The weekly true Democrat. (Tallahassee, Fla.) 1905-1912, 1906-03-09

| acres lying WlInln the drainage 0lSCrlcJ,
owned by this company, was about Sill, =
900, and that the special drainage tax
was something over $50, 600.
WHAT WAS LEARNED.
This company made further inquiries
as to what was to be done with this
money, and for how many years this
money was to be paid, and whether all
the other large owners were also con-
tributing their share toward the general
drainage fund These inquiries resulted
in the following information:
l. That the drainage commissioners
have not outlined any comprehensive
plan for the drainage of the district
2. That they have made no estimates
of the cost of the work contemplated.
8. That the trustees Of the Internal
Improvement Fund had arranged to
build some dredges and barges at Fort
Lauderdale, with which to lower Lake
Okeechobee and drain the Everglades;
and
4. That the Everglades themselves
had not been taxed cent.
NO PLANS OR ESTIMATES.
In other words, the drainage commits
sioners were going into one of the great
est and most important engineering pro-
jects of the century without plans or
estimates, and without any funds ex-
cept some working capital temporarily
furnished them by the trustees of the
Internal Improvement Fund, and that
the people of Florida who would be the
direct beneficiaries of the drainage
scheme, were by grace of the drainage
commissioners, escaping taxation alto
gether.
PERTINENT QUESTIONS.
The entertainment of these surprising
facts suggested several pertinent ques-
tions: Was it fair or just to force the
land owners to pay for the reclamation
of the States property? Was it fair or
just to slap fiat tax of cents per
acre Unfortunately on all the private
lands within the district, without regard
to the character or class of the land,
the value, whether it was high pine or
low pine, high prairie or low prairie,
rich saw-grass muck, or worthless open
swamps, valuable cypress or hammock,
or worthless scrubs or sand flats, or
ponds and sloughs, and without regard
to the location of the lands or their dis
lance from the Everglades? Was it fair
or just to make the people of Avon
Park pay for drainage when that sec
ton of country is the highest point
within a radius of fifty miles, and has
an elevation of considerably over one
hundred feet above the Everglades, a
section of country that needs irrigation |
far more than it needs drainage? Was
it fair or just 70 tax that part of St !
Lucie county lying east Of the high pine
divide known as the Fort Drum Ridge, |
which region drains north into the St |
Johns river, or to tax that part Of st. |
Lucie and Dade counties that drain into
the Atlantic; or to tax that part of Lee |
county that drains southwest through |
the great Okalacoochee Slough into the |
Gulf of MexicO-to tax all these sepa- |
rate and distinct watersheds that have
absolutely no connection with Lake
Okeechobee and the Everglades basins
to tax them in order to drain the Ever
glades?
STILL MORE QUESTIONS.
Was it fair or just to tax the cypress
timber. when, instead of drainage being
a benefit, it would ruin the timber and
probably put the owners to great ex-
pense in order to replace the drained
waters by artificial means? Was it fair
or just to tax the muck lands for drain
age, when experience has shown that
where these lands were drained many
yeal ago, in the upper Kissimmee val
ley by the Disston Companies, Il e fires
have eaten into them year after year
until their agricultural value has been
seriously impaired, and they are now
only fit for grazing purposes-this being
the case even where they were partially
projected by cultivation? Was it fair
or just to be forced to go on paying
cents per acre, and perhaps 10 cents per
acre, for FIVE, ten, twenty or fifty years,
without knowing how the
money was TO be spent and what the
drainage commissioners proposed TO do
or how long the work would take to
complete?
Other business questions also present
ed themselves: Ought not the drainage
to have formulated and
published a complete plan Of their pro-
posed operations, formulated and pub
lished complete detailed estimates Of
the cost Of the work, founded upon COM
prehensive surveys by expert engineers,
showing exactly now many canals they
to cut, whether these canals
were to be commercial ocean canals or
simply inland drainage canals, or irriga-
ton canals; whether they merely pro-
posed TO dry the Everglades up by run
ming the water of, or whether they pro-
posed to provide an irrigation system as
we'll; whether they proposed to stop at
the reclamation Of the Everglades, or
they also intended 70 drain and
a.. O. IoknIs ,uysNN~~ka1 H.