The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1913-02-04
v. c. I. j. Department
tiOn and the Fastest Growing
City ON Earth

On November 16, 1907, sixty saloon
keepers of Oklahoma City closed their
doors with slam and curse.
The people had spoken. state was
born and baptized The frogs said
that. without beer, the city would go
to the bow-wows The frogs said that
grass would grow in the streets with
in year.
But frogs never did have any brains.
Out of an overgrown village, scourg-
ed with saloons. sodden with drink,
impoverished with saloon debts, the
people went to work to build city
The result is "the fastest growing
city on EARTH
Here are some things that the people
were enabled TO do under prohibition:
They paved more than one hundred
miles of streets, spending more than
four millions Of dollars therefor.
They@ constructed a hundred miles
of sanitary sewers anu forty miles of
storm water sewers.
They built two hundred miles OF
sidewalks
They built three of the finest hotels
in the southwest, displaeing the low
down license groggeries.
They laid out and developed more
than 1000 acres in public parks.
The cranks then built $2,000,000
worth of churches.
They built something like one hun
dred factories which now have a pay
roll of $150,000 a week.
Then along came enormous packing
houses, with 100000 plants to do
business where they could get sober
labor.
Then the bank deposits kept climb
ing up until they are now about $780,
00O,0 600.
Then the people built and built and
built till scoffers said they were mad
In 1910, alone, the building permits
called for five and half million dol
lars
The bank clearings for 1911 were
more than hundred millions.
Then the people put in stock yards
covering quarter section of land.
And how the freight did come and
go! The freight revenue to the rail-
ways for 1910 was almost seven mill
ions of dollars.
The postoffice rece pts jumped to
nearly four hundred thousand dollars
annually.
Congress saw what was doing and
built half-million dollar postoffce.
Then the people went stark mad and
built a high school that cost s550,000.
Then the people put in more than a
hundred miles of water mains.
They put in ten thousand telephones.
Real estate began transferring at
the rate of more than $25,000,000 per
year.
The people had to have nearly 1000
tail establishments to handle the grow
ing traffic.
The school census taken just before
prohibition came was less than 5000
1t has jumped to more than 10000.
During the past year alone, the peo-
pie spent three quarters of million
in the construction of churches.
The population under the few years
of prohibition was doubled and is now
approximately $4,000.
The people threw away 100000 a
year of saloon money, "a IS true. But
they also threw away the Dig expenses
that were made necessary by the sa-
looms.
And the increase in the value OF
property has grown so enormously un-
der prohibition that the people have
made all these tremendous improve
ments without increasing the tax rate.
The blight of prohibition" came, all
right, but it withered nothing but the
saloons.
BY destroying these business weeds.
the way was opened for the building
of this wonder of the west-'the fast
est growing city on earth"
Now, what have our good liquor ad-
yocates to say concerning this? We
thought, according to their story, that
prohibition meant sure death TO any
community, large or small. Somebody
is mistaken. Here IS case in point.
1t is as clear a case as was ever made
out.
Looks as if the liquor men are mis-
taken.