Key West History: December 26, 1923 - Reward Offered for Vandals of Yards in Key West - a podcast by 43 Keys Media

The Key West Citizen has received so many complaints recently about the willful destruction of plants and flowers in yards in the city, that it has decided to reward $25 for the arrest and conviction of anybody for committing such vandalism. A woman resident who used many hours of her time and beautifying her yard had so many of her plants broken or torn up a few days ago, she was mortified to tears when she viewed the destruction. Whoever broke the plants or pulled them up was prompted to do so by sheer devilry, by the hankering to destroy because none of the plants were stolen but were left instead strewn about the yard. "What is the use of my wasting time to plant", the woman said. "when my labor of days and weeks is destroyed in a few minutes by some vandal. I love trees plants and flowers but I'm disgusted sometimes, by the way, they are destroyed. I feel like pledging myself not to plant another thing."

In several other parts of the city, similar reports have been made to The Citizen by residents. Some of them said they have seen not only children but grown ups also reach over into a yard and tear a limb off a Croton or some other beautiful plant. And in the case of some boys, they poked fun at the owner of a yard when they were reprimanded for breaking a plant or pulling it up. "The whole trouble," a resident said today, "is because many residents of Key West have not been used to open yards, to seeing growing things within their reach, and not touching them. And it seems to me that the best way to teach them to respect the property of others, as represented in plants and trees and flowers is to arrest a few of them and find them and send them to jail. What's the use of preaching about pulling down fences to modernize the yards, if the growing things in the yards are to be destroyed by every Tom, Dick, and Harry? It's beyond me, and trying to understand how anybody except a bit of a child, of course, can have the heart to go into somebody's yard and tear his plants to pieces. Yet it is done day in and day out in Key West and the doers are not the smaller children that good size boys and girls and sometimes grown people."

It is in the hopes of stopping that class of vandalism and to promote the growth of plants, trees, flowers and roses in Key West that The Citizen decided today to offer the reward. The reward is not confined to members of the police force. It will be given to anyone who's information leads to the arrest and conviction of a person for destroying plant life and any yard in the city. Many of the small trees, so it has been reported, that were planted throughout the city during the tree planting campaign conducted by the Chamber of Commerce have had tender shoots torn off of them and have been broken in two our been pulled up altogether. The Citizen hopes that all Key Westers who wish to see the city further beautified by the planting of trees and flowers will join in the movement to put an end to the destruction of them.

And it was today, December the 25th, 1923, that the Key West Citizen offered a reward of $25 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of guilty yard vandals. And that's what happened today in Key West history.

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