444 



LOUISIANA. 



There were also in the State in 1890 315 

 Chinese, 89 Japanese, and 628 Indians. 



The Lottery Amendment. Early in Janu- 

 ary a hearing was had before Judge Buckner, of 

 the district court at Baton Rouge, in the manda- 

 mus suit, State ex rel. Morris vs. Mason, which 

 was brought in December, 1890, by the agents of 

 the lottery company against the Secretary of 

 State, to compel the publication of the proposed 

 lottery amendment to the State Constitution. 

 The Secretary of State had refused to publish the 

 amendment, on the ground that it had not been 

 legally adopted by the Legislature. On Jan. 19 

 the decision of Judge Buckner was rendered in 

 favor of the defendant, from which an appeal 

 was taken to the State Supreme Court. Argu- 

 ments were heard by that tribunal on Feb. 17 

 and 18, and the decision was reserved. 



The State Constitution requires that a proposed 

 amendment be passed by a two-third vote of all 

 the members in each House of the Legislature, 

 after having been read in each House on three 

 separate days; that such amendment, together 

 with the yeas and nays thereon, be entered on 

 the journal ; and that the Secretary of State 

 cause it to be published in certain newspapers, 

 af tor which it shall be submitted to a vote of the 

 people. The lottery amendment had been intro- 

 duced and passed through the Legislature not 

 in the usual form of a resolution proposing an 

 amendment, but in the form of a bill providing 

 a method of submitting to the people the amend- 

 ment therein set forth. This bill had passed both 

 Houses by a two-third vote, had been presented 

 to the Governor like any other bill, had been 

 vetoed, and had passed the House over the veto, 

 but not the Senate The friends of the bill 

 claimed that, as the clause of the Constitution 

 relating to its amendment contained no require- 

 ment that proposed amendments be submitted to 

 t\e Governor for his approval, the veto in this 

 cas^ was nugatory, and the amendment, having 

 once passed each House by a two-third vote, 

 was legally before the people. The Secretary of 

 State insisted that this clause of the Constitution 

 should be construed with the other provisions of 

 the instrument, and that amendments should go- 

 through the same course as other legislation. He 

 further claimed that, even if this proposition 



were not true, the measure in this case, being in 

 the form of a bill containing various other mat- 

 ters beside the amendment in question, was sub- 

 ject to the section of the Constitution relating to 

 the passage of bills, and must be passed over 

 the veto. The Secretary also attacked the cor- 

 rectness of the printed journals of the Legisla- 

 ture respecting the passage of the amendment, 

 and also claimed that it contained matters of 

 legislative detail which could not legally be 

 placed in the Constitution. For these reasons 

 he declined to publish the alleged amendment. 

 The court rendered its decision on April 27. A 

 majority of three judges Chief-Justice Bermu- 

 dez and Justices Watkins and McEnery decided 

 that the amendment need not be submitted to 

 the Governor; that having once passed each 

 House by a two-third vote, it must be published 

 according to law, and submitted to the people. 

 They decided that the printed legislative journals 

 were conclusive evidence of the facts therein 

 stated ; and that the amendment was not ren- 

 dered void by any alleged legislative matter 

 which it contained. Justices Fenner and Breaux 

 dissented from these views. 



The amendment in question provides that, 

 during the term of twenty-five years from Jan- 

 uary, 1894, John A. Morris, his heirs and assigns, 

 in consideration of the privilege of maintaining 

 lotteries during that period, shall pay to the State 

 annually the following sums : For public schools, 

 $350,000 ; for levees, $350,000 : for State chari- 

 ties, $150,000; for pensions, $50,000; for the 

 city of New Oaleans for drainage and other sani- 

 tary purposes, $100,000 ; for the general fund of 

 the State, $250,000. 



Political. The State Supreme Court had no 

 sooner decided that the lottery amendment must 

 be published according to law, and submitted to 

 a popular vote at the election of April, 1892, 

 than the friends and opponents of that measure 

 began serious preparation for a determined con- 

 test before the people. A full set of State officers 

 was to be chosen at the same April election, and 

 the lottery question was thereby complicated 

 with the various local personal and party inter- 

 ests usually involved in a State election. The 

 first skirmish in the contest was to determine 

 whether the lottery or the anti-lottery Demo- 

 crats should control their party and nominate 

 the party candidates, a Democratic nomination 

 being ordinarily equivalent to an election. The 

 Democratic convention was called to meet on 

 Dec. 16. Several months prior thereto the anti- 

 lottery Democrats and those who were adherents 

 of the Farmers' Alliance came to an agreement, 

 by which they were to co-operate in securing the 

 election of anti-lottery delegates to the conven- 

 tion, who would support therein a fusion ticket 

 headed by Thomas S. Adams, President of the 

 State Alliance, for Governor, and containing rep- 

 resentatives of both the Alliance and the anti- 

 lottery people as candidates for the other offices 

 In opposition to this ticket the lottery people 

 and many of the regular Democrats, without re- 

 gard to the lottery question, urged the nomina- 

 tion of a ticket headed by ex-Gov. Samuel D. 

 McEnery, then a justice of the State Supreme 

 Court. At the Democratic primaries a vote for 

 the McEnery faction was generally regarded as a 

 vote in favor of the lottery, while a vote for the 



