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“TRIBUTE TO MARJORY STONEMAN DOUGLAS” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H3296-H3297 on May 14, 1998.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
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.''
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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.
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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