The Bossier banner., 1891-09-03
Notice to Subordinate Unions.

proper to call a special meeting of
the Parish Union at an early day for
the purpose of ratifying the agree
ment entered into at Lafayette by the
State Union and anti Lottery League.
Since the suggestion was made to
me I have conferred with Union men
and the majority of those I have
seen agree with me in the opinion
that as the regular quarterly meeting
in October is SO near at hand, and
the busy season with farmers is CON-
ing on, it would not be advisable un-
der the circumstances to tax the
officers and delegates with an extra
meeting.
1t has been proposed in lieu of a
hurried called session, that I call the
attention of each and every sub
union to this matter and ask them to
take up the subject at their regular
meetings, which will be held between
now and 14th of October, and get
the full sense of their membership
and instruct their delegates how to
act in the Parish Union on the second
Wednesday in October.
It seems to me that the latter
course would come nearer the exigen-
cy of the occasion than the former
plan, and will be the expression of
the brotherhood after time and op-
portunlty for a calm and sober Sec
ond thought.
Upon what I am compelled to re-
gard as the impulse of the moment,
some few of our members have ex-
pressed dissatisfaction with the La
fayette agreement, and seem some
what inclined to listen to the utter
ances of the Lottery press, which are
intended and calculated to side-track
the Union off from the main issue of
this campaign-the Lottery ques-
tion-and raise a great and ilI-timed
howl about Democratic principles.
And this reminds me of several
things I have seen in the Lottery
papers in the last few days from men
claiming to be Union men, but writ
ing over the nom de plumes of
"Farmer, :" "''Union Man, ""Wool Hat, ("
"A Member" &C., and which I desire
in a brief way to reply to in this letter.
Some of them claim that the Union
has surrendered all its fondly cher
ished principles and 'fsold its birth
right for mess Of pottage," and
speak of 'fhe poor deluded farmer"
and undertake to make a great fuss
about the Ocala platform, as though
that were the bone of contention in
this campaign, and seem to entirely
ignore the real issue. / might almost
say che only issue-in the present
campaign-as before stated, the lot
terry question.
Now, I do not accuse all these cor
respondents of being Lottery men,
but I say that if they are not for the
lottery they are suffering the Lottery
leaders to throw them off the track,
and blind them to the real issue be-
fore the people.
It would seem that the Lottery
people would be the last men in the
world to speak Of anybody 'tselling
out" or selling their birthright for
a mess of pottage." If recent history
be true, there was a good deal of
selling out done at Baton Rouge last
summer, and though the considera-
ton may not be considered by them
"a mess of pottage," it seems to me
that in the majority of those cases it
fell even below that, for the persons
bought were not starving and were
under no necessity TO sell theft honor,
and betray the sacred trust reposed
in them by their constituents, and
therefore their act in selling out for
money was all the more base and
degrading to every sense of honor
and manhood