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Regular Democratic Organization
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Regular Democratic Organization
The Regular Democratic Organization (RDO), also known as the Old Regulars or the New Orleans Ring, is a conservative political organization based in New Orleans. It has existed for 130 years and as of 2017 was still active.
The symbol of the RDO is the rooster. For many years the organization's headquarters was at the Choctaw Club.
The RDO organized in the latter days of Reconstruction, toward the end of Republican Party control of the city. In 1876 the Democrats regained control of the state legislature, in part due to violent intimidation by the paramilitary White League of white and black Republicans to suppress voting. In 1877, the Democrats regained political power in New Orleans via the political muscle of the RDO. The RDO leadership enacted Jim Crow laws such as segregated facilities and a poll tax, similar to laws being enacted by the state legislature.
During the battle between the RDO and an alliance between Reform Democrat Mayor Joseph A. Shakspeare and biracial New Orleans Republicans, the RDO's two political bosses of the city's Italian-American community, Joseph Macheca and Frank Romero, fell victim to the 1891 New Orleans lynchings.
In 1896 RDO lent its support to the reelection of Governor Murphy J. Foster in order to stop a biracial alliance between the Republican Party and the Populists behind the candidacy of John N. Pharr. After an election characterized by fraud so widespread that the actual results may never be known, Foster maneuvered to rewrite the state constitution so as to disfranchise most black voters, related to similar actions by Mississippi and other former Confederate states through 1910. This resulted in several decades in which Louisiana and other states were effectively controlled by one political party, and blacks were closed out of the political process. Nomination by the white-controlled Democratic Party of the state or winning its primary was all that was tantamount to election.
RDO became a powerful political force in New Orleans and throughout Louisiana around the turn of the 20th century.[citation needed] It appealed to working-class and immigrant voters. According to author Garry Boulard in his 1998 book, Huey Long Invades New Orleans, one of the reasons for the Old Regulars' success was that they had jobs to dispense:
If you were willing to work for them, they could provide work for you: the city and sewerage board alone was worth more than four thousand jobs; there were jobs in the police and fire departments, jobs on public-financed construction projects, jobs hauling garbage, jobs working in city hall. Only through the Old Regulars could New Orleanians gain access to these jobs.[page needed]
Like their political rivals the Citizen's League, the RDO had white supremacist leanings. The group exuded a tolerant attitude towards alcohol consumption, gambling, and prostitution.
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Regular Democratic Organization
The Regular Democratic Organization (RDO), also known as the Old Regulars or the New Orleans Ring, is a conservative political organization based in New Orleans. It has existed for 130 years and as of 2017 was still active.
The symbol of the RDO is the rooster. For many years the organization's headquarters was at the Choctaw Club.
The RDO organized in the latter days of Reconstruction, toward the end of Republican Party control of the city. In 1876 the Democrats regained control of the state legislature, in part due to violent intimidation by the paramilitary White League of white and black Republicans to suppress voting. In 1877, the Democrats regained political power in New Orleans via the political muscle of the RDO. The RDO leadership enacted Jim Crow laws such as segregated facilities and a poll tax, similar to laws being enacted by the state legislature.
During the battle between the RDO and an alliance between Reform Democrat Mayor Joseph A. Shakspeare and biracial New Orleans Republicans, the RDO's two political bosses of the city's Italian-American community, Joseph Macheca and Frank Romero, fell victim to the 1891 New Orleans lynchings.
In 1896 RDO lent its support to the reelection of Governor Murphy J. Foster in order to stop a biracial alliance between the Republican Party and the Populists behind the candidacy of John N. Pharr. After an election characterized by fraud so widespread that the actual results may never be known, Foster maneuvered to rewrite the state constitution so as to disfranchise most black voters, related to similar actions by Mississippi and other former Confederate states through 1910. This resulted in several decades in which Louisiana and other states were effectively controlled by one political party, and blacks were closed out of the political process. Nomination by the white-controlled Democratic Party of the state or winning its primary was all that was tantamount to election.
RDO became a powerful political force in New Orleans and throughout Louisiana around the turn of the 20th century.[citation needed] It appealed to working-class and immigrant voters. According to author Garry Boulard in his 1998 book, Huey Long Invades New Orleans, one of the reasons for the Old Regulars' success was that they had jobs to dispense:
If you were willing to work for them, they could provide work for you: the city and sewerage board alone was worth more than four thousand jobs; there were jobs in the police and fire departments, jobs on public-financed construction projects, jobs hauling garbage, jobs working in city hall. Only through the Old Regulars could New Orleanians gain access to these jobs.[page needed]
Like their political rivals the Citizen's League, the RDO had white supremacist leanings. The group exuded a tolerant attitude towards alcohol consumption, gambling, and prostitution.