116 Naturalist at Large 



to have taken in seven years from a time when local, 

 self-seeking interests tried to drive us from the island 

 by killing one of our men and wounding others. It's a 

 long step to have taken in local mental outlook when 

 you stop to consider that the newly formed labor 

 union of their own volition took the name of "Asso- 

 ciation" instead of "Union," as to their minds the 

 word "Union" symbolized a condition of strife and 

 ill feeling between employer and employee and in this 

 case it was their special wish that no such connotation 

 should exist but rather that we should always feel that 

 everything done by our concern should be an expres- 

 sion of extreme and loyal co-operation between em- 

 ployer and employee. 



From the Inagua which you knew during your last 

 visit I think you would find it strange to see a condition 

 wherein a company labor union maintains its own 

 clubhouse, has interest enough to desire educational 

 features such as lectures, displays of laboratory ex- 

 periments, health talks and, in short, practically every- 

 thing pertaining to that higher standard of living 

 which was such a far cry when we first landed on the 

 island. 



Of equal interest to this development of an erst- 

 while uneducated, totally forgotten group of people 

 is the development of the natural resources of the 

 island which not only made the foregoing possible 

 but also, what is more, practical. Originally the island 

 produced a fairly large quantity of salt by means of 

 solar evaporation. This commodity w^as shipped al- 

 most exclusively to the Eastern Seaboard of the United 



