Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 March 1888 — WARMOUTH OF LOUISIANA. [ARTICLE]

WARMOUTH OF LOUISIANA.

The Manner in Which He Had Pinchback Locked in a Calaboo»e. N. T. Graph!#. f Henry Clay War-mouth has accepted the Republican nomination for Governor in Louisiana and has published his letter of acceptance. It is not excellent sense of the Democracy to laugh at Mr. Warmouth and his ’ Gubernatorial aspirations. He is one of the strongest and most dangerous antagonists that the Democracy has south of what once was known as Mason and Dixon’s line. He is rich, well educated, honest and aggressive. He is allied with some of the most important business interests in Louisiana, and he knows more men along the levees of the Mississippi than any other politician in the State. He has done more for the sugar interests of his State than any other private man in it, and for fourteen years he has held his hands off politics and looked closely after his own business interests. Hs owns the Magnolia plantation, running from the bordeis of the G ulf of Mexico up along the banks of the Missiesippi, and it produces more sugar than any other single plantation in the State owned by one man. Four thou sand acres of the finest land in the State sweep away on all sides from the piazzas of his lovely home near the river, and his annual crop nets him easily $50,000. Back of the house, away from the swash and dampness of the river, stands an orange grove that, like all Mr. Warmouth’s enterprises, has been remarkably profitable to him. Last year he sold his prospective product, while yet in blossom, for more than $5,000, and the purchaser made a very nice profit when the ripened fruit fell into his hands.

Of course the Democracy say that Mr. Warmouth has no chance to be elected, but it is safe to say that if he considered he had no chance for an election he would never have accepted the nomination from his party. He is an adroit and able politician and be has been G overnor before. Back in 1868 in the flush days of reconstruction he was elected Chief Magistrate of Louisiana and held the place for four years. It was during the days when the Republican party in the South was in the zenith of its power and naturally factions had grown up in it. Hie Lieutenant-Governor was the famous Pinchback and he was the leader inside the part of tne section that in many things opposed Mr. Warmouth. In Louisiana, as in most States, the Lieutenant-Governor does not amount to much politically, but Pinchback, who, as a man with African blood in his veins, assumed to represent the majority of the Republican voters in the State, laid claim to a share of the public patronage. The Governor went right along and left Mr. Pinchback and his friends completely in the cold so far as official place was concerned, and so the persistent yellow man spent a good deal of his time out of the Sti te, and hunted for official patronage for his friends principally frem the Federal Government.

He was in Washington during the Christmas holidays of 1870, and happened to hear that Governor Warmonth was absent from Louisiana and in this city to attend a meeting of sugar planters. In an hour after he heard the news Pinchback had a telegram telling him that the Superintendent of the State Penitentiaries had just died. It was the best office in Louisiana, had a large amount of patronage attached to it, and the power of appointment was in the hands of the Governor, or in his absence in those of the Lieutenant-Governor.

The next train that left Washington for Baton Rouge took Pinchback on his flying way to the Louisiana capital. He would get there during Warmouth’s absence, appoint one of his friends to the place of Superintendent, and when Warmouth ieturned he would have no power to remove him. Pinchback had got as far as Louisville, Ky., when Warmouth learned of his departure from Washinton. The keen Governor saw at once through the scheme of his yellow friend, and he left the sugar men to attend to their own business, and he boarded the express on his race after the man he feared. Pinchback was at least twenty hours ahead of him, and he knew that, barring accidents, the Lieutenant Governor would win the race and have his man sworii; in as Superintendent of the Prison before it would be possible to prevent him.

The Governor is a many-sided man and full of resources. When he reached Louisville he found that Pinchback had stopped over there a few hours on his journey, and Warmouth learned just on what train he had started from that city. The office they were both flying to fill was an important one, and the Governor resolved to lake some chances to euchre Mr. Pinchback. He telegraphed at once to the Chief of Police of Jackson, Miss., rt questing him to attest a yellow man who would pass through that city next morning by the great Jackson Route. He gave a full and detailed description of Pinchback, and notified the chief that he was a fugitive from justice, and had represented himself to be Lieutenant-Governor of Louisiana. When Pinchback’s train rolled into the depot at Jackson two policemen boarded the car and slipped a pair of handcuffs on him. The more he pro-

tested, the oftener he told them he was Lieutenant-Governor of Louisiana, the louder the oflELcera laughed and the quicker they hurried him to the calaboose. They chucked him into' the iron cage and kept him there. Warmouth hurried through Jacktou early the next morning, and when he found himself safe and sound op Louisiana soil he wired the authorities at Jackson to release their prisoner, as had been advised that they had secured the wrong man, and actually held his friend, Mr. Pinchbeck, in custody. The Lieu-tenant-Governor went back to Washington a sadder and wiser man, but he never made much fuss abort his arrest, for he knew if he did all the country would laugh at him.