The Palatka news and advertiser. [volume] (Palatka, Fla.) 1908-19??, 1910-09-23
A CALL TO ARMS.
To the White Men of Putnam Cou,


ment was before the last legislature, a
certain Jacksonville representative of the
WHISKY INTERESTS said in his ad-
dress at the public hearing on the queS-
ton, that if the amendment was sub
mitted that the negro would be quail
fled. He said this as threat TO prevent
the question from being submitted. He
was speaking for the saloon interests
He was answered by several who
favored submission of the question in
words to this effect:
EQUALITY THE BAR.ROOM BUM
NEGROES If YOU DARE. YOUR
TREACHERY TO THE WHITE RACE
SHALL BE MADE KNOWN, AND ON
YOUR HEADS SHALL REST THE
SHAME OF TURNING FLORIDA
OVER TO NEGRO RULE"
That the whisky crowd is paying the
poll taxes OF negroes, every white man
in Florida knows. They remember
that Pleasant A. Holt, who is managing
the anti,amendment campaign from
Jacksonville, has acknowledged writing
the following letter to w. H. Price OF
Marianna:
"How many persons are there around
Mariana and other precincts in the
county, who will not pay their own poll
taxes, who would vote against the
amendment
Can you pay these in bulk 10 the
Tax Collector? Please don't answer
this off-hand, but find out from him.
My opinion is he is going to track the
law, II this is so, how can you use this
money to pay poll taxes?
at is almost Superhuman effort 10
collar man and take him up 10 the tax
collectors office and see that he turns
the two dollar bill you give him over to
the tax collector THAT'S THE WAY
WE ARE HAVING TO DO 1T HERE.
Is ii practical in your county,"
Ex-senator Albert NJ. Williamson of
Jacksonville, in his paper, The Flo
ridian, says in recent issue of that
paper
eve make the positive statement that
the whisky men of Jacksonville are now
putting up the two-dollar bills in the
hands OF negroes to qualify them TO vote
against the prohibition amendment"
Here are some more paragraphs from
Mr.. WilIiamson'S editorial:
Up to the time we published that
statement we fully intended to fight the
ratification of the amendment proposed
for our Constitution looking TO state
wide prohibition.
But it's all off now.
We have seen enough! And we are
going to tell our readers about some OF
the things we have seen.
We have taken some pictures OF the
kind of Business Men" whose poll
lakes are being daily paid by this whis-
key trust, and we are going TO take some
more.
For fully thirty years the editor OF
this paper has fought to free the noble
women and helpless children of the
south from this kind OF citizenship.
"Colliers Weekly" had a splendid
photograph of one of them some two
years ago. 1t told of the heinouS crime
he had committed. And il told of the
bar-keeper who sold that beastly fiend
the booze that caused him TO commit
his crazy deed.
Those hirelingS of the booze mer-
chants before the House Committee of
the last Legislature then and there
threatened to give us the negro in poll
tics
We too thought that an idle threat.
But with the brazen effrontery of the
devil himself, these same whiSkey men
are paying the poll-taxeS of the lowest
and dirtieSt of the negro race that they
may hold the reinS of our City, County
and State governments as they did from
rs to '76.
We have given these men fair warn
ing. We have told them that for every
single vote they gained by buying ne
gro so low as TO sell his vote, that they
would ALLEVIATE the friendship OF the bet
Ter element of both races.
They have proven TO US that il is not
with decency, but debauchery that they
hope TO win this fight.
There shall be no middle ground.
The respectable colored voter OF
Florida will not cast his lot with the
lower order of his race who thus sells
his vote, nor with the low degraded
white man who buys him for such a
cause.
That is pretty straight talk, isn't il?
But every word of it is true.
All that can be said concerning the
qualification Of negro votes in Putnam
county is that Tax Collector Hancock
informs the News that about one-third
OF the voters thus far qualified are col
ored. Our tax collector has no means
of knowing whether money is being
furnished them for the purpose or not;
all he does know is that there are
MANY MORE QUALIFIED NEGROES
NOW THAN EVER BEFORE.
If the whisky men arc paying these
poll taxes in other counties why not in
Putnam?
In Mr.. Williamson'S paper is a repro
duction of a snapshot photograph of
bunch of negroes waiting before the old
stable next to the Duval court house
for their coveted two.doIIar bill,
and the statement is made that from
100 TO 200 of these poll taxes are paid
daily.
1t is because of the debauChery of the
negro by this whisky organization at
Jacksonville that thousands OF white
men all over the state are declaring for
the amendment. They don't propose to
allow the whisky interests, with the aid
of the vicious negroes, 10 control the
politics OF Florida.
Every man in Putnam county who is
at all posted on what is going on knows
that every word of the above is true,