The Colfax chronicle., 1890-12-27

leee, pledges and agreements, q gigantic.
unpricipled gambling corporation, origin
ally foisted upon US by the purchase of
an alien, bayonet-supported Legislature,
now grown insolent and tyrannical
through long sufferance, proposes,
through the same corrupt means, to ex-
tort from the pretended necessities of the
commonwealth another long lease Of pow
er. This enormous franchise is to be be-
slowed upon few men, only one of whom
is named. 1t is to be bestowed wholly
without reference to the rule of adjudica-
tion to the highest bidder which prevails
in all government contracts. It is ac-
companied with no safeguards for the
fairness of the schemes which these men
are to carry on.
Even the reconstruction Legislature.
corrupt. as it notoriously was, in grant,
ing the original charter, pretended to
throw around the exercise of the franchise
exactions that the scheme should be
honest and the prizes in Just proportion
to the lottery drawing. The franchise now
proposed to be granted to few selected
and favored men is utterly unrestrained
in any particular, leaving them the fullest
and most absolute power to defraud and
to despoil. Disguised as a philathropist
under the mantle OF charity and the mask
of humanity, it now seeks to purchase
the liberties of the citizen and barter for
the good name and fair fame of Louisi-
ana. For the privile &c of conducting for
twenty five years longer q grossly fraud
ulent gambling scheme, the estimated
revenues of which approach twenty EIGHT
millions OF dollars annually, it promises
to pay the State the sum OF million and
quarter per annum as the price of her
degradation and shame.
| Considering the proposition from the
standpoint of cold and sordid business
TRANSACTION alone, the bare mention Of
the comparative amounts it involves
would counsel its instant rejection as
more manifestly disproportionate, in
adequate and fraudulent than the prom
ises of gain and sudden enrichment with
which it deludes the blind victims Of its
wheel.
For this meagre pittanee ;s aesl-s =
! franchise which in eight years would pass
| through it's Golfers an amount equal to
the present assessed value of the aggre-
gate wealth Of the whole State. This
corporation once again entrenched in the
organic law, this enormously vast amount
would be used with lavish hand to fortify
| beyond successful assault its otherwise
precarious position. Self preservation
must and will urge it to supremely con-
troll by corrupt means the executive,
legislative and judicial branches OF the
State government in order to protect its
proposed charter from attack.
| To attain this imperial power it will
scruple at no subterfuge or pretense.
Contributing by its demoralizing and inn
.poyerishing rapacity to q larger degree
than any other known agency in the ruin
ing of homes, the wrecking OF families,
aud the despoilment Of the hard earnings
of the poor and the wage winner, it seeks
| to pose as public benefactor by pretend
ell benevolcnce to the INDECENT poor and
| insane. BY carrying on the public schools
with money supplied by a gambling in
stitation, it would, under the pretext Of
aiding education, Undue your children
| with the priciples and lust of the gambler,
by poisoning the fountains of their moral
| institution. For this purpose it proposes
to contribute the ,neagre sum OF 81 o.
per capita for each educable child in the
State. By offering assistance to protect
the slluvial lands from overflow, it pur-
poses to open wide the hoodga.es Of
most insidious vice, and threatens to de-
luge your own and your sister States with
food thousand fold more destructive
and disastrous to the whole priceless do
main OF good morals.
| To the dwellers in the valleys We desire
| to sound the warning that If this lottery
proposition be adopted, il the people Of
Louisiana enter into partnership whose
avowed purpose is tO break the laws Of
our sister States, and to levy tribute upon
their people, e,all sympathy and SUPPORT will
he withdrawn from your struggle with
the Hood, and all National aid for levees
will be withdrawn.
Bear in mind that the United States
House Of Representatives and Senate who
have just voted three and quarter mill
ion of dollars for improvement of the
Mississippi river and building OF leyees,
have unanimously passed u bill excluding
lottery matter from the mails, and not u
single voice, Democratic or Republican,
was raised in defense of the lottery, the
members from our sister Southern States
| joining in the universal condemnation Of
this gambling concern.
! Beware, lest the outraged American
people refuse to give any further assist
ance to the levee system II it he identi-
fed in their eyes with the gigantic cor
porporation engaged in conducting q
clandestine business in violation of their
laws. Note, that Federal aid to Louisi-
ana levees has exceeded 81 10000 in the
past eight years. Note, that in the fifth
levee district, of this amount, over ST.
100000 was spent along the Tensas front
more than can possibly be expected to
be derived from this nefarious lottery
scheme.
Bear well in mind that all this govern
ment aid has been given at time when
the sentiment of the national government
and of its officers was doubtful as to the
efficacy OF levees, and when every levee
bill passed by Congress- prohibited the
construction Of levees with Federal
money, save as an adjunct to the imp prove
ment Of the channel OF the Mississippi for
purposes OF navigation. What then may
we expect now, when both houses Of Con-
| vress the President and the Mississippi