tion. The Speaker's hammer plays a perpetual tattoo all to no purpose. The talking and the interruptions from all quarters go on with the utmost license. Everyone esteems himself as good as his neighbor, and puts in his oar, apparently as often for love of riot and confusion as for anything else. . . . The Speaker orders a member whom he has discovered to be particularly unruly to take his seat. The member obeys, and with the same motion that he sits down, throws his feet on to his desk, hiding himself from the Speaker by the soles of his boots. . . . After a few experiences of this sort, the Speaker threatens, in a laugh, to call "the gemman" to order. This is considered a capital joke, and a guffaw follows. The laugh goes round and then the peanuts are cracked and munched faster than ever; one hand being employed in fortifying the inner man with this nutriment of universal use, while the other enforces the views of the orator. . . ... But underneath all this shocking burlesque upon legislative proceedings, we must not forget that there is something very real to this uncouth and untutored multitude. It is not all sham, nor all burlesque. They have a genuine interest and a genuine earnestness in the business of the assembly which we are bound to recognize and respect, unless we would be accounted shallow critics. . . . The whole thing is a wonderful novelty to them as well as to observers. Seven years ago these men were raising corn and cotton under the whip of the overseer. To-day they are raising points of order and questions of privilege. They find they can raise one as well as the other. They prefer the latter. It is easier, and better paid. Then, it is the evidence of an accomplished result. It means escape and defense from old oppressors. It means liberty. It means the destruction of prison walls only too real to them. It is the sunshine of their lives. It is their day of jubilee. It is their long promised vision of the Lord God Almighty. J. S. Pike: The Prostrate State, pp. 12-21, passim. D. Appleton and Co., New York, 1874. LI A SPECIMEN OF THE CARPET-BAGGER AND HIS MISGOVERNMENT The Northern Reconstruction policy prevented old Southern leaders from taking part in political affairs; a large part of the white population were prevented from voting or holding office. In consequence the government in a number of the States was thrown into the hands of the negroes and of a comparatively few unscrupulous white men, many of whom were Northerners desiring to profit by the unsettled conditions. This account of Warmoth's career is taken from a Congressional report. The account of the depth of his misrule in Louisiana in the one department of finance is taken from Why the Solid South? an arraignment of the Republican Reconstruction policy and its results by prominent Southern politicians. It of course presents only one side of the case; but it probably presents that side correctly. There were some Northerners in the South who were not there simply for booty. A GOVERNOR WARMOTH OF LOUISIANA He is a native of Illinois; entered the Army from Missouri a democrat; had trouble with General Grant after the battle of Vicksburgh; was charged with circulating exaggerated reports of the Union losses there; was dismissed the service by Grant, and was restored to his command by President Lincoln, his dismissal having been unjust, and procured through questionable motives. He retired from the army in 1865; went to Texas; was indicted there for embezzlement and appropriating Government cotton. Carter acted as his attorney; but when the case was called no prosecutor appeared, and the prosecution was abandoned. He returned to New Orleans, and before the reconstruction of Louisiana he was elected a delegate to Congress, each voter depositing with his ballot fifty cents to defray Warmoth's expenses to Washington. He had been governor four years, at an annual salary of $8,000, and he testifies he made far more than $100,000 the first year, and he is now estimated to be worth from $500,000 to $1,000,000. House Report No. 92, 42d Congress, 2d Session, p. 24. 1872. B The annual expenditure of the Warmoth government, during the four years and five months it was in power, was as follows, not including the increase made in the state debt: Soon after coming into office Governor Warmoth called attention to the state debt, and to the facility with which it could be increased. In his message to the Legislature, January 4, 1868, he said: "The total bonded debt, exclusive of bonds owned by the state, is $6,771,300, and this sum is further reducible by $871,000. The floating debt is $1,929,500; and it is expected that enough can be realized from the special one per cent. tax to discharge the entire floating debt, and leave a surplus of $500,000." "Our debt is smaller than that of almost any state in the Union," continued Warmoth, significantly; "with a tax-roll of $251,000,000, and a bonded debt that can at will be reduced to $6,000,000, there is no reason that our credit should not be at par.". Under Warmoth, the Republicans had added to the State and city indebtedness of Louisiana $54,325,759, with nothing whatever to show for it. The cost of these four years and five months of misrule was, therefore: Money actually expended by state.. Total cost 4 yr's and 5 mo's Republican misrule, Amounting per year to.. .$26,394,572 25,300,000 54,325,759 .$106,020,331 ... 24,040,089 In a little over four years the Republican party had spent nearly as much in amount as half the wealth of the state. Of the bonds issued, a large part bore interest at eight per cent. Such profligacy necessarily required a heavy rate of taxation. The state tax in 1867, just previous to Warmoth's election, was 334 mills; in 1869 it was raised to 54; in 1870 to 71⁄2; in 1871 to 141⁄2, and in 1872 to 212 mills, at which figure it remained for some years. The taxation in New Orleans which had been 15 mills previous to the election of Warmoth, became 2334 mills in 1869; 26% mills in 1870; 271⁄2 mills in 1871; and finally 30 mills, or 3 per cent., in 1873. Some of the country parishes fared even worse, and in one case (that of Natchitoches) the taxation reached 7.9 per cent.― much more than the average interest on capital invested, or the productive power of property. But, great as is this total of $106,020,337 spent by Warmoth and his followers, it does not represent all the depletion Louisiana then suffered. To it must be added the privileges and franchises given away to favorites, and the state property stolen. To one company was given all the swamp lands in the vicinity of New Orleans; to another rights and franchises on the levee, or river front, of New Orleans, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. And, as if this were not enough, the school fund of the several parishes, resulting from the appropriations and land donations made by the State and Federal Governments, were plundered. In his report for 1873, State Superintendent of Education W. F. Brown, a Republican and a colored man, called attention to some of these thefts, as follows: Stolen in Carroll Parish, in 1871, $30,000; in East Baton Rouge, $5,032; in St. Landry, $5,700; in St. Martin, $3,786.80; in Plaquemines, $5,855; besides large amounts in St. Tammany, Concordia, Morehouse, and other parishes. The entire permanent school fund of the parishes disappeared during this period. -- The state had at the time of Warmoth's inauguration a trust fund of $1,300,500, for the benefit of the free public schools. The bonds which represented this fund-the most sacred in the custody of the state were sold at public auction in June, 1872, for $1,096,956.25 and the proceeds instead of being given to the schools, were set aside to pay the warrants which had been issued by Warmoth for purposes foreign to the legitimate public use, and held by a ring of jobbers and brokers who had bought them at a heavy discount. H. A. Herbert and others: Why the Solid South?, p. 403. R. H. Woodward and Co., Baltimore, 1890. QUESTIONS What had been Warmoth's career before he became a Southern politician? Sketch his political career in Louisiana. How much was it estimated that he had made out of politics in Louisiana? What addition was made to the State debt of Louisiana in Warmoth's time? How great an increase in the rate of taxation did this cause? What State property was embezzled by the State and local governments in Warmoth's administration? |