The Palatka news and advertiser., 1915-04-09
THE MOOVIES VS. .
THE SALOONS.

pleading for wide open, or wet
town.
The example of this moving pic
ture man is strange from the fac
that the moving picture men them
selves have used the arguments o
the enmity of the liquor interests a
proof of their rights to hearty pa
tronage; and as the Metropolis put
it, "they are well aware that righ
here in Miami there are hundreds o.
dimes paid in at the ticket windows
by women and children who never
used to get to the movies at all wEer
the saloons were offering a place fol
father to spend his earnings
The Metropolis further says:
Since the saloons have been ab-
sent from Miami, not only have
the picture shows fourished but
the banks have stored away
thousands of dollars of the peo-
ple's savings. The banks of
Miami had $685., ,2443O on de-
posit at the close of the saloon
ness year-here, let US hasten to
say that The Metropolis is not
foolish enough to lay all of Mi
ami's prosperity to the absence
of the saloon; Miami has the
stuff in her to grow and be pros
porous in spite of the saloon.
BIT we do assert that Miami is
happier, that Miami is building
on safer and more solid lines,
Miami is offering better environ
ment for her people and better
attractions to the stranger seek
ing a place to make his home
than she ever did in the days
when there were licensed liquor
hells throughout the city.
Take it all in all that was
most astonishing proceeding;
that speechmaking of the NOV
ing picture man. He should go
to Jacksonville where everything
is brilliantly "wide-open'-and
where there are $500 vacant
houses and thousands of unem-
ployed men and innumerable
NNoSS VI Nl4S PONNiN W.
The argument of the Metropolis is
good; it would be much stronger did
it have its facts right. Now we
don't know about the empty houses
in jacksonville, but. we do know it is
a very "wide-open" town, and that
its condition as the chief city of the
state, seemingly fast in the clutches
of the liquor oligarchy and its allied
vices, constitutes the shame of Flori-
da.
There is one paragraph in the Me-
,tropolis' editorial, however, which will
spoil its value in so far as Palatkans
are concerned. In it the paper does
this city great injustice, as follows:
He should go to West Palm
Beach where there are grog
shops on every corner and where
the better people are growing
sick at heart becaIse of the
changing atmosphere of the once
home-making town; he should go
to wide-open Palatka which has
only added three thousand people
and most of them negroes-to
its population in twenty years!
BY all means he should hunt up
a Wide-Open Town and estab-
lish his picture show, and then
watch to see whence the dimes
come,
What are the facts concerning Pa
latka?
Palatka and Putnam county went
into the "dry" column some eight
or ten years ago by a very decisive
vote of its people-so decisive that
there has never been an attempt on
the part of the liquor interests to
gain another foothold here. Palatka
and Putnam comfy are as dry as
it is possible to make city or coun-
ty "dry" in a wet State and Ma
ton. Since Palatka went dry the
city has increased in population. If
the Metropolis will refer to the last
State census, taken in 1910, it will
find Palatka credited with a trife ua-
der 1000. Since that census was
taken. LESS THAN FIVE YEARS
AGO. the population of the city has
increased to more than SEVEN
THOUSAND. Not in the last 20
years, mind you, but within the last
FIVE years. And they are not as the
says, "most of them ne
groes." True, there have been many
negroes to come in, fact made rec
essary by the growing demand for
labor, but the larger proportion Of
the increase has been of the "whitest'
kind of white people-Christian peo-
ple who have been attracted to city
of churches and orderliness, and
where there is a premium on clean
living.
PaIatka has more miles Of brick
oaved streets and concrete sidewalk
IN proportion to its population than
any city of its class in all FLORIDA.
rs business houses are among the