New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1875-10-17
THE COMMITTEE AND THE SCHOOL d.
RECTORS

THE COMMITTEE AND THE SCHOOL d.
RECTORS.
In replying to the report OF the School
Directors, those two great Southern jour
nails, the Bulletin and Times (the Plea
yelne, in very able and polished terms,
says nothing, have fallen into some
characteristic errors The Times espe-
cially, in assuming that the directors
claimed the forty thousand who remained
away from the mass meeting as being OPP
posed to the four thousand who attended
clearly passes the bounds of fact or rea-
son. The directors claimed no such
thing. 1t will be seen by reference to the
text OF their report, that they made this
proposition: 1t is no greater violation of
logic to say that the forty thousand who
did not attend were Indifferent to the
movement, than to assert that the two or
three thousand who did attend repre-
sented the sentiment of the entire COM
munity. This may be bubble; per-
haps it Is bubble. But it has advan-
tages over that threadbare and attenuated
bubble by which newspapers of little or
no circulation, and mass meetings, COM
posed of curious, sightseeing, idle per-
sons, declare themselves "the people,"
and insist upon the recognition
of the claim by mankind in
general. That is old, while this
of the directors is new We might
very reasonably deny that these news
papers, whose combined constituencies
do not amount to one-twentieth of the
white population of this city alone, have
no sort of authority to speak for the
people; and we might also repudiate the
result Of that formula, after which few
discontinued men can always get together
crowd in New Orleans. We could also
state as counter proposition-an this
with perfect truth-that whereas the op-
ponents of the School Board assembled
two thousand human beings to listen to
their eloquence and share their indigna-
ton, the friends of the School Board or
those who are satisfied with its admins
tration, can at any time, on half the
notice, gather together twice four thou
sand to celebrate their sentiment. Doubt
less the Bulletin and Times would call this
quibbling-and who shall deny that it is
Yet the fact would remain that the anti
School Board mass meeting can be eff
fectually neutralized by School Board
mass meeting, and that, SO far as it goes
with its speeches and resolutions, there is
nothing proved.
We do not wish, however, to let the
controversy rest here. 1t does not suit
our purpose to stop after showing that
the mass meeting and newspaper logic
establishes no case. There is another ar
gument triumphantly-rather ostenta-
tiously-advanced by the peoples COM
mittee," which We feel called upon to an
swer-the argument that majority of
the school directors are ineligible by
reason of the clause in the constitution
providing that no one shall hold more
than one office of trust or emolument at
the same time. Messrs. Dibble, Pinch
back, Longstreet, Stamps and others are
called upon to resign under this PROPOSE
ton. The ''people's committee" felicitate
themselves as over great and unanswer-
able discovery, and ask the public to OBJ
serve the callous hardihood of these
wretches who disregard the constitution
of their beloved State. We should have
replied to this before, but having been
given to understand that there was a
lawyer on the committee, it occurred to
us the correction and withdrawal of the
count might, in courtesy, be allowed to
come from its authors. No such
correction or withdrawal has, however,
appeared. The legal talent of the COM
mittee does not come into play. Any one,
we should think, might have remembered
the case of Dorsey VS.. Vaughan, reported
in Fifth Annual, page 1856, where the Su-
preme Court decided, in a case almost
parallel with the present, that "the incom-
patibility contemplated by the constitu-
ton is the holding of two State Offices"
Vaughan was declared eligible to the posi-
tons of sheriff and tax collector of the
same parish, on the ground that the office
of tax collector was municipal and that
of sheriff State Office. There is q still
later instance, that of P. G. NOLAN, who
in 1867 was City Controller, and during
his term of Office was elected to the State
Senate. The Democratic Senate of that
year recognized Mr.. Mohan's right to hold
both places.
May We not retaliate now and say that
this proposition Of insligibiiity 10 ,quib-
bling on the part Of the peoples COM