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Chapter 4:
Return to the Political Arena:
Professionalization of the City and Continuation of
Earlier Reform Efforts
 S EARLY AS NOVEMBER, 1895, the AMERICAN ISRAELITE correspondent in New Orleans detected a new and positive
electric charge in the city's political atmosphere. He observed that, "by going Republican," the state
of Kentucky had recentlybroken the solid democratic South and that now there existed "a chance to take Louisiana
out of the hands of the boodlers" who had been in control the past four years. With reform again topping the
agenda, concerned New Orleans citizens had organized the Citizens' League, and FJD and one of his wealthy clients,
Isidore Hernsheim, were among those founders. The correspondent reminded his readers that FJD already had distinguished
himself in the State Legislature by working to purge the "rancid, cancerous growth, the lottery." This
"bold stand," he noted, commended FJD "as one man and politician on whom the honest element could
depend," a reputation which now could give "additional strength and the hope... of placing the city on
a solid and substantial basis of honest government."
Again, FJD well synchronized sense of purpose and sense of timing. Running
for the City Council from the Tenth District, he was on the Citizens' League ticket with other prominent local
reformers like Walter C. Flower, who ran for mayor. Heavily backed by those wishing to upturn the local political
machine, the reformers won. FJD was again in position to push through much-needed legislation to master the city's
terrific sewerage and drainage problems.
Under his tutelage, the city established and built a drainage system unique in all the world, finally being able
to get rid of excess water through an elaborate system of pumping stations and drains. FJD had been instrumental
in both measures to secure the safety of his city: first, the construction of the levee system and now the initiation
of adequate and sophisticated sewerage and drainage.
FJD was wise enough to foresee that the city could not grow and develop until property investments could be secured
from flooding. When he began serving in the legislature in the spring of 1888, FJD had let it be known that he
was interested in developing a drainage plan for the city. W.W. Howe, a local judge, offered to consult with him,
since Howe, too, had demonstrated interest in the need for such a plan after discussing the situation with "leading
sanitarians and engineers." Howe had advertised in the STATES his "intention to apply to the General
Assembly for legislation to secure levees and drainage" for the city. Howe suggested that there be two separate
statutes: "one for levees, and one for drainage." The legislation he proposed would culminate in establishing
two separate boards of directors, composed of "leading citizens such as the Governor should select" to
head them. FJD kept Howe's letter and an unidentified newspaper clipping from April, 1888, discussing Howe's proposal.
Although the bill failed to pass during FJD's tenure in the legislature, the issue did not die. In his scrapbook,
FJD noted that the 1888 article referred to the "first effort to provide a modern system of drainage in New
Orleans which led to the passage of the bill Judge Howe & I framed in 1896." Howe and Dreyfous proved
an unbeatable team. Engineering an appropriate sewerage and drainage system was long overdue in a city below sea
level, plagued with periodic epidemics of yellow fever, one of which occurred in the late 1890s as the two men
frantically worked to draft legislation that could deal effectively with the city's property and health needs.
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