The Opelousas courier., 1896-02-29
SWORDS HAS A SAY.

Assessor Swords furnished bond and left the
parish Jail on Friday evening. Saturday being
aeegal holiday the registration office remained
closed. On Monday it was opened at the Court
H01Se, on Tuesday. and Wednesday at Leon:
vile, and on Thursday and Friday at Grand
COteau. Before leaving the Jail the Assessor
wrote a letter to the n. 0. Times-Democrat, OF
which that paper published the following syn,
opsis in its issue Of February %:
"The dispatch in your issue of Thursday
charging me with failure to open my regis
trat1on Office on Monday, as 1 had advertised,
gives a distorted Ind incorrect statement of
facts. / did not open my office because, when
I went into the courthouse building, / was
taken in charge by the sheriff and sent to prison,
charged with having disturbed a peaceable as
sembly, and l refused to be liberated upon a
bond signed by my political enemies, whose in
fiuence with a picked grand jury had caused
me to be indicted on a baseless charge, and for
political spite, and a design to encourage the
negroes to register and vote Though court
was in session, the district judge, instead of
for cause, ordered the sheriff. to release me, and
smarting undgr the injustice that I con
sidered had been done me. and acting under
the advice Of my counsel Hon. Jno. N. Ogden,
and being Informed by the sheriff that the dis
trict attorney Hon. L. B. Dubuisson), had pro
tested against the action of the judge az un-
warranted, and that he would leave imme-
diately for New Orleans to apply to the Su-
preme Court for writs to compel the judge to
rescind his order, | propose to do what my at
torneys advise. Being put here by the hybrid
faction that y wiring your paper such sensa-
tiOnal storiSa [ can only say That if the regis
tratiOn OF negroes and their allies does not go
On fast enough to suit them, they have them
selves to blame for it. I have refused to regis
ter no man, white or colored, that has applied
to be registered, and 1 denounce as false the
charge that have violated my official duties.
1.-The head and front of my offending is that
I don't belong to the political faction that is
bent on registering and voting the negroes of
this parish, and who are themselves to blame
for whatever excitement that exists here. The
man in this community who h9hitnalIv uyanah
law and order are a lot OF politicians intent on
getting office through the negro vote, and who
not only have a regular ARSENAL of firearms
stored near the courthouse, but who habitually
go about the streets of town, armed to the teeth,
seeking an occasion to provoke n collision,
which has been prevented up to the present
The professed law and order advocates are en-
boldened by the backing of the town authori-
ties, who intend to perpetuate themselves in
office by holding on to the negro votes.
II intend to continue to perform the duties of
office in the future as [ have done in the
past, strictly according to law, and 1 treat the
statement made by the political weather cock
wiring in the same manner that l did the other
charges made by Andrew Hero in his open let
ter to the Governor, made some time ago,
through the columns Of your valuable paper"
The Lafayette Gazette, which seems to have
a correct appreciation of the situation, says in
its issue OF the 22d inst:
Things are getting quite funny in st. Landry.
At the instance of the Thompson faction, it is
said, Registrar Swords and q number of other
good citizens were indicted by the Grand Jury
for having failed to extend the proper cOurtc-
sizes to negro voters who wanted to register.
The. indicted parties, excepting Registrar
Swords applied for bail and were released.
Swords refused to apply for bail and said he
would remain in jail. 1t is here where the hitch
came. The registration office was advertised
to be opened at Opelousas and Bellevue, two of
the strongest negro polls in the parish, and the
Thompson people are very much interested in
having the negroes to register. AS nearly all
the white people had registered Swords thought
by remaining in jail he would shut out the
coons. 1t then dawned upon the Thompson
of jail. They offered to furnish the necessary
bail, but the registrar insisted upon remaining
q prisoner. An order was issued by Judge Per
rault to Sheriff FOntenot to release the prisoner
at once, but that also failed to- bring about the
desired results, and Swords is still master of
the situation. Judge Perrault has wired to Gov.
Foster about the matter, but the governor has
very properly refused to act in the absence of
the facts of this very strange case.
The friends OF Swords are doing their best to
keep him in Jail, and his enemies are kicking
like steers because they can't get him out. All
this trouble in our neighbOring parish would
have been avoided il 1.-THE Thomson faction had
to white primaries.
Swords had better apply for a patent on this
new scheme to suppress the negro vote. 1t
certainly has the merit of originality, and we
hope it will prove effeetual. We dare say that
st.. Landry is the only place on earth that can
a registrar who would have been
equal to this emergency, but great is st. Ian
dry! Greater is Marion Swords!