The Lafayette gazette. [volume] (Lafayette, La.) 1893-1921, 1900-04-21
NUMBER 8.
TUESDAYS ELECTION.

Times Democrat: The election was
tanly quiet enough, and Louisiana is to be
congratulated on having passed through it
without a serious disturbance of any kind as
far as heard from. The machinery of the
election seemed to move smoothly enough,
and we have heard no protests or complaints.
In New Orleans the count was conducted so
openly that we do not where there is
chance for fraud. Fuller details will, of
course, be needed from the county before
judgment can be passed upon the conduct
of the election there.
Although the registration has been cut
down one-half by the suffrage provi-
sions from what it was in 1896, but little
over half the registered vote was polled, and
in some parishes barely one-third. The
suit is the success of the Democratic ticket
by more than two-thirds majority, and a
nearly unanimous Democratic Legislature.
The Wimberly ticket cut a most insignif-
cant figure in the election, and proves the
regular Republican organization to be a
mere shell, with practically votes behind
it.
The Times Democrat has already pointed
out why the white voters of Louisiana pre-
ferred the Democracy to any Republican
party, or party allied with the Republicans
and depending them mainly for its
strength; and there is nothing more to be
said on this subject The voters feel that
whatever reforms may be needed in
laws, and whatever abuses require to be corr
rected, they can depend better on the
Democracy to carry out their wish than on
either of the two opposition parties present
ing themselves for popular support at yester-
days election. All the reforms and bene-
fetal legislation that Louisiana has ever re-
ceived, it has received through the Demo-
crazy.
The new election system, as a whole,
worked admirably yester day, with few COM
plications- The voters understood how to
vote and did so intelligently.
Daily States: The overwhelming ma
jority given the Democratic ticket yesterday
by The voters of Louisiana does not in the
least astonlsh us. Every intelligent man in
the State not warped by his prejudices ex-
pected just such result. We concede that
that during the early part of the day the
weather conditions were such that we ap-
pretended a loss of twenty-five or thirty
thousand votes to the Democrats. But the
great.
The outrageous assaults made by the Re-
publican combine on Democratic administra-
ton of public affairs aroused the deep resent
ment of the white people of Louisiana, and
they braved storm and food and turned out
in sufficient numbers to rebul<e the assaults of
the combine upon the Democratic party and
policies and return the Democratic ticket by
,l,oIr IA
as though the States prediction of some
weeks ago that the combine would not
carry single parish has been fulfilled.
That which must move with thankfulness
every Democratic heart is that the people
of Louisiana have condemned the attacks
made by the Republicans upon the Demo
cratic regime of the past twenty years, vim
dictated the wisdom of eliminating the Negro
from the electorate and declared that
henceforth no party, faction, or clique call
ing itself Republican can ever again during
this and the succeeding generation, no mat
ter by whom fathered or led, govern in this
State.
Daily Picayune: The heavy rains, phe-
nomenal in not few localities, experienced
in nearly every part of Louisiana, cut off
the voters from the polls, yesterday, to a
large extent. The result is that light
vote was cast in this city and in almost
every parish. But it was decisive enough
for all that.
The Democratic State ticket carried every
parish that has been heard from, and
among these those that had been classed
as doubtful. There was comparatively little
interest felt in the election by the Demo
Gratis, because they were confident that it
would be walkover, as it proved to be.
The Caffery ticket polled very small
| vote, but it must have been fully as large as
| its partisans expected after their canvass OF
| the State. 1t will be interesting to know
upon what they will base their threatened
charges of fraud and their absurd talk about
force. So few persons took the trouble to
go to the polls to vote for the Caffery ticket
that the result, after all the wild talk,
seems pitiful. The Regular Republican
| ticket drowned in the flood, also.
1t will not be out of place to say here
that the Democratic members of both
houses of the General Assembly owe it to