New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1871-08-17
OUR PUBLIC AND PRIVATE WEALTH.

IF the Bulletin were the hired enemy of
New Orleans it would hardly be more
vigilant to assume an attitude antago-
nistic to her local interests. If the
stranger is told that our State credit is
destroyed, and that reputation is inevi-
table-if the public is cautioned to with
hold its taxes because the authority under
which they are collected is illegal, what
must be his conclusions as to the condi-
ton of that society which is already on
the verge Of bankruptcy, and which
openly discusses the propriety of making
its insolvency an assured fact? If the
faults of the people have been such as to
involve them in financial ruin; if they
admit their willingness to add dishonesty
to incompetence, what inducement has
the emigrant to make such community
his abiding place. And if the Bulletin,
which is presumptive organ of the pub
lie, declares that the State is ruined, and
advises resistance to taxation in order to
secure the substance of the people from
involvement in the public destruction, is
this not attempt to resolve society into a
condition of nature again? And that the
Bulletin has suggested this action is known
to all the world, for we have had occasion
to4nake the fact known in our efforts to
arrest the evil. The entire credit of the
State is based upon taxation. All the
machinery of society responds to this
imperial impulse, for if what Judge
Abel calls fodder is not discoverable
in the public crib, political chaos must
supervene. Law, protection, education,
improvement, cleanliness, government,
end when they fail of that support which
results from failure of the revenues.
The debts which have been contracted,
and the engagements which are prospc-
tive, all fall to the ground the instant
that society says it will not meet them.
All absolute values are damaged, and
entire communities suffer arrangement,
when the public credit is shaken with the
demand for it's destruction. And to adj
vocate the Withholding of the public
taxes is to advertise that the fountain
source of State engagements must no
longer meet its promises. If the COM
munity in the aggregate can do this
wrong, why may not the private citizen?
The end, it will be seen, is, absolute re-
pudiation from top to bottom. And this
is just what the Bulletin suggested -when
it advised the people not to pay taxes
which is enmity of the first water.
Next, the publication of list of i'm
provements which are now going up in
the city, aggregating two and half mil
lion of dollars, is made the subject of an
other outbreak in the Bulletin, as afford
ing no evidence of prosperity. The Times
gave heightened list of buildings in
process of immediate construction, and
predicated thereon an argument that New
Orleans was steadily gaining in wealth
and beauty. The value of these improve
ments was estimated at over two millions
u uOIIdlo. Aulo OASuuS tue IDuttetlH, De-
cause the value of the improvements is
so small, and because. some of them are
only renewals of old houses that had |
been destroyed by fire. And on these
grounds it proceeds to complain that |
while few new structures are being |
built, the general poverty and ruin is SO
great that the balance Of our property is
going to decay for want Of repair. If |
his was so, we submit that it would be |
improper to publish the fact conspicu-
ously; but as it is not correct, then it is
Almost criminal to state an untruth so
damaging to our general prosperity.
It is only necessary to inspect
he city to ascertain the existence
If wide spread spirit of repair. And I
while the observer will discover that
property owners are reftting their
houses, he will also fall upon the
act that the list of improvements
n the Times. was limited to men,
ion of about one-third of the actual work
n progress and under contract throughout
he city. The resident of New Orleans
vho will inspect his own neighborhood,
10 matter in what part of the corporation |,