The Ocala Evening Star

DARK PREDICTIONS
ABOUT DRAINAGE

Some Legislators Fear that the Work Will Have to be Given Up, or It Will Bankrupt the State

Tallahassee, May 3—Will the Everglades be reclaimed, or will the drainage project, combined with the methods used in exploiting submerged lands, prove to be the most colossal real estate swindle of the history of any single state?

The above are serious questions that are facing members of the legislature, and the belief is steadily creeping into the minds of many people that the mismanaged project will eventually prove a crushing, sorrow-bringing, loss-entailing failure—a failure that will stain the honor of the state and bring woe to thousands in every section of the Union, who have purchased the undrained lands, in many cases under false and utterly misleading promises of the exploiters.

The internal improvement board, which has charge of drainage work, wants the legislature to allow a bond issue of $5,000,000 with which to continue drainage operations, the tax to fall entirely on lands in the drainage area. In spite of this fact, however, it is feared to submit the bond issue to a vote of the people, the belief being that they would vote it down.

Some of the land companies, it is understood, stand ready to secure the money in case the internal improvement board allows the issue and imposes the tax. Engineers employed by a large company, however, recently declared that drainage of the Everglades would cost not less than $80,000,000, or $20 an acre. This being the case, where is the money coming from? What will $5,000,000 amount to in such a work? These are questions that will be hurled over the heads of legislators in both houses before a bill providing for a bond issue, without submitting it to the people, is passed.