The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1875-02-24
The Report OF tho Louisiana Com.
mittee.

mItt0os
The majority report is brief, clear, con-
vincing, and too compact for condensation
without impairing its force. Referring read
ers to the document itself for the facts and
arguments we will merely state the conclu-
sons of the committee. On one great
and vital point the committee are unani-
NOUS The members who sign the ma
jority report and those who subscribe the
minority report agree in saying, with no
limitation and strong emphasis, that the pro-
ceedings and decisions of the late Returning
Board were illegal. The whole committee
unite in affirming that the Returning Board
awarded seats to candidates for the Legisla-
ture who had no valid title, and deprived
others of seats whose election was clearly
established by the returns. Among all
is not one who pretends to justify,
or even to palliate, the action of
the Returning Board in cooking up icti-
tious republican majority in the new House
of Representatives, when the majority in fact
and in law belonged to the conservatives The
committee who come to this unanimous con-
clusion on the cardinal point of the recent
controversy are too forbearing and respectful
to the President to draw the necessary infer
ence which follows from their judgment of
the Returning Board The omitted logical
inference is that the action of the army on
January was a wanton and meddlesome ex-
ertion of illegal military force to give effect
to the indefensible action of the Returning
Board, and deprive the party which had sue
ceeded in the election of the just fruits Of its
victory. 1t hence follows that even without
any compromise the conservatives are entitled
to the lower house of the Legislature and can
not be deprived Of it without manifest injus-
tice, deliberately persevered in with full knowl-
edge.
While the whole committee are constrained
Board was illegal and indefensible, the
minority attempt to show that intimidation
was practsed upon the colored voters, the
minority thus going behind the actual re-
turns and specializing on what they
might have been in the absence of
tence more completely exploded and demol-
ished by facts than this is in the report of
the majority. They show that the colored
registration exceeded the true colored vote !;
that the census of 1870 showed 87,076 white
and 86,913 colored males over twenty-one
years of age, and that the colored registration
was four thousand in excess of the census
and the white registration was ten thousand
less than the census. This fact alone upsets
and refutes the charge of intimidation by the
conservative side.
Neither branch of the committee investi-
gated the election of 1872, and their opinions
of its validity are mere impressions, founded
on sources Of information open to everybody
Five of the seven members, including all the
republicans, incline to recognize Kellogg
while the two democrats agree with the Senate
committee who investigated the subject two
years ago, that Kellogg has no shadow of q
legal title to the Office. The chief diff
Guilty which obstructs the compromise,
of which there has been 80 much talk, relates
to the official status of Kellogg. The republi-
cans insist that he be acknowledged as the legal
Governor in return for an admission on their
part that the conservatives are entitled to the
recently chosen Legislature. The democrats
think they should not purchase their unques-
tionable right to the lower branch of the Leg
islature by conceding the bogus title of
''Governor" to Kellogg Practically it is
certain that the President will continue to
uphold Kellogg, and for the sake OF the
tranquility of this ve1ed and misgoverned
State we hope the compromise may be effected.