The Ouachita telegraph. [volume] (Monroe, La.) 1865-1889, 1876-01-21
The Last Ditch.


nth, or without brains, to designate the
democrats who have persistently opposed
nd denounced Radical corruption and
as Bourbons, Last Ditchers, &c.
What offense the Democrat is guilty Of
Who has adhered strictly to his principles
md telt he could not in honor yield his
opinions and rights to Radical keeping, we |
have never been able to ascertain with |
certainty; but the fact that the
Radicals have hurled at such Democrats
the maanest phrase In their vocabulary, "a md
them as LAST Ditchers," is
proof conclusive that, in the Radical mind
at least, persistent. out-and-out Demo-
crat II not only sorry politician, but is
unworthy Of public confidence. 1t is, per-
haps, not intended to charge him with rob-
bling hen roosts, AS great many Republic
cans do nocturnally, nor with bigany,
bribery, or malfeassnce, offenses pretty
we'll monopolized by others who are not
Democrats; but it Is intended to blast such
sign him to the worst of all deaths and the
direst of all fates, namely: is place
him where he cannot get an Office.
In visiting this terrible vengeance upon the
Democrat, the Radical avenger OF the
States honor and prosperity has the con-
solation-very small, of course-of remov-
ing an obstacle in the pathway of his party
and of SOLDERING down Democratic opPosi-
ton to something nearer an acquiescence
in the methods adopted by the Radicals to
govern State prosperously and wisely.
How many tall towers i'll Louisiana have
been undermined by simply planting 81
piece of Radical bunting upon their
submits, hearing the ominous words,
last Ditch" it is needless to enurnerate;
their wrecks do not exactly strew the
plains; but more than one, ten, or fifty have
disappeared and their beacon lights with
them. Men whose crime If crime it be, has
been too great zeal in opposing Radical
ism in all its corrupt tendencies as we'll rs
acts, men conspicuous for talent and Scr
vices, have lost their footing in politics and
lie silent and unobserved in the "I.ast
Ditch.'
Cured to you that that "Last Ditch" is not
no much the burial ground of jealous de-
lenders OF the State, as 1t is likely to be
very soon tho strong castle of our defense?
We are tending in u body, like a herd OF
buffaloes, to this veritable Last Ditch. driy-
on and pressed in rear by the remorseless
exactions Of Radical office-holders and by
the yet greater impelling forces of bank
ruptcy, want and desperation. The people
OF Louisiana have now no alternatives but
submission and ruin the ono hand. or n
tyrants, in November, on tho other Here
and there individuals can be found whose
interests run in the same channel with the
men who have ruled the State to its ruin
ana men are not wanting whose timid ma
tnros shrink from a struggle whore blows
must fall thick and fast; but, tho great body
of Louisiana's honest sons are preparing for
last-ditch struggle. They see the decay
going on around them; they feel the heavy
iron hand laid upon industry and toll; they
are witnesses to the vaulting ambition OF
nhfeeling ns'arpers and of tho fast rocedinG
supremacy of intellect over savage ignor-
ance; they see their State accursed, and its
very boundaries avoided by the honest i'm
migrant, and by the open-handed man at
money; in the high places they find isnor-
ance and venality, on the bench men who
take brides, In tho jury box mon who arc
the slaves of superstition, lust and passion,
and have Tor their government laws enacted
In part by the vilest of tho vile. If such a
state of public affairs does not call for one
last mighty effort, superhuman if possible,
there is nothing of sufficient magnitude to
move this people.
But they will move-they must move. or
bow before the encroaching strides of
Negro dominion. Can this be coming
queries some timid soul. Aye, coming is
it! Tho struggle has even begun. Take
the testimony offending Radicals, who, in
the inner chambers of the Negro te mple
have battled hand to hand and foot to foot
with tho sooty leaders of their party for
the supremacy, but who are now emerging
with atirighted visages from the secret con-
tests, and they will toll you that tho African
has won the battle and proclaimed the in
dependence of preponderating numbers
the right and purpose OF his color to rule |
We have never doubted but that this
would be-that the white man who Joined |
the Radicals to keep the colored man in
leading strings, would at last find himself
IN subsection, or be forced for the sake of
his property, if for no other causc, to ,,ban-
don that party. And, thus, wo find that
the Warmouths and SheriStans, who first
Withdrew, arc reinforced by tho Greenes,
Blackburns, Alexanders and the Southern
Republican Club, all of whom are disguised
with their experiments and say plainly
'hey arc weary, weary OF their ebony mas
ters. They have seen the roaring lions of
South Africa and felt the strokes of their
ponderons paws and they have longed, Us
Livingston no doubt did, for the consoling
influences OF better associations and better