It was scarcely possible, however, that such abuses, such corruption and infamy, such vile and degraded practices as those which characterized Warmoth's administration as Governor of Louisiana could long continue. So in 1871 came the crash. An open rupture in the ranks of the Republican party developed. The gatling gun convention, so-called, because federal troops with two gatling guns, guarded the convention building, was held. Warmoth, scenting a conspiracy, bolted and held an independent convention in Turner Hall. With him as the leading spirit of the gathering was Pinchback, then majority leader in the Senate.
The career of Pinchback sheds additional light upon this period. He held a high place in the political life of that day, rising from majority leader, by successive stages, to the lieutenant-governorship, and to the presidency of the Senate. He also became immensely wealthy on account of his association with Warmoth, who is said to have acquired a fortune of more than a million dollars during three years of his administration. While Pinchback was Park Commissioner he was accused by Antoine of cheating him out of $40,000 at one clip. For a time Pinchback was one of Warmoth's staunchest supporters, and when the party in Louisiana was split by the two factions, the Custom House ring and the Warmoth faction, Pinchback was elected permanent chairman of the Warmoth convention and made the keynote speech for the campaign. Subsequently, Warmoth's utter degeneracy alienated him and so they parted company. Warmoth's star descended, and he went down to ignominious defeat. Upon his name and memory were heaped derogations, curses and anathemas. And unfortunately these will always be associated with his memory. On the other hand, Pinchback's star rose to the ascendant and he was elected to the United States Senate.
Pinchback was a man of good breeding, education and culture; and if he yielded to the corrupt influences of his time, it was because he was unable to withstand the flood; it was because the corrupt hand of everyone in politics at that time, Ishmael-like, was turned against the forces of righteousness in political affairs. For, at that time, as the author clearly shows, crime, corruption and fraud were so rife, so common, that they were taken for granted. And the moral sense was so low, so negligible, that men did not think of their crimes as crimes. They committed them simply because "everybody was doing so," and unrighteousness filled the State as "the waters the great deeps."
Finally, by a species of corrupt and criminal practices which made those of the Warmoth régime pale into the utmost insignificance, the tide was turned. Another party came into power and the lily-white government was established. Out of such conditions as Miss Lonn has depicted the government of all the Southern States sprang. This book helps us to understand, in some slight degree, the curious political bias of these States. It is in part a heritage of unreasoning fear—not so much of Negro domination as of again being overwhelmed by a flood of corruption let loose by their own kind. How this fear has expressed itself in more recent times we all know too well.
Miss Lonn closes her book with this fitting paragraph: "And therewith the curtain fell upon the last act in this long and weary drama. One can hardly help feeling that surely if Louisiana had sinned, she had paid the penalty of her sins in full measure of atonement."
R. T. Browne
NOTES
Recently there passed from this life Sir T. F. Victor Buxton, Bart., a man attracted to Africa, no doubt, by the record of his distinguished great grandfather T. F. Buxton, Bart., who belonged to that group of English reformers instrumental in giving the death blow to the African slave trade. Early interested in the natives of Africa, the grandson soon became associated with the Church missionary movement. He was largely concerned in the establishment of two corporations, the Uganda Company and the East African Industries, both intended to benefit the natives.