Rensselaer Journal, Volume 10, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 May 1901 — American Pleasure Resorts. [ARTICLE]

American Pleasure Resorts.

The increased number of visitor* to the resorts of Florida this season 1* a matter for distinct congratulation. Well-to-do pleasure seekers could not do the country a more material service than by inaugurating a fashion which would result in the retention on this side of the ocean of the greater part of the >100,000,000 now spent abroad annually by rich Americans. There is another side to this question, however, than the material one of keeping good American dollars, more or less hard earned, out of the grasp of foreign fingers and in the capacious pockets of American landlords and of others who find the entertainment of wealthy visitors gn agreeably profitable occupation. It is the aesthetic side—a development which follows as a natural consequence. With the assurance of continually Increasing patronage scores of little towns, not on the Florida coast alone, but elsewhere within sight of blue waters, would spruce up. Parks and gardens would be laid out, and sand dunes would blossom like the gardens of Omar. All this would not be for the sole benefit of the excessively rich pleasure seeker. The visitor of limited income would have his innings, too, since after the resorts should have once been established and paid for by the rich his patronage would also be sought after by the hotel keepers. In a hundred places in Europe the man of moderate means, who philosophically enjoys the delight of looking at a beautiful landscape in nature or on canvas as much as does the possessor thereof, finds that fashion has left in her wake charming place* where he may be well content to spend a restful day or week. It would be well, indeed, if fashion’s new found devotion to American winter resorts—and summer resorts as wellshould have here the same result. — Philadelphia Record.