Southern sentinel. [volume] (Plaquemine, Parish of Iberville [La.]) 1848-1858, 1853-03-26
The LEGISLATURE and the Press.

Some person has sent to the New Orlean;
Bulletin a bill which has been brought before
the Legislature relative to public advertise
ments, so framed, that, if it passes, every coun
| try publisher in the State, if he expects to sup
port his family, had much better think of dig
| ging bitches for a living or hire himself as
steamboat hand, in preference to publishing
newspaper. We extract from the BulZctin-
and most heartily do we coincide with its re
marks:
The Legislature have no more right TO ,Gr {
| price upon the labor Of the printer, than they
have upon the labor of the carpenter, the law
yer, the bricklayer, the physician, the merchant
the drayman, the hotel-keeper, clerk, Or follow
err of any other description Of occupation. Il
is an assumption of power which is as injudi>
clous as it is insulting, as oppressive as it is
imbecilc, and rs contemplate as the spirit that
conceived it. If our sapient Legislators pos.
sess the power to set q price upon one descrip.
ton of labor, it follows, as a necessary conse-
quence, that they can do so in regard to all 9th.
er ayocations. If they can make the printer
work at the prices they prescribe, they can al.
so compel the carpenter, the builder, the clerk,
and all others who labor for q living, to do the
same thing!
All legislatures seem to be cursed with the
presence of more or less members, who, if they
possess any souls at all, are so little, that it re-
quires a moral microscope to discover them,
and who are always attempting to show their
patriotism by proposing to reduce the fees and
salaries of public officers down to the starya-
ton point, and to make printers work for no.
thing. In regard to these mental and moral
lilliputians, we copy, and heartily endorse, the
following from the Courier:
awe have known men who have been abso-
lutely pulled into public life by the newspapers
who beg for compliments TO sustain their
rickety pretensions, and for editorials TO cover
their political blunders-to use the first. MOI
ments of their power to cripple and crush the
journals that raised them to it. There is but
one way to treat such an ungrateful class
Sheer them down-expose their weak points
-repel no attacks made on them--leave them
to their W helplessness, as to the scourge Of
their adversaries."
For one we are prepared to enforce the pro-
position Of the Courier, and if the press OF the
State will only unite, We can drive these stale
Drained and barren-hearted individuals to a
depth of obscurity from which they can never
emerge. What say our brethren of the press!
and will our Baton Rouge contemporaries give
US the nan of the redoubtable parsonage who
introduced the bill referred to? He deserves no.
toriety! Let US give it to him. Let US bestow
upon him, and those who agree with him an
Immortality they will neuer forget, even if they
should cease to feel grateful
The men who are thus meddling with print
ing labor know nothing about its true value, of
the incidental or actual expense of publications.
They are just as likely to give too much as too
little, and are as ignorant as they are obstinate
and self-willed. Ignorant Legislators would
show their smartness by attempting to starve
out all the printers Of the State, and equally
legislators, in other spheres, have put
Of dollars in the pockets Of their IA
for which no adequate return could be
There are plenty Of cases in point.