Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1890-08-14
SINGLE TAX DEPARTMENT.
FIFTY YEARS HENCE.
a Prophecy by the Past Master Of st.
CeeiIe Lodge. f. and A. NJ.


York which holds it's meetings in the
daytime. 1t is known among the fra
ternity as the afternoon lodge" or the
matinee lodge" and its membership is
chiefly made up of actors, musicians.
morning newspaper men and others
whose occupations oblige them to be on
duty at nights.
This lodge, the designation of which
IS st Cecile. No. SOS, F. and A. Nj, cele-
brated its twenty-fifth anniversary on
juno II in the commandery room of the
Masonic temple. A large audience of
members and friends were most agree
ably entertained by number of actors,
singers and instrumentalists. including
Fred. Solomon and George Olmi of the
Casino, the County Fair" quartet, Geo.
W. Morgan, the organist, and others.
When the programme was rather more
than half finished, Mr. Chas. III. Govan, a
former master of the lodge, was pre-
scented to the audience, and gave most
unexpected address. He began by say
ing that twenty-five years was quite
long enough to determine the vitality of
an organization, and that it was reason
able to suppose that St Cecile Lodge
was destined to an existence of
great duration and vigor Il have no
doubt" said he, ''that fifty years from
now, in this same indestructible edifice,
there will be celebration by the mem
bers of this lodge of the magnifcence of
which we can form only slight concep-
ton. / expect to be present on that oc-
casion. Uaughter.) 1t has often been
said that sickly people live the longest
If they are not too sickly. They
are prudent and temperate because they
have to be. Therefore, as l have not
enjoyed robust health for over twenty
years, and never will again, | expect, by
reason of the extraordinary precautions
will have to take, that | will be alive
when al my big redfaced brethren of
middle age have died off from congested
Gvers, apoplexy, fatty degenerations
and other ailments peculiar to those
who live not wisely but too we'll. will
ask you to imagine that the seventy-fifth
anniversary has arrived, and that an old
gentleman-not lean and slippered
pantaloon,' but tolerably well-pre-
served old chap-by the name of Govan
is brought forward and introduced as
the oldest living past master of st. Ce-
Gle L Will pun Ill SUI
and say something in this strain:
Brethren: 1 have just arrived from
the great etropolis-Chicago-w where |
have been making a visit to some of my
grandchildren and great grandchildren,
who are settled there. Worshipful Bro.
Griffith of this lodge, accompanied me
to the station, and as the electric express
was about to start. not more than
six hours since, his last words were:
Tell the brethren of St Cecile that al
though l can not be with them in the
flesh ! will be with them in the spirit.
Tell them also that l will address them
for few minutes through the macro-
telephone Fifty years ago it took me
nearly third of the time to reach this
spot from the eastern section (then
called Brooklyn) as it did to-day to
come from Chicago, and as / overlooked
this beautiful city from the top of the
tunnel tower, at the western end of this
street. before descending the chute. and
recalled tho smoke-enshrouded desert
of brick and mortar known as New York
in the past, 1 rejoiced that L had been
spared to see this happy time. l can APP
preciate the change as you men can not.
You have never known what it was to
live in city with so few parks; that the
only playground for most children was
the streets; where iHtead of the beau
tiful elevated sidewalks, with all the
retail stores on the same level, with
roadways underneath, and the ground
floors of the business district given up
to wholesale traffice, horses carriages,
carts and pedestrians, bales, barrels and
boxes were all iumbled together on the
dusty ground, and you had to risk your
life at every crossing; where, instead of
the silent electric motor, which takes
you wherever you want to 20 at the ia tie
of five miles a minute. you had to de-
pend on a horrible, nerve-wearing ar
rangemcnt on stills, called an elevated
railroad, which roared like leviathan
while it crept like Il snail, and on which
you shivered in winter and stcwed in
summer.
This is now city of homes, but in
my younger days it was largely city of
novels. Since the Government first
took the transportation business out of
the hands of rascally corporations it has
gradually become possible for every
workman to sit under his own roof-tree,
for it now costs no more either in time
or money to ride twenty miles than it
formerly did to ride one mile, and the
portions of Westminster and Long Island
and East Jersey lying within radius of
twenty miles from this spot, which were
once solitary and desert-like, now bios
som like the rose. In my early DAYS
hundreds of thousands of strong men
tramped the country looking vainly for
somebody to hire them. | have seen
women picking up rags and paltry odds
and ends in the street for n livelihood.
] have seen little children barefooted on
November nights selling papers or beg
ging pennies. / have seen swarms of
them at work in dingy factories when
they ought to have been at play. l have
seen sick men at work, when they ought
to have been in bed, because they could
not afford to stop. All these evils were
rife in my time. because of a system of
taxation which choked production at
the fountain head and permitted few
their toiling brethren.
Meanwhile the people, though dimly
conscious of great wrong, were sorely
confused by the scphistries of the press
and the pulpit, both of which tried to
delude us into the belief that we were a
free and happy people, amid the clamor
of socialism, anarchiSm, nationalism
and | know not how many other isms.
each of which was warranted to be sure
cure for all the ills affecting the body
politic. | am thankful that the people
20 l., -.