FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSIONER. 63 



property from fire and trespass, to have a large number of acres to surround 

 the holdings of the few, to inconvenience other owners who want to work 

 their holdings and cannot because they cannot get in or out across State 

 land, to make it impossible for many small owners in that country to con- 

 veniently get firewood without committing trespass, to prevent to a large 

 extent the utilization of much of the very valuable water horsepower, to 

 prevent the destruction of good roads through this wonderful, beautiful 

 country that it may be conveniently visited, toured through and made the 

 finest and most accessible Nature's beauty spot in the world where a million 

 people would visit instead of a few hundred thousand annually, then we 

 are all right in our present policy and all we need to do is to strictly enforce 

 the Constitution. 



If, on the other hand, we want that which we have and that which 

 we may hereafter acquire for a forest preserve in its truest sense; if we 

 want it that we may use it as a recreation place for many, a place where 

 the rich, the well-to-do and the poor can go and enjoy the blessings so 

 abundantly offered by Nature; if we want it that we may not only enjoy 

 these blessings, but that we may by and through the care of the State to 

 some extent at least utilize the water horsepower for legitimate purposes, 

 deriving therefrom a perpetual annual revenue; if we want it to really be 

 a paradise for the many, accessible, beautiful, unrivalled; if we desire to 

 use it so a poor man with a sick wife or baby may under authority of the 

 State build a little camp 'neath a tree where the birds sing, and not be a 

 trespasser, where he may see the sick wife or child cured and restored to 

 health by the terebinthine odors from the spruce and pine and balsam; 

 if we desire to have the best opportunity to protect it from fire and that 

 the State itself may remove dead and fallen trees and utilize them and 

 prevent waste ; if, in fact, we want to handle it and use it for the best interests 

 of all, in a scientific, wholesome, practical, sane, serviceable way, and all 

 the time make it better, then we must change the Constitution in a few 

 respects. 



Personally I would rather it would remain as it is forever, the State 

 suffering a large annual loss, than to take any reasonable chance of a change 

 of the Constitution that would be harmful. All of my views in relation 

 to it are expressed with that deep-seated feeling. Yet from much study 



