Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1917-08-08
ALONG the MISSISSIPPI.

Mississippi according to dispatches
from McGregor. The booze ooal 10
g merely blind pig on water
instead Of land with the added advan-
tage Of the bootlegger that it may sen
in the alleys and bayous of the river
and shift places quickly to avoid cap
ture.
The hooze boat is partial reFlNai
of the unspeakable "gunboat OF carrier
times on the river The younger gener-
alton will not recognize the name IN
this connection for the "gunboat" has
been ont of business many years. How
ever older persons will not fail 10 recai'
distinctly the shameful Elects" that
n,ied an atrocious trade from end to end
Of the river forty years ago. The BOOZE
boat is a church however compared
with the "gunboat".
Time was when the river from ST
Paul to ST Louis was sewer OF vice
and degradation. In those days 1t was
nonularlv assumed that neither state
might exercise any control on the river
beyond the banks. The river was gov
eminent property" and subject only TO
an indefinite control by the govern
ment" So every Island adjacent 10
cities was invested by dives OF degree
-. ;a:.-,o-s ovid 1erra a a tim unirn-
aginable in these later and decenter
DAYS. where orgies of shame unspeak-
able were daily and nightly on their
programs. The "gunboat" was the COM
plement Of the dive on land. II vas
usually an ancient steamboat fitted up
with a garish luxuriance, supplied with
bars and liquors and filled with female
offscourings of shameful resorts. Mu--
der was an incident on islands and
boats. From the falls TO the delta the
river was a Tom Tinker's ground where
decency went at its peril and where
timidity or the appearance OF it invited
assault robbery and sudden death.
1t was the old order dying, an order
that had begun with the keelboat men
of the Ohio and the lower Mississippi
and followed north and west to the
pine woods, and the lumber camps to
fell mighty forests, carry the drives
down the "whitewater' to their rem
devious at the conjunction of the in
land rivers with the Mississippi and
float the mighty RATS on 10 the wait
ing mills strung along fine banks in ev-
cry town and city. Goths and vandals
those men were, each gang headed by
its own Alaric. They swarmed out Of
the pineries as their prototypes had
come raving out of the Great Hercy
milan Wood lustful, strong, seeking to
measure strength with the strong and
to override and bully the weak They
were as elemental as any other barbar-
ians of history The elemental theory
reigned where they landed: those took
who had the power and those kept
who could. The river itself ran not
more powerfully than the lusty license
of them And so from end to end Of
the great waterway came lack Of law
and rule Of disorder.
The booze boat is relic Of that time.
But il is out of place and has arrived
to meet law and order and different
people with different ideas living un-
der different conditions. The lumber
trade is no longer the dependence Of
the river towns. 1t went with the for
esis and the RATS and the vikings OF
the pine woods went with il. They dis
appeared as did the passenger pigeons
and the buffalo, because the necessity
that made them useful had ceased to
be. Conditions made them and cond-
tfons destroyed them. So the booze
boat is coming to a new condition un-
der which it can not exist. 1t will be
crushed under the feet of progress.