The Ocala evening star., 1900-09-10


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7 Editor Star: In this weeks Issue
of the Ocala Weekly Star notice an
article signed by Messrs. William
Hooker and ID. Z. McIyer which, no
doubt unintentionally on the part of
those gentlemen, does Jacksonville
and her representatives at the Palatka
conference a serious injustice.
The article in question. after pur-
/ porting to give a history of the capitol
removal agitation in Jacksonville
which is totally at variance with the
Ocala's great anxiety TO have a prelim-
mary primary election as between
Ocala, Gainesville, St. Augustine and
/ Jacksonville, 10 determine which is
the strongest of these four TO make
the race against Tallahassee in the No
vember primary.
When these gentlemen, neither of
whom were present at the Palatka con
ference, undertake to charge that Jack
sOnville opposed a preliminary pri-
mary, they are simply mistaken.
On last Thursday morning at Lees
burg | met Mr.. Hooker and he told me
that he had written such an article as
the one in question. and | thereupOn
told MIR. Hooker that he was mistaken
and that Jacksonville had proposed at
such conference a fair. square primary
to settle this matter and had voted
for it.
Later in the day Mr. BurfOrd and
other gentlemen arrived from Ocala
and they were present at the meeting
which was addressed by Mr.. ID. U.
Fletcher and myself. Mr.. BurfOrd was
sitting on the platform and had occa-
sion TO refer to what Mr. Hooker had
told me and did refer to it publicly at
that meeting and stated the facts, sub
stantially, as follows:
> the representatives from Ocala of
fered a resolution in the conference
proposing that we have a preliminary
primary in all the counties in the state
that had. or should, by some authOri-
tative action, express themselves as
, being i'm favor of the removal of the
! capitol. We asked these gentlemen
how they proposed to ascertain that
such authoritative action had been
taken. or, in other words, to ascertain
whether or not a county was in favor
g of the removal of the capitol. They
l. stated that they could get an express
sion from the various boards of cOun
ty commissioners or county executive
committees. We replied to that by
saying that We were unwilling, on Sc
grave a question, to permit any boards
, ecutive committees to speak for the
! entire people of a county, and, there
fore, we were opposed to that kind of (;
primary. After some discussion o
primaries generally, l offered al
= amendment to the Ocala resolution
the purpOrt of which was to strike on
that part of the resolution that l hav,
quoted and insert in lieu thereof tha
we hold a primary in all the twenty
. eight counties east of the Suzanne,
river and also in the counties of Ham
iltOn. Lafayette, Madison and Taylor
making thirty-twO counties i'm all. to b,
participated in by the white democrat
ic voters of said counties and thus sc
lect our candidate to be pitted agains
Tallahassee at the November primary
There was objection made to in
cluding both Taylor and Madison
counties and they were stricken out
A vote was taken on the amendmen
providing for this preliminary primar
II to be held in thirty counties. towit
II The twenty-eight counties east of tn
I Suwannee river and the counties {
Hamilton and Lafayette. On thi
question the three gentlemen frUI
Ocala and the three from Jacksonyl
voted in favor of my amendment: i
other words, voted in favor Of a PR
liminary primary, and the three gel
tlemen from st Augustine. togethe
with those from Gainesville. vote
d against H. This made il a tie an
. therefore the amendment was lost
made this statement OF facts ia m
ID speech Al LeesDuTg aud after maxim
il turned % Mr Burford who NHs q
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