The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1875-01-23
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Ths Report Of he SUBCOMMITTEE.


The report Of Messrs Foster, Phelps, and
Potter is one of the most remarkable and i'm.
portant political documents OF recent years.
II has rarely happened that Committee Of
Congress deputed to investigate any subject
having direct partisan bearing has been able
to arrive at a unanimous conclusion. Party
considerations have their weight with the most
upright and patriotic of men, swerying them
from the line Of impartiaity, sometimes
against their resolutions and without their
knowledge. II was natural that consistent
Democrat like Mr.. Potter aud a stanch Grant
Republican like Mr.. Foster or Mr. Phelps
should look at the conduct ofthe Adminstra.
ton in Louisiana with very different eyes.
But whatever their sympathies or predsposi.
tons may have been, they were otlong in dis
covering that TO the story Of Louisiana there
was only one side. They invited Kellogg and
his friends to state their own case. They listen.
ed to counsel. They examined nearly one hun.
bred witnesses, and heard what will amount
when printed TO fifteen hundred pages of
testimony; and If common report speaks
truth, the Republican members did all that
honest men could do to find their party in the
right. The result was laid before the country
last Saturday, and We believe no good citizen
has read it without amazement aud indigna.
ton.
For notorious as the rascaitieso Of Kelloge's
Government have always been, VIC never
knew until now how utterly without palliaton
were its outrages, how complete was its sub
version OF all the principles of popular
republican administration. The wrongs com.
mitted by the Returning Board hardly deserve
the name Of frauds, for fraud supposos some
pretense OF integrity, while the operations of
this precious company of scamps were so bold
tn hn narplv n dafnnra Of Ia 81
The Committee give specimens of the process.
ses by which they reduced Conservative
majority of 20 in the Legislature to minority
OF .. The comm0nest trick was to throw ont
returns on pretense OF Intimidation" Of the
negroes. In not one instance, after the most
careful inquiry, could the Committee discover
that such state Of things existed. The vote
of tho whole parish of Rapides was reversed
on the affidavit of the President of the Re.
turning Board that intimidation had been
praeticed at three Of the polls, this gentleman
not having been in the parish on the day of
the election, aud declining to give any lesti
mony before the Committee. II further an.
peared that his affidavit Rad been smuggled
into the proceedings of the Board without
the knowledge of the Conservative counsel,
and moreover II appeared, from the invest.
cations of the Committee, that his statement
was entirely false. In one place certain petty
local iunetionarcs appointed by Kellogg, and
! displaced by McEnery, had not returned to
claim their offices after the suppression of the
September instruction, merely because the
| Offices were not worth anything that was
called intimidation and made q pretext for
rejecting votes In another case Federal
Commissioner was visited by procession of
citizens to offer bail for certain persons under
arrest, aud he called that a derision of his
proceedings which was calculated TO init.
midate the colored voters la another case.
when there was Conservative majority O.
1000 Radical Supervisor stole his own
returns. In another case the Supervisor hid
himself until the time within which the re.
turns were required to be delivered to him
had passed. and then where they showed
Conservative majority he refused to receive
them; but If the majority was the other way
the limit of time was not observed. No negro
could be found who protested to have been
inundated. No white man had any evidence
that such thing had been done. On the
contrary, the Committee report that the vic.
lence was on the other side, and the whole.
sale military arrests of Conservatives for
political olienses served so intimidate and
sometimes even to produce a stampede among
the white voters Otherwise they believe
the recent election to have been unusually
free and fair. Respecting the counting Of the
vote, they reach the very moderate conclusion
''that the action Of the Returning Board on
the whole was arbitrary, unjust and illegal,
and that this arbitrary, unjust, and illegal
action alone prevented the return ola majority
ofCOnseryatiye membersto the LowerHouse. V
They could not say less than this, and il they
had not possessed an enviable power of self
control they could hardly have said so little
Aud what af =. = a.
thus uxurps authority and perpetuates its
usurpation by setting aside elections? The
Committee tell us that it is huge organiza-
ton of corrupt Rings, hated and despised by
the whole people aud '.only upheld by the
Federal military. The Governor yields a de.
gree of power scarcely equalled by any soyer.
eign in the world" His Legislature has abol.
ished and setup courts in order to fill the bench
with his creatures. Every kind of political
control has been lodged in his hands. The
police force of New Orleans has been turned
into an armed State militia subject to his or
ders. The extraordinary election law has
given him absolute control over the registra
ton, casting, and counting votes, and made
it almost impossible TO dislodge him. Indef
mite appropriations of money are placed at
his disposal, and unheard-of monopoles are
created for his benefit Under this system Of
fallen in two years from 50 to 20, and Of the
City of New Orleans from 90 to 40. Business
is destroyed. Allyalues are rapidly tumbling
Taxes can no longer be paid. Estates are
conhscated. The negroes throughout the
country parishes are turning fresbooters.-
The public debt increases even beyond the
generous limit of the law. Kellogg and his
crew grow rich while Louisiana is ruined.
There, gentlemen Of the United States Sen.
ate and House of Representatives, is n picture
of your doings, drawn by three of the ablest
of your own associates. Do not imagine that
you can humbug the people by throwing the
blame of this shocking state of affairs upon
William Pitt Kellogg. He is nothing but your
creature. You allowed the President to
thrust him into the place he abuses. You
have refused to turn him out when you have
had the power, though you have known for
more than two years what he is You sus.
tanned him in spite of the disclosures Of the
Senate Committee in 1875 and you mean to
sustain him now, in spite Of the revelations
of Messrs. Foster, Phelps, and Potter. 1t
has been worse crime than negligence or
seryility ON your part for you have done all
this with your eyes wide open, that you might
use Kellogg to control the vote of Louisiana
for the Administration. Go on, ifyou choose,
and complete the outrage. Sanction all that
the President has done. Seat Pinchback and
thank Sheridan. The people will settle with
Kellogg and all the rest Of you by and by
Meanwhile the Report of the Sub Commute,
passes into history as the most terrible indict
ment ever brought against any political fac
ton by its own members, and there are many
of you who will read in it the death warrant
Of the Republican party.
Lieut.. Col. Long, formerly the editor
of a newspaper in Maryland, and now an
officer in the service of the Khedive of
Egypt, claims to have discovered the true
source of the Nile, in south latitude 1890,
and between Urondogani aud Uganda.
He reports that on his way up the Nile he
aud his little army of two men were at
tackled by four hundred of Keba Rcgas
men, whom he repulscd with loss to the
ASSISTANTS Of eighty-two killed, including
two of the M'tongoh chiefs, but without
suffering any damage to his own party
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