The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1916-10-29

were as pleasant as surprising. /
caught glimpses of verdure- clad
hills, broad, far-reaching, billowy
spaces and distant forest lines SO
unlike the Florida had known down
the big peninsular that I felt as a
traveller passing into a new and just
discovered land, full of striking con-
trasts withal, as sharp as they
were delightful. The climax Of sthese
sensations was reached when / saw
the dome of the capitol rising above
the green, wooded crest of ITALIA
hassee with the lonely majesty which
belongs of right and so well be-
comes that symbol of sovereignty,
aspiring to heaven, but bound to
earth.
I got my first characteristic view
of the city when, after leaving the
depot and topping the noble old hill
that makes the extreme southern
limit of the great Appalachian
Range, / looked down Monroe street
where the business section chiefly
lies I saw the large and graceful
outlines of the capitol, with its spa
cious, well-kept grounds, cleaning
under bright October sun with, vivid
green grasses. and adorned with
clrving concrete drives, lordly old
oaks and granite and marble me-
MORALS to the historic dead. l caught
something of the general aspect of
Tallahassee from where I stood, and
as l looked my preconceptions all fell
away and / felt mingled shame and
resentment that / have so long ac-
cepted as truth the ISLANDERS on the
charming little. city spread out
around me.
Running due north and south, with
its grade conforming to the curving
| hills, Monroe street, broad, brick
Iaved, well-swept and clean, is lined
with substantial brick business
blocks, including a handsome court
house, and sandwiched here and
! there between the more modern
structures are some of those old
buildings of ante-bellum times, with
their high gables and succeed walls.
that are quaint without uncouthness,
and would give the responsibility
/ that goes with a clean and hardy
/ old age to even an environment OF
squalor and decay.
The stores are handsome and mod
ern, the sidewalks broad, clean and
| city-like, the men and women well.
4 groomed, with the sophisticated all
j and bearing of the urban dweller
1 automobiles numerous, pretty, white
/ booted girls and up-to-the-minutt
youths very much in evidence, and
Il all about are the small diversitief
in sights and sounds and local as
poets and human types that make NJ
the daily shifting panorama OF
busy, busting little modern city II
, which the virtue of provincialism i
. still a factor in both business ant
social life, but no longer controls.
When we think of Tallahassee VI
, think by inevitable association of TIL
Leon Hotel and I looked at it witt
peculiar interest, for the politica
) history of modern Florida is largel,
J interviewer with its own. If its wall
: could talk what story they coul
!, tell of politics and politicians, o
: statesmen and their ambitions, an
/ all the deals and combines an
: intrigues and fevered hopes and bit
ter disappointments of the publ
' were of Florida, big and little, hon
: est and tainted, who have gathere
there in years agone, The Leon
E good to look at, with an exquisit
f little park facing its southern from
' and looking northward from it, dow
n the gentle slope of Monroe stree
4 where it loses its business aspec
t | there is faseiaating perspective c