Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1891-03-20
THE NEW ORLEANS MASSACRE.
Responsibility of the United States Govern
ment-The Tragedy and Its Antecedents.

ment-The Tragedy and Its Antecedents.
To the Editor of The Evening Star:
1t seems to me that the root of the lawless-
ness and violence from which New Orleans has
suffered is to be found in tho long-continued
anterior failure of administrative justice. OF
all the men who have murdered other men in
Louisiana during the last quarter of u century
how many have been convicted Of murder and
executed under the laws of the state? No COM
munity in which murder is a crime and muir
derers almost invariably escape punishment is
either civilized or safe. for inevitably there
comes time when murders are committed of
a kind that the community will not allow
to pass unavenged, and then the masses,
almost necessarily misintormed, and, there
fore, almost invariably misdirected, usurp
the functions. and, az In this case,
override and reverse the decisions of the
law Given community. no matter whether
IL is established on the banks of the Mississippi
or the Potomac, where men in their private
quarrels kill other men with pisto! or knife i'll
the presence of witnesses and yet go UNPUBLISHED.
and you have a community subject to such
eruptions as have given New Orleans sight
and smell of its internal fires. Who can num-
Der the members of good families that have
been shot down on the streets, mostly. no
doubt, although by no means exclusively, in
our southern cities and towns. by other citi-
Zens equally respectable" cowardly assassns.
II truth be told. who have not even given their
victims time to draw and defend themselves,
but have got the drop on them" and sent
them on the instant to eternity But 1t does
not need five fingers to count the number OF
those deliberate murderers who have been
hung.
New Orleans is suffering from her own
chronic indisposition perhaps inability-to
administer justice according to the lawfully
established standards of the state. and the
remedy she has tried is really an effect of her
disease and almost, if not quite. as dangerous
the disease itself.
If we examine the alleged failure of justice.
upon whom must the blame rest2 The accused
were in the grasp of the law-they had not
escaped or been rescued. The law of Louisiana
had an oppor tunity TO deal with them. If the
judge was the culprit-if through fear or
favor he had betrayed justice or the state. and
he was fair sample of Louisiana judges it
might have been most impressive lesson to
have hung him. Or if. as alleged. the jurors
were corrupted or so cowardly az to be false
to their duty, and there WAS 10 other resort in
the virtue and intelligence of the community.
the jurors might have been sacrificed to the
public safety. They were American citizens
charged with q sacred trust of fundamental i'm
portance 10 the state, and ii they were will
fully and corruptly false and there was
no chance of getting better juries but
by shooting or hanging those particular
jurors their execution might have been
justified But what would be gained if within
week or two of such "a triumph of natural
justice" another jury should acquit muir
derer, who after telling friend there was
going to be trouble proceeded forthwith to
get within range of his unsuspectin2 victim and
blew his brains out on public street? Judg-
ments, like tastes. differ. and some people
might think that such murder that. albeit
belonging 10 lone of our very best and most
distinguished families was as cowardly. vile
and pernicious as anything in human guise
that the Malta could produce.
Bette: have no laws tn; n laws that are not
effectively and impartally enforced. Murder is
murder. whether committed by members of the
Malta or members of the first families of the
place. And a community that will shoot alleged
members of the" Malta who have been acquitted
by local jury. and will not execute equally
summary vengeance upon respectable ruff
fian who has committed murder ON the public
streets, when twelve of his peers have acquitted
HIM, is a sort of Malta itself.
Referring to some OF the legal aspects of the
case which have been discussed in the press on
principle and precedent, it is to be observed
that il was not the city of New Orleans but the
government of the United States. by act of
Congress. that paid indemnity for the injuries
done by New Orleans mob to the spanish
Consul, Laborde, and other Spanish subjects in
1851.
Nor is the liability of the United States lin
tied, as you suggest in yesterdays STAR, to
ton for securing damages from the city of New
Orleans" As remarked by Mr.. Webster in one
of his notes to the Spanish minister, foreigners
in New Orleans who have suffered injuries for
which The local laws provide remedy can sue
either in the courts of the state or those of the
United States, and have thus an advantage over
citizens of the state. who must sue in the state
courts. But in case like this high-spirited
ard powerful oyernment might not be willing
and certainly would not be bound. to remand
~ e. e
slow and uncertain processes Of municipal law.
italy. as you are aware. can have no DIPLOMATS
dealings with the state of Louisiana or the city
of New Orleans. 1t is only the government of
the United States with which the Italian gov
eminent can deal in this matter. The United
States is internationally responsible for such
acts or omissions of each and every
state of the Union. its officers and
people as infringe the public law to the injury
OF foreigners. And it by no means follows that
because the United States pays damages for
wrongs to foreigners that either the individual
wrong-doers or their city or state must reim-
burse the nation. l have never heard that
Louisiana reimbursed the United States for the
indemnity paid to the consul Iaborde and his
fellow subjects of Spain, or that Wyoming
imbursed the United States for the indemnity
paid to China for the benefit of the families of
the murdered Chinese. And perhaps il is bet
ter that the whole people should suffer in the
international forum for the lawlessness of any
OF the members of the national body polite.
The idea which has been widely circulated bv
the newspapers OH the alleged authority of
Mr.. Bayard, that the government OF the United
States Is not responsible to Italy for the massa-
ere of Italian subjects because the mob did not
discriminate between those native-bOrn Italians
who hat. become citizens of the United States
by naturalization and those others who had
never renowned their allegiance to the King of
Italy seems to me to be utterly untenable
The test is not whether such violence is con-
fined to one race, bat whether the violence
could and should have been prevented. In this
case the mob was summoned by previously
published call and the authorities were
thus forewarned, and should have
been forearmed. The publcists agree
that inability to cope with II known danger or
one reasonably to be apprehended Cwar, in the
sense OF the law OF nations, excepted) is of it
self a source of liability to foreign nations whose
members injured liz such public disturb
ances of tine peace. In other words, Just be-
cause The United States claims to be govern
ment it is responsible to ali other governments
for the due exercise of the fundamental func-
ton of government, which is, of course the
maintenance OF law and order throughout its
territory against all unlawful uprisings of which
the proper authorities or might. with due
diligence. be coghizant or apprehensive.
Suppose that three Anne rcan citizens ac-
cuseI of completely in the dynamite outrages
had been tried and acquitted by London jury
and, while still in custody OF the law. had been
massacred by london mob, would the United
States have listened patiently if the British
government had pleaded i'll bar that the Lon
don mob also masr ,crcd half u dozen or more
native-born Americ Ans who had become natur-
allied subjects of her majesty? The question