THE EVERGLADES 141 



the transforming of the prairies with their won- 

 derful wealth of bloom and beauty, and in its 

 place the coming of civilized man with all his un- 

 sightly constructions, — ^his struggles for power, 

 his vulgarity and pretensions. Soon this vast, 

 lonely, beautiful waste will be reclaimed and 

 tamed; soon it will be furrowed by canals and 

 highways and spanned by steel rails. A busy, 

 toiling people will occupy the places that sheltered 

 a wealth of wild life. Gaily dressed picnicers or 

 church-goers will replace the flaming and scarlet 

 ibis, the ethereal egret and the white flowers of the 

 crinums and arrowheads, the rainbow bedecked 

 garments of the Seminoles. In place of the cries 

 of wild birds there will be heard the whistle of the 

 locomotive and the honk of the automobile. 



We constantly boast of our marvelous national 

 growth. We shall proudly point some day to the 

 Everglade country and say: "Only a few years 

 ago this was a worthless swamp; to-day it is an 

 empire. " But I sometimes wonder quite seriously 

 if the world is any better off because we have de- 

 stroyed the wilds and filled the land with countless 

 human beings. Is the percentage of happiness 

 greater in a state of five million inhabitants than 



