A week before Mardi Gras, and after five days of increasing tensions between the Morial administration and police, the captains of 18 krewes -- after meeting in a joint session at the Downtown Howard Johnson's -- issued a statement. This time, it wasn't the traditional proclamation of their parade dates or that of their annual bal masques.
The front page of The Times-Picayune of
Feb. 21, 1979, announcing the cancellation of Mardi Gras festivities in New Orleans due to a lingering police strike. (File image)Mike Scott, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
This time, their message was more dire: Carnival 1979 would be cancelled.
As much as the police wanted to blame the administration, which had repeatedly made concessions during negotiations with the union, public sentiment had turned -- and it wasn't in favor of the cops or the Teamsters.
"Nothing but harm can come to the spirit of New Orleans' Mardi Gras through the day-by-day suspense of cancellation, dependent upon the final judgment by out-of-town union leaders," the krewe captains wrote.
They continued: "It is wrong to use Mardi Gras as blackmail in this dispute. The same procedure can be used each year and we are not going to let our organizations be puppets in such a plan. Therefore, we cancel our parades in New Orleans."
A front-page editorial headlined "City Under Siege" further excoriated the Teamsters and the out-of-town union leaders who were described as fanning the flames of police officer discontent.
"To the strikers goes the blame for the terrible turn that events have now had to take," the editorial read, "and they are wrecking themselves in the eyes of the very public on whom they are dependent for the tax dollars needed now and the future."