The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1911-08-18
FRANK CLAREE'S TRIBUTE TO
FLORIDA AND TO FLAGLER
Eloquent Congressman Peases Congress His Flowery
Speech and Tells Something Of the Beauty and Great
ness of Florida and Its Heroic CONSTRUCTIONS
Washington, D. c.


Frank Clark recently delivered an elo- |
quent and fascinating speech on Flor
ida, Flagler, the oversee railroad and
the proposed Key West celebration,
Mr. Clark said:
Mr.. Speaker, in the extreme south |
of this great union of sovereign states,
between the Gulf of Mexico and the
Atlantic ocean, lies Florida, the fair
est flowe rim the garden of statehood.
(Applause.) Her balmy climate, her
healthful ocean breezes, her delicious
tropical fruits, her wonderful palm
trees, her tall pines, her majestic
oaks, her silvery lakes, her wonder
full rivers, and her youth-preserving
springs, have made Florida famous
throughout the cizilized world. APP
plause) Nowhere in all the habitable
globe does the sun shine with such
respondent glory as in Florida; no
painters brush can transfer to can
vas the ravishing beauty of a moon
light night in Florida; no pen can
picture. nor can any imagination con-
ceive the transcendent beauty of her
soil, the luxuriance of her tropical
fruits and flowers, the rich perfume
of which is borne in rioutious pro-
fusion on every passing breeze.
While Florida, as she fell from the
fingers of the Creator, bore the stamp
of the beautiful and the lovely and
seemed to be all that could be desired
in the way of an earthly abiding place
for man, it must not be understood
that she is nothing more than gar
den of lovely flowers and delicious
fruits. (Applause.) Untold wealth
is embedded in her generous bosom.
In agriculture her soil makes boun-
teous response to the friendly touch
of the industrious husbandman; her
rivers and lakes and the waters of
the sea which lash her coasts are
teeming with the best food fish in all
the world. (Applause) her forests
yield annually millions of feet of the
finest yellow pine and cypress lum-
Der produced anywhere; her mines
produce for home and foreign con-
sumption millions of tons of phos-
plate every year; her ranges send
into the markets of the world every
year thousands aof as fine beef cattle
as are raised anywhere; millions of
crates of oranges, grapefruit, lines,
pineapples, and other tropical fruits
and vegetables are shipped from
within her confines annually to the
markets of the world; she manufac-
lures and sells annually more Havana
cigars than all the other states of the
union; she has more seacoast and
more navlgable streams than any
other state in the union; and is the
largest state in area east of the Mis-
sissippi. save one.
But let another, better able than l
am, tell you of this live, hustling city
among the magnolias and the pine:
HE who arrives for the first time
In Florida has reason to be delighted
with the portals through which he
makes his entrance into the land of
rapturous surprises. The city through
which he passes at the Threshold
of the state gives cheering prophecy
of the beauties that lie within.
The almost magical development
of the east coast has converted Jack
sonville into gateway through which
one enters the real Florida, which be-
gins with old st. Augustine, then
quickly follows the other beautiful
winter resorts which dot this sum.
merland.
The city of Jacksonville with a
population of $4,000, is beautifully
situated on the magnificent st. Johns
river. about % miles from the Allan
tic as the stream flows. It's water
front is in the shape of a crescent,
the river changing its course twice
whiting the city limits and in a dis
lance of three miles. The harbor is
naturally superb, and time will see
Jacksonville one of the largest cities
of the United States. Ii is the north
ern terminus of the Florida East
Coast Railway, where connection is
made with the Atlantic Coast Line,
Seaboard Air Line, Southern Railway,
Georgia Southern and Florida Rail-
way, and the two coastwise steam
ship lines"
Along the line of the Florida East
Coast Railway. after leaving Jackson
vile. the eyes of the traveller feast
upon visions of beauty not surpassed
anywhere in the world. The country
traversed has been aptly termed the
American Rivera" Here is st. Aug
Justine. the place where Ponce de Leon
landed nearly 400 years ago, in search