New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1873-01-05
Communicated
Dir. $. III. X ennedy and the Eeyee Conn
pany.

DIR. $. III. X ennedy and the Leyee Conn
pany.
EDITOR REPUBLICAN:
In your issue of this morning headed
.ETaxes, and who benefits thereby" you
refer to the Leyee Company, and name my
self as one of the directors; and you fur
Their state: "These gentlemen represent the
most grinding, unjust and oppressive of
the various classes of State taxation, and
tue one from which the people receive, per
haps, the least propOrtionable benefits.
AS YOU have placed my name in this con-
nectiOn, and as L am unwilling to believe
you wish to purpOsely give circulation to
msstatements, | will ask you to place in
your columns this communication, in which
| desire to state some facts in regard to the
Louisiana Levee Company and my con-
nection with it.
have lived in New Orleans thirty years,
and have never yet been connected with
any association, corporation or enterprise
that has been of strict jobbing or specu-
lative character.
Nearly one year since L was asked to be-
come director in the Louisiana Levee
Company, with parties with whom | have
had long business intimacy, and who were
known to me as men OF character and in
tegrity. Some of them you have named
and others, John Henderson, Patrick Irwin
and other like parties, who are at least a
fair guarantee that anything they may en-
deavor will not be for plumber or against
the interests of the people Of this State. l
joined the directory to give what aid |
could in securing good and efficient levees
to our State. | believed those parties had
the interest of the State at heart as much
as myself, and | have had no reason to
change my opinion.
/ do not believe there has been any num-
Der of gentemen who have undertaken so
large an amount of contract for labor to be
performed, and who have put up so much
cash and run so much risk for reimburse
ment, with so small compensation. | beg
to say that there is vast amount of error,
even among intelligent people, in regard to
this levee company, and did not hesitate
to state to the board of directors that
thought they had assumed an amount of
labor and paid up an amount of capital
that few men would have done for any
supposed value to their contract. l spoke
then as l do now, as a stakeholder for SO
small an amount my interests can not be
questioned as influencing my judgment.
What are the facts! This levee company
has undertaken to build $4,000, 900 cubic
yards of levee in some three years. and to
keep them in repair for twenty years, and
pay for all losses By overttows, breaks. etc.
At the end OF twenty years their contract
ceases, and their whole capital vanishes.
port October u Shows q levees completed
amounting to some 100000 cubic yards
for which they had paid out in cash over
$50, 900, and their obligations for a large
amount besides From the State they had
received only 1902 900.
Since October they have issued orders for
the surveying of 1876 more levees, approx
mating some 5,000,00O cubic yards, and the
company has "a paid up cash capital of
nparIv & 100 000 All of which has been used
and "a good deal of credit besides, in doing
this enormous amount of work upon our
levceS.
There is for the first time il our State
since the war a security against overdOws,
and | believe the testimony from the conn
try is uniform as to the great efficiency Of
the work performed and the feeling of Sc
eurity realized.
profess to be levee and railroad man.
Give me good levees and railroads to the
West. and New Orleans has as an encOur-
aging future as any city in the world.
am also for reforms and retrenchments, and
will undertake to do as much as any other
man toward these great objects. | do not
hesitate to say the Louisiana Levee Com
PAW is to-day doing as much good as any
corporation in this State, and but for what
she has done a large number OF her finest
plantations would be abandoned, and, L
further believe, at any time that the State
of Louisiana desre7 10 annul her contract
with the leyee company to secure more
favorable contract to build aud keep secure
her Ievees there be none in the State quicker
to aid her than the Louisiana LeVee Com
pany.
Respectfully, -
SAM H. KENNEDY.
New Orleans, January 1, 1873.