UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. (MAIN p..) 



707 



opened to commerce in the summer. Including 

 Bayou Dupre, it is 7 miles long and from 150 to 

 200 feet wide. The lock-chamber is 200 feet long, 

 50 feet wide, arid 25 feet deep, and connects the 

 canal with the Mississippi river. The canal gives 

 New Orleans direct water communication with 

 Mississippi Sound and the great rivers connecting 

 with it, and shortens by 60 miles the distance by 

 direct navigation to the deep water of the Gulf. 



With the opening of the canal, the vessels carry- 

 ing goods for foreign shipment can discharge their 

 cargoes at the wharves of ocean vessels, and 

 steamboats and barges from the river above can 

 pass directly to and from the ports of Mississippi, 

 Alabama, and Florida. 



The canal enterprise was first brought forward 

 about 1850, when a bill was passed in Congress 

 for the fortification and protection of Ship island 

 harbor. The first charter was granted in 1855, 

 the second in 1869, and the third in 1884. 



Lawlessness. Lynchings have taken place 

 this year at Dayline, St. Peter, Fenton, Shreve- 

 port, Alden Bridge, Rhodessa, Girard, Crowley, 

 and Lake Charles. 



The negro at Dayline had attempted to assault 

 a white woman, and in being identified was shot 

 to death. 



The crime of the negro at St. Peter was the 

 murder of a family of four, apparently for the 

 purpose of robbery. Two negroes were lynched 

 at Fenton in February. At Shreveport, March 6, 

 a negro was shot to death for assault upon a 

 woman. The negro lynched at Rhodessa by a 

 mob of negroes, it was supposed confessed to 

 having assaulted a httle colored girl. The one 

 hanged by a mob at Alden Bridge kept a negro 

 gambling-house and had been ordered to leave, 

 but refused. 



John G. Foster, a planter living 5 miles east 

 of Shreveport, was shot and killed, from a cabin, 

 June 12, by Prince Edwards, a negro employed 

 on the plantation. There were a dozen or more 

 negroes in the cabin and they ran in all directions. 

 The overseers were quickly joined by other men, 

 and all the negroes were arrested, except Prince 

 Edwards, who did the shooting. On June 19, two 

 of the suspected negroes were taken from jail at 

 Shreveport by a mob and hanged. They were 

 "Prophet" Smith and F. D. McLand. Both de- 

 nied that they had anything to do with the kill- 

 ing. Smith was the head of the " Church of 

 God " movement in that section. 



After the shooting of Foster, a search of Smith's 

 rooms revealed a so-called Ark of the Covenant. 

 It was a rudely constructed box, bearing within 

 and without mystic symbols. When the officials 

 laid hold of the box the negroes were panic- 

 stricken. Further search revealed the minutes 

 of the meeting of the society. Its members were 

 denominated as princes and Smith as king. 



At Crowley, July 19, an officer accosted a negro 

 to learn his business. The negro fired upon the 

 officer and then fled. He was caught and taken 

 to jail, where a mob took him from the officers 

 and lynched him. 



At Herndon plantation, Nov. 23, about 8 miles 

 below Shreveport, a negro, Frank Thomas, shot 

 and killed a fourteen-year-old negro boy named 

 Wilburn for a debt of 30 cents. In the morning 

 a deputy sheriff arrested the murderer and was 

 proceeding toward Shreveport when a mob of 200 

 negroes and 5 or 6 white men suddenly appeared, 

 took possession of Thomas and hanged him on 

 a tree. 



At Lake Charles a negro was hanged in the cen- 

 ter of the business portion of the city, at four 

 o'clock on the morning of Dec. 7, by a mob of 



tt;i<-l< upon a deputy 



'.on Parish, a negro 

 : <'<n a while woman. 

 i " race war," though 



. 



se 



about 50 citizens, for 

 sheriff and his wife. 



At Balltown, in Washing 

 was burned for an assault u 

 This was shortly followed by 

 it was not the immediate can <. I, 

 over the attempt of a constable to a 

 who was running a refreshment-stand at a r-u 

 meeting without a license, in the riol 

 sued two of the sheriff's posse were i- 

 another was badly wounded, and 9 lu-^i.,- 

 killed 5 men, 3 women, and 1 small child. 

 accounts place the number of negroes dead at ! :>. 

 A dozen or more negroes escaped to the wood-> 

 and swamps with wounds that were believed to 

 be mortal. 



The State Constitution. In the case of a 

 criminal sentenced to be hanged in February, an 

 appeal was taken to the United States Supreme 

 Court on several points of error. The one most 

 relied on was that the Constitution of Louisiana 

 was void and of no effect, by reason of not having 

 been referred to and ratified by the people of the 

 State, and for a variety of other allegations as 

 to its supposed insufficiency. The appeal failed, 

 and the decision is regarded so far as a vindica- 

 tion of the validity of the Constitution. 



In July a suit was filed to test the validity of 

 the suffrage clause. It was a mandamus proceed- 

 ing in behalf of a poor and illiterate negro, who 

 had been a registered voter about thirty years; 

 but in 1901 was refused registration under the 

 provisions of the new Constitution. The manda- 

 mus was asked on the ground that the State 

 Constitution's provisions on suffrage were unlaw- 

 ful, because they were in violation of the fifteenth 

 amendment to the Federal Constitution. The suit 

 failed' because there is no question of the constitu- 

 tionality of an educational qualification for 

 voters, and the negro was illiterate. 



MAINE, a New England State, admitted to 

 the Union March 15, 1820; area, 33,040 square 

 miles. The population, according to each decen- 

 nial census since admission, was 298,269 in 1820; 

 399,455 in 1830; 501,793 in 1840; 583,169 in 1850; 

 628,278 in 1860; 626,915 in 1870; 648,936 in 1880; 

 661,086 in 1890; and 694,466 in 1900. Capital, 

 Augusta. 



Government. The following were the State 

 officers in 1901: Governor, John F. Hill; Secre- 

 tary of State, Byron Boyd; Treasurer, Oramandai 

 Smith; Attorney-General, George M. Seiders; 

 Superintendent of Education, W. W. Stetson; 

 Adjutant-General, John T. Richards, who re- 

 signed and was succeeded Dec. 1 by Augustus B. 

 Farnham; Commissioner of Labor and Industrial 

 Statistics, Samuel W. Matthews; Bank Examin- 

 er, F. E. Timberlake; Insurance Commissioner, 

 S. W. Carr; Liquor Commissioner, James W. 

 Wakefield; Commissioner of Sea and Shore Fish- 

 eries, Alonzo R. Nickerson ; Railroad Commission- 

 ers, Joseph B. Peaks, Benjamin F. Chadbourne, 

 Parker Spofford; Librarian, Leonard D. Carver; 

 Land Agent and Forest Commissioner, Charles E. 

 Oak, resigned and succeeded, Aug. 1, by Edgar E. 

 Ring; Secretary State Board of Agriculture, 

 B. W. McKeen; Registrar of Vital Statistics, 

 A. G. Young; Assessors, George Pottle, Otis Hay- 

 ford, F. M. Simpson; Superintendent of Public 

 Buildings, E. C. Stevens; Factory Inspector, 

 Charles E. Atwood; Commissioners of Inland 

 Fisheries and Game, Leroy T. Carleton. Henry O. 

 Stanley, Charles E. Oak; Chief Justice of the 

 Supreme Court, Andrew P. Wiswell; Associate 

 Justices, Lucilius A. Emery, William H. Fogler, 

 W. P. Whitehouse, Sewall C. Strout, Albert R. 

 Savage, Frederick A. Powers, Henry C. Peabody; 



