Some of the stories she wrote spoke of the wealth of the region being in its "inevitable development", and she supplemented her income with $100 a week from writing copy advertisements that praised the development of South Florida, something she would reconsider later in her life.[28] She wrote a ballad in the 1920s lamenting the death of a 22-year-old vagrant who was beaten to death in a labor camp, titled "Martin Tabert of North Dakota is Walking Florida Now". It was printed in The Miami Herald, and read aloud during a session of the Florida Legislature, which passed a law banning convict leasing, in large part due to her writing.[22] "I think that's the single most important thing I was ever able to accomplish as a result of something I've written", she wrote in her autobiography.[29]