The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1874-07-05
MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS.

= The powers, privileges and limitations
corporations are subjects which have ever a
tracted and taxed the attention and study
the jurist, lawgiver and legislator. At I
period has the necessity been more urgel
than at the present time, to inquire into tt
workings and operation Of our State, count.
parish and municipal constitutions and cha
ters. The abuses Of power under these hay
been SO frequent and fragrant, and the COZ
struction of their grants and privileges s
loose, that the evils resulting therefrom hav
begun to arouse public attention to the neces
sity Of adopting vigorous remedies and i'm
posing unmistakable checks, or else genera
and certain bankruptcy is the near fate Q
most municipal corporations in this country
In supplementary work to his able treatis
on Municipal Corporations, the Hon. John F
Dillon, distinguished circuit judge of tn
United States, developes the astounding fac
that the interest paying obligations of the
several States, counties and cities of this
Union exceed several times in amount the
entire public debt of the Federal Government
May not this immense indebtedness be the
root of the insidious disease which even now
paralyses the industry and commerce of this
country, and daily saps the prosperity of the
present generation? One thing is certain, at
the rate we have been going, those who are to
come after us, can only inherit legacy of
debt and trouble which they assuredly should
not accept without benefit of inventory.
Public funded debts are financial contri-
vances of modern times Generally they have
had their origin in the enormous expenditures
Of modern warfare. The consolidated debt Or
Great Britain owes its existence to the great
NapOleOnic wars, when the Unsuitable ambition
of her great minister prompted him to supply
with money the deficiency of England in the
war material required for that gigantic contest
But there is another class of public debt, and
that is the one which most concerns us; the
debt created in part by a feverish ambition to
ievelope wealth too suddenly, in the absence
If necessity, and in advance Of population;
such as we have incurred in constructing and
squipping railroads over deserts and mountains
except by savages and wild beasts.
Another, by far the most grievous and cumber-
ome, is that immense floating and funded
lebt created by our modern Legislators, alder
men, administrators, county supervisors, po-
ice jurors etc, under the guise and pretext of
ostering public improvements This is the |
'urthen under which populations of States, |
ounties and cities are grooming. Toll as they
nay, economist as much as possible. the sur
lus, if any they have, of their commercial
ursuits, of their agricultural products, of
leir rents and labor, is absorbed by the in
rest Of bonded debt, purchased in
lost instances at half of its face
'lue. Now, it is glaring fact
lat the greater portion Of this
sbt has been created and issued
rough On assumption Of doubtful power and
lder loose and vague construction Of the
charters and statutes regulating
ese several communities. Administrators
ID councilmen of the IlceeI order, have, in a
v years, doubled the Indebtedness of nearly
American cities; and these debts, convenient
,lslatures, under the control of rings have
Inverted into bonds to be manipulated by in !
'ested fiscal agencies The poor public have q
d no voice in these matters. Their property,
cir labor, their happiness, have been at the
'rcy Of INSCRIPTIONS manipulators, corrupt,
lnken, dissolute aldermen and administra- u
s who have been foisted in Office by combi- .
lions or through fair promises, and, who
&c installed, have used their official power e
grind their constituents
All that is left to the latter is to pay their 81
es, and if, through sheer inability unable e
do this, then their property, even their .
mes. are ruthlessly seized and sacrificed IL
der the forms of law The time is at hand
en- 1t becomes necessary to divest public
GERS Of the power to impose obligations Of
: kind The issue of bills of credit, of o,
Ids, of certificates and other evidences of r
It must be prohibited No public work Il
uld be undertaken or contracted for, unless D
money be on hand or provided for to pay. =
zzle ferocious dog if you wish to protect
rself from his bite As to the present -
antic debt, its fate will be decided in the :.
r future.
reat diseases consume themselves aud fur !.
their own remedy. As recently decided ~
he United States Supreme Court, in the =;
erton case, municipal corporations cannot ~,
d the payment of their debts According 49,
ae theory Of the law, the principal is bound Ia
his agent, but revolutions are not con- IL,
ed by distractions legal barriers are soon VII
,t away by their irresistible tides A few co
$ ago, slavery was constitutionally guaran- ox
. yet single dash Of President Lincoln's
swept away that institution and Invested a..
owners of two thousand million dollars III
In of slave property who can say that the :.
ng masses Of this country will not tire of D.
wing a load packed on their shoulders by be;
apt and scheming administrations. No On
regrets the reputation Of the continental Ia.
, or bushes for the act No sickly senti- no;
tality, we predict, would attend the re-