St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1879-01-10
From the Boston Journal, Dec 81
Terrorism and Outrage in Louisiana.

We have already given brief alb
stracts OF the reports of Federal officers
i'll South Carolina relating to the gen.
eral system of fraud by which the elec-
tlOn in that State was carried by the
Democrats. In South Carolina fraud
was generally relied upon, with occa-
sianal arrests and exhibitions of force,
to secure Il Democratic triumph. In
Louisiana the methods were the re
verse. Force and violence were chiefly
relied upon to defeat the Republicans,
and the bIief abstracts and extracts
tIom the official reports of Fedral Off
GERS and others in that State will prove
beyond doubt that at no period in the
history of that disgraced and misruled
State, has terrorism been more sys-
tt"uatiEllly or cruclly carried int0 e.
tcct. he rccltaI seems Incredible to
people who live in the North, but the
sources from which these many ac-
counts come force one to conclude that
not half of the story has yet or ever
will be told.
The papers to which we allude and
from which our information is derived
will be presented in full to the Senate
when it reasSembles and will convince
all who are open to conviction that the
Blaine Investigation is demanded, if foI
no other purpose than to let the coum-
try know 10y what means the ten or tif-
teen Democratic majority in the next
National House WAS obtained.
The first paper is the report of Deputy
Marshal Mcconnell to Marshal Wharton
of his investigation of the circumstances
of the Waterproof massacre which oc-
Cured some time before the election
and was heralded throughout the coun-
try aS y negro msurrection." The re-
port is 81 brief that we give the whole
of it:
"After the Democrats had held their
Parish Convention, they, through the
local authorities, forbade the Republi-
cans from holding one. The negroes
gathered for consultation ut the resi-
dence of Alfred Fairfax, their leader,
himself Il coloIed man and the Republi-
can candidate for Congress. The Dem
ocrats, pretending that they feared
negro insulrectiOn,' got out the white
militia of the parish, under Capt. Peck,
and advanced upon FaiIfaX's house for
the purpose of ascertaining what the
cOlored men were up to. One shot was
fired from the house, which killed Capt.
Peck, and to revenge his death his
company charged the house and killed
large number of colored. T. saws the
Deputy, could not ascertain the exact
number killed. Democratic reports
place it at six, and the Republicans at
sixty-tve. Capt. Peck was the only
white man killed during the entire
campaign. After this affair at Fairfax's
house bodies of armed white men from
the neighbOring parishes and the cOun-
ties i'll Mississippi across the river con-
tinued to ride about the parish for the
ostensible purpose of preventing a negro
insurrectiOn. 'The result was the COM
plete decentralization of the negro pop
ulation, and | was told large numbers
had joined the Democratic party as a
measure of safety"
Under the date of November IA,
Deputy Marshal Bancroft makes re-
port to Marshal Wharton of the in
timidation and Outrages committed in
West Feliciana parish. 1t tappears that
Bancroft was sent there to inquire into
the. complaints of letters to the Marshal,
and on this point he reports that
"The negroes making the complaints
dare not do anything that will implicate
themselves i'll any prosecutions. Not
one of them dare go into a court and
testify. They say it would endanger
their lives, and when it comes to get
ting the negroes to testify, that is en-
tirely out of the question. The negroes
who have been whipped know every
man but are afraid to say So"
The Deputy gives the names of men
who were whipped because they took
some interest in politics, and the names
of the men who perpetrated the out
RACES. A white preacher who was
whipped complained to Gov. Nichols,
but with no result so far as known. At
the polls election in Ward 9, armed
men compelled negroes to vote the
Democratic ticket if they voted at all.
Henry Adams, colored man living
near Shreveport, has written Attorney
General Devens letter from which the
following extract is taken, to illustrate
the nature of the outrages in the
country about that town:
"* In other parts of the parish