The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1874-12-31
THE LOUISIANA QUESTION.
THE LATEST PHASE OF IT.
st. Louis Republican, 2ath inst.

| st. Louis Republican, 2sth inst.
The Louisiana Returning Board has a
last, after a months labor, done what tn
Conservatives charged that it intended to d.
from the beginning returned Kellog'
Legislature, and thereby fastened the kellogg,
Government on the State for two years longer
| This action reminds us of the way things
were done when Fletcher was Governor ant
Rodman Secretary of State-when the latte
assumed, not only to count the votes cast, bu
to adjudicate the qualifications Of the voters
who cast them, and to reverse the people.
decisions at the polls. There was ar
election held in Louisiana on the &c
Of November last, the day before genera
elections in a great number of the States
| and it was again and again announced that
the Conservatives had carried the State
electing their candidate for State Treasurer
four out of six Congressman and a majority
of the members of the new Legislature.
There was nothing more surprising in this
than in the simultaneous announcement that
the Democrats had carried number of Re-
publican States-Ohio, New York, New jersey,
Indiana and Massachusetts,; and the public
settled quietly down in the belief that the
Kellogg party had been beaten. But now we
are told that this is mistake; the Conserva.
tives did not carry Louisiana at the November
election; the Kellogg party carried it, and the
Kellogg party shall have control of it fol-
another term.
There are reasons for believing that this
announcement is predetermined falsehood.
One is the almost universal suspicion that
the board would not make {. true return
another is the manifest suspicion even among
Republican papers that it has not done SO;
and still another is the TACT that it finds it
necessary to accompany its returns with a
lengthy apology or explanation. The board
declares that it rejected the votes Of all pre-
cincts and parishes in which fraud and intlml-
dalton of voters were resOrted to. The intimi-
dation referred to means intimidation OF COL
ored voters by the White League, and does not
include intimidation of white voters by
the United States troops in certain parishes.
This the board admits, for when it was asked
to exclude the votes Of certain precincts Of
Natchitoches and Bossier parishes, because
white voters had been frightened from voting
by the threatening conduct OF the troops, it
declined to do so. That it thus excluded
every poll where intimidation Of colored
voters was alleged and refused to exclude
any where intimidation OF ,chite voters was
similarly alleged, proves the partisan charac-
ter of its action.
The board pleads as an excuse for throwing
out the returns from many parishes that IS the
election was very loosely conducted by the
commissioners of election, SO much SO that
not at one-tenth Of the polls in the State
were the forms required by law complied
with" Suppose this to be true-and there is
no doubt it is true-what does it prove Sim
ply, that the misconduct Of the election by
the Kellogg commissioners was part Of the
general scheme of fraud by which Kellogg
Legislature was to be, and has been returned.
The election officers were appointed by KEEL
logg, and If they neglected to comply with
the law in Conservative parishes, their neglect
was no doubt wilful device to invalidate the
vote and deprive the Conservative Of their hon.
est triumph. The board therefore allows the
wrongdoe to profit by his own wrong it
makes the Kellogg government the beneficiary
OF the misconduct of its own dishonest APP
pointees, and deprives the victims of their
misconduct of all remedy. In one parish,
that of De Soto, the Radical Supervisor, it is
said, gave the poll-book to a loose female who
lost or destroyed it. This book showed
large Conservative majority, but the whole
parish was DISTINGUISHED by the act Of the
for, although the Conservatives
asked to be allowed to prove the vote by wit
nesses, the Returning Board refused on the
plea that it had no authority to grant the re-
quest. In other words, the board had au-
thority to do nearly anything in favor Of the
Kellogg candidates, but none to do simple
act Of justice to their opponents; it had au-
thority to reject polls and parishes, without
limit, in the interest of one side, bat none to
either accept or reject poll in the interest of
the other.
A good part of the boards apology is taken |
up with discussion of the White League,
which is charged with intimidating colored |
voters by threatening to deprive them of work |
and to drive them from plantations in case
they refused to vote the Conservative ticket. |
All the proof of such ntimidations-which |
are now heard of for the first time-that the |
board required was few atfdavits from one |
side and on this species Of false and worth |
less testimony it assumes to amend the Off |
clal returns Of State election and deprive |
the majority Of their triumph.
No one can regard this second fraud as a |
settlement of the Louisiana question. The |
predicted a year ago that an |
election held under the Kellogg officials |
would be a mockery, and here we have a |
board of Kellogg officials admitting that it |
was mockery, for its address declares that |
had the board required strict compliance |
If law in holding the election, and making the |
.eturns to the Supervisor, the effect would |
nave been that so many OF the polls would |
nave been thrown out that there would have |
been no election in the State In other
words, the Kellogg officials conducted the
election with such disregard Of law that
here was no legal election at all, and the
Returning Board, therefore, assume the task
If choosing Legislature to suit itself. And
% there is no relief for the people Of Louisi-
ma from Kellogg, none from the Kellogg Re-
turning Board and none from the President
III of whom, the President not less than kel-
ogg himself, appear as parties in a monstrous
md wicked conspiracy against liberty. There
8 nothing left but an appeal to the country.
This may seem slow remedy, but, perhaps,
will be found swifter than the weary people
# Louisiana expect. This last fraud will be
nercilessly exposed in the present Congress,
nd go before the people of the North as
resh crime on the part of the administration,
md an additional reason for hurrying it to
he ultimate reckoning. !,