Bradford County telegraph. (Starke, Fla.) 1888-current, 1910-09-02
WITH FLORIDA EDf1ORS.
NOT TOO LATE YET.

III comment upon d recent h6lIOPOils
editorial The Tampa Times says:
THE Miami Metropolis has Weakened
to the conditions necessarily resulting
from the over-enthusiastic advertising OF
the land companies having property fol
sale in the Everglades. Most of that ad'
vertising is bare-facedly fraudulent IN
what it promises to people who buy the
lands and in the way it promises
There will be hundreds of men and many
families come to the Everglades to take
possession of the lands they have bought
if the companies selling them can find
and locate the tracts. Some can do this,
but as to others IL is doubtful. There
will be many Of these people feel that
they have been duped, and they will
know that they are disappointed. Ii
they land here with little money and are
reduced to a penniless condition by the
expense of living they will raise howl
that will 90 Florida great dead OF
harm.
But what Is the Metropolis or any
body else going to do about il: Ii Is TOO
late by year or two to undo the harm
done to the credulOus people who buy
lands they have never seen. In almost
any other portion of the state strangers
can find work and make shift to get
along until they can effect settlement
and erect a home on their holdings
But in the Everglades their neighbors
will be people chiefly like themselves,
and all of them who have no means will
have to beat a retreat.
whenever a newspaper, like The
Times, has ventured upon a sensible
word of caution to people thinking of
making their homes in Florida it has
been pOunced upon and denounced as
knocker and an enemy to the settlement
and development of Florida. This Sec
| ton of the state is easy for the new
conner. He can find work, he can find a
market for the wood he can cut or the
coal he can burn or the fish he can
catch. But there are sections where
such is not the case, where there is
neither work to be done nor q market
for the proceeds of such simple labor as
can be found. Therefore, the sdvertis-
ing sent broadcast should have been
tuned in accord with the facts, and
should have been rigidly censored of all
promises that men could get rich on a
few acres Of land without work. The
Everglades section-while it is fertile
and all rights the worst sinner in the
catalogue and will have the most disap-
pointed people on its hands and the
most violent reaction in the public favor.
None Of which it deserves, but all of
which it will probably get"
The Times takes a hopeless view of
the matter. AS we regard it, there is
much thAI can be done to prevent people
from settling in the Everglades before
the land is sufficiently drained to admit |
healthful habitation.
The drainage work may be said to |
have just commenced in earnest. We
think the case is one where the state
authorities should interfere in some
manner. We have thought out no de-
cisiye plan for doing this, but those Of |
fic ais who are charged with the respon-
sibilIty of the work should be equal to
the task of conserving its ultimate sue
cess by preventing anything that would
tend to cast doubt upon it or bring re-
proach upon the state.
The present drainage commissioners
have never exhibited any intimate or in
tense interest in the work; 1t has been
absent and lackadaisical, and the con-
dItion is far from satisfactory to one
who regards the work as being of great
developing value to the state. 1t seems
at times that the officials and the people
as well fail to appreciate the immensely
Of the project and all that it has brought
to Florida. Not only the sale of twenty
thousand farms in the Everglades, but
the wide publicity that has grown from
the Everglades advertising has sold
thousands Of farms in other parts of
Florida. People who have waxed opu-
lent on the Everglades project by indi-
TectiOn have been its most obstinate en-
emies and persistent decriers. II the
state authorities, by which we mean
plainly the trustees of the internal i'm
provement fund, had the interest in this
great work that they should have. If
they evinced more activity than a mere
official indulgence Of oversight, there
would be no need to press upon them the
sdvisability Of taking q determined
hand in doing all that justice to the
buyers and Justice to the honest sellers
demands that should be done under Of
fetal direction and stamp to circumvent
what may otherwise prove to be q grave
catastrophe for many individual for
tunes.
Inc Metropolis holds emphatically
that something can be done and should
be done. The actual movement hither-
ward hasn't yet begun, and it should
not be permitted until wise authority
admits it.-MiAmi Metropolis.
STAND BY THE NOMINEES.
We are informed that l.. A. Cribs |
has bolted the democratic primary of |
a g. II L n