A Decennial Record 119 



IXTRODl CTORY SPEECH 



Burr fV. Jones, Toastmaster 



Yoii had an opportunity today to witness an exhibition such as 

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

 that several ])eople have imitations of oiu' laboratory. They have one 

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

 or three in far off India and Africa; but none of them can offer such 

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

 This was the original Forest Products Laboratory. For some time 

 it was the only one. 



It had a very modest beginning — several gentlemen worked here 

 in two or three rooms out in Wingra Park. They corresj^onded 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 would erect a building and that the govern- 

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

 work went on. 



We here in ^Madison did not hear very nuich about it until we got 

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

 that the government had recognized its child and appreciated the 

 great service M'hich the Forests Products I>aboratory 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 building 

 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 

 begin to send over the seas. I can best illustrate it perhaps by the 

 incident of the boy M'ho was told by his teacher to find out from his 

 father what a million dollars meant. The boy went 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- 



