A JDkckxxial Kecoki) 119 



IXTKODTC TORY SPEEC H 



Burr W. Jones, Toastmaster 



You had an opportunity today to witness an exliihition such as 

 you would not find any other place on the face of the glohe. It is true 

 that several people have imitations of oin- lahoratory. They have one 

 in Canada; they have one in Australia; Great Britain has started two 

 or three in far oft' India and Africa; hut none of them can offer such 

 an exliihition or compare with such an exhibit as you have seen today. 

 This was the original Forest Products I^ahoratory. For some time 

 it was the only one. 



It had a Aery modest beginning — several gentlemen Morked here 

 in two or three rooms out in Wingra Park. They corresponded with 

 some others in other parts of the country. Some of the wise men in 

 Washington — there are always a few wise men in Washington — be- 

 came interested, and our Board of Regents, who were always pro- 

 gressive, became interested; and it was finally arranged, as you heard 

 today, that the Regents woidd erect a building and that the govern- 

 ment at Washington would furnish the money to maintain it. So the 

 work went on. 



We here in Madison did not hear very much about it imtil we got 

 into the war, and then we began to hear a good deal. We used to hear 

 that the government had recognized its child and ap]:)reciated the 

 great service which the Forests Products Fal)orat()ry could render. 

 They had a comparatively small number of men on the force, but dur- 

 ing the war they had five or six hundred. Instead of one ])uilding 

 which they had occupied they then occupied the most of nine or ten, 

 and they were aiding the government in many ways. 



I suppose that the human mind can hardly conceive of the vast 

 amount of shipping which it was necessary for our government to 

 })egin to send over the seas. I can best illustrate it perhaps by the 

 incident of the boy who was told by his teacher to find out from his 

 father what a million dollars meant. The boy \vent to his father and 

 asked him. The father was rather amused and interested at the pre- 

 cocity of his boy and answered, not very prudently, "A million del- 



