New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1871-04-06


down which senator West administEsd
to Franz Blair in the Senate on Tuesday.
He handled the cock-spur Senator from:
Missouri without gloves, and dealt him q
rebuke which would, to. any man of less
assurance than Frank Blair, be taken as
3 hint to attend more closely to his own
business and let other peoples affairs
alone. But Frank is more literally en-
dowed with vanity than sensibility, and
is more at home in political agitation than
craftsmanship. Being SO entirely devoid
of the latter quality, it remains Won
der and a mystery how it ever came
about that he found his way into
the United States Senate at all. Pos
sibly the fact is due to the peculiar char
acter of Missouri politics, which has diff
fered materially from that of the other
States ever since the people of that boz
der commonwealth disagreed widely on
the subject of secession. While some of
them were true to the Union and the
constitution others were willing to wor-
ship old "Pap Price, and even to follow
Mis- banners to the battle field against
those rather harmless Union heroes,
General Frank Blair and John C. Free
mont, or it may be that, as General Blair
never found "a good opportunity
to do any first class fighting dur.
ing the war, they want to give
him a chance to redeem himself after
ward. However it may be, he now finds
himself in the Senate, ostensibly to repre-
sent Missouri, but really, as it appears, to
misrepresent Louisiana, against which
State he has preferred ''unwarrantable
charges" and INDUCED in ''misstate-
ments." At least this is the polite and
parliamentary style adopted by Senator
West when he rises to explain to the Sen
ate that the gentleman from Missouri has
maligned this State, and slaudered the
Republican administration.
After Senator Blair had finished his
harangue, in the course of which he was
very careful to conceal what little he knew
of the true condition of affairs here, and
very elaborate in his statements of what
he knew nothing at all about, General
West came to the rescue of his State, and
the discontinue of Senator Blair, in o
terse speech, of which we have had a
synopsis by telegraph. It appears that
Senator Blair had made free use of the
great democratic bugbear Of carpetbag-
ism in his remarks, so much SO that Cen
eral West thought proper to devote some
space in his reply to that subject His APP
pication was extremely appropriate and
to the point. He said:
Our great republic was the offspring of
carpetbagism. Columbus, PizarrO, the pill
grims Of the Mayfower, and last. but not
were striking illustrations.
This truthful charge that Blair is him
self carpet-bagger, reminds us of story
that has frequently been told of the late
Democratic candidate for Vice President,
and is still quite current in the vicinity of
the place where the incident related &C
tually occurred.
This was at Seymour and Blair barbe-
cue that was held in Carroll parish in this
State in 1868. It is well known that Blair
tried planting in that vicinity in 1867, and
failed most disastrously. He and all who
trusted him came to grief dreadfully. The
barbecue in question was presided over by
that learned young lawyer, Professor
Drake, and one Terrill, a colored black
smith, who had been hired for the occa-
sion to appear in the extraordinary char
acter of Democratic Niger" was
set up to make speech, and especially to
abuse the Yankee carpet-baggers. He
pitched in with great vigor, and at last
cited q case in point.
"Fellow-citizens," said Terrill, 81
knowed one of these Yankee carpet
baggers who came down here to impose
ON my people. He took big place at
Miliken's Pend, and hired big lot Of
freedmen, and they worked all the year
for him, and he never paid 'em q picayune,
but just got on a steamboat and ran away
to the North. Iheord his name called here
to-day. It ,oas Blaar-Gineral Blaar!'
Whereupon there was sensation, in
the midst of which Terrill was pulled
down by the coat-tails by Mr.. Drake, and
sent to the rear.
Possibly this incident may have been
fresh in the mind of Senator West when
he complimented Senator Blair by placing
him in company with Columbus, Pizarro
and the Maydower pilgrims. Atany rate,
he could have had no intention of COM
these great prototypes by the
allusion.
We are satisfied that the interests of
Louisiana are in safe hands at Washing
ton. It has been the custom of late years
fer small beer politicians to stand up in
either house of Congress and retail stupid
ISLANDERS against us, because there was no
one there to refute them. Louisiana has
been to Congressional orators what Rus
STA, China and Japan have long been to
some Of the New Orleans newspapers, a
target for harmless shots, against which
anything could be said with IMMUNITY.
Poor Blair is the first to fall victim. He
has been pinned by the merciless West on
the keen weapon of truth, and held up to