The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1911-07-21
NY EXPERIENCE IN THE LEGISLATURE
CBy c. H. 3. Floyd

glittering waters OF the Gulf OF Mex
ice; here are three men luxuriating
in the rights and power of free peo-
pie. making laws for their citizens.
Here in the house and in the senate.
and the Office OF the governor. and in
the supreme court rooms, is Florida,
dramatized, minimized. assembled.
You feel like shouting, and by the
Eternal, just as soon as the house is
in session, you do shout.
Floridians should teach their sons
to love Florida, our old mother; the
hills that are her breasts, and the
streams that run with her ripping
laughter. Henry Grady said that
about Georgia. Now, what would he
have said about Florida, ringed with
the triumphant sea. Physically,
Georgia IS bleak state, naked. al
most. OF forests and foliage. her old
red hills looking Ike dog after an
attack Of the mango: but there Is not
a square foot OF Florida OF which the
virile soil is not the battle ground q
a frenzied army Of sprouts fighting .
get up where they can Worship our
magnificent sun. Even the sun. Up z
Georgia. is a little TWENTY-FIVE CALDER
affair: but down here this snpHero
luminary looks like the nazzIe q
forty foot coast defence gun Ike
those which stare ont fercely over
Escambia bay
Lives there q man with a soul 50
dead who never 10 himself has said
this is my own, my native land?"
No certainly not, if that man has
taken part in the government Of the
state as a member Of the house OF
representatives When the Saviour
returns 10 reincarnate Himself. and
Judge the world and rule the Kingdom
OF God on earth, a Florida mother will
bring him the angels and the arch
angles and the cherubim and sera-
phim and radiating from this delight
cd land his DEGREES Of love will 90
our thar the Millennium may come on
this troubled star: and from His
fpalace in Florida He will guide the
Earth and the Moon and our burning
sun in divine spirals on splendid ad
ventures across the endless and bot
toInless sea Of space TO every other
inhabited planet that turns about any
system. forever and ever, bringing the
news that the endless day has dawneG
and that peace and good viii 10
men reign from end 10 end OF the IN
iverse al last. l tell you until YOU
have eaten honey dew and drunk the
milk Of paradise, until you have
been caught up and placed as one cell
of the brain OF Florida there. in her
head, below the dome of the capitol,
until you have felt great thought
, strike across that brain, flushing all
her face, you do not know how good
! it is 10 be an American citizen; 10
I re g man; 10 be a power: you do not
know how fine people are: how Sc
rene, how honest; how joyous: you
do not know how the great tears can
wet your face at the thought OF our
victorious white race in whose breast
ed loins and aesd is the secret O.
( Zee government. Here IS tie flower
and crown of the ages; toward what
goes on in the capitol every second
year, the ages have striyen and
Travelled. For this Eve spun and
( Adam delved; for this Ancient Of
Days inspired the arms OF the Greeks
! at Marathon and the soldiers OF
Charles Martel; for this the man.
whose memory viii remain as in
shrine in the human heart long after
his high obelisk has crumbled into
dust and TO longer catches the first
rays OF the sun in the city on the PotO-
moe, for this consummation, that man
was uplifted by the God of Freedom,
and strengthened from the beginning
of the war when the embattled farm
ers fred the shot heard around the
world. up to the delivery of the
sword of CORVALLIS. For this, the
earth gathered itself out of the nebula
and became round and cooled, and,
out of it's deep need called spirit
from the Abyss and shut that spirit
in the brain behind the eyes of little
child in Genoa, the little child who
half a century later, steering his
three boats over the wine dark sea
beyond the gray Azores and the Gates
of Hercules, in the direction of ITALIA
hassee saw first the surf advancing
on San Salvador; for this free, equal
unrestrained, government also, the
man of the equality and grandeur of
each man, for out of that seed grew
also the United States.
And so say, go to the legislature