The History of Florida (65 page)

including the University of Miami, which opened its doors in 1926.

In race relations, Florida’s record was bad, although lynchings declined

from eight in 1920 to one in 1930. The revived Ku Klux Klan had a large

membership, influenced politics, and used extralegal violence to perpetuate

white superiority and black inferiority. The Klan declined toward the de-

cade’s end but kept its organization into the 1930s. The 1920s had witnessed

some frightful racial episodes. On election day in 1920, a pitched battle at

Ocoee in Orange County resulted in the deaths of whites and blacks. A com-

bination lynching and race riot occurred at the smal Levy County com-

munity of Rosewood during the first week of January 1923. Before it ended,

at least eight people, two of them whites, were killed, and the homes and

churches owned by blacks were burned.

In many ways, black and white cultures, though separate, ran paral el

and often overlapped. The mass of Florida’s blacks remained second-class

citizens and victims of prejudice throughout the 1920s. Stil , there was more

progress than retrogression, as some blacks—in the professions and in

310 · William W. Rogers

business—gained economic independence and became a part of the middle

class.

Several black Floridians were beginning or continuing distinguished ca-

reers. Zora Neale Hurston, born at Eatonvil e in 1907, would soon estab-

lish an enduring literary reputation. Crescent City was the birthplace of A.

Philip Randolph, who organized the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in

1925 and became one of the nation’s leaders in both the trade union move-

ment and the civil rights crusade. James Weldon Johnson, born in Jackson-

ville, achieved national prominence as a poet, editor, teacher, and leader in

the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

The 1920s were a significant period in Florida’s modern history. The state

gained an international reputation as a vacation spot for tourists and as a

desirable place in which to live. Increasingly, retirees selected the peninsula

and Panhandle as the domicile of their senior years. Although southern

in many ways, Florida had moved into the mainstream of American life.

Florida’s rate of urbanization was greater than that experienced by its neigh-

boring states. Its image became one of vitality and excitement, of shining

cities, of “skyscraper” hotels and banks, of business opportunity, and of the

good life. Floridians knew that, despite the prevailing economic crisis, the

sun would stil shine brightly, the Atlantic and the Gulf would continue

proof

to bathe paradise with their warm waters, the fish would bite, and the soil

would provide.

Notes

1. See James A. Carter III, “Florida and Rumrunning during National Prohibition.” Pa-

tricia Buchanan, in “Miami’s Bootleg Boom” (1960), quotes Congressman (later mayor of

New York City) Fiorello LaGuardia, from the notoriously wet state of New York, as saying,

“There are more prohibition lawbreakers in Florida than in my state.”

2.
Tal ahassee
Democrat,
8 June 1923.

3. Ibid., 16 October 1925, quoting an unnamed northern publication.

4.
Annual
Report
Banking
Department
[Florida]
, 1924, 9, hereafter cited as
ARBD.

5.
Florida
Laws
1925,
1:64–66, 58.

6.
Annual
Report
Florida
Comptrol er
1925
and
First
Six
Months
1926,
pp. xiii–xxiv.

7.
ARBD,
20 June 1926, n.p.

8.
Tal ahassee
Democrat,
29 July 1926.

9. Quoted ibid., 14 July 1930.

10. Walter P. Fuller,
This
Was
Florida’s
Boom
(St. Petersburg: n.p., n.d.), p. 8.

11. Henry S. Vil ard, “Florida Aftermath,”
Nation,
6 June 1928, p. 635.

12. H. E. Bierly, in “Open Forum,” a column in the
Tal ahassee
Democrat,
24 April 1929.

Fortune and Misfortune: The Paradoxical 1920s · 311

13. The remarks were made at the Florida Bankers Association meeting at Pensacola

(see
Tal ahassee
Democrat,
22 April 1929).

14.
Tal ahassee
Democrat,
16 February 1930.

15. For Cawthon’s quote, see
Biennial
Report
of
the
Superintendent
of
Public
Instruction
of
the
State
of
Florida,
1920–1922,
p. 131. For other educational statistics, see ibid., pp. 36, 38–39, 44–45, 76–77.

Bibliography

Buchanan, Patricia. “Miami’s Bootleg Boom.”
Tequesta
30 (1970):13–31.

Carper, N. Gordon. “Martin Tabert, Martyr of an Era.”
Florida
Historical
Quarterly
52, no.

2 (October 1973):115–31.

Carter, James A., III. “Florida Rumrunning during National Prohibition.”
Florida
Histori-

cal
Quarterly
48, no. 1 (July 1969):47–56.

Chalmers, David. “The Ku Klux Klan in the Sunshine State: The 1920s.”
Florida
Historical

Quarterly
42, no. 3 (January 1964):209–15.

Colburn, David R., and Richard K. Scher.
Florida’s
Gubernatorial
Politics
in
the
Twentieth
Century.
Tal ahassee: University Presses of Florida, 1980.

Doherty, Herbert J., Jr. “Florida and the Presidential Election of 1928.”
Florida
Historical

Quarterly
26, no. 2 (October 1947):174–86.

Dovel , Junius E.
History
of
Banking
in
Florida,
1828–1954. Orlando, 1955.

Flynt, Wayne.
Cracker
Messiah:
Governor
Sidney
J.
Catts
of
Florida.
Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977.

proof

———
.
Duncan
Upshaw
Fletcher:
Dixie’s
Reluctant
Progressive.
Tal ahassee: Florida State University Press, 1971.

France, Mary Duncan. “‘A Year of Monkey War’: The Anti-Evolution Campaign and the

Florida Legislature.”
Florida
Historical
Quarterly
44, no. 2 (October 1975):156–77.

Fuller, Walter P.
This
Was
Florida’s
Boom.
St. Petersburg, n.d.

George, Paul S. “Passage to the New Eden: Tourism in Miami from Flagler through Everest

G. Sewel .”
Florida
Historical
Quarterly
59, no. 4 (April 1981):440–63.

Gross, Eric L. “‘Somebody Got Drowned, Lord’: The Great Okeechobee Hurricane Disas-

ter of 1928.” Master’s thesis, Florida State University, 1991.

Hughes, M. Edward. “Florida Preachers and the Election of 1928.”
Florida
Historical
Quar-

terly
67, no. 2 (October 1988):131–46.

McDonnel , Victoria H. “The Businessman’s Politician: A Study of the Administration of

John Wel born Martin, 1925–1929.” Master’s thesis, University of Florida, 1968.

Nolan, David.
Fifty
Feet
in
Paradise:
The
Booming
of
Florida.
New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984.

Rogers, William Warren.
Outposts
on
the
Gulf:
Saint
George
Island
and
Apalachicola
from
Early
Exploration
to
World
War
II.
Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1986.

Sessa, Frank B. “Anti-Florida Propaganda and Counter Measures during the 1920s.”
Te-

questa
21 (1961):41–51.

———. “Miami in 1926.”
Tequesta
16 (1956):15–36.

———. “Miami on the Eve of the Boom, 1923.”
Tequesta
21 (1961):41–51.

312 · William W. Rogers

———. “The Real Estate Boom in Miami and Its Environs [1923–1926].” Ph.D. dissertation,

University of Pittsburgh, 1950.

Shofner, Jerrel H. “Florida and Black Migration.”
Florida
Historical
Quarterly
57, no. 3

(January 1979):267–88.

Vickers, Raymond B.
Panic
in
Paradise:
Florida’s
Banking
Crash
of
1926.
Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1994.

proof

18

The Great Depression

William W. Rogers

Governor Doyle Carlton and state legislators faced hard times in 1931. Old

problems had persisted, and new ones demanded attention. Economic news

was dismal—both the Florida East Coast and the Seaboard Air Line rail-

roads sank into receivership that year—and the state’s financial structure

appeared ready to col apse. As Carlton told the legislature, “In the minds

of many banking presents the major issue.”1 No one challenged his analysis.

The legislature responded with the Banking Act of 1931, which limited de-

positor withdrawals and directed some banks to call loans in to meet exist-

proof

ing obligations. Comptroller Ernest Amos anticipated New Deal legislation

to protect deposits. “I know the mere mention of ‘guaranteeing deposits’ is

‘arsenic to banks’ but some effective plan could be designed,” he asserted.2

Florida banks, like those in other states, continued to fail in 1931. Whether

large (the Central National Bank of St. Petersburg) or smal (the Bank of

Chipley), failures did not respect age or prestige. The situation prompted a

bit of doggerel: Lawyers are red / Business is blue / If you were a banker /

You’d be white-headed too.3

The governor and the legislature also grappled with the overall economic

crisis. The presidential election would determine the state’s and the nation’s

direction but not until November 1932. Florida’s constitution, which forbade

bonded indebtedness, prevented bankruptcy, but it also prohibited emer-

gency borrowing. Cities, counties, political subdivisions, and special tax

districts were not so limited. Here Florida’s debt liability led the nation and

was largely in default. The state’s lack of funds effectively barred borrowing

money on a matching basis from the federal government. Even so, gover-

nors Dave Sholtz (1932–36) and Fred P. Cone (1936–40) adroitly obtained

money from Washington that did not require matching.

· 313 ·

314 · William W. Rogers

Carlton trimmed services, recommended governmental streamlining,

suggested paving roads on a pay-as-you-go basis, and argued for restricting

local government bonding. He backed a sales tax to increase revenue while

insisting that an income tax would cause the affluent to avoid Florida. His

veto of an inheritance tax bill was sustained. The governor opposed another

potential revenue source, legalized gambling, on moral grounds, but in 1931

the legislature created a State Racing Commission, legalized pari-mutuel

betting, and taxed the proceeds. Joseph E. Widener of Miami’s Hialeah race-

track lobbied the measure to enactment. When Carlton vetoed it, the solons

overrode him and thus began the state’s important involvement with horse

and dog tracks and jai alai frontons. In 1934, income from admission taxes,

commissions on pari-mutuel sales, occupational licenses, and other related

receipts totaled $1,072,364; six years later it was $2,348,348.

Cities cut budgets and reduced tax mil ages. Chambers of commerce

urged merchants to offer bargains for citizen home-improvement projects.

“Buy Now” campaigns were launched. Typical y, in Jacksonville, the Com-

munity Chest opened a soup kitchen for the hungry, and the city hired the

unemployed on public works. Millionaire Alfred DuPont donated money to

employ workers for its public parks. A Lee County commissioner remarked,

“We’ve spent a pile of money but we haven’t spent a cent that shouldn’t

proof

have been spent.”4 Other cities and counties had similar programs, but none

could cope with escalating unemployment problems. The state Board of

Public Welfare, created in 1927, lacked resources to undertake large-scale

relief. Accordingly, municipal and county relief efforts, however inadequate,

were much more important before 1935 than was state aid. Pride and insuf-

ficient knowledge prompted one state committee on the unemployed to op-

pose federal assistance and strongly reject the dole system of relief.

Floridians who believed a depression could not occur in their vacation-

land deluded themselves. They fantasized that at worst—and always exclud-

ing affluent Palm Beach—a few thousand tourists would cancel or abbrevi-

ate their annual visits. Lacking smokestack urban centers, Florida presented

no stark image of closed factories with padlocked gates. A balmy climate

made it difficult to conjure long lines of out-of-work men wearing thread-

bare overcoats. Yet the Great Depression engulfed Florida and left many of

its citizens in misery and out of work, just as elsewhere in the nation.

Of necessity, Florida soon abandoned its philosophy of self-sufficiency;