The Donaldsonville Chief

THE COMMISSION.

The gentlemen composing the Louisiana Commission reached New Orleans Thursday night or Friday morning of last week, just in time to witness and be impressed by an immense mass-meeting of the friends of the Nicholls government, at which resolutions were adopted indorsing the policy announced in the inaugural address of President Hayes, declaring allegiance to the authority of Governor Nicholls and deprecating any compromise or adjustment which interferes with the status of his administration.

The members of the Commission entered at once upon their inquisitory labors, and have held protracted daily sessions at the St. Charles Hotel, receiving the visits and representations of delegations and individuals from both political parties.

What headway has been made, or what conclusion the Commission will reach, are matters for conjecture, as the deliberations of the body have been secret.

It is the general impression, however, that no plan of adjustment can be devised which will be accepted by the friends of the rival governments, and that the President's ambassadors will simply report the situation as they find it, leaving it to him to take such action as in his discretion may seem advisable.

It is thought the Commission will complete its investigations early next week and leave immediately thereafter for Washington.

We are gratified that the Amite City Independent, a Republican paper, is able to give an emphatic denial to reports of recent bulldozing outrages in that parish, and we shall be pleased if the Port Vincent Triune can do as much for Livingston.

It is time the brutal business of bulldozing was suppressed, and if the Nicholls government will employ its authority to this end it will be doing something to win the allegiance of the people of our own State, irrespective of party lines, as well as the confidence of the country at large.

We doubt if greater evil could afflict a State, than a government too weak or too negligent to enforce the laws and protect the citizen in the rights guaranteed him by the constitution.

It is undeniable that the administration headed by Gov. Nicholls has the power to secure a just and rigid enforcement of law; the will to do so remains to be proven.