The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1874-05-31
THE GRANT PARISH TRIAL.
Editor New Orleans Bulletin:

Sr-It is not necessary to remind an in
telligent public that the Grant parish trial
is part of the existing political struggle
raging in Louisiana, and that its prosecu-
ton by the Indictment of our fellow citi-
zens, now for many months incarcerated, is
as much the res gesta of carpet-bag Radical
campaign against the people OF Louisiana,
as is the maintenance of the usurper Kellogg,
pretending to be Governor of the State.
And not alone this. but it is said by many
that conviction, however corruptly OBJ
tanned, would be Immediately followed by
indictments against numerous other cit-
zens for alleged participation in the affairs
of St. Martinsville, st. Vincent and Jackson
Square.
1t is clearly our duty to defeat the mach-
nations Of our entrenched, INSCRIPTIONS and
powerful enemies against our innocent
fellow citizens now under trial, as it is to
meet boldly and overcome the same game
of enemy-mposters when tcey put in an
appearance in their other role of freedom.
Shriekers and political Joshuas, whether
suborning testimony, abstracting pages Of
record from court and substituting therefor
false records or stnffing ballot boxes tam
pering with .juries or forging cross mark at
the most degraded and ignorant witnesses,
or classifying facts and suppressing the truth
in the Senate of the United States.
We recognize in the perpetrators the same
malign intelligence and wicked industry
which has reduced Louisiana from her proud
position as sovereign State, to become
mere satrapy of the dominant, centralizing
Cadical party.
OF course, under such a pressure there can
be no peace for us, and it is no more than
tne part of men, determined finally to con
quer, to see that our enemies shall not enjoy
undisturbed the prosperity VIII CHI is to us
denied.
Aside from the question of right, it is
further question of endurance and ability to
contest every inch Of the way from the
exterior to the threshold, from the threshold
to the hearth-stOne, and never surrender.
We must be ready to take our undaunted
stand upon the last foot Of levee that is left
in the country, and there, turning aside
from the threatening waters, dispute with
the inundatng carpet-baggers the possess
sion of the State.
The pertinacity which has marked the
persecution of the Grant parish prisoners
shows the nature of the forces relied on to
accomplish their destruction. A Judge, the
same who by midnight order put to a VIC
lent death the liberties Of the people, APP
points two Radical factionists as Jury Com
missioners, who in turn wink at the packing
by one whose very name suggests the pro-
cess, of jury panel intended to insure con
viction.
A bitter and malignant prosecutor. slim
nlating if not inventing testimony, and
affecting to extract the truth by questions
so leading as to attract the notice of all
witnesses ad nduseua. to every sense, driven
to statements so absurd as to be at once in
credible and lncOmprehensible officers of
court impeding instead of forwarding the
ends of justice, and press either bounding
on the vile pursuit, or mildly ObliviOus of
its glazing wickedness. Such, at this mo-
ment, is the Grant parish prisoners case. 1t
is a wheel within a wheel, and that of
which it is an obvious part is the great iron
wheel of Radical imperialism, the personal
government of the Napoleons reproduced
upon the free soil of America
AS il mus be the nature of the case inn
possible to Procure an interrupted convic-
ton of these innocent gentlemen, let us
hope that the mistrial wll result in de-
terminate n IN the. mind OF the presiding
judge to bail them out of prison; if not to
order mol pros. entered up in their case.
Simple justice, pure and nndetiled, would
demand an immediate acqnittal, but that is
more than our experience justifies us in an
still if the people have yet left
in their possession any rights, which usurp
ing radical minority is bound to respect, it
would be very modest form indeed for
them to ask that gentlemen, whom no meas
ures however equivocal have succeeded in
should be relieved from the bar
barity of perpetual, because repeated i'm
prisOnment.
President Grant himself could not do a
more popular act than to thereupon direct
the enlargement of the Grant parish prison
srs. Very respectfully, yours,
EDW. BOOTH.