In this wooded silence the wild animals find a refuge; the gentle doe, with her fawn, slips through the shadows; the red fox cautiously watches for her prey; the black bear, with her chubby cub, scents the custard apple and the palmetto bud; the raccoon skulks through the tangled underbrush and the cunning otter darts through the fish-laden stream in quest of his midnight meal; the snowy egret, the heron, the eagle and the bittern, with countless migratory birds from the North American continent, find in this wild solitude a winter refuge. Gorgeously colored butterflies infest the flowers of the Everglade prairies and in their flights, ascending and descending over their island homes, form clouds shimmering with color and animation.
Today this Big Cypress is an empire of pristine wonder, prehistoric in its dramatic and weird jungle setting. Epitomized into the terse verbiage of Perley Poore-Sheehan, one of America’s rising young authors and a sympathetic friend of the Florida Seminoles, “To cut the Big Cypress up into lots and acres would be like turning the Yosemite into an onion garden; it would be like turning the Yellowstone Park into a factory town.”
As we close our eyes to this picture of primeval life in the “Land of the Seminole,” with the thought of war and famine and killing, which has so recently touched the heartstrings of every American, these questions confront one: “Who are the barbarians of the twentieth century, the Caucasian or the red man of the primeval forests?” You ask, “How long did it take to educate and civilize the Anglo-Saxon race?” According to authentic history, the work of civilizing Europe and bringing the mass of the barbarians under the subjection of the law was the work of fully one thousand years.
Is Europe civilized today?
VISITORS FROM THE EVERGLADES.
This is a day of “ether wave thoughts.” The “inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” are the searchlights piercing the dark corners of every cranny in the universe. Like sun motes, human sympathy has entered the Indian’s domain and is vibrating in harmony for the American red man—acting as a torch of liberty, showing the pale-face his belated duty to the original American.
If the American Indian were not worthy a place in the world’s history, would his memory be perpetuated by his white conquerors? As an idealistic type this twentieth century is rushing to pay him a tribute. Is there a white American who would dare to place before a Congressional body a bill for the erection of a colossal statue of the African to stand beside the Goddess of Liberty in New York harbor?
The American Indian, in bronze, is to have this honor, and to ex-President Taft was assigned the honor of lifting the first spadeful of soil at the dedication services, where Indian and white man stood as equals in this official function.
In the Nation’s Hall of Fame in the Capitol at Washington, the inventor of the Cherokee alphabet, Sequoyah, an Indian, is honored with a place.