The New Orleans daily Democrat. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1877-1880, 1877-08-26

fishing an institution by which only class Of
our very mixed and diverse population,
only one of the several nationalities COM
posing that population, were to be benefited.
This money could not be used except for the
shelter and sustenanee OF the children OF
poor French citizens, a very limited class. III
there were none of that class it would be
established for no good purpose, and would
devolve upon the Mayor the odium and re-
sponsibility of discriminating between the
races and nationalities. Despite their diff
culties the city, to prevent threatened suits OF
the legal heirs of Mr. Girod, applied the
money to the construction of the necessary
in the public park, on the Metairie
ridge. When the ebuildings were completed the
city did not know what to do with them. The
special beneficiaries could not be found, and
the administration wisely concluded not long
ago to use the buildings fora HOUSE of Refuge
ttssssat girss, atsfl , tpis nrtsaae isy
used.
JOHN D. FINK.
The next of our rich old men who embar-
rassed his legacy with impraeticable condi
tions was John d. Fink, thrifty Wurtem
burger, who left the city large sum for the
establishment of schools for Protestant
children. The administration of this legacy
would impose upon the city the duty OF es-
tablishing religious and sectarian tests in the
application of its bounty and the regulation
of the education of the children, which would
have violated the letter of the constitution
and the spirit of our institutions.
The city declined to assume this RESPONSE
bility, and after getting possession OF the
fund, which involved considerable litigation,
wisely concluded to put it in safe and secure
place by investing the amount in city bonds
and passing to it's credit all the interest as it
became due, and leaving to time and further
reflection and investigation to develope some
practicable plan by which old Mr.. Fink's
bounty could be realized.
Thus these two queer old foreign born citi-
zens have been frustrated in their generous
and benevolent objects, by creating political
agents to do what they might have legally
done during their lives but which it was i'm
practicable for the city to do as their trustee.
JOHN NJ 'DoNOGH.
Then came John McDonogh with his large
estate and his grand complicated plan OF es-
tablishing some ten or twelve educational and
charitable institutions, to be managed by the
cities of Baltimore and New Orleans, with
forty closely written foolscap pages of the
most eccentric and fanciful conditions, re-
strictions, and provisions, such as no other
human being couh ever have conceived, and
which no municipal or other corporation could
ever carry into effect. This will had been the
work of forty years, had been examined by
the most eminent iurists in France and in this
country, and by several Of them had been re
garded as embodying a gigantic conspiracy
to overturn a cardinal principle OF the civi
law forbidding trust estates and creating
titles which were not transferable in com
merce. Among many other absurdities o
| this will it created fourteen executors, VIII,
were all eminent men and high officials of thi
State and of Maryland. They were known t
Mr.. McDonogh chiefly by fame, for he ha'
never been out of the State since his arriva
here at the close of the last century.
TO ABSORB ALL THE PROPERTY OF THE STATE
The crowning popularity of the will wa
an audacious attempt to absorb all the prop
erty Of the State. The several funds as the
accumulated were to be reinvested and onl
after they reached certain very large figure
could any portion thereof, and that a sma
percentage, be applied to the educational an
charitable objects named, the remainder to b
reinvested. 1t was not a very difficult aritf
metical calculation to fix the date wher
through this process, the general estate {
John McDonogh would absorb all the proper
ty in the State. In his will he embrace
thousands of years" as the period for tn
operation of his absorbing system.
Then his bequests to the several educt
tional and charitable institutions, of whic
there were to be some ten or twelve, we1
burdened with some Of the most absurd an
impracticable details in their organize
tion and management. Through them a
ran
SUBLIME EGOISM,
which utterly disregarded the letter, spir
and policy of statutory and municipal laws
, The whole scheme might well hay
been regarded as bold conspiracy to resolH
our whole political and social organizatiC
into the general estate Of John McDonogh,
be governed by the provisions of an acri
monomaniac and miser.
Wild and absurd as was this scheme, it re
|
more to expend several hundred thousar
dollars to obtain judicial decisions, declarin
it's provisions illegal and void, and givin
effect to the bequests to the city stripped
the illegal and impracticabe conditions.
| Under this decision the property passed
, the two cities, who fell by the ears in the d
f vision of the spoils, and were KEPT for son
1 time in the hot water of litigation with tt
. executors and lawyers, until at last a lars
fraction had been absorbed in legal costs, fe
and expenses. Some have estimated the a,
gregate of these costs at million of dollar
s The city of New Orleans alone paid one hui
0 dred thousand dollars to four lawyers f
= their argument in one single suit grown
e out of this will before the Supreme Court
f the State, and of the United States.
: At last the cities got the roppert
f in hand, and sold it out in 10
f and plantations. 1t had in the mea