The Opelousas journal. [volume] (Opelousas, La.) 1868-1878, 1873-08-08
Hard Times

Is the cry of every son and daughter of
Louisiana. All our misfo"tunes are at
tributed to the carpet-bag, scallawang
element, and the thieving propensities
of the Republican party. Such is the
devoted faith of nine-tenths of our
white population, and such the belief
of those who are better informed, who
have taken this OpiriOI manufactured
and handed out to order.
Let us look back a few years, and see
if we cannot trace the causes of our
late war we were left in good circum-
stances the country was flush with
money saved from the bulk of our
ruined fortunes. Though the toll of
ages was cercentrated in slave proper
ty, which was swept away at one stroke,
still we were well off in this worlds
goods. But let us see the course
that was madly pursued. The cotton
States rushed into the production
of cotton to the neglect of those
productions essential to live upon, of
which, during the war, we had plenty
and enough to feed u soldiers, who
were consumers only for years. We
have placed ourselves in the hands of a
few commission merchants, entrusted
them with our all, and paid for every
necessary, Of life in return. This
is equivalent to placing our pocket
they please, and give us what they
please in re3urn.
Before the wal with our wealth and
show Of prosperity, the planters were
the mere tools and overseers of these
same lOrdly commission merchants, and
not one in a hundred was really solvent.
Then the system of labor was the best
on earth; as a system it was compulsory.
Now it is free, and men work as they
please, and ladies do not work any.
Then Louisiana blOOmed as a garden 4;
now it looks like q widows plantation.
Who then are your great tax collect
Ors and worst foes? Your merchants
and business men. Yourselves and
every man who gets one thousand dol
lars ahead puts up q store or drinking
shop to keep from work. Look at our
exports and imports, and see where our
trouble lies. What is there brought in
to Louisiana for sale? Everything we
ey go? To st. Louis and the great
West, to New York and other Northern
cities, to Central America, Mexico and
Cuba, for sugar; all over the world for
coffee, and all sorts OF goods. What do
we get back for our staple production
coston, almost our only export? Nothing.
Whynothing? Because our imports \
coed urexports. Wepayfifty thousand
dollars annually from the Parish Of Red
River for wlliskey; this money never
comes back, and is a continual drain.
just as SUR as we are sitting at this
table, there is no redemption for this
country, until we go to work and make
home self-%sustaining. True, Il gov
e:ment has been recklessly extrava
CANT, but if we had not paid one dol
lar of tax since the war, we could not
have told the difference. COnfiscation
is as sure to take place as we live-for
these people are perfectly insane. They
ale running their ship on breakers;
their commission merchants and their
politicians are pilots; all drunk on cham
payne, and struggling for the wheel.
'"To the victors belong the spoils."
These men gather or money and send
it off and it never comes back. These
men are our main tax collectors, and we
are not friends to Ourselves.-Coushatta
Citizen. .-