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The safe, sound, thoroughly American bedrock of Florida's winter trade was bigger and sounder than ever. A bus-line authority said that trying to count the passengers was like counting the snowflakes that fell in Manhattan last week. The middleaged, the old, the thrifty young thronged ancient, calm St. Augustine, Fort Lauderdale, Delray Beach on the Atlantic Coast. St. Petersburg on the Gulf of Mexico did its usual huge and placid business. The thousands of green benches along the city's sidewalks and in the parks were always crowded. Gaffers 75 and over played their daily six innings of cautious baseball, and Webb's Cut Rate Store (one egg, two strips of bacon, hominy grits for breakfast, 3¢ ; with coffee and a doughnut, 8¢) cashed their modest checks by the thousand.
Up to mid-February, the season was better than the weather. In Miami, between Dec. 15 and Feb. 15, 29 of the 62 days were rainy or cloudy. Then the sun smiled: only four days were cloudy between Feb. 16 and March 8. "It was worse last year," the permanent residents said (as it was). And it was a fact that the sun did not make so much difference in Florida as it was generally supposed to make. Since Henry Flagler pushed his bumpy railroad southward to Miami, and the tourists began to seek winter warmth, to millions in the U. S. Florida had become a place to rest, to play, to escape from the year-round realities at home. Up to this week, some 2,000,000 had spent $250,000,000 on that endeavor this season. If, when they headed home again, their winter tans were on the creamy side, they did not greatly mind. Another 500,000 or so were bound to follow, get deeper tans, and further bolster the heretical theory that Florida is a better place to go in the spring than in the winter.