The weekly Floridian. [volume] (Tallahassee, Fla.) 1867-19??, 1892-06-25
FLORLDA'S CONTRIBUTION.
NOT BEHIND OTHER STATES IN HER DAY
AND TIME.

NOT BEHIND OTHER STATES IN HER DAY
AND TIME.
Mrs. Ellen Call Long writes the
following which appeared in the
Ocala Banner
Some friends having sent me your
paper of the 18th inst. containing an
address to the young men of Florida,
the spirit of which is calculated to
move them to herculean efforts of
ambition in achievement; vet as an
old time Florldian, native to the soil,
feel that | must take exception to
some of its statements. After nam
ing, in connection with twenty five
states of the Union, men distinguished
as statesmen, soldiers, poets, authors,
lawyers, jurists, you add in regard
to Florida:
'1oung men, soberly and thought
fully, | call your attention to the al
most blank page set opposite the
name OF your state"
1t seems to me IN your illustration
You are guilty of double injustice TO
Florida, first IN an overestimate of
the men You have named, and cor
respondingly undertaking of those at
home.
FOrtultous circumstances brought
Washington forward, and with the
exception of Jefferson, Andrew Jack
son and Abraham Lincoln, our states,
men have owed their prominence
more to partisan choice and guar
dianship, rather than to any superior
quality of greatness.
Franklin and Patrick Henry were
great men in advanced thought and
Morse and Edison still greater.
Horace Greedy was a great man,
though strange for a southern born
woman to Say 1t. So was Garrison, Il
very great man. Exigencies make
orators, and hence the country every
where finds them when needed.
CLAIM, and will try to prove it to
you that 1T is the lottery of destiny
that yet dims reputation in Florida;
and that the significance of her im-
portance is only delayed by her pen,
lnsula position and that when she is
more closely linked with central
power, the ability or achievements of
her people will grow to distinction.
| believe that If Blaine himself had
started his career in Florida, he
would be still teaching school, or at
most be the owner of an orange
grove or IA phosphate field; and none
can doubt that we had and have now,
men who, had they been more cen
tralized in their lives, would have
beeh recognized us worthy of dis
tinctlon.
Robert E. Lee and jefferson Davis
had regulations before the exist
ence of IA confederacy, or else they
would perhaps have been ignored by
the nation as entirely as hundreds Of
Florida men who were as brave, gal
liant and self-sacrlticing It's any SOL
diers of the entire land. We IN
Florida have had at every period
great men, because useful men, fit.
ting the demands of the time.
Was it nothing that the first gov
ernor of Florida, Gen. Andrew Jack
apn. secured the purchase of the
territory and drove spies and
aliAus from the land !: Was it moth
ing that the second and fourth gov.
ernors drove the savage from the set
Elements and braved them in the
swamps Of your own southern sec
ton : And these were followed bv
every man and boy of the country
that conld carry gun. and were
often assisted by brave women, who
inhabited isolated places; all of which
work was the cornerstone Of what
ever Importance we have now, IA
prosperity IN the future.
And while at all times there have
been men to hold the fort in
every section and town, and to do
whatsoever their heads and hands
found to do, brayc and great in law
ling the foundation that their chill
dren might build upon, was il
nothing for, those several energetic
men to open highways through til.
tangled wilderness when there was