‘Conscience of Everglades’ Won’t Give Up Fight for Their Survival

MIAMI —  Marjory Stoneman Douglas stands watch over the Everglades with the temperament of the ancient saw grass that dominates the wetland.

She can be smooth and genteel, hands folded in her lap and voice hinting at the refinement of her New England upbringing more than three generations ago.

But, like the saw grass, she cuts for the bone when rubbed the wrong way.

“It’s not a question of if we can save the Everglades. We must,” said Douglas, 99. “There is no choice to consider. Without the Everglades, much of Florida is lost too.”

‘River of Grass’

Water is the gift of the Everglades, a soggy plain that ends a 300-mile water system running down the center of the Florida peninsula. This slow-moving “River of Grass”--part of the title of Douglas’ 1947 book -- starts a process that brings rain to the populated coast during the 6-month wet season.

“Whether you’re a developer or an environmentalist, the message is still the same,” Douglas said. “If the Everglades go, then south Florida becomes a desert.”

The greatest threat isn’t pollution, but the draining of land to accommodate the boom in one of the fastest growing states. “I’d say about 80% of the Everglades are unspoiled. But what I’m most worried about is man’s ignorance of the importance of the Everglades. The people coming to Florida know nothing about the Everglades. That is our greatest peril.”

Honored for Crusade

Age has clouded Douglas’ sight. But her vision is reaching new horizons.

Recent attention to the Everglades has brought renewed attention to her crusade. In January, she and five other women were named Ms. magazine’s women of the year; she was ABC News’ person of the week Jan. 13, and was on the NBC “Today” show in February. In May, she became an honorary vice president of the national Sierra Club, the highest award the organization gives.

But she was conspicuously absent from a three-day conference in January on the Everglades, which featured more than 200 experts and officials. She prefers to surrender the high-profile events to the Friends of the Everglades, a group she founded in the 1960s. She’d rather greet visitors in the stucco cottage that she built in 1926 in Coconut Grove.

From her easy chair surrounded by cassette tapes of books, she receives word on the political battles being waged over the Everglades. “Why do people worry about me and my age so much?” said Douglas, who disdains ambiguity. “I get by. Let’s concentrate on the real problems.”

“She has been to the Everglades what Winston Churchill was to Britain in World War II,” said Mike Finley, the park’s superintendent. “She has been the leader, the conscience, the rallying point.”

A Distant Friendship

Throughout her life, Douglas has kept a distant relationship with the Everglades. Even when her sight was good, she rarely traveled into the grass and cypress interior. Besides, she says, there are too many bugs.

“Every time it rains, we know the Everglades are there,” said Douglas, who dons a floppy wide-brimmed hat whenever outdoors. “It’s not necessary to be out there to feel its presence.”

“I suppose you could say the Everglades and I have the kind of friendship that doesn’t depend on constant physical contact,” she wrote in “River of Grass,” the product of 5 years’ research.

Headed for Miami in 1915

In 1915, Douglas left a domineering husband in New Jersey and boarded a southbound train. Her destination was literally the end of the line. Miami was then a ramshackle railway terminus of 5,000 residents where ice was scarce and dreams of riches in real estate abounded.

It was also home to her father, a lawyer who founded what would become the Miami Herald newspaper with a printing press he collected on a bad debt.

Douglas landed a job as a columnist and reporter, but soon left to sell free-lance magazine articles. In 1943, she began a novel to help overcome an emotional breakdown after her father’s death. When a publisher asked for a book on the tiny Miami River, she felt it too insignificant. She persuaded the publisher to consider a treatise on the Everglades water system.

Nearly 50 years later, the book is still in print.

Among her other eight books are “Florida: The Long Frontier” in 1967 and “Alligator Crossing,” a children’s book.