Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1915-03-23
SIDE LIGHTS ON
THE SUNNY SOUTH
A Wausau Traveller Unearths the
Original David Harum and
the Deserted Village.
written by E. A. Dunn. }

NhAAtNC DS Il. r. Dullliy
The ordinary tourist or traveller in
Florida, who follows the usual routes
of travel, who visits the resort towns
and cities, most of them by the way
erected with Northern money, comes
away with a wrong conception of
what that portion of our country
really is, its needs and possibilities,
and too often with an erroneous i'm
preston of its people. In these places
there has been too much effacement
of the past. We view with admira-
tion the magic cities that have SEEM
ingly sprung up over night, the Won
derful feats OF engineering, among
them, the great oversee railway bridg-
ing the distance between the lower
end of Florida proper and Key West,
their colossal hotels and their more
colossal charges, and we conclude that
the south has awakened and its
people are showing unusual energy in
going after the Yankee dollar. The
change from north to south is so
abrupt, two days sufiicing to trans
port one from the frozen and snow
covered fields of the north to the
balmy south where all kinds of tropi-
cal trees and plants are in full foliage,
where the truck farmers and fruit
growers are harvesting and shipping
their crops, that it is like going into
some foreign land and we lose the
true perspective. We think we have
seen Florida, while as matter of
fact we have done nothing of the
kind. If we desire to place ourselves
in a position where we can correctly
study that state and its people our
aim should be to travel inland, to
get away from the beaten trails of
the Yankees, for every person who
comes from north of the south line
of Georgia is a Yankee to the average
Florida 'Cracker."
| make this statement advisedly
for l have spent several winters in
Florida, following the lines of travel
usually pursued by travellers from the
north. | have visited all their great
est resort towns, which all bear the
same hall mark. | have visited their
trucking and fruit growing districts
and have listened to their stories of
marvellous profits made in past years
or hoped for this year, or next year,
or some other year, but these were
gamblers infected with the Yankee
lust for money and willing to take
short cut TO get it quickly. l have
taken small boat and cruised down
among the "keys," where one had
opportunity to watch the progress of
the works of creation in its various
processes from the work of the coral
insect and the tiny islands emerging
from the ocean to the completed
work as shown on the mainland.
L have studied all these matters
closely and had begun TO congratulate
myself that | had gained a fair in
sight into the country, its possibilities
and the more interesting character
istics of its people, but it remained
for cracker TO disillusion me. l
met him in Miami, the magic city,
during the carnival and boat races.
He was DR.. K. l.. Eaton and he in
formed me that~he hailed from Waldo,
Alachua county, Florida, and that if
| ever wanted to really know any
thing about Florida and its people, |
should accompany him home, to the
central northern part of the state,
where the Yankee was sa almost UNI
known quantity and where the people
had been making a living from the
soil since "before the wah, Sah."
Right here l want to digress long
enough to state that David Harum
never had anything on Doc. Eaton.
David is but a weak wash print in
comparison with doc. He has had a
fund of experience and has learned
mankind like an open book and his
heart is filled with charity for the
weaknesses of his fellow men, for his