The weekly true Democrat. (Tallahassee, Fla.) 1905-1912, 1905-10-13

to be quoted as an authority on the sub
ject Of draining the Everglades, 4"
which is one of Governor Broward's pet
schemes, it is the Fort Myers Press,
published nearest to that mysterious
region. Here is what it says:
The term Draining the Everglades"
has been used so frequently that many
people nave gained the impression that
the Everglades and Lake Okeechobee
are one and the same, and that TO drain
such a great body of water as Lake
Okeechobee would ruin the climate OF
the southern end of the peninsula OF
Florida.
The fact is that the Everglades are
south of the lake and below it.
To drain Lake OkeechObee it would
be necessary to dig canals Is or 20 feet
in depth, and this, of course, would be
impracticable. The most that can be
hoped for by Governor Broward in car
rying out his drainage plans is to lower
this great lake (Which covers an area OF
1900 square miles, permanently from
! four to six square feet II this can be
accomplished it will drain thousands of
acres Of saw-grass lands on or about the
surface of the lake, and to cause the
Everglades to dry up, except in some Of
| the deeper lagoons. The Everglades
can never be classed as sheet of water,
even in the wettest period of the year,
and with the overflow of Lake Okee-
chobee turned into canals running to
ocean and gulf, and not only carrying
off this overflow of the lake, but also
the waters of the Everglades, the plan
to drain several millions of acres would
be accomplished. 1t is evident, how
ever, to make this gigantic plan com
plete success, that not only one large
canal must be cut into the st. Lucie
river, but the south canal would have to
be opened into the Gulf, and several
other large canals would have to be
opened into the Atlantic and the Gulf.
The bitches will have to have ca
pacity for carrying off water greater
than that of the streams entering the
lake, and pouring their volumes of
water into the lake during the pro-
tracted rainy seasons, to make a per-
manent success of the plan; and this
appears to be the object of Governor
BrOward
For the entire four years of the in
cumbency of the late Hon. VIM. H.
Reynolds as Comptroller, the annual
reports of that official aggregated 1853
pages; for the ensuing four years, under
Comptroller Groom, the annual reports
aggregated 1,642 pages, an increase of
more than 395 per cent in this single
item of official printing. This enor-
nous mass of badly-executed work was
not made necessary by any abnormal in
crease in the transactions of the office,
but bears all the ear-marks of put
up job, to make unlawful gain out of
the people, and could not have been
possible under the administration of
such a man as Reynolds Is it any
wonder that the belief generally pre-
vailed that the Comptroller and the
State printer were unitedly interested
in a miserable scheme to extract the
peoples money from the State treas
ury for an unnecessarily exaggerated
mass Of slouchy work?
The items of graft in the New York
Mutual Life Insurance Company's Off
cial family include annual "compensa-
ton" as follows To President McCurdy,
$3.50, 900; to two vice-presidents, $50, 900
each; to another, SIT. 500; to another,
SIC, 900; to general manager, S25, 900;
to a treasurer, $4,000. The general
manager was Robert McCurdy, son of
the president. Louis Thebaud, the
presidents son-in-law, was a member
of a firm of agents of the company
which received $247, 900, of which The
baud got $l47, 900. Robert also got
81, 1853, 829 in commissions on foreign
business, and $54l, 1852 on domestic
business. " Thebaud's total commits
sions amounted to 1920, l13 Besides
these items, large sums were paid to
attorneys and others for Legislative
work." and costly apartment house,
belonging to the company and occupied
by four of the McCurdy family, valued
at 1903, 056, yielded a net income to the
company of two and three-tenths per
cent. What family picnic it was!
| '~~~~-~~~~~-~-~J~-~-~-~-~~
Hon Arthur T. Williams is known as
one of the cleanest men in business or
political life in Florida But, reading
last week IS Tallahassee True Democrat,
one would not think so. - Lake City In
| dex
W. bo,,o oI,,,o,,, boI;a,,oI ,..L.A = III