second. Bennett sold news, not opinions. He was the first American editor to gather it boldly and to make it marketable. His paper was much hated. It explored and exploited a New York society which its editor could not enter, but whose antics rejoiced the common people who also stood outside. Bennett gave them a look-in. When his reporter was admitted to Henry Brevoort's fancydress ball hidden in tin armor, Philip Hone nearly broke his heart in anguish over the social decadence that had befallen his set.

Mr. Bennett slurred and slammed society. His paper was scandalous. But it throve, and all his days was rich and remarkable. His son made it even greater. He sent Henry M. Stanley to find Livingstone, and he was found. He covered distant wars in the Balkans, Abyssinia, and Ashantee. He tried to find the North Pole. He raced his schooner yachts recklessly across the Atlantic. He did everything except treat his men well. In that he was a petty tyrant and without friends. When his years grew long, all these things turned up to curse him. His father had given him the "Evening Telegram" to play with. Like the creepers in the jungle, it grew to strangle the parent tree. Doing badly in 1897, he thought to kill it, and would have been wise if he had. The funeral notice was printed, but the ceremony never came off. Office protests saved the bantling. Then began an effort to make it show pay dirt. Selling for one cent to the "Herald's" three, and having about double its circulation, the want advertisements, which were the life of the "Herald," were pumped out of the paper at half rates, to fill the yawning columns of the "Telegram." Thus anæmia set in that was never cured, though several doctors have since tried transfusion. First the blood of the "Sun" was poured into the "Herald's" empty veins, and then the skeleton was fastened to the back of the "Tribune." There it is to-day.

As a side-light on public morals, it might be recited that the Sunday "Herald" printed a page or more of "personals." They were the life of the paper. Many of them were bids to assignations, and so offensive was this phase of publicity to William R. Hearst that he caused Mr. Bennett to be prosecuted in the United States courts for obscene use of the mails. The "Herald's" owner was fined $25,000 and compelled to kill the classification. It also killed the circulation of the Sunday edition, before that the largest in the city. Apparently virtue, enforced, is not its own reward. Whatever the Commodore's sins, the "Herald" did not deserve to die. It was a great newspaper. After the conviction

he turned it into a stock company, and "James Gordon Bennett, Proprietor," departed from its escutcheon. So did good luck. Colonel William Jay was the titular head of the corporation, but Mr. Bennett bossed it, as ever, with hands across the sea. Half Scotch, half Irish, debarred from America by a social break, he remained a curious figure, and one of the greatest editors that ever lived. The proceeds of the "Herald's" sale are supposed some time to found a home for decayed journalists in New York-a pitiful return for all that the boys did for its owner-if it is ever created. Few, however, survive in the trade long enough to reach mendicancy.

THE

'HE saddest of all tales is the setting of the "Sun." Charles A. Dana, after being Assistant Secretary of War, into which he had graduated from the managing editor's chair of Horace Greeley's "Tribune," went to Chicago to run a daily "Republican." It died, and, coming to New York, he picked up the drifting "Sun," well-nigh out of an orbit. He made it a new thing in newspapers. A biting editorial page teemed with valuable information. A column of "Sunbeams" radiated intelligence. News was gathered, but in a different style from the hectic "Herald." It had to be interesting. So it can be truly said that Mr. Dana made the modern reporter, now becoming obsolete.

What a staff he built up! Julian Ralph, John R. Spears, "Jersey" Chamberlain and his brothers, William McM. Speer, Edward G. Riggs, Willis Holley, Arthur Brisbane, Joseph C. Hendrix, Charles W. Tyler, Talcott Williams, Joseph Pulitzer, S. S. Carvalho, George B. Mallon, Frank Ward O'Malley, and many another man of merit. The "Sun" staff was the glory of the profession. Its editors were of high caliber-E. P. Mitchell, Frank Church, Henry B. Stanton Stanton (Elizabeth Cady's husband), Thomas Hitchcock (Matthew Marshall), Mayo W. Hazeltine; and on the managerial side Amos J. Cummings, Ballard Smith, and Chester S. Lord, with "Doc" Wood and "Dad" Clark compressing the night copy.

Amos ended his days in Congress, but he was the brightest spot on the "Sun." One of Walker's filibusters in his youth, he fought through the Civil War, and then, in a ragged uniform, appealed to Horace Greeley for a job. That great man tartly wanted to know if he was expected to employ the whole d-d Union army, and, being told to the contrary, was mollified into asking the exprivate if he had any other reason than being a soldier for requiring work. Amos wheeled about and, gracefully parting his

coat tails, revealed the absence of cloth in a confidential part of his trousers. He was employed.

Once when Willis Holley was an office boy and Doc Wood night city editor, Amos, exasperated at some lapse, "fired" the Doctor.

"You don't mean it, Amos!" protested the victim.

"I do," was the reply. "I've stood enough. You're through. The frame is dark"-meaning that the gas was out over the type case, a term for ending employment in the composing-room.

Slowly the Doctor gathered up his few poor possessions-some pencils, a knife, and a pipe. He put these in the pockets of his long linen duster, and went weeping down the rickety old stairs. When his footsteps died away, Amos said to the wondering boy:

"Willis, run down and tell the Doctor to come back. I'm afraid he might get to drinking." He came back.

When Albany correspondent of the Brooklyn "Eagle" in the late eighties, I received a long lecture in letter form from St. Clair McKelway, then its editor, reproving me for certain smartnesses in my copy. I had been sending a few things to the "Evening Sun," just established, with Cummings as editor. While in the depths of depression from the rebuke, I got a thrill which I have never lost the memory of in a note from the "Sun" shop reading: "Your stuff is good! More! Amos J. Cummings."

The "Sun" shone at its brightest from 1874 to 1884. Then it reached its apogee. Contemptuous in his success, Mr. Dana bucked the independent tide that supported Grover Cleveland for the Presidency, and was left high and dry upon the strand. His circulation of 145,000 per day was cut to 65,000, and his prestige was even lower. Mr. Bennett also picked the period to quarrel with the news-dealers, and Joseph Pulitzer, eager and energetic, coming from St. Louis, in May, 1883, took over the "World" and the increment from both mistakes. "Mr. Bennett and Mr. Dana presented me with New York," he once remarked. They did.

The "Sun" had made much money for its owners, one year, it is said, touching $750,000. The large earnings vanished, but the paper held its tone and never diminished in interest so long as Mr. Dana lived. Its doors were always open to the contributor. Anything interesting found place in its columns, and the space rate was good. "Sunbeams" brought fifty cents each, and many a reporter paid his board with these items. Franklin Fyles edited the column with rare judgment. When Mr. Dana died, his son Paul was not equal to the task, and

the paper came under the control of William M. Laffan. The "Sunbeams" flickered out and much of its merit vanished, but it was still worth reading. Laffan died, and the paper came under the control of William C. Reick, a pupil of Mr. Bennett. He was not intelligent enough to run a paper like the "Sun," and the debacle continued. The flourishing evening edition kept it comfortable financially. It was still the paper of the newspaperman, and E. P. Mitchell kept the editorial page up to old standards of ability.

made a very few newspapers prosperous cannot be denied, but they prosper at the expense of excluded talent, or closed opportunity, and of sound public policy. The profits are not needed by their owners, and go largely to swell income-tax returns. There is small competition in expression; as, for example, in the New York Mayoralty primary campaign, outside the Hearst papers, Mr. Hylan had no fair way of making himself heard, the courts even enjoining his use of the municipal radio plant.

J

HICAGO and Philadelphia are in a like situation. The independent "North American" has been swallowed up by the all-devouring Curtis. The "Bulletin" is content with being a very successful newspaper. The "Record" is weak,

when it should be strongest of all, being alone in the Democratic field, while the "Inquirer" reflects the policies of the Republican ring. The corrupt contentment of the community remains undis turbed. The great Chicago newspapers are handbills for advertisers, with their readers and the public interest second in consideration. No newspaper ever made so much money as the "Tribune," for example, or made worse use of it. In the days of Joseph Medill and Horace White it was a true "Tribune" of the people. Printed now in a palace, invincible in its monopoly, impregnable financially, it defies competition and has public opinion at its mercy. It has herded the three million inhabitants of the town into a journalistic stockyard. The achievement is marvelous; the result deplorable.

By J. LEROY MILLER

UST cleaned up $3,800."

"That so?"

"Yes. Just sold one of my lots on Tangerine Bay. Bought it for $1,200 eleven months ago, and haven't paid the second $300 installment yet. I've got four more of 'em-easily worth $5,000 apiece."

"Why don't you hold on to them? Water-front property like yours ought to bring $10,000 within six months. I've had some pretty good luck myself. You know, I have a niece in Washington. Last time I saw her I said: 'Gather some money together and send it to me I'll see what I can do with it for you.' Yesterday came a check for $500. I looked around, and placed the money on a $2,000 Alligator Shores corner. That was this morning. Just closed it out an hour ago for $2,500."

"Run into anything good lately?" "Yes. They are selling some cheap lots around Fort Myers-$600-certain to bring $1,500 by February."

Just snatches of conversation-duplicates of which may be heard any hour of the night or day, anywhere in Florida.

Real estate, real estate, real estate; until you have been in the boom country you can never realize what a monomania the buying and selling of lots may become. On the main streets every other building is devoted to the vending of houses, lots, and acreage, not to mention

arcades where the offices are as thick as nests in a rookery. What elaborate structures house the sellers of subdivisions-Spanish and Moorish and Italian buildings with pink and blue and orange stucco! The passers-by, gazing through the open fronts, behold resplendent interiors with gaudily tiled floors and brilliantly hued hangings. Great chairs and huge divans invite tired prospects. Hanging upon the walls or resting upon easels, and often taking up whole sides of rooms, are marvelous pictures of the property being sold, painted (as Mark Twain remarked under other circumstances) by gifted sign-painters. Here and there and everywhere as concomitant parts of the scene are the salesmen, their eyes alert for any one showing the slightest interest in their offerings.

As you saunter down the street you notice an unusually large number of men dressed in golf togs, although it does not take you very long to discover that they are not primarily golfers. Lot selling is their game. If you look at all "moneyed," you are certain to be stopped half a dozen times in every block by exceedingly pleasant men, wonderfully interested in your health and pleasure.

"How long have you been down here?" asked one. "Come from Pennsylvania, do you?" "Well, I always look upon Pennsylvanians as my next-door neighbors as people from home."

The gentleman, upon being asked where he originally came from, answered: "From Bowling Green, Kentucky." A neighbor true enough, but certainly a distant one! Finally, the newcomer can stand it no longer; he discards his business suit, dons knickers, and becomes as one of them; it is his only protection. Just what a woman can do under the circumstances is difficult to say; probably make an appeal to the local Chamber of Commerce, as did one woman in Orlando who had been bespoken by seventeen salesmen in one day.

The stranger can find plenty of places to visit. As he walks down the street eager salesmen thrust tickets into his hand entitling him to free rides by autobus or boat. Some of these excursions are no afternoon affairs, but for hundreds of miles, and may consume three or four days, gratuitous meals and free hotel accommodations included.

Such rides acquaint the visitor with the fact that the cutting up into building lots of the thirty-three million acres comprising the State of Florida has been energetically begun. It will be a solace to the people of the United States to know that a lot for a winter home has been laid out for every family in the "American Riviera," in the country's "only tropical State." This, of course, has not been quite completed.

It seems a bit peculiar to be riding

1

through a monotonous stretch of country given over solely to palmetto and pine to suddenly come upon a site for a city with signs marking the proposed city hall, golf links, and two-million-dollar hotel. One such subdivision had a number of signboards planted along the road; one word on each (there were only one or two houses in sight): "Not-Yet-ButSoon-Will-Be-A-City."

By this it is not implied that all developments are worthless. Some of the tailor-made cities, communities built upon an almost deserted tract, have already grown into splendid places. You can find many a Floridian who believes that the time is not far distant when the entire east coast will be built solid from the , keys through Miami to St. Augustine.

Many of the subdivisions opened up near the smaller and larger cities and along the seacoast have made money, not only for the developers, but for the purchasers as well. Not all the buying is being done by outsiders. The natives have a profound faith in their real estate, and have waited in line for hours to buy a favorite tract. Developer Davis, who built an island in Tampa Bay, sold three million dollars' worth of lots in ten hours. Similar happenings have been duplicated in numerous boom sections on either coast.

So far every one seems to have made

money. Lots in choice new developments sell for $1,200 to $1,500, only to be resold a few months or a year later for from $3,000 to $5,000. Everything is being sold and everything is for sale. Houses and lots, acreage and apartments, pass from owner to owner in almost kaleidoscopic succession. Prices that make even the most visionary Floridians shake their heads are paid, and the properties immediately resold for still higher figures. You are reminded that "ten minutes is ancient history in Florida real estate." One owner of an orange grove near Daytona lost $75,000 because he neglected to go into town during the week-end. He did not know that prices had soared within the past forty-eight hours, and sold his 43 acres for $100,000. He thought that he was receiving an immense sum, but the new purchaser immediately resold it for $175,000, and the second purchaser is about to sell it for $200,000. Nothing unusual in these stories; you can hear a thousand similar ones in all corners of the State.

People in the cool, dispassionate North are quite unable to appreciate the Florida situation. They must be there to understand; they must talk to the peo

ple who speak of thousands and millions of dollars as though they were quite inconsequential and entirely within the reach of any one willing to put himself to a little bother. Gradually they are mesmerized, as the natives are mesmerized, and begin jabbering about acreage, abstracts, and binders along with the wildest of them. When they return homeward, they seem to awaken as from a dream and are quite unable to understand their frenzy for sand, palm, and palmetto.

H

ow long is the Florida boom going to last? Can the pyramiding of prices go on forever? When is the bubble going to burst? are questions being frequently asked in the North. In the South it is rather indiscreet to intimate that such a thing as a boom is in progress. "A boom? Of course not. We've never had a boom around here," they say. "Florida is only getting her just deserts; prosperity should have come to her long ago. Seventeen million acres untouched by the palmetto grubber, enough fertile land to feed the entire Nation. Florida is destined to become one of the wealthiest States in the Union."

Maybe so; but will that insure the permanence of the present high prices of real estate? "Land is going to go on selling just as briskly as it does now for ten years at least," said one real estate man. "Wealthy men have invested millions. Do you think they are ever going to let things go smash?" is a universal argument. "Men like Ford and Collier and the Ringling brothers"Other people Floridians believe that there must be a readjustment. Indeed, some go so far as to say that the pyramiding has already begun to slow down the rapidity of the sales in certain sections. As the prices become higher and higher, a great amount of cash is needed. Terms are usually a fourth down, and the remainder in one, two, and three years. One salesman encountered upon the west coast declared that he had moved from a certain eastcoast town on account of this condition.

Inhabitants of the new Eldorado are not nearly so apprehensive about the end of their prosperity as they are of other conditions. They fear a whole lot more the propaganda which is beginning to appear in various parts of the country, particularly in the smaller cities and towns of the Middle West. Bankers are greatly alarmed at the amount of capital being sent out of their territories for investment in Florida real estate, and are beginning to set up counter-fires. Peo

ple sending home for funds have frequently received letters of warning telling them not to put their money in what is termed so questionable a proposition.

Take the case of two Boston schoolteachers. They each wrote home for $500 to be taken from their savings accounts. A fatherly letter of advice was received instead. Still they persisted, and finally got their money. They bought lots, and within three weeks had cleared up $1,500 apiece as much as they earned in a year teaching. This information along with the original $1,000 was forwarded to the banker in Boston as a kind of rebuke.

Floridians say that many of the lies about their State may be traced directly to hostile propagandists. For example, the story concerning the necessity of having $600 in cash to enter the State. Then there is the gibing question: "If you can't pick oranges or sell real estate, how are you going to make your living in Florida?" A series of advertisements will shortly appear in many of the leading periodicals of the country combating the injurious rumors.

Bugaboos like unfavorable newspaper articles do not reign uppermost in people's minds for long. They are too busy with their acreage, their binders, and their subdivisions. If there is going to be any worrying done, let the Chambers of Commerce do it. Every one appears well dressed and prosperous and happy. If he has not made a million to-day, he is surely going to make it to-morrow. Young fellows who never had more than $50 at any one time in their whole lives hit it lucky and buy sport roadsters. Nowhere else does one see such an overwhelming number of big, expensive cars. Flivvers are few and ashamed of themselves. Specialty shops catering to the affluent are appearing in greater and greater numbers. The millionaires and those who feel like millionaires must have their fling.

FLO

LORIDA may be booming, it may be wild, it may be mad, it may be just a bit lopsided in its way of looking at things, but it is well worth going to see. The reference is not to the scenery, to the climate (although they have their attractions too), but to the drama, the spectacle. Every one is on his tiptoes, every one is dreaming, doing something; tourists sweep through by the thousands, great schemes are hatched, millions are spent, developers found new cities every day. It is Florida of 1926: Eldorado, the Klondike, and the South Sea Bubble rolled into one.