[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 61 (Thursday, May 14, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H3296-H3297]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  TRIBUTE TO MARJORY STONEMAN DOUGLAS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Foley) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. FOLEY. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a moment to pay tribute 
to a remarkable Floridian who spent literally a century doing good on 
this Earth before passing away today.
  Restoration of the Florida Everglades, one of the largest functioning 
ecosystems in the world, is a massive undertaking, and success will 
depend upon a united effort between the Federal Government, the State 
of Florida, and all local, regional, and tribal interests.
  While the job of restoring the Everglades ecosystem is by no means 
complete, much has already been accomplished in the 50 years since 
President Truman designated the Everglades as a national park.
  These accomplishments, Mr. Speaker, are in no small part due to the 
efforts of Marjory Stoneman Douglas. And for that reason, I was 
saddened to hear the news of her death this morning at the age of 108 
years old.
  While there are many different points of view about how to best clean 
up the Everglades, we all agree that it does in fact need to be 
restored. This was not always the case, though, in Florida. In fact, 
during campaigns in the 1930s, people would run for office and say, 
``If you will elect me governor of this State, I will drain that swamp 
and create growth and development opportunities.'' But it was through 
the efforts of Mrs. Douglas that Floridians began to view the 
Everglades as a national treasure that needs to be preserved rather 
than a simple swamp that needed to be transformed.
  I read today from the Washington Post. ``Environmentalist Marjory 
Stoneman Douglas, the fiesty, tireless grande dame of the Florida 
Everglades who led the fight to preserve her river of grass, died 
today. She was 108.''
  Let me give a few quotes from people who worked with her closely on 
the preservation of one of our most significant national treasures. 
``For many, Mrs. Douglas was more than an environmentalist. Joe Podgor, 
executive director of the 5,000-member Friends of the Everglades, which 
she helped found, once called her `the giant on whose shoulders we all 
stand.' Clay Henderson, president of the Florida Audubon Society, said 
her campaign was `certainly the turning point for the Everglades.' ''
  He also stated, ``The good thing is that she lived long enough to see 
the restoration of the Everglades rise to the top of the national 
agenda. And so we've come too far now to be able to turn back.''
  ``She was considered the authority on the delicate ecosystem, which 
is home to plants and animals found nowhere else.
  ``In 1947, she helped lead the successful push to have nearly 1.6 
million acres designated as the Everglades National Park. That same 
year, she published her book, `The Everglades: River of Grass,' the 
first attempt to put the history of the Everglades into one volume.''

                              {time}  1445

  Until then, the Everglades was considered a wasteland to be conquered 
and used for farming, and State policies encouraging drainage and 
development. The book's title referred to the fact that the Everglades 
is really a wide river of shallow water flowing slowly southward across 
a low grassy plain.
  The book combines scientific findings and traditional lore and reads 
nothing like a textbook. I give you a quote: ``The clear burning light 
of the sun pours day long into the saw grass and is lost there, soaked 
up, never given back,'' she wrote. ``Only the water flashes in glints. 
The grass yields nothing.''
  Long past an age when most people slow down, she continued to speak 
out on behalf of the imperiled south Florida region damaged by rapid 
development.
  Among other honors, a special conservation award named for her, an 
act of the legislature in her name, and several Marjory Stoneman 
Douglas parks and schools. The high-rise gold glass building in 
Tallahassee that houses the State Department of Natural Resources is 
named for her. In 1993, when she was 103 years old, President Clinton 
awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
  Even when others insisted the battle over the Everglades was lost, 
Mrs. Douglas refused to give up. She said, ``It is not too late, or we 
would not be working. We simply cannot let everything be destroyed. We 
cannot do that, not if we want water. We have got to take care of what 
we have,'' Mrs. Douglas said in her 1990 interview. She led us in a 
valiant fight to preserve the Everglades.
  I am proud of the work. Speaker Gingrich, Senator Dole, and others 
have helped, and Senator Connie Mack, in helping us achieve the largest 
Federal effort ever to preserve and protect the Everglades.

[[Page H3297]]

  I was able to offer a $300 million effort on behalf of our colleagues 
and all Floridians to preserve our most vital natural resource in 
Florida, which is water, and our Everglades National Park, which is a 
treasure for generations to come.
  But it is obviously today more the work of Marjory Stoneman Douglas 
that has brought us here today, both to honor her life, celebrate her 
presence, eulogize a tribute to her, the preservation of something so 
vitally important to over 14 million Floridians and actually the entire 
United States, the preservation, the lifeblood of Florida, the 
Everglades National Park.

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