New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1872-01-21
THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR EVIL.

What the REPUBLICAN said to the bust
| ness men of New Orleans in regard to
| their connivance with the disorders which
| have injured the commercial interests of
the city by the support which they have
lent and are now lending to the Times, can
not be put aside or answered by refer
ence to our patronage. Every case must
stand upon its own merits. If our skirt Is
soiled that is not valid excuse why others
should wear dirty clothes. We have ex-
planned the relation which the REPUBLICAN
bears to the State so often that it must be
familiar to the public. We have ad-
mitted that the law which enforces judicial
advertising in certain direction has the
appearance Of injustice, and that II IS
distasteful to the people; but we have ex-
planned that this law was a necessity, and
that it WAS one Of those evils which the
community would forget and forgive when
they discovered that the effect WAS TO
create and foster healthy opposition press
as against the hateful and demoralized
organs that obtained their living by pam
dering to the prejudices and passions Of
the mob. This is our case. 1t has its
blemishes and its advantages, both Of
which are here advanced. Let the public
decide about our position on its merits,
and then let them decide about the position
Of the Times on its merits. As reason
able people this is the only reasonable
course which they can adopt.
We say again, then, that the Times has
constantly misled and cheated the public
concerning matters of the gravest con-
Germ. 1t has never lent its aid to that
solution of affairs which has been grad
ually developing for the last four years
All its suggestions have been intiam-
matory, and all its prophecies have come
to failure. 1t occupies the identical
ground to-day which it solemnly pro-
tested against in 1868. The position
which it denied and DETAINED, the men it
abused, the laws it spit upon, the consti-
tuition it would never print the Legis-
lature it refused to report, the equality it
denounced as degradation and miscegena-
ton, have all been forgiven and are now
accepted by it as legitimate and proper.
If it had done this in the beginning we
should have had the same peace and
equanimity in 1869 that We are having
now, and instead Of the races facing each
other with hostile feelings, our people
would have slept three years ago as
Senators Blackman and Ingraham slept on
the Wilderness the same little bed.
This is our point against the Times. 1t
has fomented discord and deferred that
quiet which we have required. How has
it managed to do this? We answer, that
it has been enabled to keep up the turmoil
that the mob demanded by means of the
patronage which it derived from the bust
ness community And if the constant agi
tation to which We have been subjected
has been assisted and kept at fever heat by
the Times, and that paper has been kept
awe by the puSlleao hieil Va VIC 'i'!' ~
logically follows that the latter are the par
ties who must be held responsible for the
| injury to our commercial interests which
has resulted from agitation. They
have maintained the agitator, and thus lent
it the influence Of their names. 1t pretend
ed, and rightly, too, to speak in the name
of the community, for, since the commu-
nifty supported it. why should it not as
sumo that its upholders were of it's way of
thinking?
1t therefore becomes the duty of the
business men to define their status in this