The Days of a Man 1910 



be sure, but in a Universe which knows no great or 

 small. 



Fish Com- In the spring of this year I was appointed by Gov- 

 ernor Hiram W. Johnson one of the three Fish Com- 

 missioners of California serving without pay, a 

 special (salaried) deputy commissioner acting as 

 executive. For this last position we selected John P. 

 Babcock, a former very efficient incumbent, who for a 

 number of years had been in the service of British 

 Columbia. The sale of fishing and hunting licenses 

 bringing in a large revenue, we made arrangements 

 for an elaborate study of the fishery and game inter- 

 ests of California, selecting, under Babcock's direc- 

 tion, a number of experts to carry on the work. 



Upon leaving for Japan in the summer of 1911, I 

 resigned from the commission. For some reason also, 

 most of its personnel was soon changed by the gov- 

 ernor, and when I got back Babcock had withdrawn, 

 returning to Victoria, so that the survey as planned 

 by us had been largely abandoned. After a time, 

 however, our successors brought the work into good 

 shape, with Norman B. Scofield in charge of the field 

 service, assisted by Will F. Thompson, also a former 

 student of mine at Stanford. 



commis- 

 sion 



Eugenics During 1910 the American Breeders' Association, 

 of which Professor Liberty H. Bailey of Cornell was 

 then president, provided for a commission on Eugen- 

 ics, the aim being to study and popularize known 

 facts of human heredity. Bailey asked me to serve 

 as chairman, and as secretary appointed Professor 

 Charles B. Davenport of the Carnegie Institution 

 Laboratory at Cold Spring Harbor. Others of the 



C 296 ] 



