New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1871-11-21
NOTHING OF THE SORT.

NOTHING OF THE SORT.
Editors who do not understand wha
they read, are certainly not the proper
parties to deliver healthy criticisms upor
their undijested literary pabulum. Col
lector Casey's organ supposes that the Re
PUBLICAN has retracted the speech which
Governor Warmoth delivered on board
the Wilderness, when the true state Of the
case is that the REPUBLICAN defended that
reasonable utterance not only as truthful,
but as useful and timely in its utterance.
1t was truthful in that it charged the gov
eminent of the United States with injus-
tice to the South in the matter of neces-
sary appropriations; and it was wholesome
and timely because the truths which it
contained were told to the representatives
Of the government, in matter then under
governmental investigation, by leade,
Of the very party which is in the ma
jority, and which is directly responsible
for the injustice about which the COM
plant was made. Republicans are the
very parties who should speak to their
own friends about the policy which
should be pursued toward the greatest
interest that concerns twenty-five States.
The Democrats are constantly appealing
to the constituencies Of the Mississippi
valley against the neglect of Congress to
protect by liberal appropriations the
tremendous interests that are affected by
the Mississippi river. Weneed assistance
to repair the levees, to remove the OBJ
structions to navigation that are con-
stantly accommodating in the river, and to
deepen the outlet of the same to allow of
the passage of steamships and vessels of
twenty-five feet draught. The Repub-
lican majority is charged with the protec-
ton Of every interest that affects the peo-
pie, and Republican leaders are the most
proper men to discover and insist that
these things should be done, else they
throw into the hands of their enemies the
precise argument which overthrows their
claim to be considered as statesmen If
Governor Warmoth can not specify the
oversight of his own friends, and call
attention to the measure of relief
which his constituents are entitled to,
then he is no longer Republican leader,
but mere partisan advocate. His use
fulness to the country is to be measured
by the good which he can do to the
people: and in order to give his efforts
their most effective force, it is his duty to
keep his eyes open to every public want,
and to be ready with act and advice to
carry out every measure that proposes to
be of service to the public. He can not
be blind in the presence of error, nor
dumb when mistakes are being committed,
because there is no greatness or wisdom
in that narrow policy which supposes that
watchfulness and admoniticn are acts of
unfriendliness. It is the duty of every
public man to use all his foresight to
discover what is best to be done for the
State, and especially is it important that
he should be prompt to warn his friends
and associates against the doing of that
which can not be defended before the
country.
When Congress sent committee into
the Southern States to examine into aud
make report concerning the alleged vio-
lations Of the civil rights bill, it provided
that this committee should be paid for all
its time and reimbursed for all its ex-
penses; but when the same body dis
patched committee to examine into and
report about our levees, it devolved upon
the members of the same the burden of
defraying their own expenses, which was
putting upon private gentlemen the cost
of doing that which the government was
bound in justice to defray. And since the
first committee was charged with an in
finitely inferior duty to that of the latter,
the Governor of the State of Louisiana
was bound in honor to expostu-
late against the injustice which
his own party friends had inflicted
upon an entire section. And in doing
SO he represented the sentiments
alike of Republicans and Democrats, of
white people and colored folks-in fact
Of every class that lives behind the
treacherous and dilapidated levees along
the Mississippi river. He did not say
that the civil rights committee was
wrongly sent, hut merely complained that
if the country could not support all the
necessary to the purposes of
good government, its duty would have
been better attended to if it had paid more
to the larger interest and not so
much to the lesser. It is of far more
consequence to the Republicans of Louis
lana that they should be protected in a
body against the floods than that a few
men should be inquired of about their
of the Ku-Klux bands. We
are willing to have both committees, but
We prefer the one that proposes to do the
greatest good if we are to be confined to |
one body.
The REPUBLICAN, therefore, has neither |
nor sought to retract what the
Governor said on the Wilderness, nor has
it even attempted to soften the force of
The remarks which were uttered on that
occasion. 1t would be we'll, therefore,