Year: 1859

SIGNIFICANT TALKING ETC.


The Baton Rouge Advocate has a yery pleasant
and able correspondent who writes over the eu.
phonous signature of Letter Rip" We always
read "Lcttcr Rips letters with pleasure; !; for
there is quaint vein of humor running through


them, mingled with fact and fancy and practical
sense, which render them extremely interesting
and besides we think we recognize in the author
an old and highly valued personal friend, who
dve5t lin of his radical Democracy, is one of the
clcvcrest fellows alive. If we are right in this
conjecture, F." may his shadow never grow less


In letter from this city, dated stl inst, Letter
Rip" speaks of the election the day previous,
and is quite upon those naturalizcd citizens
who preferred attending to their own personal
business instead of trying to "save the country y
by rushing to the polls, voting and electioneerng
generally. Says Letter Rip:'' The American
party started ahead and kept ahead all the time
and although quiet reigned in Warsaw you
could not induce the natnralized citizens to devote
one day to their country The country is good
enough for them, so they think, and they are dis
posed to let those vote who feel any interest in the
elections. | saw hundreds yesterday making
shoes, vests and trowsers, when the Democracy
was endeavorng to secure for them their rights as
freemen and citzcns!" Further along, Letter
Rip" becomes pungent upon adopted citizens in
this wise: "There never will be another effort
made to excite their patriotism, either in behalf
of their adopted country Of their violated rights
Every person is filed with disgust at their pusllan-
imous conduct, and the Americans despise the
poor contemplate foreigners who voted with them,
and hold up their treachery to the Democratic
party as an unanswerable argument, that they are
unfit by habit education to exercise the right of
Suffrage


Now this is, it seems to us, terribly savage Ian
guage to employ against the naturalized portion
of our population, because many Of them pro-
per TO mind their own affairs and let politics and
politicians alone. Had they all voted "Letter
Rips" ticket wonld'n Letter Rip have writ
ten them down rs deserving patriots and chivarous
citizens? Assuredly "Lcttcr Rip would. And,
does it follow that, because they saw fit to eXer-
else their inalienable prerogatve of not voting at
all, they pnsanimous,' or i" contemplate, y
or guilty Of foul treachery to the Democratic
party?" 1t seems to us there is no analogy in the
premises and that disappointment an excess of
bile has betrayed the usually amiable Letter
Rip into the use of harsh expressions, not war
ranted by the facts or circumstances of the case.


But we have not room to comment further upon
the various other points j" " Letter Rips letter to
the Baton Rouge Advocate and must, perforce,
content ourselves with extracting the subioned
paragraph: n....


In some of my letters l have expressed myself
in favor of Legislative interference for the purpose
of diminishing the number of elective officers in
our city. There are some that can be withdrawn
without any constitutional Interference and each
one that can be thus disposed of will add to the
harmony of our elections and to the purity of the
ballotboX. When DIR. McFarlane submitted his
admirable p1oia for a reform in our municipal
government some Democrats refused to sign it he
he made it necessary for the suragans in the
city to be property-holders and taxpayers before
they were entitled to vote, but it met my entire
approval and if our Legislature would pass law
giving the power to vote in municipal elections to
those alone interested in it, (the tax-paycrs) it
would go far to secure an economic expenditure of
their money, and would conduce not only to per-
manent Improvement of the city, but would guar
antec to all the protection of their persons and
rights. The police would be improved feeling
Of security would become general. Such a
law would meet the hearty concurrence of all who
are taxed for the support of a city government
and there would be no serious opposition with a
majority of those who do not pay red cent into
the city treasury.


The above suggestion is deserving serious CON
sideration, and emanating as it does from leading
and influential Democrat, should exercise great
weight with the members of that party We have
been for a long tme-although our confidence in
the virtue and intelligence of the general people
has suffered no sensible abatement-impressed with


the idea that if the centro of the municipal govern
ments of all large cities was vested exclusively
with the Taxpayers thereof, subordinate only to
the State Government, that an important, in fact
an Invaluable reform would be Immediately super
and we have been unable to discover anv
other mode by which universally acknowledged
evils can be eradeated. All other expedients are
likely to prove temporary. The root of the disease
must be attacked and eXterminated before per-
cure can be effected. "Reform - move
ments and Independent" movements and g Citi
zens' movements, if they ever were successful
might remove some of the excrescences upon the
surface of the municipal body polite for year or
so, and-then the disease would break out worse
than before. All history proves that such has
ever been the case, and we can only consult the
past if We would have safe guide for the future
As matters now stand, we expect municipal govern
ments to go on from bad to worse, and when evils
become ntolerable-when general insecurity as
regards life, liberty and property, prcvails--then
some such reform as the one above suggested will
be bound to be adopted. We are not welded to
any particular theory. Any prQjet that will ac-
compsh the great object aimed at, will satisfy us
All we wish is to make New Orleans the model
far as municipal governments is concerned
OF the confederacy, and it can be done


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