COMMENT 



Once more the unexpected has happened ! The new Constitu- 

 tion for the State of New York has failed of adoption by the 

 people, although in many respects it was an unusually carefully 

 prepared document, and progressive in the right direction. 



We are naturally most interested in the attempt to improve 

 the section having reference to the Forest Preserve. The im- 

 provement on this section did not strike us as a great advance, 

 and especially was a backward step taken in abolishing the single 

 responsible commissioner and constituting a new commission of 

 nine members, one from each judicial district. Whatever small 

 changes of detail in the administration were introduced — such 

 things as should not be incorporated in any constitution, but be 

 left to legislation or administration — the policy of keeping the 

 forest preserve as a game and pleasure resort and without tech- 

 nical forest management was not changed. In view of the 

 crudities apparent in the conception of what a forest manage- 

 ment involves and the evident inability of organizing such man- 

 agement, it was perhaps best that things were left as they are, and 

 the Editor had expected nothing else. Indeed, he may be allowed 

 to quote from his communication to the Constitutional Conven- 

 tion the following language, in which he accepted the situa- 

 tion as it was bound to be left : 



"There are two problems, closely related to each other, that 

 must be solved by the Convention simultaneously, namely, to 

 declare what rational policy to pursue in the State Forests, with 

 power to carry it out, and to provide a machinery which, removed 

 from political bias, can use this power discreetly. 



"When, in 1885, the writer formulated for Senator Lowe the 

 legislation which led to the establishment of the Forest Com- 

 mission and Forest Preserve {not Park!), the economic and 

 watershed protecting aspect of the Preserve was uppermost. At 

 that time the tourist, private camp, and summer guest develop- 

 ment was still in its infancy. The "Park" idea was first broached 

 in 1890, but when, in 1896, the policy of buying lands for the 

 State was adopted, it was still done with a Committee under the 

 name of the Forest Preserve Board, and the industrial and manu- 

 facturing interests were still urged as reasons for the State's 

 purchases, Gradually, however, not only the idea of converting 

 the Preserve into a Park grew, but the reason for this change 



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