340 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



before adjourning announced that thirteen foresters had voted at the 

 meeting without being members of the Association, and made further 

 remarks derogatory to the foresters as countenancing illegal methods. 

 The writer, being at this Board meeting, later obtained from the vSecre- 

 tary the thirteen names which he had given to the President of those 

 whose votes were questioned, and by correspondence secured nine can- 

 celled checks showing these members to have been paid up and in good 

 standing at the date of the meeting. Two had sent currency which was 

 lost somewhere in transit, one was in arrears in dues and one had 

 mistaken the Association for the Society of American Foresters, which 

 met in New York next day. The Secretary later verified these facts 

 from his records. This misstatement was never formally corrected by 

 the President. Before discovering that his own office records were 

 at fault, the Secretary had informed at least one person, Charles P. 

 Wilber, of Trenton, N. J., not at member of the Board, that certain 

 foresters had voted in this irregular manner. This statement, if 

 accepted as correct, and repeated to others, tended to throw discredit 

 upon foresters as a class. 



On December 16, 1920, a meeting of the Directors was held in New 

 York at which a plan was proposed by Director A. D. Pratt of chang- 

 ing the by-laws so as to constitute the Board of fifteen as a self- 

 perpetuating governing body of life tenure, and power to elect the 

 officers and amend the by-laws. 



The reasons given were that the Association was losing money, that 

 a large sum of money was available and could be secured by Mr. Pack 

 for the purpose of purchasing a permanent home at 1314 Sixteenth 

 Street, N.W., Washington, that further sums could be secured for 

 endowment, but that the condition attaching to those gifts was that 

 the Board must be so constituted that all possibility of a turn-over or 

 change of complexion by annual election should be removed, and 

 finally, that an indefensible effort had been made at the meeting in 

 January, 1920, to wrest control of the Association from Mr. Pack, a 

 repetition of which must be prevented at all costs. These arguments 

 were placed before the members on March 1 in a mailed circular as 

 the justification for the reorganization effected on April 25. 



Mr. Greeley, approached on the preceding day, December 15, 1920, 

 had registered a violent protest. The writer, informed at the meeting 

 on December 16, 1920, seconded this protest. The plan was then sug- 



