The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1875-05-23
CHARLES HoRDHorF on LOUISIANA.

From a very lengthy and extremely inter-
esting letter from Charles Nordhoff to the
New York Herald, written from Franklin IN
this State, we make the following extracts
Mr.. Nordhoff has way of getting at the
truth and Of telling it boldly, and hence ne
may be expected to be classed as o base
hearted traitor and unreliable newspaper
scribbler BY those gentry in the South whose
evil practices he ruthlessly exposes:
STEALING SCHOOL FUNDS.
The school report, to which | have referred,
gives a melancholy picture OF the Louisiana
school system. OF ~. w chlloren Det%een siA
public schools; and as my eye. runs over the
pa ges I find that in one parish the Treasurer OF
the School Board has issued the funds for his
private purposes and paid the teachers in scrip
to the amount Of $4,000; in another S3O, 600 was
spent, and the schools were open less than
year-this in country parish: In two parishes
The school treasurers chad absconded with
ante large amount Ct money belonging to the
school fund.-"
In another "the money appropriated to es-
tabIish schools was invested in private bust
nees and speculation. In yet another ''all the
forms Of law which should govern school affairs
have been totally ignored and disregarded." In
the parish OF st. Martin, the treasurer OF the
the amount of $500. In st. James the School
Board had prudently burned their records when
they left the Office, and j. W. Hunsaker, Presi-
dent Of the board, after giving bal! OF $500 to
answer to the charge OF fraud, left the State.
osTRACIsM, 80 CALLED.
Do YOU wonder, in the tace OF such things as
these that, according to the admission OF Mar
shall Packard himself only five thousand white
men voted the Republican ticket in 1874 That
is to say, the offce-holders and their relatives
Is it matter for surprise that but for the fear OF
the Federal power the people would sweep away
| this State government in an hour-that, IN fact,
these rulers would disappear ofthemselves II they
did not know that they have the Federal Govern
ment behind them? Do you wonder that enter
prise languishes and property is valueless when
men see fair election defeated by fraudulent
Returning Board, aud the President OF the United
States appointing to Federal Office the CHIEF
| officer OF that Board-the engineer OF the fraud
which was denounced as such by two committees
Of Congress? ,
It is not contempt which the people here feel
for their rulers, but fear. The man who takes
part in the State government. even II he should
be honest himself, gives his influence to public
plunderers, and he must expect property owners
| to be shy of him. Did honest men associate with
the Tammany thieves in New York? Or, il they
did were they not in the public opinion, stained
by the contact? "Do you see that many' said
| q citizen in an interior parish to me he's
our parish judge; he is as ignorant OF law
as a horse. During the last election l heard
him openly, and to his face, charged with
theft Not only that, but at public pc
litical meeting where he was speaking, in his
presence, he was accused Of taking bride OF
ten dollars while he was prosecuting attorney
and the man who accused him was the man who
paid him the money. In spite OF this the colored
people we're persuaded to elect MIN ladge;
Every decent colored man in the parish will tell
you that it was unfit nomination; but he got on
the ticket, and the whole bar Of the parish be-
lieyes that he sells justice. He says he is ostra-
csed but can you expect me to invite him to my
house, He could not to-day get invited to the
house of any respectable colored man in the
parish"
"Can you expect us to like people under whose
rule such frauds go on for years and are unpun-
shed2" asked another; who allow the fountains
crime and are too corrupt to check corruption in
their subordinates; who degrade the very schools
to serve their partisan purposes; appoint rogues
to collect the taxes, and frame returning board
to cheat us by clumsy and glazing fraud, when
we try at the elections to procure better govern
ment?"
| must reserve to another letter some details
of the actual political condition OF the State.
CHARLES kORDHOFF