he’ll be left so far behind that he’ll never catch up. If he makes a prediction, he makes a running prediction; never a standing prediction. If he sells a piece of land—and it’s as natural for a Miami citizen to sell a piece of land as it is for him to have coffee for breakfast—he is very likely to name a price that the land will reach to-morrow instead of the price that it has reached to-day. He is always moving ahead of the city.
The population of Miami has increased four hundred and forty per cent. in the last ten years. Therefore the Miami people figure that it will easily increase another four hundred and forty per cent. in the next ten years. They claim that the city’s population in 1925 will be one hundred thousand, and that in 1930 it will be two hundred thousand. Proceeding at that rate, its population in 1950 will be five million; and by 1980 practically every one in North America will be pushing and crowding in his effort to squeeze into the city.
It is, of course, quite obvious to the effete and blasé northerner that the claims made by the Miami folk show that there are some screws loose on their claimers. The Miami people, however, say that the northern people don’t know how to adjust their views to a rapidly growing city—that they stand still to look at it; and that while they are looking, the city grows out of focus. They prove their theory by the following anecdote:
A short time ago the telephone company sent down estimators to look at Miami and estimate its population in another ten years, in order that the company might be able to install the proper-sized telephone switchboard. The estimators looked, made careful estimates, and reported that the population would be one hundred thousand in ten years’ time. The telephone company burst into loud howls of derision. “You’re crazy!” it cried to the estimators. “Who ever told you that you could estimate? Somebody must be paying you to boost the place! Get out of the way and let us send down some regular estimators!” So the company sent down some new estimators; and these estimators in turn looked over the ground and did some careful estimating. They then returned and reported that the population in ten years’ time would be one hundred and twenty thousand. The telephone company, without more ado, installed a switchboard based on that estimate. But the Miami people claim that the estimators were making stationary estimates, and that the difference between the estimates of the first and the second estimators was merely due to the fact that the city had moved forward between their visits. If they had known how to place themselves en rapport, so to speak, with the city and move forward with it, both of them would have estimated that the population would be two hundred thousand in ten years’ time.
At any rate, the real-estate operations in Miami—and the word Miami, by the way, is pronounced My-amma by every one except the uncultured folk who insist on pronouncing it as spelled—the real-estate operations in Miami are on a scale that will provide building lots for twenty million people by 1930.
CHAPTER V
OF REAL-ESTATE DEALERS—OF THE LARGE HANDSOME SALESMEN—OF NOISY AUCTIONS—OF ABSOLUTE AND UNABSOLUTE AUCTIONS—AND OF PRICES FOR EVERY POCKETBOOK
The exact number of real-estate dealers in Miami is not known. Practically every one over eighteen years of age dabbles in real-estate at one time or another. Almost every one owns a lot somewhere that he is anxious to get rid of, although it is unanimously admitted by the owners that every lot in Miami will double in value in a year’s time. Almost every other doorway along Miami’s crowded streets shelters a real-estate firm; and whole coveys of real-estate firms are frequently sheltered in buildings that would be considered small by a family of three people.
Some of the firms keep impressive-looking salesmen standing just outside of the building in which the firms do business. These salesmen are large, handsome men for the most part, strikingly dressed in white trousers, pearl gray sack coats, white shoes, white belts, white neckties and straw hats tilted knowingly toward the right ear. If one stops for a moment to admire a window display which shows automobiles, diamonds and tax-exempt bonds sprouting from the super-fertile soil of land that is on sale within at one thousand dollars an acre, one of the salesmen is very apt to come up behind him and tempt him with honeyed words. It is almost futile to struggle against these salesmen. Unless one possesses an iron will, he will weakly permit himself to be coaxed within the portals of the office, where he will spend the better part of an hour looking at meaningless maps and hearing large sums of money mentioned with the utmost carelessness and disrespect.
Other real-estate firms constantly carry on selling campaigns that strongly resemble—in noise, at least—the return of the Twenty-seventh Division from the War. They resort to brass bands, numbers of sight-seeing automobiles, silver-tongued orators to cajole the crowd, and advertisements that inflame the acquisitive spirit of every beholder. When newcomers see a monster parade of automobiles, headed by a blaring band, swinging through the streets of Miami, they usually think, in their innocence, that a three-ring circus has come to town. As a matter of fact, it is only the firm of Yammer & Yawp taking a mob of prospects out to its daily auction sale of lots at Rubber Plant Park.