20 THE LURE OF THE LAND 



In point of fact, however, this beautiful country, so 

 artfully and ingeniously portrayed, was principally un- 

 der water, leading one of the members of Congress, in 

 referring to the matter in a speech upon the floor of 

 the house, to remark that it was " a shame to sell those 

 lands by the acre, they should be sold by the gallon." 



Even the officials of the Department of Agriculture 

 were drawn into the controversy in a way not at all to 

 the credit of some of them. Publications telling the 

 truth about these lands were suppressed, and other pub- 

 lications, coloring gorgeously the attractiveness of the 

 everglades, were permitted to be distributed. The en- 

 gineer who had stuck to the truth and told it, was dis- 

 charged on a trumped up allegation of having misap- 

 propriated public funds. He was even prosecuted be- 

 fore the grand jury and indicted for this offense, only 

 to have the indictment quashed and to be restored to 

 his position when all the facts of the case were 

 known. 



Old soldiers were especially invited to spend their 

 last days in a land where frost did not corrupt, nor mos- 

 quitoes break through and squeal. Impecunious clerks 

 in the departments were induced to invest their hard 

 earned dollars, which they so much needed for the 

 necessities of life, in these visionary dreams of agri- 

 cultural wealth. 



My own name was used very extensively by the pro- 

 moters of these schemes, without my consent and against 

 my positive requests to the contrary, and it was neces- 

 sary even to threaten the users with legal proceedings 

 before my name was withdrawn. 



~No less deceptive and insistent were the advertise- 

 ments of the wonderful profits to be made from orchards, 

 especially in the States of Washington, Oregon, Colo- 



