The St. Lucie County tribune. (Fort Pierce, St. Lucie County, Fla.) 1905-1920, 1911-08-04
B|GQUESTION
TOCONSIDER
Initiative and Referendum to Be
Decided by Ballot Next Year
DEMOCRATIC DOCTRINE
Action of Recent Session of Florida Leg
islature Leaves Proposition Open, with
Chances for Favorable Result

Anybody who has lived in Florida
year in and year out" knows that
while the temperature there averages
high through five months of the year,
sudden changes in the temperature are
very rare and the evenness of the sum-
mer heat, without violent 'hot spell"
and "cOo spells" alternating. causes
none o. the discomforts incident to
summer living in ATTITUDES much far
Their north. 1t has always been diff.
cult to impr ss Northerners with these
facts, however. A FlOridian caught
talking in that vein is usually set down
by outsiders as rOmancer or land
boomer. But latterly the outside world
has begun to take the talk seriously. it
appears.
According to the Times Union Of
Jacksonville, while for the past fort
night when the heat in the Eastern and
middle western states was reaping
harvest of death, Florida was compare
lively comfortable, the temperature
being much lower than in most of the
other states and there was very little
suffering from the heat and no fatal
ties. People from every state east of
the Mississippi river have recently been
making personal Investigations of cir
matte condition in Florida during the
summer months, and especially in Jack
sonville. The Times Union goes on:
"For the past two weeks large
number of these men have visited the
Office of Secretary Richardson, Of the
Jacksonville Board of Trade, and in
every case they expressed themselves
as not only delighted but amazed at
the excellence of the climate as COM
pared with the sizzling weather of their
home states. A majority expressed to
Secretary Richardson their determine.
ton to locate here and further prOmis-
ed TO exploit the climatic advantages
of Florida, when they returned to their
homes.
1.-THE fact that Northern people are
becoming acquainted with the excell-
ence of the summer climate of Florida
means much to Jacksonville and the
state at large. If those who have not
the opportunity of making personal
will watch the bulletins
issued by the weather bureau, they will
see that Florida during the months OF
June, July and August is often the
coolest and never the warmest state IN
the Union"
A New Yorker who lived thirteen
years in Jacksonville is authority for
the statement that during one summer
that he recOllects there was success
ion of sixty-one clear days there, with
the mercury ranging each day from
about 70 to IS degrees in the shade and
dropping much below 10 at night. while
in at least three out of seven nights in
a week there were showers; and there
was always breeze at night-sOmetimes
stiff ones with distinctly ocean odor,
for the Atlantic is only about seven
teen miles distant. In all the time
that he lived there he never heard or
read of. case of sunstroke in Florida
or of prOstration from heat, either man
or beast; he has seen negro draymen
and lOngshoremen with the mercury in
the middle nineties working barehead-
ed and stripped to the waist-but none
of them ever succumbed to the heat.
The people have a way of working,
moving about and doing business n0der-
ately, which prevents the physical ex-
citement that brings on overheating,
and they long ago learned how to dress
and how to eat and drink in the sum-
mer time. There is good deal of de-
fusion here at the North about the
climate and life and living in the far
Southern states in summer.
Florida may not be quite ready as
vet to set herself up as a summer re-
sort for Northerners, but her Atlantic
coast and Gulf coast towns are already
that for the people of the nearby
states. And the time may come when
her coast hotels will be found bidding
against those of the New England and
fiddle states for summer patronage.
In no one of these is the surf bathing
with that of the Florida
East Coast. New York Commercial.
n