The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1916-11-03
Cats ORATORS
HELD FORTH IN
PARK LAST NIGHT

A crowd estimated at from 500 to
1,500, according to the estimator's
ability to see single, double, or triple,
attended the speaking in the park
last night, when Goode Query, for
merly of the Tampa Tribune, a Mr..
Mullady, of Bradford county, and j.
B. Hodges, of Lake City, talked in
the interest of Mr.. Cats.
lnere was no new matter intro
duced in the speeches. Mr.. Query,
who is writer rather than speak
er, made very good address, never
theless, and held the attention of the
crowd for about thirty minutes. He
sought to make it appear that Mr..
Knott was responsible for the short
age Of the tax collector of Hillsbor-
ough county and for various bank
failures, but overlooked charging
him with responsibility for the boil
weevil or the infantile paralysis cpl
demic. He explained the killing of
a negro by Cats, deprecating that
such a trif1ing mishap should be
mentioned. 1t seems, from his story,
that Cats was running a store ouI
among the negroes, a great distance
from any white people; that the ne
gro came to Cats store and there
was an alteration, and Cats
grabbed up "a fence paling and struck
the negro over the head, "and-and,
ladies and gentlemen, accidentally
killed the negro. That's all there is
to that"
Mr.. Query was followed by MIR.
Mullady, a minister, of Hampton, who
made spread-eagle speech, evident
ly consisting in large part of one of
his stock sermons, adapted to the oc-
casion. Mr. Mullady told the old,
old story of the frauds that had
been perpetrated in the recounts,
but, being minister, and wishing to
come as near telling the truth as is
possible for a Cats speaker, most of
his statements were prefaced by the
lrovisO, IF | have been correctly in
formed" or Il have been told" that
such and such frauds had been com
mitted 1t is notable, however. that
when the opportunity to present the
, proof in court Of any of these al
legged frauds was given, there was
not one iota of evidence worth con-
sidering All of it was based 3n
just such statements as Mr.. Null
lady's, by people who had been
told" or had heard of the things
complained of.
Mr.. Mullady skirted perilously
near the edges of the truth, how
ever, when he told that the Supreme
lcourt had refused to count the 90
votes Cats gained in Precinct No.,3
in Alachua county. or course, Mr.
Mullady knew that the only reason
those votes were not counted was be-
cause Mr.. Knott had SO votes to Off
set these 60, which al swoere never
counted, and that it would have been
foolish for the Supreme court to or
der the tate Canvassing Board to re-
convene and make another count to
include these votes when the result
would, of course, have remained un-
changed
Mr.. j b. Hodges came next, and
he delivered a ''tirade Now, don't
accuse the Telegram of being "un-
fair" for this is not our expression
1t is what the Cats organ called Mr..
Hodges speech. He stated in the
outset that this is not a prohibition
campaign indeed, this assur-
ance was hardly necessary, as those
who know Mr.. Hodges declare if it
were a Prohibition campaign Mr.
Hodges would hardly be in it. lie
declared that all who are not sup
portine Cats are boilers. and "all
the names in the category Mr.. !
Hodges was vindictive and yenomous,
and like all such speakers made ex-
actly the opposite impression from |
what he intended.
The meeting changed no votes, and |
VIC do not think il strengthened the |
cause of Mr.. Cats in this commun-