The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1875-01-26


Office to the secretary of state, although there
was no pretence that the election was not a
fair representation of the will of the people,
the whole vote of the parish was rejected
and the case referred to the legislature. So
in Terre Bonnie parish, where there was a
conservative majority. it was proved that
the commissioners of election, through
misapprehension of their duties, inclosed
all the returns in the ballot boxes and
deposited them with the clerk OF the
court with whom the law required the
boxes to be left. The Judge OF the
court thereupon issued a mspdamus COM
handing the clerk to take the returns from
the boxes and forward thsm to the secretary
of state, which was dope. Nevertheless the
board rejected the returns from these polls,
thereby giving the parish to the repub-
licans with the result of choosing repub-
lican senseor, two republican members of
the legislature, and the republican parish
officers. Without now referring to other
instances, we are constrained to declare that
the action of the returning board, on the
whole, was arbitrary, unjust, and in our
opinion, illegal, and that this arbitrary, I'M
just, and illegal action alone prevented the
return by the board of majority OF cOnser-
vative members to the lower House. Upon
the general subject of the state of affairs in
the South, and as to whether
THE ALLEGED WRONGS
to colored citizsns for political offences are
real or were asserted without due founda-
ton, your committee took such proof as the
opportunity offered. Both parties sgreed
upon four parishes as samples of the condi-
ton of affairs in that respect in the
state. OF these, owing to the impossi-
bility OF procuring witnesses from the local
ity in time, your committee were obliged to
confine their especial examination TO two
Th6U a
that was offered, and in addition they re-
ceived all the testimony that was then on
hand in New Orleans, offered by either party
as to the condition of affairs in other parts
of the state. AS a whole they are constrained
to say that the intention charged is
not borne out by the facts before us. No
general intimidation of republican voters
was established. No colored man was pro-
duced who had been threatened or assaulted
by any conservative because of political
opinion, or discharged from employment or
refused employment. OF all those who tes-
titled to intimidation there was hardly any
one who, of his own knowledge, could specify
a reliable instance of such acts; and of the
white men who were produced to testify gen.
orally on such subjects, very nearly all. if
not every single one, was the holder of an
office. Throughout the rural districts of the
state the number of white republicans are
very few. It hardly extends beyond those
with them. No witnesses, we believe, sue
ceeded in naming in any parish five repub-
lican5 who supported the kellogg govern
ment who were not themselves ofice-holders
or related to ottice-hoiders, or those having
official employment. On the other hand,
applications to the United States commits
sioners in the various parishes, not only for
alleged crimes, but because of alleged
threats of discharge and non-employment.
or other interference with political prefer
ence were frequent. Upon these applica.
tions warrants were often issued, and white
citizens arrested and bound over for trial.
In many localities the federal troops were
detained for service under the marshals and
deputy marshals, and not only made many
arrests immediately before the election, but
the reports that they were coming to partic-
ular ueighborhoods about the time of the
election for the purpose of
MAKING SUCH ARRESTS,
served, as the conservatives claimed, to in
and sometimes even to produce
stampede among the white voters. How
differently the two parties look upon the
same fact will appear from the testimony of
Mr.. Riddle. He was United
States commissioner in the parish
of Ieria; shortly before the election,
upon the application of colored persons, he
issued large number of warrants; he con-
sidered it his duty upon the arrest of the
persons charged to require bail from sure
ties who possessed landed estates within the
parish, certified to by the assessor of the
parish to be of sufficient value, and of which
the title was approved by the register of
deeds. This rule necessarily produced delay
in procuring bail for persons arrested, and he
was waited on in one case by q procession
of citizens who offered him bond signed by
every man in the procession. This he re.
garded as in derision of his proceedings and
refused to receive the bond. He was called
as witness to prove the intimidation that
existed in that parish. He had himself no
knowledge ofany act of the kind except the
procession, which, he thought, was calcu-
lated to intimidate the colored voters He
had no idea that the arrests made upon his
warrants and the proceedings under them
had any effect in interfering with the con-
sentative voters. On the other
hand, the conservatives in that
neighborhOod thought about this
just the reverse. indeed, the reports of the
military officers in command of the forces of
the United States in the country, though
generally Indicating a condition of quiet and
order, take sometimes an entirely different
view of the situation. On the other hand, il
was in evidence that the blacks who sought
to act with the conservative party WERE on
their part, sometimes exposed to enmity and
abuse. In the interior one colored man was
shot for making conservative speech, and
in New Orleans it appeared from the testi-
mony that colored men who sought to CO.
operate with the conservatives were subject
to so much abuse from the police and other
wise that an association of lawyers volun-
teered to protect them, but with
little effect. The general condition
of affairs in the state of Louis
lana seems to be as follows: The conviction
has been general among the whites since
1872 that the Kellogg government was an
usurpation. The con viction among them
has been strengthened by the acts of the
Kellogg legislature abolishing existing
courts and judges, and substituting others
presided over by judges appointed by Kel-
logg, having extraordinary and exclusive
jurisdiction over political questions; by
changes in the law centralizing in the gov
ernor every form of political control, includ-
ing the suspension of the elections; by con-
tInuing the returning board with absolute
power over the returns of elections; by the
extraordinary provisions enacted for the
trial oftitles and claims to Office; by the con-
version Of the nQliPa forNo maintained Of III,