The History of Florida (62 page)

Blake, Nelson M.
Land
into
Water—Water
into
Land:
A
History
of
Water
Management
in
Florida
. Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1980.

Braden, Susan R.
The
Architecture
of
Leisure:
The
Florida
Resort
Hotels
of
Henry
Flagler
and
Henry
Plant
. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002.

Colburn, David R., and Lance deHaven-Smith.
Government
in
the
Sunshine
State:
Florida
since
Statehood
. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1999.

Davis, Jack E., and Raymond Arsenault, eds.
Paradise
Lost?
The
Environmental
History
of
Florida
. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2005.

Flynt, Wayne.
Cracker
Messiah:
Governor
Sidney
J.
Catts
of
Florida
. Baton Rouge: Louisi-proof

ana State University Press, 1977.

Knetsch, Joe, and Nick Wynne.
Florida
in
the
Spanish-American
War
. Charleston: History Press, 2011.

Proctor, Samuel.
Napoleon
Bonaparte
Broward:
Florida’s
Fighting
Democrat
. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1950.

Stronge, William B.
The
Sunshine
Economy:
An
Economic
History
of
Florida
since
the
Civil
War
. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2008.

Turner, Gregg M.
A
Journey
into
Florida
Railroad
History
. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2008.

Turner, Gregg M., and Seth H. Bramson.
The
Plant
System
of
Railroads,
Steamships
and
Hotels:
The
South’s
First
Great
Industrial
Enterprise
. Laurys Station, Pa.: Garrigues House, 2004.

Williamson, Edward C.
Florida
Politics
in
the
Gilded
Age,
1877–1893
. Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1976.

17

Fortune and Misfortune

The Paradoxical 1920s

William W. Rogers

Florida’s social matrix in the 1920s combined reality and fantasy. Its parts in-

cluded people, land, automobiles and highways, banks, hurricanes, insects

(Mediterranean fruit flies and mosquitoes), ticks, and the intangible—but

no less real—emotions of greed, optimism, faith, and despair. Politics was

less prominent than usual, but there was no lack of strong candidates and

proof

hard-fought campaigns. The biggest race of 1920, a year in which women

gained the right to vote with the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment,

was for the U.S. Senate. It was decided by the Democratic primary victory of

incumbent conservative-progressive Duncan U. Fletcher over the populist

and flamboyant governor Sydney J. Catts. In the general election, Fletcher

easily defeated his Socialist and Republican opponents.

The state’s one-party system had been dominated since the end of Re-

construction by the Democrats, whose shibboleths were honesty, frugal-

ity, efficiency in government, and white supremacy. Tainted by the alleged

and real corruption of Reconstruction, the Republicans offered only token

opposition. Nomination in the Democratic primary guaranteed victory in

the general election. Black voters had been disfranchised, first by extralegal

means and since the 1890s by legal means, especial y by laws that permitted

Democratic officials to exclude them from participating in the primaries.

Beyond that, the poll tax eliminated many black voters (and poor whites as

well). By the 1920s, black citizens were no longer a viable part of the political

process.

In the 1920 gubernatorial primary, Cary A. Hardee, a Live Oak banker

and lawyer, won over two rivals before vanquishing his Republican and

· 296 ·

Fortune and Misfortune: The Paradoxical 1920s · 297

Socialist adversaries in the general election. In the primary for that office

in 1924, John W. Martin, a lawyer and longtime mayor of Jacksonville, ran

as the businessman’s candidate. Emphasizing a road-building program, he

was nominated over three opponents. Two years later, Senator Fletcher won

another term with his primary victory over Florida’s colorful hotel com-

missioner, Jerry W. Carter, a Catts appointee. In 1920 and 1924, Republicans

won the White House, but Florida routinely awarded its electoral votes to

Democrats James M. Cox and John W. Davis.

Vote tallies in 1928 produced no surprises at the state level, but Florida

joined four other states in deviating from the South’s solid Democratic

norm in the national presidential contest, which pitted Republican Herbert

Hoover against New York’s Democratic governor Alfred E. Smith. Wauchu-

la’s Doyle E. Carlton, descendant of a pioneer family, defeated four primary

opponents, including perennial candidate Catts, in the gubernatorial race.

Catts supported the victorious Hoover, but Carlton went on to win the gen-

eral election. U.S. Senator Park Trammel defeated former governor John

Martin in the primary and easily bested Republican Barclay H. Warburton.

Al Smith had won the Democratic presidential nomination without any

delegate support from Florida. Senator Joseph T. Robinson of Arkansas had

received the vice-presidential nomination to placate southern voters, most

proof

of them Protestants who opposed electing a Catholic president. Smith’s li-

abilities in Florida and the South included his “shanty Irish” immigrant

background, ties with Tammany Hall and eastern big-city politics, and op-

position to Prohibition. His East Side accent and wardrobe of spats, bowler

derby, and striped suits further repelled southern voters. Many Florida poli-

ticians gave only tepid support to the national ticket. Local and statewide

church groups, antiliquor organizations, and civic leaders endorsed Hoover.

Many women voters also approved of the Republican candidate’s support of

Prohibition. Besides, Hoover promised to continue Republican prosperity

begun under Calvin Coolidge, and by 1928, still reeling from a real estate

bust, Floridians had good cause to want prosperity.

Hoover received 144,168 votes to Al Smith’s 101,764, and carried Flor-

ida with 56.8 percent of the popular vote. Socialist Norman Thomas got

4,036 votes and Communist Wil iam Z. Foster 3,704. Large victory mar-

gins by other Democratic candidates in the state suggested no massive shift

by white voters to the Republican Party. Their voting patterns in the 1930s

would remain solidly Democratic. Hoover owed his victory to special cir-

cumstances: Democratic overconfidence, the Prohibition issue, and strong

religious feelings of Florida’s voters.

298 · William W. Rogers

Too much was going on in Florida during the 1920s for citizens to con-

centrate solely on politics. Prohibition, for example, went into effect in 1919.

Subsequently, enforcement became a major problem. With 3,800 miles of

tidal shoreline containing an extensive system of bays and inlets, Florida be-

came a major port of entry for alcoholic beverages. Airplanes, speedboats,

and other vessels came in under cover of darkness from the Bahamas and

Caribbean islands. While smugglers operated with near impunity, native

Floridians set up moonshine stills and put their imaginations to ful use

devising innovative marketing techniques. One Duval County bootlegger

was caught dispensing “white lightning” from the back of a truck, where he

kept it hidden beneath sacks of pecans and sweet potatoes.

As one British traveler put it, “Florida, from my personal experience in

it, was the wettest country I have ever known.”1 Noted gangster Al Capone,

no novice to liquor trafficking, came to Miami in the 1920s, presumably to

escape the stress of Chicago and Cicero, Illinois. However law-abiding he

may have tried to be, the mobster’s presence set off official but unsuccessful

efforts to bar him from the state.

Religion, especial y the modernist-fundamentalist controversy over

teaching evolution in the public schools, also diverted attention from poli-

tics. Florida remained a Protestant stronghold, although it had substantial

proof

numbers of Catholics and Jews. Many whites and blacks were devout church

members, and ministers, especial y black ministers, exercised great influ-

ence in their communities. An eclectic theological domain, Florida shel-

tered groups ranging from evangelical preachers thundering hel fire and

damnation to tent audiences to Episcopalian ministers intoning scriptures

to upper-class congregations.

The Great Commoner, Wil iam Jennings Bryan, a three-time Democratic

presidential candidate who had made Florida his residence, was a devout

fundamentalist, as were many educational, civic, and political leaders. De-

spite pressure from such persons, and numerous heated debates on the sub-

ject, the state—unlike Tennessee, Arkansas, and Mississippi—did not statu-

torily forbid the teaching of evolution in the public schools. Such acts were

known popularly as Monkey Laws. Even so, in 1923 the legislature did pass

a joint resolution opposing the teaching of Darwinian thought. There was

ongoing controversy over bil s banning textbooks that denied spontaneous

creation as described in the Book of Genesis, and certain scientific books

were placed on restricted use or were taken from university and col ege

library shelves, but no anti-evolution law passed as such. The controversy

did not end until well after the Scopes trial in 1925 at Dayton, Tennessee.

Fortune and Misfortune: The Paradoxical 1920s · 299

Fundamentalists also frowned on gambling. They and a majority of citi-

zens did not approve of efforts to establish thoroughbred racing in Florida.

Despite antibetting laws, sporadic meets were held in the 1920s at sportsman

Frank A. Kenney’s track between Jacksonvil e and St. Augustine. In 1925,

Joseph M. Smoot’s Miami Jockey Club (renamed Hialeah in 1931) opened.

But public outcry curtailed racing until the 1931 legislature, desperate to

raise revenue, legalized pari-mutuel wagering.

Politics and popular distractions aside, the state’s spectacular land boom

became the main object of attention. It remained so until supplanted by

an equal y spectacular bust. In economic decline at the turn of the decade,

Florida was on the road to prosperity by 1923. The rapid recovery was based

largely on a dramatic rise in real estate transactions and land development.

The phenomenon began at Miami Beach, spread through Dade County,

moved up the east and west coasts, and infused central Florida before find-

ing its way north to Tal ahassee and west to the Panhandle. To many, Florida

seemed a lotus land, and there was no shortage of individuals anxious to

exploit its potential.

Near-legendary figures of Florida’s development included John Collins,

who created Miami Beach from mangrove swamps and salt marshes in the

1910s. His efforts were furthered by Carl G. Fisher, an Indiana native. Nearby

proof

to the south, George E. Merrick promoted Coral Gables, a planned com-

munity featuring Mediterranean architecture and distinguished by an art-

ful blending of exotic landscaping and canals. Northward lay Hol ywood,

another designed community founded in 1921 by Joseph W. Young and his

California associates. Even farther north, Addison Mizner, an extraordi-

nary promoter-architect, designed homes for the wealthy at Palm Beach.

His Mediterranean style was enhanced by the use of pastel colors—utili-

tarian in combatting the sun’s rays and aesthetic in their soft-hued variety.

Backed by eastern millionaires, Mizner’s most ambitious project was Boca

Raton. Unfortunately, he fell victim to the col apse of the land boom, and

his corporation failed in 1926.

Elsewhere, other projects transformed the state. The distance between

Tampa and St. Petersburg was more than halved by George S. Gandy’s toll

bridge, erected with financial assistance from St. Petersburg promoter Eu-

gene M. Elliott. In Tampa, D. P. “Doc” Davis converted three land spits into

the lucrative Davis Islands network, but another Davis effort failed at St.

Augustine with the end of the land boom. Orlando’s growth resulted from

the early work of H. Carl Dann. William Lee Popham of Kentucky, a Bap-

tist minister who combined oyster production with real estate deals, raised

300 · William W. Rogers

hopes in the Apalachicola area. His ventures on St. George Island ultimately

failed, but not before his fame spread far and wide. Pensacola, Panama City,

and Jacksonvil e also expanded, and supposedly staid Tal ahassee opened