New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1874-10-04

FINANCIAL RUIN AND LEGISLATIVE CoERUp
TON.
In 1912 there was q general crash enc
! failure Of the banks, seven Of which sus
pended in this city. At the beginning o
1889 the State owed the banks $4,000
in the year 1871 the debt had increased t.
$3.50. 900. large sum at that period.
1t was generally believed at the time OF
the authority of persons who had made the
calculation that the members Of the Legis
taturc in their pirate capacity o,red 10 Mos'
Institutions, the banks. about 81 ,0OO, coo.
Showing that in those pure and Dem
ocratic days, the powers OF the State were
perverted to the profit Of her representa-
tives.
Such was the pressure throughout tho
whole community from the absence of Z
sufficient currency to meet the genera
wants that even the taxes could hardly bt
collected, and the revenue of the State had
diminished to the amount of near $2OO. 00t
in the year 1912. Unfortunately, at thai
time her finances we're not in q proper con
dition, as her expenses had long since OK
ceeded her receipts.
Governor ROman SAID:
Our debts are annually met by new loans
the interest on which added to the capital
and the appropriations of each session OF
the Legislature, present every year q
heavier deficit.
How forcibly does this illustrate ou1
city debt of 1913, 100000, for which there
is no interest bearing investment to show,
while the whole interest must be annually
levied by taxation.
Recurring to legislative corruption, he
says, with sense of integrity worthy his
name:
leave the Office with which I have been
honored with the painful conviction OF hav-
ing done very little for the good Of the
State, and Of having often failed in prevent
ing what was injurious.
1t affords me some relief, no xever, to be
able to say that have refused my sigma
ture to various bills which, but for my dis
approval, would have added to the debt of
the State the sum of 81, los, 900, and that
the act which binds US to pay, without any
consideration, 100000 for the Clinton and
Port Hudson railroad does not bear my sig
nature.
So they gave gifts to men in that i'm
maculate age. This is as the forerunner
of the monopoly of river water, butcher
meat, the lottery, the lease Of the New
canal, etc. Governor Motton, the sue
cessor Of Governor Roman, '.found the
finances of the State in fearful condi-
ton" He said:
learn with deep modification and re-
greet that there is now due by the State to
our banks 81 100000, on which the interest
is unpaid; that there are State bonds to a
large amount guaranteed by the Citizens
Bank and Planters Association now in
liquidation, on which the interest will prob
ably not be paid; that the ordinary ex-
penses Of the government exceed, and have
for several years exceeded, its ordinary in
come by more than 5000, 900; that there is
State can no longer draw q dollar from her
own banks, and that the people are taxed
as heavily as they can bear.
It is not reasonable to suppose that the
aliens and other writer's who attribute TO
Republicans the Introduction Of abuses
into the State government have ever read
the history of Louisiana legislation.
The Picayune must surely have known this
State of contemporaneous insolvency and
corruption. Governor Mouton talks to his
fellow-citizens like Dutch uncle. and
attributes these abuses to
The deplorable crisis of immortality and
distress, in which idleness, extravaganza
and reckless speculation, engenGeved by
imprudent legislation, the credit system
and paper money that involved the whole
country.
ELECTION FRAUDS AND VIOLENCE.
Having shown that even in period of
profound peace and exceptional prosperity
the politicians of Louisiana were profit
gate and corrupt, We pass to the means by
which they attained or maintained power.
Remember there was not then colored
voter or a carpet-bagger. Governor He
bert states that in 1856
Scenes of intimidation, violence and
blOOdshed marked the late general election
in New Orleans. Great public crimes were
committed with impunity in midday light.
and in the presence of hundreds of persons.
No one could have admitted the possibility
that blOOd-thirsty mob could have con-
templated to overawe any portion of the
people Of this State in the exercise of their
most valuable right.
Governor Wickliffe explains how in the
Presidential election of 1856 out of II ,S17
registered voters in New Orleans only
1888 were cast:
1t is we'll known that at the two last gen.
eral elections many OF the streets and APP
proaches to the polls we're completely in
the hands of organized rahians, who com.
mitted acts of violence on multitudes of
our naturalzed citizens who dared exercise
the right Of suffrage. Thus nearly one.
third Of the registered voters of New Or.
leans have been deferred from exercising
their highest and most sacred prerogatiyes.
The expression of such election is an open
and palpable fraud on the people, and
recommend you to adopt such measures as
will effectually prevent the true will of the
majority from being totally silenced. The
system OF corrupt purchase of the alien
vote is alleged by the historian to have had
more to do with absence from the polls
than the fear of assassination. The honest
citizens knew all our elections to have be-
come so hopelessly fraudulent that it was
disgracetul to participate in them. They
had retired from the politica! arena in
sullen despair.
We have gone far enoagh to prove from
the pages of undoubted history that the
Legislature Of Louisiana was as corrupt
before the war. and in Democratic hands.
as it could by any possibility be since the
war, and il Republican hands. We have
shown that frauds at the polls and ballot
boz disturbed those pure and primeval
times, and tina. the intimidation ard
butchery Of the naturalized foreigner was