New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1874-07-12
KEEPING UP A BAD NAME.

1 BrleIS as publle mlefOftunes, ana cry auu
scream like spoilt children till they have
their own way. These discordant sounds
reach out far and wide. Quiet people
living across the waters or the broad ex-
pause of our own continent hear the dis
turbance and the false complaints, and
avoid us. To these shriekers for office
we are indebted for more than half if not
all of the real evils that beset us. A very
small fraction of the physical energy now
applied to Office seeking, fault finding,
and disappearing the acts and motives
of Republican officials and leaders would
if diverted to the hoe the pillow, the jack
plane or the blacksmiths hammer, add
wonderfully to the resources, and thus
diminish the poverty, Of the people. 1t is
in fact matter of very little moment to
one who never earns anything, how high
the taxes are, or whether one man or an
other administers the government.
Whatever may be said to the contrary
by distempered ofice-seekers, the affairs
| of this State are conducted by the very
hands that produce ive-sixths of the
wealth, or those of their chosen repre-
sentatives. Without the immense motive
power supplied by the one hundred thou
sand colored latorers, our planters would
soon find themselves too poor to buy
paper enough to write mortgage on,
and their now wealth producing acres
would be worth just SO many Of wild
lands and no more. They live, and live
in comfort and luxury off the half paid
work of their field hands, to whom they
owe all they have and are. If there is any
obligation at all I'M the matter it is on their
side; for labor is as essential to production
as capital and credit. But it seems to suit
idle population those who neither work
themselves nor employ others-to hold
the class of laboring men as the only de-
pendent element. They claim for the
lords of the cotton field the right to ex-
ercise proprietorship over the political
consciences and votes of the newly en-
franchized citi zens. This claim has been
asserted in various ways. 9 In 1866 and
1868 violence was resorted to, in the
hope that the usually good natured
and plant negroes could be scared
into supporting, exclusively, white DEM
ocrats for Office. This policy resulted
in disastrous failure, and the discom-
flied elements spent the next three or
four years in venting their spite in a
wordy abuse Of the colored man and
his white friends. In 1872, they changed
their tactics, but not their principles, and
tried to delude the colored people into
the support of white mans ticket. As
a blind, they put an unimportant colored
man on their State ticket for little Office
worth $4,000 year. The majority of the
voters declined to surrender the whole
power of the State for such slight con-
siderations, and CALAMITY carried their
point against the best organized system
of fraud this very experienced people ever
saw or heard Of Baffled again, the enc
mics of the State returned to their old |
tactics of abuse, Misrepresentation, and
general bad conduct. The very latest |
absurdity which they propose, is to |
starve the negroes out. They failed to |
scare them, and tried in vain to cheat |
them. Starvation has therefore been |
voted the great panacea, and some OF the
more stupid Of the Democracy actually
believe this is feasible. But, in the lam
guage of the Declaration Of independence, |
"a decent respect for the opinions Of man
kind" requires them to allege some sub
stantial reason for this sort Of conduct.
Hence the papers of that ilk are made to
TEEN with frightful accounts of what the
negroes are about to do. Not what they
have ever done. Even the poor murdered
negroes of Grant parish were never ac-
cused of having done anything wrong.
ALI that could be alleged against them was
that many people thought they intended
at some future day to do very terrible
things. Upon this insubstantial charge a
hundred or so of them were killed and
successful plea Of justification filed on
trial. Now the white leagues are sought
to be justified in the war they are about to
inaugurate upon the same fimsy pretext.
It is admitted the colored people are
working we'll all over the country, but they
intend to become disorderly and dangerous!
by next year we shall again have
Judge Bradley sent for to show the way
out of another difficulty with the law.
The Judge is very popular here just now,
and his opinions are received as a sort of
new gospel.
In the meantime We have commercial
enemies abroad who are busy with our
reputation. The st. Louis Democrat and
Republican,; the New York Herald, World
and Sun; the Cincinnati Enquirer, Com
mercial and Gazette; the Chicago Tribune
and Times; the Louisville COurier-Journal,
to say nothing of large swarm of
smaller and less influential papers all
over the country, eagerly seize upon every
falsehood which our disloyal citizens con-
coct and publish it to the world as indica-
tive of the condition of Louisiana. The
papers most friendly to us can do no more
than afford us mild support, having
their own local interests to look after, and
there are few of them, either friendly or
hostile, who do not imagine that by some
means or another anything which damages