New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1876-12-03

politicians who have always relied upoz
the expenditures Of tho city as q means O.
existence and Office, have accumulated q
debt of $23, 600, 900 upon the taxable
property and industry Of the people. and
yet there is q large portion of the city
whose inhabitants were lately for many
weeks without even clean water to wash
their clothing, or even to quench thei,
thirst or cook their vlctuals. When this
water famine was at its point of highest
intensity, an officer of the city govern
ment reported that the Tangipahoa river
offered supply of clean and healthy wa
ter, and the starving people were mad
dened to contrast the mirage of promise
with the arid and burning desert Of
fact. And now when the elements have
no longer withheld their bounty from
thirsty thousands, comes that terrible and
malignant enemy-the fire. 1t comes on
the coolest day of our winter. 1t wreaks
its cruelty upon the poorest among our
people. It turns out hundreds homeless,
and deprives others of the limited income
of rents scaled to insignifcance by cor
porate taxes. Not water pipe, nor a
hydrant, nor we'll to protect nearly halt
million of property, and a thousand
souls. The mockery of sluggish and
feeble stream stealing for mile along the
cutters, and arriving when the red demon
has accomplished his mission. The finest
engines that Northern skill could fill or
Southern money pay for, avoid the broken
bridges and unpaved streets only to stand
idle until the tardy and insufficient water
flow should arrive.
We set all this loss of property and all
this misery to the entire neglect of the
city safety by those of all parties who
have administered the corporate govern
ment in the past, up to and at the pres
ent. The Republican party at the last
election testified its convictions of this
popular error by an offer to abdicate all
political issues in the choice of men who
would supply the city water upon its
streets, and provide for the prevention
and extinction of the fires. They even
nominated Democrats for city Offices, and
by resolution absolved all Republicans
who might, in consideration of order,
economy and efficiency in the Admins
traitors of the city, vote for Democratic
from any breach of fdel-
ity to the Republican party. gnder
this patriotic purpose and with this lib
eral dispensation the Republican vote was
cast for many Democratic candidates for
city Offices. Democracy spurned
all such overtures. 1t preferred solid
grab at the Offices and contracts of the
city to the continued protection from fire
and water famine. The Republicans have
shown their appreciation of this necessity
for the protec ton of people and property.
The Democracy have claimed the city gov
eminent in the same monopoly which to-
day finds large part of the city in such
a deplorable deficiency of water, of
street ways and sanitary protection.
The REPUBLICAN has often appealed to
the people of New Orleans to abate their
political intemperance and intolerance;
to allow truce of partisan warfare until
at least the dead Interests Of our commerce
shall have been buried and its crippled
energies healed. The Last Ditchers have
refused. They will still refuse. Subsist-
ing on the patronage of Office, they have
not responded to the official reforms in
troduced by the Republican party. Aristo-
Indifferent to popular suferings,
they feel alone for the political paupers,
and demand the Inauguration of Last
Ditch President as panacea for all the
ills, individual, commercial and social, to
which New Orleans is subject. To such
doctrine, in the abstract, we might make
The reply of argument and refutation. To
such consequences Of misgovernment as
he famine of water and the ravages of
ire We can only point to the ruin which
hey have occasioned.