sunshine's heat. To eastward, under an incredibly blue sky,
stretched the more incredibly multi-hued waters of Biscayne
Bay, the snow-white wonder-city of Miami dreaming on its
shores.

Dividing the residence and business part of the city from the
giant hotels, Flagler Avenue split the mass of buildings, from
back-country to bay. To its westward side spread the shaded
expanse of Royal Palm Park, with its deep-shaded short lane of
Australian pines, its rustling palm trees, its white church
and its frond-flecked vistas of grass.

Here, scarce a quarter-century ago, a sandspit had broiled
beneath an untempered sun. Shadeless, grassless, it had been
an abomination of desolution and a rallying-place for
mosquitoes. Then had come the hand of man. First, the Royal
Palm Hotel had sprung into stately existence, out of
nothingness. Then other caravansaries. Palm and pine and
vivid lawn-grass had followed. The mosquitoes had fled far
back to the mangrove swamps. And a rarely beautiful White
City had sprung up.

It was Sunday morning. From the park's bandstand, William J.
Bryan was preaching to his open-air Sunday School class of
tourists, two thousand strong. Around the bandstand the
audience stood or sat in rapt interest.

The Australian-pine lane, to the rear, was lined with all
manner of automobiles, from limousine to battered flivver.
The cars' occupants listened as best they could could--through