The St. Lucie County tribune. (Fort Pierce, St. Lucie County, Fla.) 1905-1920, 1910-06-17
THE SONG OF
THE SALOON
lama Cancer, Beautiful to Behold
Eating my Way into the World
ITS RECORD OF RUINS
n Is the Builder Of the Coral Reef on
which Civilizations Ship Goes Down
aod the He'll Of its Citadel


Of Florida will be given an opportunity
to vote for the constitutional amend
ment prohibiting the manufacture or
saIe of Intoxicating liquors in this state.
Those who intend to vote against the
amendment are requested to read the
following article, from the pen of that
master writer, Tom Watson of Georgia,
and they will see pictured ia a most
graphic and truthful manner the want
and misery and sorrow they are en-
deavoring to burden upon our fair Land
Of Flowers:
Alive, let US live! Where is yester-
day? Lost forever. Where is tomor-
row? 1t may never come. Today is
here. Within its fieeting hours runs
the only certainty you'll ever know.
Come! eat, drink and be merry, for to-
morrow you may die!
The chains of self-restraint are gall
ing-throw them off. The burden OF
duty is grievous- fling it down. The
cross of responsibility is crushing
another bear it.
Live for yourself; live for the now:
live for tho lust of living.
Drink, and forget dull care. Drink,
and ease the heartache. Drink, and
drown the passion for the unattainable.
See how the men are drawn to me
My lights blaze brilliant welcome;
am never too hot or too cold. MirrOw-
ed vanity smirks in my gilded reHectors
and no one is i'll at ease in my free-for-
all club. No shrewsh wife can tongue
lash you here; no preevish child an
noys you with its cries. Leave them to
the ugliness of your haggard home and
come unto me for comfort. Theirs,
the cold and the gloom and the squalor
yours, the warmth and glow and
social JOY.
Clink your glasses. men. Drink again
Here's hoping" Ills we'll to toast
her here, where begins the trail to the
grave of hope. Be jolly; let the place
ring with laughter; relate the newest
story-the story that matches the nude
picture on the wall.
What's that? A dispute, angry oaths,
violent quarrel, the crash of over
turned chairs, the CLEAN of steel, the
flash of guns, the stream of life blood,
the groans of dying men.
Oh, well, it might have happened
anywhere. The hearts of mothers and
fathers | wrench with paint souls OF
wives ! darken in wOe;l smlte the man,
sion, and there are wounds that gold
can not salve; the hut invade, ana
poverty sinks into deepest pits. ,
/ SOW and | till and reap where
sow. and my harvest-is what?
Men so brutalized that all humanity
slost save the physical shape--men
reeking with moral filth, stony OF heart
bestial in vice-men who hear the name
Of God with a wrathful stare or burst
OF scornful mirth; men who listen to
the death rattle of any victim OF their
greed and their lusts without sign oi
pity.
And women, too! How can | ftIy
sing of the women of my harvest time!
Did you ever hear her laugh? 1t must
be the favOrite music of the damned
Did you ever hear her ripald talk? me
very sewer might shrink at bearing IL
away. Have you ever heard her llbioi-
nous songs? Did you ever watch mel
eye-those defiant, hooking, hopeless
shameless eyes? -
What warriors have ! not vanqulshed!
What statesmen have laid low! how
many a Burns and Poe have not drag
ged down from ethereal heights! how
many Sidney Carton have ! made 10
weep for a wasted life? How many
times have ! caused the ermine TO pe
drawn from the mud?
Strong am l-irresistibly strong
Samson-like strain at the founda'
tigns of character, and they come TOP,
ping down. irremediable ruln-while
escape. am q cancer, beautiful TO De-
hold. and eating my remorseless way
into the world. am, the pestllence,
stalking my victim to che cattage door
and the palace gate. No respector OF
persons, gloat over the richly garpeal
victims no more than over the man WIN
the blouse. =,
The church, empty it; the jail MI
1t; the gallOws, feed it. From M
ana my blazing light run straight tne
dark road to the slums. to the prisons,
to the bread lines, to the. mad house. 10
the Potter's.
! undo the work of the schools, cut
the ground from under law and order;
I'm the seed-bed of poverty, vice anu
crime. Pm the leper, who buys tolera,
ton and who has not to cry "unclean.
4 I'm the licensed ally of sin. buy IRON
the state the right to lay dynamite un,
Yer its foundations. For a price they
five me power to nullify the work OF
lawmakers, magistrates ind ruiers'
tttr handful OF gold am granted let.
MS of marque to sail every human sea
va prey upon its life boats. -.