Jasper Republican, Volume 1, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 October 1874 — Gov. Kellogg’s Address to the People. [ARTICLE]

Gov. Kellogg’s Address to the People.

Nbw Orleans, La., Sept. 30. Gov. Kellogg has prepared an address to the people of the United States, reviewing the political and financial condition of Louisiana since the war, and vindicating the course of his administration. He says: Events that have recently transpired in this State have turned the attention of the whole nation upon Louisiana affairs, and have caused a resuscitation of false statements and perversion of facts, which forthwith have been circulated far and wide, and which appear to have been accepted as true by a considerable portion of the press and the I have waited until the public feeling excited by the startling occurrences that have taken place here should have a little calmed down so that a statement of actual facts might be dispassionately received. Close observers of Southern politics have long been aware of a determined action to overthrow Republican rule in Louisiana, strongly Republican as the State is known to be, and from the vantage point thus gained to carry the movement into Mississippi Mid other Southern States in which the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments to the Constitution of the United States are still respected and, to some extent, enforced. In 1868 organized violence was resorted to for this purpose, and was only defeated by the prompt action of Congress. Fraud, as employed in 1872, was also wanted to achieve the desired result. In 1873 the unification dodge was tried; the colored people were promised mixed schools, employment on street cars and in foundries and workshops, equal rights in all bar-rooms and soda-stands, and, in short, more than the strongest advocate of civil rights had ever asked for them, on the implied condition that they would put the Democratic party in office. This movement failed, and now, 1874, all the prin ciples of unification have been reversed, and under the organization of a white man’s party, an appeal has once more been made to arms.

The events of the 14th of September last are too well known to need recital. There was no honest motive, no substantial cause to justify the misguided and disastrous movement. The sole purpose of the insurrection was to obtain possession of the offices of the State. The reasons assigned for this criminal disturbance of the peace of the State were, first, that the State is not Republican, and that the present State administration was not elected, and, second, that the State administration had been corrupt and oppressive. Reversing, for the sake of greater clearness, the order of these charges I proceed to show that neither the one nor the other is correct. No candid reader will fail to have observed that the charge of corruption and oppression, like all the accusations that have been made against the State administration, is couched in general terms and no specific acts are brought forward, much less sustained by proof. I propose to confront these general charges of wrong-doing by a specific statement taken from the official records of the financial condition of this State when the present Government came into power and of its financial position now; and also to show where the responsibility of the heavy State debt, which is most unjustly charged upon my administration, properly rests. When the present State Government came into office there were outstanding from previous administrations Auditors’ checks on the Treasury known as State warrants, which the Treasurer had been unable to redeem, to the amount of $2,300,000. [Auditor’s report of 1872, page 36.] There were outstanding bonds issued before and since the war to the amount of $21,800,000. Since I have been in office I have signed 576 bonds of SI,OOO each, and 125 second mortgage bonds of the same denomination, the latter issued upon a section of ten miles of completed railroad. In both cases the issuance of these bonds was authorized by acts of the Legislature, passed previous to my coming into office, and was rendered obligatory upon me by a decision es the Supreme Court as to the first issue, and by the written opinions of the law officers of the State as to the latter. No act of the Legislature has been passed during my occupancy of the Executive chair to authorize the issue of a single bond to increase the indebtedness of the State. The outstanding $2,300,000 of floating indebtedness left by previous administrations has been reduced under my administration to less than $1,400,000. This reduction has been accomplished by no increase of taxation, but by an energetic collection of delinquent taxes and an honest appropriation of the taxes so collected to the liquidation of the past due indebtedness of the State. To effect this result the law officers of the State were compelled to appeal to the courts to set aside an iniquitous law Sassed mainly by Democratic influence, uner the previous administration, which virtually transferred all the receipts from back taxes to a brokers’ ring. The State has thus been enabled to pay, under our financial management, more than $900,000 of the old floating debts of the State with the old assets, and the delinquent taxes now due and unpaid are sufficient, if collected and applied under the policy we have inaugurated, to pay off the balance of the old floating indebtedness.

The Governor then states that the current receipts from State taxes and licenses from Jan. 1 to date have amounted to within $670,000 of the expenses, and that had it not been for the overflow the receipts would probably have been in excess of expenditures. He institutes a comparison of appropriations by the Legislature during his administration and that of his predecessors, as follows: First —The Democratic Legislature of 1865-6-7, and composed exclusively of white men, McEnery ana others of my present opponents being influential members, made total appropriations of <17,129,554, while the total taxes collected during the same period were <3,379,000, leaving an excess of appropriations over revenue by this Democratic Legislature of <13,750,554. Second— Gov. Warmoth’s administration made appropriations for current State expenses, exclusive of school, levee and interest funds, as follows: For 1868 and 1869, <2,700,000; for 1870, <2,135,720; for 1871, <3,722,969; for 1872, <1,819,856. Total, <10,378,745. Thirds- Gov. Kellogg’s administration has made appropriations for current State expenses, exclusive of levee, school and interest funds, as follows: For 1873, <1,554,255; for 1874, <1,172,124; total, <2,726,379. As will be seen, the earing the first year of my administration over the last year of my predecessor was <157,213. In the second year a still further saving was effected of <517,732. At the same rate during the next two years my administration will cost <5,452,758, while the administration of my predecessor for the same time cost <10,378,983, and the Democratic administration of 1865-’6-’7 cost <17,129,554. A statement made by the Auditor of this date, now before me, shows the bonded debt of the State Jan. 1,1869, tc have been <9,833,562; increase of bonded and floating debt during Gov. Warmoth’s administration <14,250,685; total debt when Gov. Kellogg came into office <24,084,247; Increase during Gov. Kellogg’s administration by bonds authorized by laws passed previously <701,000; reduction of debt during Gov. Kellogg’s administration by redemption of past due bonds, funding operations and retiring of outstanding floating obligations <1,626.023; showing a net decrease of debt under the Kellogg administration of <925,033. Gov. Kellogg then enters into a history of the funding act passed by the last Legislature mainly through the strenuous exertions of the Governor, whereby the outstanding bonded State debt is to be exchanged for new consolidated bonds at the rate of sixty cents on the dollar as being the most the State is able to pay. He calls attention to the constitutional amendment recommended by him and

adopted by the Legislature, fixing the limit of the debt at $15,000,000 and the rate of taxation at twelve mills on the dollar, excluding the tax for schools; also the amendment restricting the revenues of each year to the expenditures of the same year, the absence of these restrictions being a prolific source of financial abuse heretofore. The Governor sums up in these words: We have in two years paid off over $900,000 of the old floating indebtedness with the old assets of the State We have reduced the debt by the Funding bill from $25,000,000 to $15,000,000, not to be increased until after the year 1924; we have reduced the State taxes from 21X mills to 14% mills, not to be increased until after the same year; we have provided that parish taxation shall not exceed State taxation, so that the greatest amount of taxation any one parish can be called upon to ■pay in any one year is 29 mills; we have enabled the city of New Orleans to reduce the taxations mills; we have largely reduced State expenditures, and confined them strictly within the limit of our revenue, and we have paid up over $8,000,000 of contingent liabilities. All this has been effected by us, without aid from those who arrogantly claim to represent all the virtue and intelligence of the State, and while contending against violence within the State borders, ana organized vilification abroad, and while the very existence of the Government was b ong threatened. This is the financial record of the Administration, which our opponents assert has been so corrupt and so oppressive as to drive the State into bankruptcy and the people into riots.

After stating that the financial reforms proposed by constitutional amendment are opposed by the white men’s party, and that the legislative records will show educated Democrats to have been equally implicated with colored Republicans in jobs, the address proceeds: The second charge brought against me by my opponents is that I was not elected to the office I hold. Mr. Marr’s committee in their recent address attempt to fortify that assertion by extracts from the census of 1870, showing a small excess of white over colored males over the age of twenty-one. The whole force of the argument is destroyed at once by the fact which Mr. Marr designedly or accidentally fails to mention, that the same census shows that there are nearly 15,000 alien males over the age of twenty-one in this State who are, of course, disqualified from voting. Deduct these 15,000 aliens from the total of white citizens claimed for the Democracy; deduct also the 5,000 or 10,000 known Republicans, and add that number to the colored male adults, all made citizens by the war, and the census argument establishes a larger excess of Republicans over Democratic voters in this State than even the Republican party claim. There are two other points that may be mentioned in this connection. First, that there are a large number of colored men in this State so nearly white as to pass for white, and who are doubtless so classed by the census enumerators; and, secondly, that there has been for years past, and still continues, a steady immigration of colored people to the fertile alluvial lands of the State from other Southern States. The Governor scouts the idea that the Republican party was divided during the last campaign, and asserts that Warmoth and McMillen carried no votes over to the Fusion camp but their own, and that the only reason Warmoth was wanted by the Fusionists was the belief that he could so manipulate the registration and election that it would appear that the Fusionists were elected. He says:

Notwithstanding that the whole strength of the opposition was thrown into the fight against me, even the Fusion returns show that I ran far ahead of my ticket in this State. When I was nominated for Governor the Conservative papers, in many instances, spoke approvingly of my nomination, and warmly commended the course If had pursued in the Senate in advancing the material interests of the State. The New Orleans Picayune editorially said that the nomination of Senator Kellogg was a source of gratification to all good citizens. The question as to whether Mr. MeEnery or myself was elected Governor of this State is one that I have several times proposed to submit to arbitration. When the suit brought in the United States Court was still pending, I offered, through my counsel, Mr. William H. Hunt, a Southern man and one of the foremost lawyers at the bar of this State, that the returns should be submitted to prominent and disinterested citizens, two to be chosen by each side, and the fifth by the four, and I proposed to abide by the result of their decision; but this proposition was declined. I am prepared to show before any competent tribunal that a portion of the returns upon which Mr. MeEnery bases his claims are forgeries, manufactured in this city. lam able now to produce the judicial officer before whom a portion of the blank tally lists and returns were sworn, to be subsequently filled up here in this city and lalmed off on the public as the genuine reAirns of an election held in strong Republican parishes far distant from this city. Even Senator Carpenter, in his speech in the Senate on the 4th of March, said: “I do not think MeEnery was in fact elected, though the returns show he was.” I hold myself now ready to impeach the returns relied upon by the fusion Boards as altered, defaced, and, in some instances, forged outright I charge, moreover, that the returns from Iberville, St James, Terrebonne, St. Martin and other Republican parishes were thrown out by the Fusion Returning Boards for no just reason, but because they gave myself and the Republican ticket a heavy majority, and I assert that by the genuine returns, counting the votes actually cast, I was elected by several thousand majority, and upon this issue I am ready to stand or fall.

The address concludes with a reference to the forthcoming election, asserting that the Republicans desire that it shall be fairly conducted, and citing in substantiation of this statement the improvement in the Registration law passed by the last Republican Legislature and the compromise recently entered into by which an Advisory Board is to be established to conduct the registration. The Governor says: There is no just and proper safeguard that can be suggested to me which I will not be willing to throw around the conduct of the coming election. The Republican party is willing to be judged by the verdict of that election, provided it can be held without intimidation or violence. It our opponents can show at a peaceable election that they have a majority of the qualified voters of the State, we shall uncomplainingly abide the result If, on the other hand, ihe Republican party should triumphantly vindicate its claims to the Government, we shall have a right to expect the acquiescence of our opponents, and the active support of all law-abiding citizens throughout the country. In the event of our success the nation can certainly leave the interests of this great State in the hands of those who in so short a time, and against such adverse circumstances, have done so much to reduce the burden of the people and advance the material welfare of the community with greater safety than would attend the surrender of the lives and liberties of more than 80,000 peaceful, industrious Republican citizens to a party which has never attempted anything for the redemption of State, which, during its brief resumption of power immediately after the war, showed itself utterly incapable of honest government, and which has three times within the last six years attempted to override the known will of the majority, twice by violence and once by fraud. I ask those Republicans of the North who have lent a willing ear to the indiscriminate denunciation of Northern men who hold offices in the South, and of the Republicans of the Southern States, to reflect that those denunciations proceed from those who hate Republican prlnci-

pies everywhere, and who can see no virtue in any man who is not identified with them in sentiment or in interest, or in both. If I consulted only my personal feelings, I would rather be relieved of the position I now hold than continue to retain it in the face of the difficulties and calumnies which beset me at every step, but there are higher questions involved than mere personal feelings. My resignation would simply transfer the Executive duties to the next in rank, and would make no change in the status of the State. Either the Republican party in Louisiana is in the right or in the wrong. If we are right, I owe it to the National Republican party and to the General Government to maintain my position. If we are in the wrong, and the people at the coming election should so declare, the Constitution and the laws of the State provide a sufficient remedy. We confidently await that verdict, and, meantime, ask from the people generally, on this plain showing of the good we have done and the evil we have refrained from doing, a iuster judgment and more generous sympathy than have yet been given to the Republican State Government of Louisiana.