8K> LOUISIANA 



In November 1912 the following constitutional amendments were defeated: one re- 

 organising and remodelling the state's system of assessment and taxation; one for an issue 

 of $11,108,300 to refund the state debt; one giving parishes and municipalities the power to 

 exempt from tax any industrial enterprises; exempting from tax for 10 years from their 

 completion railways or parts of railways built after June I, 1912; exempting for ten years 

 irrigation, navigation and hydro-electric concerns expending not less than 5,000,000 on their 

 plants and in actual operation within five years of January I, 1913; exempting money in 

 hand or on deposit; allowing parishes to decide by referendum whether cities or incorporated 

 towns be exempt from parochial tax; and authorising parishes and municipalities by referen- 

 dum to exempt $2,000 of the value of dwellings used by actual owners as dwelling houses. 

 An amendment was adopted (29,609 to 21,953) exempting from tax corporations organised to 

 lend money at not more than 6% on country mortgages, arid one (28,155 to 21,480) exempting 

 the legal reserve of life insurance companies. The former may be the basis for a rural credit 

 plan benefiting farmers and planters. The state banking department was reorganised in 

 1912 and a new law limited to one year the liability of a bank for forged checks. 



Education. In illiteracy the state ranked first in the Union, the percentage for 1910 

 of the population I o years and over being 29 (38.5 in 1900). Among whites it was 14.2 (18.9 

 in 1900); among negroes 48.4 (61.1 in 1900). For the year ending July I, 1912, the school 

 population was 526, 268; the enrollment 287,988; the average daily attendance, 173,797; and 

 the length of the average school year, 7.86 months. Receipts were $5,867,968 and ex- 

 penditures $5,403,183. . 



A new school code (1912) established a state board of education composed of the governor, 

 the superintendent of public education, the attorney -general and one citizen from each con- 

 gressional district. The annual appropriations for support and maintenance were $900,000 

 for free schools; $72,500 for the state normal school, and $100,000 for the state university. 

 The legislature authorised the Southern University and Agricultural and Mechanical College 

 (a land grant college for the education of negroes) to sell its property in Jefferson and Orleans 

 parishes, to acquire a new site in a rural community and to establish an industrial and agricul- 

 tural normal school for the training of negro teachers and a model school. The trustees of the 

 university are to be whites but all other officers and teachers are negroes. 



Penal and Charitable Institutions. A constitutional amendment giving a pension (not 

 more than $8 a month) to Confederate soldiers and levying a I mill tax for this purpose was 

 adopted (43,938 votes to 13,049) in November 1912. For pensions Si 50,000 was appropriated 

 and a home was established for the wives and widows of Confederate soldiers. The employ- 

 ment of convicts for personal or private use outside prison walls or away from camps or penal 

 farms was forbidden. The trustees of the state penitentiary were authorised to appropriate 

 $250,000 for penitentiary expenses, mortgaging the state farms if necessary. The legislature 

 appropriated in 1912: $10,000 for the tuberculosis sanitarium to be built by the Anti- 

 Tuberculosis League; $24,000 a year for the Lepers' Home; and $176,000 for the Charity 

 Hospital at New Orleans. On January 24, 1912 Edward Wisner gave New Orleans 50,000 

 acres of undrained alluvial land in the Mississippi delta, the revenue to be devoted to 

 charitable purposes, if the city does not sell the land for 100 years. 



History. The political history of the state centres in the contest between a Demo- 

 cratic " machine " and a " Democratic Good Government League," formed in 1910 

 and opposing the machine in the state and in New Orleans. Governor Jared Young 

 Sanders in July 1910 was chosen United States senator by the legislature to succeed 

 Samuel Douglas McEnery (1837-1910; governor 1881-88, and senator since 1897). 

 After taking some time to put his affairs in order, he withdrew his acceptance so that 

 he might promote the claims of New Orleans for the Panama Exposition, and with no 

 apparent precedent appointed (Aug. 27th) Judge John Randolph Thornton (b. 1846), 

 whom the legislature elected (Dec. 7th), although he had not been nominated by the 

 primaries, as the state law requires. The legislature refused to submit the choice of 

 Thornton to the popular vote. At the state election (April 30, 1912) Luther Egbert 

 Hall, the candidate of the reformers, was elected, and only 4,961 votes were cast for the 

 Republican candidates. This was less than the percentage required by state law to 

 give an organisation official standing, so that Republican candidates can be nominated 

 only by petition; the law requires 1,000 signatures in each congressional district, and 

 only in two districts (New Orleans) are there that many registered Republicans. In 

 the November election the state was carried for Wilson by 61,035 votes to 9,323 for 

 Roosevelt, 3,834 for Taft and 5,249 for Debs (2,538 in 1908). The state's representa- 

 tives in Congress (8 instead of 7 as in the preceding decade) will all be Democrats. In 

 New Orleans Martin Behrman (b. 1864), mayor since 1906, was re-elected to head the 

 new commission government. Murphy James Foster (b. 1849, Democrat, governor 



