regarding nonresident license fees and issues involving an international 

 treaty dealing with migratory species, which would in effect have taken 

 awawlhe management prerogatives of the states. There were a variety of 

 very substantive issues at question. And even though I was under a 

 great deal of pressure at that time not to travel out of state, I decided 

 that Montana had to be represented, that Montana's viewpoint had to be 

 represented at that session. So I went to Denver to meet with my 

 colleagues from other western states. When I arrived at that meeting, 

 since most of the people there were old friends and acquaintances of mine 

 they threw a party for me. I couldn't understand it. It wasn't my 

 birthday. The meeting happened to be in July and my birthday is in 

 September. I went into the party that night and they sat me at the head 

 table. And after we had eaten our main course, they brought out a cake 

 on a platter with sparklers on it. The cake was in the shape of a 

 Mercedes. You see, my friends, my collegaues from other western states, 

 were having a joke on me, celebrating the fact that I drive a Mercedes. 

 It had not only been newsworthy in Montana, but hit the Washington Post 

 and the Los Angeles Times. There were newspapers all over the West that 

 had pictures of my Mercedes. So my colleagues, people debating 

 substantiv e issues--the future of Alaska, the future of wildlife and natural 

 resources in the West--who convened to debate a stratagy, to debate an 

 approach to these critical matters of resource issues were addressing the 

 issue of what kind of car I drive. 



Okay. It was people from other states who had been subjected to the 

 same kinds of petty or irrelevant criticism that were having fun at my 

 expense. At that time I did enjoy it. I thought it was great sport. If 

 you haven't picked up on the significance of that, it's that when people 

 were focusing on the kind of car I drive, I was professionally, and my 

 colleagues were professionally involved in some landmark issues. What's 

 going to happen to those 100 million acres in Alaska? What is the proper 

 relationship between the state and the federal government? Who should 

 manage the the wildlife resource? These were very substantive issues and 

 I don't want elaborate on it because I could go on indefinitely, but we 

 were meeting to discuss some very importan t issues. However, the issue 

 that caught the press corps' attention and that was the subject of the 

 party in Denver, was the "What kind of car do I drive?" 



Now let me teil you another story, and then I am going end since I've 

 only got ten or fifteen minutes. Yesterday my children came to Helena to 

 console me since I have resigned and to carry me through what they 

 perceive is a trauma in my life. We had a corned beef and cabbage dinner 

 and my wife brought out the clip file that records my history as director 

 of the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. It's a big file, eight or ten 

 inches thick that includes a couple of scrapbooks. 



I found out that in three-and-a-half years I have been criticized and 

 ridiculed for the beard that I wear, for the car that I drive, lor my 

 out-of-state travel and lots of other things. And you know, it dosen't 

 serve my purpose to catalog all the things that I have been criticized for. 

 in my mind, I had spent three-and-a-half years that were intended or 

 designed to serve the natural resource, the wildlife resource and to serve 

 the department that I headed. However, after dinner, we decided that if 



