The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1915-12-07
WE ENLISTED FOR THE WAR

dry side in the local option contest,
Il enlisted not only for the campaign
but for the war.
Ii Marion county goes dry today,
the Star stands for the people who
will keep it dry. If it remains wet,
il is ready to carry the standard in
the next campaign, which will surely
come. Meantime, it intends to sup
port the men and measures which will
promote statewide prohibition.
We do not know what the result OF
today's voting will be. Our dry friends
are confident, but they have been con-
fident before. But, win or lose, the
Star is glad that it has taken its
stand, and has no intention or desire
to recede from it.
We have tried to follow out clean
and liberal policy in this campaign
we have avoided bitterness and per-
sonalities and confined our arguments
to principles and events. OF course,
we can't make our saloon friends see
it that way. We have attacked their
business and some of their practices,
and when you attack mans business
he has to be a first cousin to an angel
if he doesn't feel like you are attack
ing him.
Nevertheless, we are convinced
that if most of the saloon men of
Ocala were in other business, they
would applaud the Stars utterances
in regard to the reprehensible prac-
tees by which they have sought to
keep themselves in business.
There is much good in some saloon
men, but there is not any good in the
saloon business. It is not so bad in
some places as it is in others, but at
its best it is bad everywhere. Every
dollar and every ounce of effort put
into it is sheer, unmitigated waste.
1t helps no man nor woman nor
child, and it has brought disease, dis
grace and death to untold millions. In
Ocala, the saloon business has shown
to better advantage than in almost
any other community in America.
And yet, who can point out any good
it has done the town, and what hon.
est and well-informed person cannot
point out harm?
It's not only the direct waste and
misery caused by the saloon that the
Star objects to, but the practices by
which the saloon has sought to keep
itself in business. More than any
other one thing, it has corrupted the
politics of this county and town.
Some of the older men are forget
ting, the younger ones never knew,
the stress of reconstruction times,
brought about by the carpetbaggers
forever a term of reproach in the
south) who supported by federal
bayonats and taking advantage of the
ignorance of our newly freed slaves,
brought our state and her sister
southern states into a condition of
woe and degradation almost as bad as
that which today afflicts Belgium. 1t
was only by southern white men
standing and working, and sometimes
fighting, together, that the south was
redeemed and enabled to enter on a
career by which the two races have
lived side by side for almost half a
century in comparative peace. What
sort of Hayti should we have had
from the Potomac to the Rio Grande
If white men had not been faithful to
their race ideals in the late sixties and
early seventies?
And yet the saloon element, in try
ing to retain control of Marion coun-
ty, and every other county where
there is a large negro population, has
to considerable extent copied the
tactics of the carpetbaggers of fifty
years ago.
The Star considers it its duty as a
democratic paper to oppose and re-
Duke any such practices. 1t sees no
reason why they should have been
reprehensible and obnoxious to good
citizens fifty years ago and excusable
today.
The status of the negro race is diff
ferent today from what it was fifty
years ago. With time and education,
a large per cent of the colored people
are able to form their own views on
public affairs and are entitled to vote
free from interference. But there is
yet considerable number hampered
with ignorance, and these, the saloon
element has always regarded as its
peculiar property. 1t pays their poll
taxes, brides them with money ahd
whisky and votes them like sheep.
Not only in wet or dry elections, but
in every election where an ignorant
vote can be used by special interest
against the welfare of whole people
is this element used to the detriment
Of the better class of both races.
The Star has plenty of reason to
believe that its denunciations both of
the liquor traffic and corrupt election
practices have the unqualified APP
proval of large majority of the
white people of Marion county, as well
as the approval of that part of the
colored epople who are honestly and
intelIigently trying to better them
selves and their race. Last, but not
least, the Star has the approval Of its