Louisiana capitolian., 1879-03-29
WHY BATON ROUGE WILL BE THE
CAPITAL,

VC uuNC OO1uIy NuOPVSu ShO uUAO Va
CApIToLIAN for our paper, because of
our faith in the restoration of the Capt.
tai to Baton Rouge. One must be
deaf or blind, who cannot see and
hear the unmistakable voice of the
people courageously rising in their
might to rejuvenate fair Louisiana.
After many years Of suffering and
submissiveness, the men from among
whom sprang the heroes Of Manassas,
Shiloh, Murfreesboro, Port Hudson,
Mansfield, the far off Shenandoah, the
Cemetery Hill of Gettysburg and the
heights Of Chicamauga, whose deeds
have classed LOuisiana's sons among
the matchless soldiers of our South
land, are moving tumultuously forward
to overturn the humiliating work of
our former oppressors. There will
assemble in New Orleans a body Of
representatives freshly elected from
thS-rnhks Of the people, who are 60
ing fearlessly to undo the iniquities of
the past. They are going to reduce
taxation, abolish useless Offices, di-
minish salaries, reform the judiciary,
arrange the public Indebtedness, and
they will undoubtedly abandon that
old and dingy rookery, that last refuge
of Packard's Rump and defunct gov
ernment.
They will restore the Capital to
Baton Rouge, because the popular
voice placed it there in 1886, again in
1855, and lastly, in November, 1878 |!
They will bring it here, because it
was never removed, save by the force
of hostile bayonets, against the popu-
lar will.
The two political parties now in
existence have pledged themselves to
this consummation. In 1872, the Re-
publican convention declared in favor
of removal, and in 1874, the patriotic
assemblage that gathered in conyen-
ton at Baton Rouge, whose spirit
forged the lightning that burst forth
on the ever memorable Fourteenth of
September-reverberating throughout
the country the sound of Freedoms
guns, also decreed that the Capital
should be restored where our fathers
designed it should be.
The representatives to the Conven-
ton are instructed on this question, by
the majority vote given last Novem-
her, and we feel that as true servants
Of the people, they cannot and will
not prove recreant to those instruc-
tiOns.
Everybody remembers the extra
sessions that have followed every as
sembling of the General Assembly
since the war, the daily adjournments
after two or three hours sitting, the
continued neglect to attend to the
committee duties at night, by the
members drawn as they were to the
theatres and the alluring saloons sf the
Crescent City. The omnibus and ill.,
matured legislation of the last two
days of each session, when the most
important bills were being rushed
through almost without reading their
titles.
None but men who look only to the
qualification OF their pleasures and
appetites, in utter disregard of the
toiling masses at home will vote for
retaining the Capital in the dingy,
dark and impure atmosphere of the
st. Louis Hotel, where legislation is
enacted in the midst of throng of
bummers and loungers.
Those are the reasons that make it
certain in our mind that an assem-
blage composed of true-hearted Lou
isianians, will bring back to Baton
Rouge the seat Of government, and
where, with biennial sessions of the
General Assembly, and a small per
diem to its members, good class of
representatives will come to devise
the best means of restoring the com
merce, the agricultural, educational,
internal improvements, and other in
terests of our commonwealth.