman
Gene Sheehan has been reprinted from the Stin by several
textbooks for students of journalism. Iractically all of
it-and it was a column long-was a straightforward
report of the story told by the policeman's mother. This
is a part:
Mrs. Catherine Sheehan stood in the darkened parlor of her home at 361 West Fifteenth Street late
yesterday afternoon and told her version of the murder of her son Gene, the youthful policeman whom a
thug named Billy Morley shot in the forehead down
under the Chatham Square elevated station early
yesterday morning. Gene's mother was thankful
that her boy hadn't killed Billy Morley before he
died, "because," she said, "I cai. say honestly, even
now, that I'd rather have Gene's (lead body brought
home to me, as it will be to-night, than to have him
come to me and say, 'Mother, I had to kill a man
this morning.'
"God comfort the poor wretch that killed the
boy," the mother went on, "because he is more unhappy to-night than we are here. Maybe he was
weak-minded through drink. He couldn't have
known Gene, or he wouldn't have killed him. l)id
they tell you at the Oak Street Station that the other
policemen called Gene 'Happy Sheehan'? Anything