36 Thirty-fifth Annual Meeting 
constitution did not prohibit, the years which have rolled over 
my head are so many that in the ordinary course of a lifetime, 
it is an honor which can never come to me again, and I want to 
return my thanks to this society for the courteous manner with 
which they have carried on their deliberations, and the respect 
they have paid each other and the dignity of the society, and I 
thank you gentlemen, one and all. (Great applause.) 
The toastmaster then called upon the president-elect, Dr. E. 
A. Birge. (Great applause.) 
Dr. Birge: There is only one thing I want to say and that 
perhaps I may say as coming from the next door neighbor of 
the state of Michigan. ‘The state of Wisconsin has looked to 
Michigan for many good things. I know that perhaps better 
than any of you here, because we who have belonged to state uni- 
versities anywhere in the country, look toward the University of 
Michigan as the mother of the state universities of the country. 
We have looked to Michigan for a great many years for help in 
state university affairs and have never failed to find it, we have 
looked to the University of Michigan as representing in a very 
high sense the State of Michigan, and we have been proud to 
recognize the state and the university together. As a member 
of the Fish Commission of a sister state, I may say that there 
too we have had great assistance from Michigan in carrying on 
our work. We, too, have had no politics in our commission ; our 
employees have been with us, many of them, all their lives. Ten, 
fifteen and even twenty years they have served us, and we expect 
them to serve us as long as they live. They have been efficient 
men and we do not know or care what their politics are. Poli- 
ticians have always let us alone; we have not had politics thrust 
upon us, and we have not in any way courted politics ourselves. 
We have attended to the propagation of fish, and in working in 
that way have found ourselves in full sympathy with the efforts 
of the commissioners on this side of Lake Michigan. We have 
felt that their policy strengthened ours, and sometimes hoped 
that our policy on our side of the lake has been of advantage 
to them when they needed it. And the policy of the fish com- 
missioners, as I have known them in general, seems to have been 
that of this Fisheries Society, organized for work rather than 
