The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1911-08-11
MY EXPERIENCE i'm THE LEGISLATURE
c. H. B Floyd in Apalachicoa Times

see. Preacher Rogers, the Gibraltar
of Florida, greeted the greatest intel
lect, with perhaps one exception,
have been able to recognize-a man
whose intellect strides like healthy
F., lion; why to see this man of intellect
pounce with superb springs on a legal
or mortal or philosophical problem is
to watch human feat more inspiring
than to see Curtis in bi-plane sail.
ing mile above the Hudson river
Rogers said General Ellis, l am glad
to meet you again. 1t has been sew
eral years since I saw you last. wish
to tell you again of my profound re-
spect for you" l felt like cheering.
No clouds of ignorance or prejudice
hid the height of w. H. Ellis from the
Keen eye of my Patriarch.
Now while I am holding up the mir
ror to one representative from Marion
county, will turn the looking glass
in front of Ray Bullock. If Rogers
has, burning in his soul, the live coal
of religion, Bullock has, burning in
his soul, the live coal of genius.
There are plenty Napoleans, Vol
taires, Byrons, Mirabeaus in the
world, but fate, in this incarnation
has not blown the coal into a flame.
They but stand and wait. Emerson
positively believed that he had met
and recognized several of the great
spirits of the world re-incarnated and
masquerading around, this time,
under the DISCUSSES of Smith and
Jones or what not. | know a light
keeper named David Silva whom,
after midnight, when l am with him
in the open air, believe to be Hanni-
bal the great. He was the majesty
of the capitol at Washington.
Now the fact that Ray Bullock
doesn't tower over the South is be-
cause the angel has not seen fit to
breathe upon the coal.
Oh for Svengali to teach this singer
to sing!
Oh for a cause that would stimulate
this man Bullock to use his powers;
all of this! Get the legislature edi-
ton of the Tallahassee True Demo
crat" and look at the photograph of
Ray Bullock reproduced there-you
do not see such a face outside of the
history books.
Whether the angel has famed the
coal of his genius or not, he is a
good deal even now. He scalded me
with hot steam one afternoon in the
legislature and poured flaming ashes
of lava over me. His scorn was epic.
What contempt he had for radical
measures and their advocates! He
was the aristocrat of the house, and
he too had joy and a divine gift of
laughter. His sheer was long, a long
whip in the hands of a western cattle
driver.
He is full of startling gifts. 1t
would make you live year or 50 long
er to hear him mimic the explosions
of Reeves and the arguments of Fee
and the addresses of Schofield. He
is full of grace and magnetism. He
does not crook the knee to any one.
Oh if some one would come along
and train him! Put him for months
on the training table diet; trot him
around the foot ball field for couple
of hours each afternoon; make him
pull boat from daylight to a. M;
make him knock punching bag a
couple of hours every day; make i'm
run and jump, what records he would
break! How proud Marion county
and Florida would be of him. He is
not mustard. What a good fellow he
is. What life he has! And the boy
in him is not dead either.
AS soon as you are with him few
minutes you see that he has that
incurable hereditary disease known
as Ancestors" I'll venture the
guess that none of his ancestors has
had to use hoe for six or eight gen.
erations back: and this tells you
know; leisure is the parent of genius.
How are you going to think and
enrich your spiritual nature if you
are packing shingles from a. m. to
6 p. m, 800 days in the year?
The best part of T. Roosevelt
comes from the sort of stock that Ray
Bullock has in him, viz: the blue
blood of the south That is what
makes Teddy such wonder to the
thin, stingy-blooded northerners who
never have enough vitality left after
going through the absurdity of New
England winter. People of the Ray
Bullock sort can royalty govern a
couple of empires, write a half dozen
books year; kill a gross of saddle
horses riding after foxes; dance a
hundred thousand miles around ball