Edited by Spessard Stone from the Courier-Informant, Bartow, Fla., July 7, 1910
The Fourth In Wauchula
The enterprising and prosperous little city of Wauchula celebrated last Monday in a manner to make it in reality, as well as in name, a “Glorious Fourth.”
The streets were overrun from an early hour in the forenoon until night by a crowd of visitors and citizens which could not have numbered less than two thousand. Not an unpleasant incident occurred, so far as we were able to learn and the day was a perfect success in its every feature.
At ten o’clock a. m., the large crowd assembled at the speakers’ stand that had been erected for the occasion, and after some fine music by the Wauchula Cornet Band, Mayor A. Yancey Teachy welcomed the large audience in brief, but eloquent and appropriate terms.
He then introduced Gen. E. M. Law of Bartow, who occupied about forty-five minutes in a historical and political sketch of events from the 4th of July 1776, when the Declaration of Independence was made, until the present time.
Gen. Law was followed by Mr. Doyle E. Carlton, a recent graduate of Stetson University, in a most excellent address of twenty-five minutes on “The Moral and Legislative Phases of Prohibition.”
A five-minute speech on prohibition by Frank Wideman, also a graduate of Stetson University, came next in order, and this was followed by a brief, but interesting talk by Rev. Sankey F. Stephens, representing Southern College, of which he still is a student.
The speeches were interspersed with music by the band and songs by the Stetson Quartet, some of the latter being exceedingly humorous and catchy.
In all, the exercises at the stand consumed less than two hours and no one was too tired to do justice to the splendid barbecue dinner which followed.
The afternoon was spent in sports of various kinds which were greatly enjoyed by the young people and by their elders too, for that matter.
Among the pleasant incidents of the day the writer recalls his meeting with editor Geo. W. Goolsby of the Florida Advocate, who doesn’t let the grass grow under his feet when the interests of the bustling little city of Wauchula is concerned; Editor M. B. Hare of the Arcadia News and who is also County Supt. of Public Instruction and we may say, incidentally, one of the best editors and best superintendents in the state; Royal B. Child of the Arcadia Champion, a first-class newspaper man, genial, pleasant and hearty, who judging from his fine physique, might become a champion in another line should he choose to do so.
The Fourth in Wauchula was indeed a glorious one on this one hundred and thirty-fourth anniversary.
January 27, 2001 & October 16, 2001& May 4, 2002 midi = "American Patrol."
