Not long ago we heard a valued summer resident of an Island town discourse in a rather surprising way. She said:

 

“Some of us have formed a knockers’ club this year. If anyone asks us about the Vineyard, we say, ‘We-e-ell, the mosquitoes were pretty bad this season,’ or something of that sort designed to be discouraging. You see, it’s a question whether the Island isn’t becoming a little too popular, whether there haven’t been too many people around this year.”

 

This is the viewpoint which we have always believed should be taken into consideration when Vineyarders are thinking about the Island’s future. We are prone to talk about development. “Development” is, after all, a dangerous word. It suggests the thoroughgoing substitution of man-made landscapes for those of nature. It means an artificial manipulation of the Island’s future which strikes a real terror to the hearts of many lovers of the Vineyard who hate to see their favorite haunts any the less open and any the less natural.

 

The development planned for the Island ought to be very particular and careful kind of development, scrutinized at every point to see that it does not inject discords into the invaluable harmony of our present summer relationships. There is room here for untold summer sojourners of the future, for new fleets of yachts and for new estates of broad acres. But the new should be introduced with due respect for the old.

 

What most Vineyard lovers want, obviously, is the freedom and beauty which distinguished the Island today. And these are the things to keep it at all costs.