The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1872-02-10
from the prolonged domination of the

AT last the REPUBLICAN was devised
as an organ to express the wishes ol
that large and influential mass of the
people who had no newspaper to rep.
resent them in the State. A few res
olute men entered upon the enterprise
with q fixed determination to succeed
against every difficulty. They knew
the fearful power of the ring that con-
trolled the public and private patron
age OF the community, but they knew
that the people needed and wanted an
organ that would break the ring. The
fight began at once. Independent
journalism was such "a novelty that at
first it was rejected by the people as
prisoners sometimes refuse the light
after a long confinement in some
loathsome dungeon. 1t was what they
wanted, but its too sudden appear
ance bewildered and confused them.
The Democracy hailed this rejection
as Il triumph, and for months its or
gans fed themselves with the expecta-
tion that the enterprise which de-
nounced their prejudices would pass
away. Vain and unhealthy decision
The REPUBLICAN, that had only Sc
cured Il domicile with difficulty, moved
its quarters, and camped in the very
heart of its enemies. The paper that
had been derided as the antagonist of
the people throye by the liberality of
the agents of the very people whom it
had defended and relieved. Neither
fhn lai ..f he
the illiberality of its contemporaries
had been sufficient to overthrow it.
And to-day it stands as a monument
of the success which an independent
newspaper can achieve when it reso-
lutely espOuses the rights of the peo-
pie against combinations founded in
self-interest, and based upon falsehood
and prejudice.
But to the moral: We have seen
the Crescent perish away from exist
ence because the community refused
to patronize its baneful heresies. 1t
was a gallant newspaper, conducted
by an able, fearless and ardent Dem
ocrat, whose personal friends abound
ed from one end of the South to the
other. In other days, and as an in
paper, it had made mark
that its proprietor can well refer to
with pride and satisfaction; but as the
organ of prejudice and discomfort, its
fame fell into obscurity, and its ex-
tinction was the righteous Judgment
of the community that it had misled.
The Commercial Bulletin, time-hon-
ored as the organ of the business men
of New Orleans, having tasted the
poison that vitiated all its old impair
tiality and independence, withered
and fell before the advancing revolu-
tlon which the REPUBLICAN tediously
and persistently impressed upon its
And last of all, and greatest of the
three, the Picayane has also surren-
dered up the contest, and now inhab-
its that narrow tenement appointed
for all the living. From the enjoy
ment of a clear income of seventy
thousand dollars per annum, the first
fruits of its feverish life as al. organ
Of hate and prejudice, our venerable
contemporary has been Frustrated by
the reaction even unto death. Mad
ness ever begets momentary energy,
only to leave its patient the veriest
child in strength. 1t is true the Pic
ayune, or a paper Of that name, is still
published in, New Orleans; it is not
the same journal that Kendall and
Lumsden founded, but a new enter
prise whose faith and fame are to be
determined hereafter. The Times and
Bee alone survive to remind us of the
time when the REPUBLICAN was a
Pariah in the midst OF men whose in
5erests it was defending. All its few
erish contemporaries of that day have
faded out of journalism, and all the
issues which they contended for so
and which were upheld by
as alone, are now the accepted dog
mas of all men.
This has indeed been marvellous
revolution. 1t remMds us of a fact in
geography. Away up amid the noun
5ains the Mississippi has its source,
small, as was our beginning,
out growing and strengthening in it's
career until the inhospitable shores of
Norway are profited by its ameliorat-
ng influence. journalism in New Or
cans will hereafter have a different
scope from that which has marked its
history since the advent of Slidellian
Democracy into the State. Partisans
nay have their organs, as of old, but
5he people will depend upon the great
that agitate them with
5he truth, and appeal to them with
founded in reason. And
is the public schools convert the illit-
crate masses into intelligent readers,
here will arise such spread of
and such a demand for
journals that advertisers, instead of
being the masters, will be the friends
If the fourth estate. Then the strug-
sle which the REPUBLICAN underwent
N the contest to secure this altered
condition of the people will read like
IN epic, and be treasured as worthy
IF applause by the profession and the