16 Thirtieth Annual Meeting 



60 years old the business should be attended to by their sons, or 

 their sons-in-law, and men should be allowed to go fishing. 



Xot many years ago I advocated publicly in the newspapers 

 that when old men were sent to asylums or poor houses or sol- 

 diers" homes, those institutions ought to be located upon the bank 

 of some lake or river wliere there is fishing, and every old man 

 after he gets to be 60 should be provided with a boat and all the 

 fishing tackle that he wants, and that the city or the county that 

 entertains him as a pauper or in any other capacity, should give 

 him the bait, and if it is necessary, if he has had his finger shot 

 ofl^, somebody should be detailed to put the bait on the hook for 

 him. That is the way I feel about the old men. Old women can 

 get along any way — all they want is to eat the fish. 



T presume many of you do not know much about Wisconsin 

 except what you have been told by oiir local manufacturers. If 

 you could see a map of the northern part of the state you would 

 think that Wisconsin was one case of smallpox from the number 

 of little lakes dotted all over it ; and these clear lakes, some of 

 them not more than half a miU' across, arc full of the l)est fish in 

 tlie world. The waters are deep, blue, perfect and clean, and you 

 ought to go into the northern part of the state for a month and 

 look this Inisiness over, look at the fish hatcheries and also look 

 at wliat natiire has done — and nature will keep it up. 



You have got a great responsibility. It has sometimes 

 seemed to me that it was wrong to take a female fish, and take 

 all there is in licr out and let tlie Fish Commissioners make it 

 into minnows. F don't know how they do it. I sometimes 

 thought I would go and examine and see how they take this 

 spawn that is no good in tlie fish, get in their work on it and 

 make it so that it is good. (Laughter and applause). At one 

 lime ! thought when I a])pointed some of these Fish Commis- 

 sioners and we ])rovided thi-ougli S])eaker llogan a car that would 

 carrv lish all over the world, that sonn' time 1 might get in there 

 and look it over and lind out how it was dont'. I hoj)e that I 

 nin\' do so even \'et and that I may he ahle to woi'k it in in my 

 own husiness (laughtei- and applause). 



When I read tliat the Fish Commissioners of a state pdant 

 millions upon millions of lish in its waters, I feel as though, 

 thev are i-esi>onsilile for the nullions and millions of lies that will 



