The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1914-05-15
TRICE'S TRUMPETEER
ARTICLES Published under this Heading fur
nisaed by M. P. A. Bureau. Jacksonville,

The thousand of Florida visitors to
Jacksonville last week went away
feeling proud of the metropolis OF
their great state, and THEY have a
right to feel proud of it. 1t is no small
undertaking for city whose normal
capacity for entertainment does not ex-
coed $4,000, to care for and amuse
for three days and nights a sudden
infl..I of somewhere around a hun
Led thousand. But the Jacksonville
spirit majestically supreme to every
tax laid upon her energy.
In 1888 the yellow plague lowered
vulture-like over the environs OF Jack
sonville. The death spectre stalked
forth by day and night, without re
spect to persons or conditions in life.
CONSERVATION seized the people But
out of the general chaos came forth
heroes with hearts of iron and volun-
teers to cope with the monster and do
or die. BY order of the authorities
those lucky enough to escape with
contamination scattered to the four
winds, until the monster could be
throttled. When the wires flashed the
glad tidings that yellow fever was no
more and the authorities said come
it is banished forever-recruits filed
the void made by the ravages of the
fever anc Jacksonville once more
took up tits determined fight for COM
mercial and civic suprememacy.
A few years later a tiny curl of
smoak in an unsual place warned the
populace that the fire bug had sneak.
ed in, and before anything could be
done a conf1agration at that time
second only to Chicagos great disast-
er had set in. Within the night the
city was RACED and weeks followed
during which thousands of peple felt
themselves lucky to find board to
sleep upon with boundless space as
the walls of their habitation and the
from the night marauder while slumb-
ering. Only long enough for the ashes
to cool did the Jacksonville spirit
wait to begin the rebuilding of great
city upon the cemetary-like scene of
the heart-rending disaster. History
points to no greater miracle than the
Jacksonville achievement which fol
lowed Within a score of years, from
the ashes of the blacklist despair she
has forced her way to the front rank
of the great cities of the south, and
formally planted her banner there.
The treatment accorded visitors
during reunion week has emphasized
the Jacksonville spirit of never fail
as nothing else has during the past
few years. Nor did the visitors find
the seething cauldron of vice and in
temperance, which certain agitators
delight in portraying as part of Jack
sonville life, because Duval county re-
fuses to adopt their peculiar political
views. Nor did they find city Of
mental degenerates and physical in
competents such as those same agita-
tors glory in depicting as the natural
offspring of people with the views
and habits which they declare pre-
dominate in Jacksonville, with every
faculty of mind and body on the qui
vivi. Men whose giant intellect rests
in the shadow of no potocntate or
fanatical tyrant, and women whose
beauty and modesty will measure up
to the standard of those of any great
city in the world.
Achievement is the thing that
counts in measuring the intellectuali
ty of a people. Achievement by their
own efforts | mean. Agitators with
out a just cause, but with the pre-
JUDGES and tyrannical instances and
financial support of multitudes of peo-
pie behind them may accomplish much
in the spreading of discernment as
we'll as ability to cope with things of
the present to build a Jacksonville.
A man has to be very careless of
his reputation for truth and veracity
who starts out to convince the people
that Jacksonville deserves the SYM
pathy of the balance of the state, be-
cause the local option sentiment pre-
dominates here. Jacksonville appre-
ciated the sympathy of all good peo-
pie when she needs it, as she did
when grabbing with the yellow fever
scrouge and when razed by fire-but
just now. Well, just admiration If
about all she is entitled to.