The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1874-11-25
Carpet-Baggers.
SENATOR NoRwooD's DESCRIPTION OF THE
y STRIDE"

W
SENATOR NORwOoD's DESCRIPTION OF THU
p STRIDE"
This is the inimitable description, says
the Eufaula News, of that character, as
given by Senator Norwood, of Georgia, in
his great speech in that town on the Sat.
urday preceding election day:
The reconstruction acts have wrought
immeasurab}e evils, but, perhaps, the
greatest of all is the production of the car.
pet-bagger. have great admiration for
the genius who first used that word, scar
pet-bagger." What can be more express
i've! His like the world has never seen,
from the days of Cam, or of the forty
thieves in the tabled time of Ali Baba.-
Like the winds, he blows, and we hear
the sound thereof, but no man knoweth
whence he cometh or whittier he goeth.
Il Natural historians will be in doubt how
to class him. Ornithologists will claim
him, because in many respects he is bird
Of prey. He lives only on corruption, and
takes his flight as soon as the carcass is
picked. In other particulars he resembles
the migratory crane. For, when driven
by the frigidity of social ostracism from
the North, he flies with marvellous instinct
to the torrid and unctious embrace of his
African mates and peers among the swamps
of our Southern Shore As the crane fills
his craw, 80 this creature fills his bag for
the flight, and as the crane, when the days
grow hot, flaps his, wings, and screaming
through the air, returns to the North SO
this ill-omened biped, when times become
warm in the South, gathers up his legs
and flying with screams and shrieks away
perches on the wooden head of the figure
of justice, commonly known as the Attor.
ney General, and browns the air with
croakings about Southern outrage and
wrong. In the other respects he is like
the marsupial family fquadrupeds, for as
they are named from the pouch or bag in
which they carry their young, so he de.
rives his name from the bag he carries and
in which are stored all his earthly possess.
ions. The opossum is of the marsupia]
family, and the carpet-bagger, like that
animal, does all his travel at night.
Solomon was wise man but he did
not know everything. He was wrong in
saying ''There is nothing new under the
SUM-" The world has swung on for thou.
sands Of years through wars and pestilence
through famine and plague, has been visi.
ted by earthquakes, frogs and flies, mur.
rain and lice, but never until the year OF
our Lord 1867, was any portion of the
globe afflicted by carpet-bagger. Solo
mon did not know him, nor did David OF
jeremiah conceive of such a calamity. Il
they had, the songs of David, and the
book of jeremiah. would have been lost
to mankind, for they would have com
mitted suicide at the very imagining Of
such woe.
Though he sprung into existence soon
after the war, the carpet-bagger is no off
spring of that martial cOlition. The time
was not gravis marte when he was hatch.
ed or Uttered. There is no look of Mars
but there is infinite speculation in his eyes
A reward as large as that offered by the
Roman Emperor for new and savory
dish, could not tempt the most abandoned
perjnred negro to swear, that he has ever
known a carpet-bagger to face the fire
which he has so often drawn by his incen.
diary work. His course oozes out at his
departing heels. During any 'little I'm.
pleasantness" this pharisee becomes, as by
magic, for he takes his stand "afar off,
He is no product of war. He is "the can.
ker of quiet world" and Of peace which
is despotism enforced by bayonets. His
valor is discretion; his industry, perpetual
strife; and his eioquences1'the parcel of 9
reckoning" Of chances as he smells out q
path which may lead from the White
House to q custom house, post office, the
Internal revenue bureaux, or, perchance
to either wing of the Federal capitol. His
shibboleth is ''the Republican partly
From that party he sprung as naturally as
maggOts from putrifaction. His relation
to that party is that of a pimp to a bawd
for his meritorious service is rewarded in
proportion to the number of innocent ne.
gro victims he inveigles to crafty its lust
for power. Like Wanda and Gerth he
never trays without wearing his masters
collar; and he is equally contented wheth.
er turned loose to chase like sleuth-hOund
the monarch, of Southern soil, or called by
a snap of the fingers to eat the garbage OF
his party. His collar is his passport to
roam at large, and it matters not with per
sistence he may break into Southern
gentleman's closet, his master will not per
NIT him to be muzzled, for he is "the OK
that treadeth out the corn" as well as ::the
ass that knoweth his masters crib"
Wherever two or three or more negroes
are gathered together in the name OF
Grant, he, like leprous spot is seen, and
his cry, like the daughter of the horse
leech is always "give, give" me office.
Without Office he is nothing; with Office
he is nuisance. Out of office he is a beg,
gar sin office he grows, rich till his eyes
stick dit with fairness. Out Of Office he is
hat in hand, the outside ornament of every
Negroes cabin a plantation loafer and the
nations lazarone in office he is an adept
in "addi ton, subtraction and silence"-
Ont of Office he is the orphan ward of the
administration and the general signpost of
penury; in Office he is the complaining
for social equality with South
ern gentlemen.
His former neighbors in the unknown re-
gion whence he fled, wonder, but at his
escape and concealment. But when, as
sometimes happens, he reaches Washing
ton labelled as Senator. or Representative
from the province Of Louisiana, Or South
Carolina, or Alabama, or Mississippi, and
invoiced and consigned to President Grant
or some of his henchmen, the romance OF
the TRANSPORTATION so wells his identity
that those neighbors gather in the Capitol,
and with field glasses in hand they wran.
gle and swear (9) in the galleries in angry
dispute whether the official automaton be
Tichborne or his counterfeit. He is at best
but Cinderella at the ball
Wa wonder at his slinnera his facn clothnc
and hair,
But the greatest wonder il, how he. ever
n got there, Z. p TQ44'5H 'F20m
0nr wonder, however, is not as great o.
distracting as his own. For, when he
thinks of the fairy Reconstruction, which
wrought this marvellous change in him
and then see the familiar which he, from
early, and fond association had come to
regard as an elder brother, suddenly trans.
muted into carriage and gayly capari.
soned horses, and examines his glass slip.
pers, and then timorously ventured to look
l.,,,, Al \ II