The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1874-04-16
BAYOU PLAQUEMINE.
Editor Ne Orleans Bulletin:

Editor Ney Orleans Bulletin:
The horror and Indignation provoked by
the thwarted project Of the authorities to
open the Bayou Plaquemine, at a sacrifice of
life and property compared to which Sher-
mans march through the Shenandoah, or
have appeared mercifnl, demand that the
parties guilty Of conceiving that atrocious
scheme shall be brought to justice. Gov
ernOr Kellogg, who, after issuing the fearful
order, was induced to revoke it, is repre-
scented as having acted at the suggestion
and under the advice Of the Levee Com
pany, body whose princely revenues,
wrung from gasping people, has in special
charge our protection from the very ca
lamities which they stand accused Of having
coolly ant: deliberately planned.
Now, we are prepared to believe that the
Governor did not, in . matter involving
such mOmentOus consideration of life and
property, act upon his own motion. We are
ready 10 acquit him Of the charge Of mali
cionsly devising the project Of wholesale
destruction of a large portion of the people
and the territory over which he rules. We
can neither see nor imagine any interest,
financial or political, which could induce
him to mediate the ruin Of at least eight
parishes, the very garden of the State.
Whence, then, came the devilish counsel
upon which he, in confding ignorance of
the CONFORMATION of the country which
he is supposed to represent, was
prepared to act! Who were the en-
gineers, the planters, the representative
men among the oldest and best, who, to
subserve their own selfish ends, cOntrived,
proposed and induced him to adopt and at
tempt to execute the gigantic roydde of the
fairest portion of louisiana There are
men in our midst who for years past while
clamorng against thieves and carper-bag-
gers and hiding behind the stained ruins Of
ancient responsibility, have preyed upon
the miseries of the people and fed fat upon
mOnopOlies founded upon their distress and
erected during their he plessness. Was it
the same harpieS WAC, ke Sheridan's crew,
have marked IL path Of desOlation-was it
they who Missed the 6endish counsel into
the ear of crednlOus Executive'
These are questions requiring an answer,
and they must be answered now or here
after.
Consider, Mr. Editor, that by the cutting
of the Plaquemines levee, the angry rush of
the floods would, in one hour, have annihi-
lated the town OF Plaquemne, ia one day
overwhelmed Iberville and West Baton
Rouge, in one week shrouded in the fatal
waters, the larger portions of Assumption,
Ascension, Lafourche, Terrebonne, st. Mary
and Iberia and consigned their inhabitants
to fate which not all the hatred engender-
ed by state of war, could during it's great
est violence, induce our cOnquerOrs to inflict
upon us. These are facts, not the dire fan
cies of the terrOr-stricken nor the dreams OF
nightmare. While realizing the appalling
fact that there are men in our midst, men in
positions of trust, of power, of "respecta-
bility,. who would calmly survey prospect
of deliberately devised desolation at which
even the genius of vengeance turns pale;
common instinct, the instinct of selfpreser-
walton applied to the future the instinct OF
demands inexorably that those men shall
be known. Let their names be named. Let
the Governor proclaim them to the people
Let the people emblazon them in the
heraldry Of shame, and turning for while
from the jaws Of the crevasse, let them call
for the ready rope and find the convenient
limb. ACCESSION.