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VOLU7IT. SIX
NUMBER SEVEN
Transformation of the Tolvn That Used to be Called "The Worst Place in Florida” —Story of Holv the W. C. T U.
and a Little Girl Carried "That Alvful Wet Spot” "Dry.”
Sy WILLIAM D. UPSHAW.
Glorious
■
AM sorry for you when you get to
Dunnellon—it is the “wettest” spot
in Florida.” This is the way the peo
ple talked to me all over the State
when I was speaking in the recent
Florida campaign for State-wide
prohibition. “To begin with, they
won’t come to hear you—they won’t
hear anybody who speaks against
liquor. You never saw such a place. The peo
ple drink, curse and fight, and sometimes when
they kill each other a dead body has been
known to lie untouched on the streets for
hours. Oh, I tell you, Dunnellon is awful!”
Thus they rattled on. But they don’t say it
any more. For the tide has turned —and the
old-time prophecy, “A little child shall lead
them,” has come beautifully true in the case
of Dunnellon’s transforming transformation.
How It Came About.
It was a woman’s hand, of course.
However careless, wicked and wanton the
men of a community may be—whether a great
congested city, a howling frontier or a hustling
little phosphate town like Dunnellon, there
will always be some noble Christian women
there whose hearts will sicken and rebel at the
flagrant sins of the men who are supposed to
be their protectors. And thus it was that the
heart of Miss Minnie E. Neal, the valiant
President of the Florida Christian Temperance
Union, was made to sing a new song one day —
for a W. C. T. U. had actually been organized
at Dunnellon!
The men laughed and drank on, saying: “No
use.” They charged the women and children
with being “dreamers who dreamed that they
were dreaming,” and declared that they might
as well try to bridge the Gulf of Mexico as to
vote Dunnellon “dry.”
But that W. C. T. U. got to work. They
gave five entertainments in which the children
of the town took part—the children, mind you,
of men who had long been from principle and
practice in favor of the reign of liquor.
But you know any man who is any sort of
man at all loves his own child. And when he
sees that child —girl or boy—stand up before
the public to sing or recite, the father is ex
ceedingly anxious to see his own child do
well. He fairly lives in what his child is doing
and saying. He believes in every word and
act. And when that child sings of the evils of
drink or tells the sad, heart-breaking story of
the ravages wrought by rum in clouded homes
and agonizing hearts, that drinking father
finds his own heart-strings almost snapping as
he follows the story.
A NEW DUNNELLON
ATLANTA, G* 6, 1911.
He sees a picture of himself—and is won,
thank God, from a drinker’s shame and a
drinker’s vote.
And that is how the throne of King Alcohol
has been largely undermined at Dunnellon.
A Midnight Ride—Lost In the Woods.
A mishap on train had prevented my reach
ing Dunnellon on Sunday. Monday afternoon
till A-, 4
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MAMIE RUTH SANDERS.
I had spoken to a great crowd on the square
at Ocala, and the mayor had shown himself to
be a genuine gentleman by stopping all traffic
on that side of the square so the noise of vehi
cles on the paved streets would not drown the
speaker’s voice (bless the mayor’s heart! that
speaker is grateful yet!) The enterprising
women of the W. C. T. U. had arranged the
most magnificent and impressive parade I ever
saw anywhere. And then, tired but happy
in the thought of striking the liquor devil one
more blow before the battle of ballots on the
morrow I started in an automobile with a vali
ant company of prohibition heroes for the
“wettest spot in Florida.”
And just as soon as we reached Dunnellon
those glorious fellows started up and down
the streets, into the stores, bar-rooms and all
shouting with wide-eyed enthusiasm: “Come
on and hear that ‘Georgia Cyclone.’ Whether
you agree with him or not you will have a big
time.
Pardon the blushes—but the men came!
The women and children were already there.
The W. C. T. U. choir sang several thrilling
songs —and then—who that heard it can ever
forget?—little Mamie Ruth Sanders, whose
picture appears on our front page, came for
ward and sang in tender, touching tones:
“Papa, dear papa, come home with me now —
The clock in the steeple strikes one!”
My, my! by the time she reached the story
of “little Bennie’s” death, saying: “I want to
kiss papa good-night”— tears were in many
eyes and I knew a greater argument had been
made than my speech could possibly contain.
And I told the people so. Frankly, I think I
have seldom spoken as I spoke that night.
When I realized that I was speaking in such
a community, and that, too, my last plea be
fore the morrow’s mighty battle my own heart
was stirred as it has rarely been in this life. I
plead with those men to take their place be
side that little girl and all those women and
children next day and build a new Dunnellon,
telling them if they would only cast a “dry”
majority I would help them through the col
umns of The Golden Age to let the world know
that the reproach of the past had been taken
away and that henceforth there would be a
community of new ideals in which they and
all new comers could rear their children.
Imagine our joy when the good news came
that Dunnellon had voted “dry” by three ma
jority. It seemed a miracle —and the people
say, and I believe that no one thing had quite
so much to do with bringing about that re
markable result as the singing of that bright
little darling, Mamie Ruth Sanders.
Never mind that our “Prohibition Auto” got
lost coming back that night and that
we never reached Ocala until 2:00 o’clock
next morning. Lee Howell (in whose car we
went) Percy Billingsley, D. W. Tompkins and
Marvin Hawthorne —all made such glorious
midnight and early morning companions, and
the memory of that Dunnellon meeting—the
singing of little Mamie Ruth Sanders, the fel
lowship of that memorable hour and the un
dreamed-of result of a “dry” majority on “the
wettest spot in Florida”—all, all taken together
are enough to make midnight in the woods
break into the brightness of a glorious day.
$1.50 St YEA*.
TIVE CENTS A COPY.