DEPARTMENT ORGANIZATION. 
When ‘the organization of the department as it now exists was 
brought about as a result of combining the separate game and fish 
departments into a single entity, the commission was inspired by the 
following communication transmitted by you upon our taking office: 
In my campaign I pledged my best efforts to the conservation of our 
fish and game, and to place those departments on a basis of efficiency and 
economy. The superficial glimpses which we were able to get of the pro- 
tected fish and game departments warranted me in publicly assailing them 
as incompetent and wasteful. 
One of my first official acts as Governor was to order a searchlight 
investigation of these two departments. Accordingly, investigation was 
made by the State Civil Service Commission which was assisted by a firm 
of certified public accountants. 
Their reports were submitted by me to the General Assembly in a 
special message on April 138, 1913. Extensive accounts of their findings 
appeared in all the newspapers of the State. How fair and truthful these 
investigations were, has been vividly demonstrated by the complete silence 
with which their disclosures have been received both by the political organi- 
zations which profited by the misdeeds and by the men who were directly 
responsible for their commission. 
SUBSTANTIATED ACCUSATIONS. 
The reports of these investigations substantiated all my campaign accusa- 
tions. They revealed in fact a state of inefficiency in organization and 
operation and a mass of corruption and waste in the expenditure of public 
money so great that I at once exercised my prerogative and in the interest 
of public morality summarily removed from office those men who had been 
guilty either of manifest offenses, or, without protest, had stood by com- 
placently and witnessed them. 
Instead of using the fund appropriated to them for a Scientific study 
and research and an adequate protection of a great natural resource, they 
have misused it—misspent it—in constructing a political machine to serve 
factional and personal ends; they were wasteful, both of public money and 
of the cares that had been entrusted to their protection. 
So vicious had these departments become that a large faction of the 
party in power had revolted. The game and fish laws served to protect the 
law-breakers. Men sworn to enforce them were found to be flagrant vio- 
lators of them. Both the departments and the laws had become a by-word, 
a joke and a scandal. - Our political nomenclature had been enriched by the 
contemptuous terms, “rabbit shepherds” and “carp nurses.” The conserva- 
tion of that part of our natural wealth, represented in fish and game, had 
been completely lost in the mad rush after partisan and personal spoil. 
Employees were discovered defrauding the State for time they had been 
paid for by private employers. Others were duplicating expense bills and 
securing money for services and material never furnished. The game farm 
