6.3 



has about forty thousand acres of salt marsh and fourteen 

 Freeholders. We realized that it was necessary to do just about 

 as much work with the fourteen Freeholders as it was necessary 

 to do with the forty thousand acres of salt marsh. The method 

 was different, but the job was just as hard. The State had done 

 already much work with the marshes, but the Board of Free- 

 holders did not seem to know that anything had been done in 

 Ocean County. 



The first thing to do was to start a campaign of education. 

 We got together and wrote a letter of melting tenderness, argu- 

 ment and persuasion, and sent it out to fifteen hundred Ocean 

 County citizens, and asked them to come up to Toms River, 

 where we were going to give them a lot of moving pictures and 

 a lot of other information about mosquitoes, and explain what 

 a great disadvantage the pest was to Ocean County. We timed 

 this thing to come at the same day the Board of Freeholders 

 met, supposing that they would be so overwhelmed with this 

 demonstration that they would give us practically anything we 

 asked for. Some of us came on the train, and expected to see 

 the street lined with one kind of vehicle or another, and the hall 

 of the court house filled with people. Dr. Headlee was there 

 ready to do his part, the representative of one of the newspapers 

 was there, and, if my memory serves me right, about fifteen or 

 sixteen others, so you can see how ready we were to go before 

 the Board of Freeholders and tell them that the sentiment of 

 Ocean County was overwhelmingly in favor of their spending a 

 lot of money in cleaning out the ditches that the State had so 

 freely dug for them. 



Well, we had a little talk among ourselves, and tickled our- 

 selves with some nice sentiments, and so on, and finally a com- 

 mittee was named to go before the Board of Freeholders. The 

 Board of Freeholders knew we were upstairs and what we were 

 going to do, and so they very kindly adjourned before we could 

 get to them. But we had a little suspicion that was going to 

 happen, and we got in the door before they got out, and we did 

 get them to sit still and listen. I was selected to state the case, 

 but by that time I hadn't any more patience than I should have 



