Interview with William Aberg, May 25, 1961, Madison, Wisconsin

ALDERFER: This is Bill Alderfer, State Historical Society, and we are here at the 9th floor office of lawyer William Aberg, in Madison, Wisconsin. Walter Scott is here today, and we are going to interview Mr. Aberg on a little conservation history. Today is May 25, 1961. Now, Walter, your acquaintance with Mr. Aberg--your questions that you have--I'm going to just kind of sit back here, and if I find a place where I want to get in, why, I'll do it. Mr. Aberg, this is just a conversation that we are having, so Walter, why don't you.

SCOTT: Okay, Bill. I think one of the things I would like to know most about would be how you got to know Aldo Leopold and when you first met him, and so on. 00:01:00I guess he moved here to Madison, and you were already here. When was that, about?

ABERG: Early twenties--Aldo came here as associate director of the Forest Products Laboratory, Cap Winslow was the director. And we organized a Chapter of the Izaak Walton League in 1923, and Aldo was one of the first men to become a member. We had in that organization a small group that met for lunch, oh, about once a week to discuss things that were then important and imminent, and Aldo was in that small group, so I would say I first met him in 1923. I knew of him, and I knew Cap Winslow, and through other friends in the Forest Products Lab, many of whom belonged to the League, such as Ed White and others who were very 00:02:00active in the operation of the Lab.

SCOTT: Well, that was the Izaak Walton League, then, Bill, that really brought you together with him.

ABERG: That's right, we were both active in it, and it is through--it was the League that served as the focal point that crystallized the agitation going on about the state for a change in conservation controls, and for setting up a forestry program. You will recall that 1924 was the year of the referendum on a constitutional change to make possible, make it possible for the state to go into forestry, and the court having held it, it was a work of internal 00:03:00improvement; therefore, unconstitutional. The amendment in 1924, which was passed by the voters of this state by a two to one vote, authorized the levy of a tax on property to finance a forestry program.

SCOTT: Well, Bill, was there a Madison Chapter, or a Chapter of the League at that time? Or was it just a little luncheon group?

ABERG: No, it was a Madison, a Madison chapter of the League, organized immediately after the founding of the League; in fact, the same year.

SCOTT: Then the state League was formed first.

ABERG: The State Division came about after Chapters had been formed in Madison, Milwaukee, Fond du Lac, Green Bay, and several other places in the state.

SCOTT: When did the State League start, about in 19--?

ABERG: I would say about 1925. That's my recollection. I may be--I know it wasn't later, but it might have been a year earlier--I say about '25.

SCOTT: You were President of the State League. What year was that?

ABERG: In '28, I was president.

ALDERFER: Did you have anything to do with the national organization?

ABERG: I did later. I was on the national executive board. The first Wisconsin man on it was Haskell Noyes of Milwaukee, and he became member of the national executive board--my recollection is about 1927 or 8, and he served for about five years. I went on it in the early '30s, about '31 or 2, and served on it for a number of years. I was chairman of the national executive board for two years in '33 and '34.

SCOTT: Bill, what else do you remember about Leopold's activities when he first came here? How long was it before he got connected with the game management aspects of things?

ABERG: He had always been interested in game management, and in the service, for the U.S. Forest Service. When he was located in New Mexico, he always stressed the game angle and aspects of the U.S. Forest Service, and I think Aldo to a large degree was responsible for the U.S. Forest Service taking into consideration the game aspects of all the lands of the service, and the operation of the United States forests for the service. And he continued that as long as he lived, to the point, where as you know, that the U.S. Forest Service 00:06:00has developed a real--not game department, but game interest and watches that very vitally in all its work.

SCOTT: He--didn't he make this survey of the game in the Midwest for the Sporting Arms Institute or something, about 1928?

ABERG: The Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers got together about the late '20s, and were seeking a man who could make a national study of game management. Game management then was, I would say, unheard of. It was in its infancy, and they finally agreed upon Leopold, and he accepted that commission. 00:07:00They gave him five years to make that study and his work, his monumental work on game management, was the original publication, authoritative publication of its kind.

SCOTT: That covered just the Midwest states, though, didn't that, as I recall--I've got a copy, I guess. But he went around and interviewed people in Indiana, and Illinois, and Wisconsin, and so on.

ABERG: Yes, in detail he covered the Middle West.

SCOTT: But he did cover the nation?

ABERG: Oh yes. Reference is on a national basis. That work was a game management bible for many, many years, and still, the strange thing--it is still being sold.

SCOTT: Now you're talking about his book Game Management?

ABERG: Game Management.

SCOTT: The one that I was talking about is his survey for the Sporting Arms 00:08:00Management Institute. This one that deals with the lake states mostly.

ABERG: Well, he wrote that for them. He wrote that for them under this commission. He resigned his position as associate director of the Forest Products Laboratory.

SCOTT: About what time? About '27?

ABERG: Oh, I think it was a little later than that. I thought it was about 1930, '31.

SCOTT: Bill, then in 1927, the Conservation Act was passed. What part did Leopold play in the writing of the Conservation Act in Wisconsin, and what part did you play, and so on? I think that would be interesting.

ABERG: Well, we worked together with a group of about four or five others in formulating the ideas which had been expressed for improving the Wisconsin 00:09:00situation. The basis of it was to get conservation out of politics, to the point where a--the control of conservation activity would not be dictated by an incoming Governor who would change the setup from administration to administration, as had been done. Now under Governor Philipp, who was elected in '14--he took office in '15--he was a man with a great deal of vision, and our conservation activities were then in turmoil. We had a state fish commission, and we had a state forester. It wasn't organized; we had a state game warden, a 00:10:00hunting license, that was the only revenue derived by any of them. Hunting license--there was no fishing license or any other revenue coming in for administering conservation matters.

Philipp conceived the idea of combining some of these activities, and he created a conservation commission consisting of three men. One, a fish culturist; one, a forester; and one, a businessman, and he appointed three very able men. Moody, the forester, was an outstanding man. Nevin was the fish culturist. He was succeeded by Webster about that same time. They operated and did well with what they had to work with, which was little or nothing, because the Legislature 00:11:00appropriated to the money received but not all of it. Most of the revenue from license went into the general fund and was spent for general purposes. The state parks were nonexistent--they were in existence in one or two spots that had been donated to the state, but park activity was very limited.

When Governor Blaine came in after six years of this commission--the first thing he did was to repeal the law and create a one-man commission, because he had a man who was out of a job. Hall, from Green Bay, had been Secretary of State and had been defeated in the election, so he was in need of a job, and Blaine appointed him as Conservation Commissioner. A very fine, interesting man, but 00:12:00with utterly no qualifications for the job. Hall served until 1927, when the new Act went into effect in July of 1927. New Act created a six-man Commission. Now, Leopold did a great deal of work on that--furnished a lot of the research work. He had had experience in the West, in New Mexico. Was thoroughly familiar with their setup, and he had had experience under federal operation. And then we surveyed Michigan, Pennsylvania. I had my first contact in 1926 with Seth Gordon, who was then head of--director of the game department--game commission 00:13:00in Pennsylvania. Seth Gordon furnished us with their complete setup. He had written an article for Field and Stream, and the editor of Field and Stream gave us permission to reprint it, and he even sent us the cuts to use the photographs, which we did publish for distribution among the legislators. When we got all through, we had half a dozen drafts of the proposed bill, and studied them, and tore them apart, and rewrote them. When we got all through, we finally set up with six men as the Commission is now organized.

[phone rings]

[discussion of picture of a bass]

SCOTT: Yes, that's a real record, Bill. It was the American record for a little 00:14:00while, wasn't it? I checked it, Bill, and I found out that there are two or three fish that they caught since that are bigger.

ABERG: In northern waters?

SCOTT: Yeah, I'm not sure of that. I had better not say. I know what you mean--Florida, maybe.

ABERG: They produce them sixteen, eighteen pounds. But northern waters, I know of claims made up north, but I never had them verified. I checked several of them--the claims were made by--

SCOTT: Anyhow, the American record, whatever is required has beaten this--I think there are some. Well, I suppose you can feed a fish up, you know, and make him fat.

ABERG: Easily.

[chatter]

SCOTT: Well, Bill, you said you had a half a dozen drafts of this proposed bill. Actually, as I recall, you said you had a draft, a copy of one of the drafts in your files.

ABERG: Yes.

SCOTT: [inaudible] We ought to get a hold of that draft.

ABERG: Have you got the machine on now?

ALDERFER: Yes, I got that on now. [inaudible]

ABERG: Well, we consulted with leaders in the Legislature before the session started in '27, about introduction of the bill, because it was a very revolutionary sort of thing. We had given an outline of our proposed program to Fred Zimmerman, who was candidate for Governor in 1926, and he took it, hook, line, and sinker, and used it for campaign purposes.

ALDERFER: Was this the campaign with the fish on a banner?

ABERG: That's right. And up through the North, it was received and welcomed with open arms every place. And Zimmerman certainly capitalized it, and made--he was 00:16:00elected on it. The man who opposed him, Herman Ekern--I don't know that it would be amiss, he's--obviously he's dead, he died at 83 or -4 a few years ago. He was an attorney general, and he was a candidate for governor, and in response to a call from him--he was a friend of mine--I went over to see him, and he wanted to talk conservation before the campaign. And I handed him what--we had a prospectus of just what we wanted to do. I handed that, I said, "That's what you want for your campaign," and he read it, and he said, "I think it's fine, but I can't use it." I wanted to know why. He said, "Well, it's sort of a slap at those in charge now." I said, "That's right--it's so intended." "Well," he said, 00:17:00"I have to live with them for a while yet, and I'm sorry, but I can't use it." And he didn't, but Fred Zimmerman did, of course, Zimmerman didn't carry on. He was Governor only two years, and failed reelection--Kohler then came in in '28. And he failed largely because he didn't stick to his promises in conservation matters, and the very people who elected him turned on him because he wasn't reliable and responsible.

SCOTT: Was that because he didn't make sound appointments to the Commission?

ABERG: That was the beginning. Because he had stated in speeches and in writing over the state during the campaign that he would appoint--make his appointments from a list of recommended candidates to be submitted by the conservation interests of the state, and he would limit his appointments to those lists. He 00:18:00said he was going to ask conservation interests to get together and nominate twenty capable and able men, and he would make his six appointments from those twenty. He said that in speeches repeatedly, and he said it in writing and when the time came to make the appointments, he had then been Governor for six months--that was in July of '27--he made his six appointments--prior to that, the group had met with him representing all of the conservation interests of the state to discuss with him a list of names submitted to him and answer questions, and he didn't pick one from that list of twenty submitted to him. Of course, they lost faith in him, and in several bills that came up, in following up the program, he didn't support and he failed utterly. He took the stand, while he 00:19:00was elected; now he didn't have to kowtow to the conservation interests. He lost the support of the conservationists throughout the state. Areas like Stevens Point where he won overwhelmingly, he was defeated in '28.

SCOTT: Bill, do you still have a copy of the list of those twenty people who were recommended at that time?

ABERG: I think I have it in the files.

SCOTT: That would be a very interesting list. Well, let's see here--

ABERG: I remember many of them from memory.

SCOTT: To see who was on that list. Was Aldo Leopold one of them on the list, maybe?

ABERG: Yes.

SCOTT: Well, wouldn't that have been something, to have Aldo Leopold appointed right off the bat?

ABERG: In fact, we were urging him as a director. When the Governor had appointed--made his appointments, we urged him as a director, and the Commission of course was entirely a limited selection, and they picked a director who was 00:20:00his former secretary, had no experience or background at all--Nagler, in the conservation work, and he lasted about a year when the change was made by the commissioners when they saw how utterly impossible it was. The Milwaukee Chapter of the Izaak Walton League challenged that appointment in court. I would not join with them in that because of the legal aspects, I said, that their selection was final. But the law specified that a man must have knowledge of, and interest in conservation matters, and they tried to make out a case that he had no knowledge of, and that he had--

SCOTT: Whose appointment was that? Nagler?

ABERG: Nagler.

SCOTT: He wasn't a commissioner--he was a director.

ABERG: He was appointed Director by the first Commission.

SCOTT: Oh, I see. But the law said that the director could be appointed by the Commission, and it wasn't reviewable by the courts, and that--

ABERG: Didn't specify that it was renewable. The only qualification was that he was a man who must have administrative ability, must have knowledge of, and be interested in conservation matters.

SCOTT: Bill, it would be interesting besides yourself to name some of the others of the twenty that you might remember. Would you recall?

ABERG: Well, I wasn't on that list of twenty because I helped make it up. [laughter] Well, we had a man who was head of the aluminum works at Manitowoc.

SCOTT: [inaudible], was it?

ABERG: No, no. Wasn't him. We had--we asked for one man from the Izaak Walton League--that was Haskell Noyes, and the Governor when his name was mentioned, 00:22:00"Well," he said, "that's taken for granted. Of course Noyes is going on." Well, he didn't go on. He didn't appoint him.

SCOTT: He later became a Commissioner.

ABERG: He later did because the man from Milwaukee resigned a year later and then he appointed Noyes.

SCOTT: Who was on from Madison? Well, Leopold was one.

ABERG: Leopold was one and the state was--

ALDERFER: Well, yes, I was wondering about that. Was there an attempt to make a geographical--?

ABERG: Well, there was an attempt--there was an attempt, yes, because the law as passed required that three appointees be from the north half of the state, and three from the south half. And that was a compromise, because the legislators who were all political minded, at first wanted the commissioners picked from the 00:23:00congressional districts--one from each congressional district. Well, we wouldn't go along on that, and we finally compromised by saying that three should be from the north and three from the south. The original draft didn't draw any geographical lines--just sixty picked from the state, it didn't matter where they came from, but the legislature objected to that, and we had to make some concessions for--to expedience. After all, we had to get this bill passed--

SCOTT: Sure.

ABERG: --to be effective at all. And that's why--another reason why the powers of the commission were limited and restricted in the beginning. The Legislature--many members felt that the authority that was given to the Commission was usurping the authority of the Legislature, and we didn't dare to 00:24:00give the Commission powers to fix seasons, sizes, bag limits, things of that sort because, well, they just would have killed the bill. There would have been no Commission.

SCOTT: Those things came later then?

ABERG: Oh, yes, they came later. '31, '33, and '35, so those were concessions made to--in recognition of the fact that the Legislature is supreme and they're the ones who have to pass it in the first place. Without a bill--without an Act, we would be in the same old rut.

SCOTT: Well, this is interesting, now then--Leopold didn't become the Director of the Department, so to speak, but then he became--took the first chair of game management at the University. That was about '32 or so, wasn't it?

ABERG: That was in the '30s. I'm trying to remember. It wasn't too early in the 00:25:00'30s. I think it was about '35, and that was done the first. The first act was to get the money, and the first money for a chair of game management was furnished by the Alumni Foundation, through Brittingham, by the Brittingham Foundation. Tom Brittingham. That was $10,000 per year for a biennium. And I don't recall whether that was carried on two or four years, but after the chair had become established, then it was necessary to get a separate appropriation through the Legislature. The University budget would not include it because they said they were overloaded as it was, and they welcomed an appropriation but they couldn't put it in the University budget, so that was--that appropriation was 00:26:00really lobbied through the finance committee by the conservation interests in the state. It provided $10,000 as a continuing appropriation. It's been there ever since; and that was along in the '30s.

SCOTT: Again, the conservation interests in the state were mostly the Izaak Walton League. Was that right?

ABERG: Yes. They were the spirit of it. We had the cooperation of many other groups. The Legion was very active in it and had quite a little influence, and went along, and all they wanted was that it be--they be informed and told what was needed and what was a good thing, and they always went along.

SCOTT: Bill, you were President of the Izaak Walton League--they had many chapters--a hundred and more throughout the state. Isn't that right?

ABERG: We had a total of about 12,000 members at one time in the state, and a 00:27:00state chapter with a state secretary who devoted most of his time. Frank Graass was the State Secretary for many years. Started on a compensation basis, and the compensation ended shortly thereafter because there weren't funds to pay, so we ignored it, so did he; he had independent means. But in the legislative program, I can't think of any one man more responsible and more outstanding than Frank Graass, because he knew the subject matter, and he was a brusque, forceful hard driver, [inaudible] many people, but when they wouldn't go along with him, he just rode right over them. But he did accomplish things, and he knew the inner workings and the infighting that goes on in legislative matters which the public 00:28:00doesn't know anything about, and he was always alert to opposition. He could ferret out opposition that had--in a minute that it would take me a week to find, [inaudible] because he had been in the legislature for--he first went in 1917, and with occasional interruptions, he was there all the time through the session of '59.

SCOTT: That's an admirable record. I'm not so sure we shouldn't tape record Frank Graass a little bit before we get through.

ALDERFER: Sounds to me as if we should.

SCOTT: One thing I wanted to get before we stop here today, and that is something about the forest crop law. You mentioned it earlier, but just what part did Leopold and what part did Blanchard play? And could you start again back there in '24 or so?

ABERG: It stems from the Referendum 24 adopting the constitutional amendment. The forestry program had died, and the Supreme Court held that the state couldn't spend money on forestry because it was unconstitutional. And that was in--

SCOTT: 1915, about, wasn't it?

ABERG: '15, under--Philipp was governor. There was a lot of opposition to the state taking part in forestry. On the part some very able men--John Barnes, who was on the State Supreme Court for a number of years, he was from Rhinelander originally, and he was very bitterly opposed to the state taking any part in forestry or spending any public money in forestry. Well, after the constitutional amendment was adopted--then of course the necessary steps were to 00:30:00implement that and put it into effect. The [inaudible] '25 did nothing but talk about it, and create a committee. I think '25 session created the interim committee, that ran through the several--through several sessions. But between '27 and '29, the interim committee really formulated everything that they had learned and investigated, and produced the forest crop tax law, which, as I recall, passed in '29. George Blanchard was in the State Senate at that time. He had been in the Assembly. He was a lawyer from Edgerton, and he was a tower of strength in passing the conservation act. He was chairman of the Forestry 00:31:00Interim Committee. Raphael Zon, the Director of the Lakes States Forest Experiment Station, was technical advisor. He is deceased now. He was a very broad, engaged, knowing sort of a man.

SCOTT: Blanchard was chairman of the committee.

ABERG: Blanchard was chairman. And that committee met regularly. I attended many of those meetings, especially where they invited the pulp and paper mill people and the lumbering interests--all wood-using interests had a hand in that. And the outstanding man in helping to frame a program for the future was Goodman, from Marinette. And the result of that was the forest crop tax law. We had many 00:32:00differences between the industry and the public represented, such as the Izaak Walton League and groups of that kind. Honest differences of opinion, for instance, we advocated that all lands under the forest crop tax law that were private would be private, and all lands state-owned or county-owned must be open to the public. And the industry was very much opposed to that, and Goodman took the lead in that, he fought it sincerely. And his reason was that fire protection was the most essential thing in this whole program, and that letting the public have access to all forest lands of all kinds [inaudible] would burn up from fires and carelessness. Well that, we argued, was a matter of education. 00:33:00And we prevailed, and got that into the, into the law, and it's still there.

Well, the result of the Interim Committee's efforts was the forest crop tax law, adopted and passed in '29, and it was originally predicated on the hope that privately owned lands would be filed under that law, that taxation would be limited to the extent that the individual would pay ten cents an acre on any lands accepted, and then the state would supplement that, and then the individual would be required to pay severance tax when he harvested wood products from the lands. The first act didn't contemplate counties entering a field or filing it under the law, but during the period of years that the 00:34:00interim committee worked, and while the forest crop tax law was germinating, the tax situation grew more acute year by year, until by 1929, I'd say half of the forest lands or cutover lands in northern Wisconsin were subject to tax deed for delinquent taxes. Then in, by '31, the counties found themselves in possession of several million acres of land, and had not the slightest idea what to do with them or how to handle them. They were then in the position that Minnesota is now. That is a very distressing thing in Minnesota. They have no provision in 00:35:00their laws for counties building forests or developing them or anything like our forest crop law, or for the state taking a hand and aiding the counties in that. And the counties up there own, I think, more land than we did in '29, and they're just leaving them to God and Nature to grow forests, and they're fortunate in trying in a small way to keep fires out, but no management. And there's a recent book gotten out by the Forestry--American Forestry Association, called The Minnesota Situation.

SCOTT: I haven't seen that.

ABERG: It just came out about a month ago, and I'm going to get a copy. I haven't seen it, but I read a review of it. And I guess they are very outspoken in their comments on the Minnesota situation.

Well, then, in '31, 1931, the county situation had become so acute with the 00:36:00Depression coming on that the counties weren't paying salaries, they were all broke, and they were seeking a way out, and a way to get some revenue out of the lands they owned. They came in with a proposal, and the forestry interests in general backed that: a proposal to permit the county to file under the forest crop tax law on a different basis from the individuals, on a basis where the county would not pay anything like the individual was required to pay, but the forestry fund would pay ten cents per acre. And then a special law, whereby the state subsidizes the county to the extent of ten cents per acre on all lands 00:37:00filed--that money to be used for any purpose, not forestry. The ten cents per acre that the forestry fund contributed had to be used for forestry purposes. Well, the counties start filing--the law contemplated that lands filed must be suitable for forestry purposes. Counties had to have a program and show intent to continue practicing forestry on these lands, and to retain them for that purpose. Well, an anomalous situation grew up: counties started filing everything they got title to.

I recall one hearing before the Commission, where--let's see, that was Ashland County--they had run an advertisement in the Ashland paper listing every acre 00:38:00that the county owned, listing it for sale. They had a whole solid page of descriptions. The following week, they came down here and appeared before the Conservation Commission with a petition that these lands be filed under the forest crop law, which was entirely inconsistent. Well, I appeared at that and opposed it. And Senator--a senator from Glidden. His name--

SCOTT: [inaudible]

ABERG: No, [inaudible] was a--later, later. Carroll, Senator Carroll, was appearing for the county. He was a friend of mine, and when I opposed him, he took me to task for it and said it was none of my business, [inaudible], it was none of our concern, it was only their concern. Well, I suggested that the State 00:39:00was paying the freight and that the mill tax, which had been passed in '29--I'll come back to that--was paid by the southeast quarter of the state to the extent of 3/4ths of the entire amount--the amount that they paid was negligible, didn't mean anything. And the Commission--Wilson was the man in charge--they picked and selected the areas that were approved.

SCOTT: That was before you were a member of the Commission.

ABERG: Oh, yes--long before.

SCOTT: Back around '29. You became a member in '39, '39. You became a member in '39, but this anecdote you're talking about is about '29.

ABERG: '32.

SCOTT: '32.

ABERG: Yeah. Well, in the--you see, after the forest crop tax law was passed, that would normally be worth a 20th of a mill--then a 10th and later 2/10ths, 00:40:00because the law was, the taxes can be imposed to 2/10ths of a mill on all property.

Now, that was enacted in 1929 under Kohler. And in the program, which was--the League had adopted some years prior to that, these various steps in the conservation program, progress had been thought out and developed, so it was in recognition of the fact that you couldn't do it all in one session, or in two sessions, or in three, and a lot of it was basic, and you jeopardized the whole program by trying to force too much through the legislature in one year--more than they could digest. So in '29, we had the fishing license bill on the 00:41:00docket, and Governor Kohler had agreed to sign a fishing license bill. The mill tax law wasn't even mentioned to him, because that we were saving for the 1931 session. Well, then, the fishing license bill was introduced in '29, passed both houses--a lot of opposition but it went through, and it came to Kohler, and then--who was a very fine man and a fine Governor. A little naïve sometimes politically, because he, his political advisors told him that it would be political suicide to sign a fishing license bill--Winter Everett, a newspaper man, he wrote editorials about it, called it "political suicide" for Governor Kohler to sign a fishing license bill. Well, Governor, old Governor La Follette 00:42:00signed a hunting license law back in the '90s, and it wasn't political suicide for him. We tried to point that out, but he had the Governor scared.

And he held the bill until the last day, when I went to see him the day before, the sixth day [inaudible] bill, to talk to him about signing it. He didn't say he wouldn't sign it, but every question he raised was--every remark made was adverse. He said, "You include women." Well, the answer was, why not? "Well, a lot of people think they shouldn't, and you have everyone over 16. Shouldn't that be 21?" There was a great deal of feeling about, it should apply only to the rod and reel fishermen--the man who was wealthy enough to have a rod and reel--well, that's a lot of bunk. There wasn't as much money in the country as 00:43:00there is now, although the money was a little more solid. And I was just about to leave him, thoroughly dejected because I knew he was going to veto the bill. When I suggested that to him, he blew up, said, "I didn't say I was going to veto." I said, "No, but I can read between the lines, and that's what you are going to do." And I told him that I wanted to make a prediction that if he vetoed that bill, by next Thursday, you will have back on your desk a bill for a direct tax on property for forestry purposes within a week. Well, this was late in the session, and he took that lightly, and he said, "Well, do you think you could pass a bill like that this time of the year?" I said, "I not only think 00:44:00so, but that's a promise, because we have the forces to do it in the session."

Next day, the veto came in. And Blanchard was in the Senate, he was the Republican floor leader, and came within one vote of passing it over the veto. That's how close it was. Well, anyway, they upheld the veto. That night, Frank Graass and George Blanchard and I met in George's room in the Park Hotel to talk over the licking we got, and what we could do to salvage it. We all agreed that the thing to do was to put in the mill tax law, which had been held for 1933--or, '31, this was '29. So we discussed ways and means how to do it, and 00:45:00George said, "I'll--it's too late to introduce bills by individuals except with unanimous consent." And he says, "I'll make a play to get unanimous consent."

SCOTT: You mean George Blanchard?

ABERG: George Blanchard--"I'll make a play to get unanimous consent." And if any man was able to do it, it would be George Blanchard. So we didn't get through till after midnight, and early the next morning, I drafted a bill for a mill tax, property mill tax for forestry purposes, and using the language of the amendment for acquisition, development, and maintenance of forestry--couldn't be used for anything else--that's still in the bill. --In the law. George got 00:46:00unanimous consent, and in the meantime we were working on the other House, getting them to agree to take it up immediately. And it got over there by 11 o'clock on Friday, having passed the Senate. And a lot of them were Milwaukee fellows who wanted to get home, and they just adjourned five minutes before we reached the Assembly, so they didn't get in until Tuesday morning, which allowed a little more time to work. By the time it was-- reached Tuesday morning, somebody was prepared to ask unanimous consent and make a little speech on it. Consent was granted, it was passed under suspension of the rules. And reference was made to the finance committee and immediately withdrawn from the finance committee, to comply with legislative requirements, and it was messaged back to the Senate the same day, on Tuesday. And it was rushed to the printers and the 00:47:00Governor had the printed copy on his desk on Thursday. No one went near him to discuss whether he would sign it or not. He had no choice, and he signed it.

SCOTT: That's really a record.

ABERG: Yeah. That's how close we came to missing it. Well, that was the first money that forestry ever received as a direct appropriation--a direct tax in this state.

SCOTT: Well, I'd like to have it in the record here. Is it not true that prior to that time, let's say from 1915 on to this time, the fish and game fund--the hunting license was paying for forestry activity whatever there was?

ABERG: That's right, and I think the foresters ought to recognize that a little bit.

SCOTT: They forget about that.

ABERG: Oh, yes, they carried the load, and then what wasn't spent went back into the general fund for general purposes.

SCOTT: In this way, you got a mill tax in, and helped the Conservation Department through a forestry appropriation.

ABERG: That's right.

SCOTT: This then took a little bit of the load off of the hunting license--

ABERG: Oh, yes.

SCOTT: So in not getting a fishing license, you actually got another fund.

ABERG: That's right, and get something to set up a--begin setting up a fire department. See, there was an appropriation put in in 1925, when Blaine was governor, for a direct appropriation from the general fund for fire purposes. If I remember, it was $80,000, and that was considered a lot of money. And Governor Blaine vetoed it, and he wrote a veto message, still on file over there, that he would not be a party to spending taxpayers' money to protect the rich lumber 00:49:00barons of the North. So the fire protection fund went out the window. There was no money forthcoming until the mill tax started producing after '29--it came in in taxes, '30, in the spring of '30. And as I say, it was only, I think it was [inaudible] a 20th of a mill, then it was raised, then finally to the limit of 2/10ths. Well, La Follette, Phil La Follette was elected in '30, and the La Follettes had opposed any state tax on property. See, in bygone years, the state's source of revenue was a tax on property. And there's a provision in 00:50:00the--well, it's still in the constitution that the elective officers of the state after the Legislature had appropriated--passed appropriation bills, and they knew how much money was needed--they knew how much assessed property there was in the state. They would get together and decide on how much the property tax state levy would be. There was a mill tax that supported the University--expressly for [inaudible] that was the only source of revenue the University had. But that was repealed in Philip's administration, and left to the [inaudible] that they had.

SCOTT: You mean Phil La Follette?

ABERG: No, Phillips.

SCOTT: Philips?

ABERG: Yeah. Left to direct appropriation. Well, Phil La Follette in '31 adhered to their, the policy of the Progressives, which was good. The income tax had come in in the meantime, that there should be no state tax on property. Duncan was his financial secretary, and the budget came out with an appropriation for 00:51:00forestry, all forestry purposes of $600,000, which was really an unheard-of amount for those days. And the [inaudible] was this: it repealed the mill tax. Well, that resulted in quite a clash. We had meetings with Duncan, and he charged us with being political because, "Here," he said, "we're giving you more than a mill tax produces, and then you come in and bellyache because it isn't a tax on property," and he said, "that's political. That's just--you're just trying to embarrass the administration," which wasn't true at all, because we didn't take any partisan side in any of that program over the years. And I tried to explain to him that what we were interested in was continuity--unless that 00:52:00money was forthcoming year after year in an ascertainable amount, that the forestry program couldn't succeed. That was the secret of forestry--adequate financing and continuity--certainty that it would be available each year. In that connection, Michigan does it by direct appropriation--when times are hard, the legislature doesn't appropriate any money--then they stop their fire program and let the woods burn, and then the next session sees what wrong they have done and they try to catch up. Well, the result is--over there, it's feast or famine, and they've had a terrible time getting any continuity into their program. Well, we met it this way--I drafted an amendment, which everybody in the conservation clique--group agreed to: in any year in which the legislature appropriated 00:53:00moneys in excess of what the mill tax would produce, there would be no mill tax. That was in '31, and it's still on the books.

SCOTT: It's never been used, either.

ABERG: It's never been used since '31--that year when they did appropriate more, but in '33, we were in the depths of the Depression, and no one ever thought of any direct appropriation--let the tax operate automatically, and it's still in operation. That never varied. It has grown in amount, as property--assessable property in the state has grown by leaps and bounds. It's larger each year, and it must be near three million now, isn't it, Walter?

SCOTT: Yes, I think it is, [inaudible]. Of course, this is why we have such a fine forestry program.

ABERG: That's right. I think it's the finest state forestry program in the 00:54:00nation. And I think one of the very basic things that explains it is the fact that that continuity and assurance, and the constitutional amendment and the law implementing it are both so plain that the money can't be used for any other purpose. Now, they tried to divert, and they have done that repeatedly, and it has even been litigated. And two years ago, the present administration stole about $85,000 from the forestry fund for park purposes. If I didn't have other things to do, I would have started a taxpayer suit on my own to require them to pay it back. It isn't too late yet--I still may start it.

But they--and in Heil's administration in '39, he saw by that time that this was building up--moneys. And a politician in office, when he sees money, it's a 00:55:00bait. Heil put in his budget--his [inaudible] budget, with an appropriation of $300,000 from the mill tax money. Well, we protested very vigorously, so they worded it like this: "To be held as a reserve for emergency fire use in case of big conflagrations in the north," the $300,000 would be available for that use. Now, in '41, they did the same thing, tried to put in another $300,000, and that was blocked, but the original $300,000 that belongs to the forestry fund is still sitting there. It's been used of course since--it's a book entry now, but they still owe that to the forestry fund, but they wanted to continue that $300,000 each year. You know what would happen--that would grow to millions in a 00:56:00few years. Now that's '39, that's 22 years ago.

SCOTT: Bill, when Heil was Governor, he really carried out quite an inquisition for the Conservation Commission. But the thing that impresses me is that one of the fine things he did was to appoint you to the Commission back in 1939.

ABERG: That was--he said he regretted it later on, so maybe that was a mistake. Because he said "I made him too much trouble." He had a man by the name of Gus Frey, who was head of his department--what did they call it? Efficiency department?

SCOTT: Maybe it was the Research Department.

ABERG: Research Department. And Frey was a bull in a china closet. He took it on himself to try to run all the departments in the state much like the present administration is trying now and doing it, and interfered with all the departments. Department of Purchases, he would tell them what they could buy; Bureau of Personnel, he would tell them whom they could hire. He had no right to, but with the force of the executive office [backing him?]. He had a representative at Conservation Commission meetings, and after a while he thought our minutes weren't correct, so he had a reporter there to take them. [inaudible] And he inspired an investigation of the Conservation Commission, I think that was about '41. It's a volume an inch and a half thick. I have several of them on the shelves back here. And he harassed the Department and Commission throughout the term--throughout Heil's term. Four years. He tried to run it, and he didn't know anything about it.

We set up the Flambeau Forest during his time, and in one of his inquisitions or hearings that he held, he attacked that. And he said it was a great deal of swamp and forest land, and he said it would take--it would cost three million dollars to clear that land. I asked him what for, well, he said, "To use it." "What do you mean? For a golf course?" I said, "You're right, that's what it would cost, but we don't intend to use it for anything like that."

He objected to the nursery program in the forestry department. He said that the way to plant trees is to broadcast tree seeds in the woods in the areas where you wanted them to grow. Planting trees never succeeded; but these plantations were a waste of time. He just was a thorn in our side all the time. And the trouble was that so many state departments were completely supine and quiet when he would bulldoze them into doing what he wanted done. It just amazed me.

At one time, he recommended to the Governor that all state employees be photographed and fingerprinted, and that they carry a little passport to exhibit to the public or to anyone who inquired, because he said many state employees never show up except on payday to collect their check, and he wanted every state employee identified, photographed, and fingerprinted. Well, that got to the point where the Governor called a meeting of the heads of all departments over in the executive offices to work out a plan for each department doing this, and I was invited because I was chairman of the Commission at the time. And to my amazement, one department head after another--Governor presiding at the head of the long table, "Well, what do you think of this," or some such. And to my amazement, they started going down the line, "Well, that'd be very good," "Very interesting," some of them, [inaudible] going along. Fact is, it was a damn fool proposition. And I sat way down at the end of the table, and I was quaking, because I thought, am I going to be the first one to tell them that it's a damn fool proposition? So, [inaudible], that's what he's going to get!

Well, John Callahan, State Superintendent of Schools, sat next to me to my right, and it had come right up to him. Unanimous acquiescence. The Governor said, "John," he says, "your department will go along and cooperate on this with the program, won't you?" "We'll do nothing of the kind. It's a fool proposition. We'll have nothing to do with it, Governor." Period. Well, that helped. I was next. He said, "Bill, the Conservation Department has more employees than a lot of these departments." He said, "Do you think that is a good thing?" I said, "No, I don't, because everybody we have who deals with the public carries credentials--our wardens and people who deal with the public, and the rest of them don't need it--there's no point to it. We don't want to go beyond that." And that went back--funny thing, from then on, they started [inaudible -- laughter]. But old John Callahan, he said, "We'll have no part of it. It's a fool idea, we'll have no part of it."

SCOTT: Well, you've got to give him credit.

ABERG: Oh, yes. It left Frey out on a limb. Of course, the thing was never carried out.

SCOTT: Bill, I was wondering if you could say something about the National Wildlife Federation, and how you met Ding Darling, and also you were in on starting the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation back in 1936, weren't you?

ABERG: I was in on starting it nationally.

SCOTT: Leopold too, huh?

ABERG: Governor Roosevelt, or President Roosevelt had appointed Ding Darling as head of the U.S. Biological Survey, and that not because of any political considerations, it was 'cause--in defiance of political precedent. Ding Darling, cartoonist, had written and talked very vehemently about the biological survey, and things they were doing and were not doing. So the president, who had met him, and then heard and read some of his criticisms or attacks, said, "Call him in." He said, "Well, if you're so smart," he said, "maybe you can straighten it out," and Ding said, "I think I can," and he appointed him as head of the Biological Survey. Ding conceived the idea that that job required public support, and it required more than the support of politicians in Washington; it required public understanding and acceptance, and he conceived the idea of forming a wildlife federation with representatives and members in every state--membership to be a very simple and easy thing, but where concerted action--

[tape break]

SCOTT: Ding Darling's still alive, by the way, isn't he?

ABERG: Oh, yes. He's 84. Well, Ding on the new job decided that he needed public acceptance of his ideas, because he was running into bureaucracy opposition and political opposition in Washington and he was no politician, he was a man, a doer of deeds and not a talker about them. And he pushed through some things that seemed quite impossible. Well, he called a meeting of state representatives from around the country, and most of them were official in that they represented state departments--conservation, fisheries and game, etc., for a meeting in Washington. Now, Wallace was Secretary of Agriculture, and of course nominally, the survey was under him. That meeting was held in Washington in '34, as I remember, and I attended that meeting for Wisconsin. We had four or five representatives from Wisconsin. Haskell Noyes was one of them. And that's when the Federation was organized, because I was the first director from Wisconsin on that National Wildlife Federation. Well, financing was the thing that was uppermost in the minds of everyone. To depend upon dues-paying members; it was a curious sort of existence for an organization like that--it needed a lot of public help, but people, regardless of the cause, they forget to pay, and a lot of them don't--don't pay. And a young advertising executive came up with the plan that he presented to the committee, a certain meeting, of getting out a wildlife stamp, and he had it thought out and organized to the nth degree, and based on his advertising background and knowledge, he sold that to the committee. That plan is still in use, and is highly successful. They have raised--they've raised money by the millions. They built a new building in Washington and operate now in every state. So--

SCOTT: In fact, our state federation started to put out some stamps themselves, I think, didn't they? At one time? Or was that the--that was the Conservation League, wasn't it?

ABERG: That was the Conservation League.

SCOTT: Oh, I see.

ABERG: That didn't go--

SCOTT: Pay over the years?

ABERG: No. And, over the years, they had some difficulty in getting state groups going, because organized state groups would try to affiliate and get to be represent--get to represent the Federation in this state. In this state there was rivalry. A group in Milwaukee--I guess still in existence, their chief activity was to try to block good legislation. And they wrote down there, and wanted to [inaudible] represent the Federation in Wisconsin. Well, Herbert from Michigan, I think he is head now of the Wildlife Federation.

SCOTT: Yes, he's the new president.

ABERG: The new president. Well, Herbert was one of the organizers in 1934. And he made a trip to Wisconsin to decide which group--he'd call on me at that time, and I gave him a picture, and he created an affiliation with Woerpel's group. And they still represent the Wildlife Federation.

SCOTT: But [inaudible] started as the state president, or you, or Woerpel's--

ABERG: Wisconsin director, [inaudible--talking over one another] was it '36? I thought it was organized originally in '34.

ALDERFER: Well, I mean the state group got started in '36.

ABERG: The director for--they had one director for three states: Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and Herbert succeeded me after a three-year period.

SCOTT: Oh, then you were director for three states?

ABERG: Yeah, for the three states.

SCOTT: You were the first director for this area.

ABERG: That's right. And Herbert, who succeeded me, has been--has done a splendid job. He devoted a great deal of time--he is now President of the Federation.

SCOTT: What were the three states?

ABERG: Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

SCOTT: Well, that group kept alive for a while, but it's now a different Federation than what you headed when you started up. You even had a publication, as I recall--didn't you? [inaudible]

ABERG: You mean, the national group?

SCOTT: No, didn't your state group have a publication that was issued for a while?

ABERG: That may be. It was--

SCOTT: I think [inaudible] was in on it. [inaudible] I have a few copies of that.

ABERG: I recall him--I read in the paper here about three months ago. Hadn't seen him in about twenty-five years. But as a state group, it is not a very cohesive group, although there are in the state, I imagine the state must have several thousand members of the Federation, who are annual subscribers under the stamp program. It must be--

SCOTT: Oh, yes.

ABERG: --at least that many. Because--

SCOTT: Of course, the State Federation here--they have a state group in each state now. Wisconsin is really a federation of conservation clubs.

ABERG: That's right. Yeah, that's what it amounts to. That one Woerpel heads up now--operate pretty much as a one-man institution, but he keeps it moving.

SCOTT: Bill, what about the first Conservation Commission in 1927? Now, you told us that the appointments made to the first commission were not such wonderful ones, and it took a couple of years before better commissioners were appointed, but did you watch very carefully what they were doing? I presume you did, but what do you think of their accomplishments those first years?

ABERG: I tell you they were men that had no background or experience--the only man with any knowledge or background was Dahlberg of Ladysmith, who was a high school teacher and had a little nursery on the side, and was a student of conservation and a very interested individual. Then he appointed Frank Gilbert of Madison, an old lawyer--an old former attorney general, who had--whose only claim to knowledge or fame in that field was as attorney general, he had been a member of the land commission years and years before that. He had neither interest in or knowledge of. Then he appointed a Milwaukee lawyer. I knew him--I never heard of him in connection with conservation activities. He wasn't affiliated with the League, or any other group in Milwaukee. He appointed--

SCOTT: Was it Quarrell [?]

ABERG: No. [inaudible] And then he appointed Icks of Green Bay, who was a labor leader. The plan seemed to be to make appointments from various fields, and political groups to satisfy everybody.

SCOTT: Politically, probably.

ABERG: Politically. He appointed one man from Fond du Lac, Mauthe, a manufacturer. And Mauthe said--I never met him, I'd heard of him--and when I met him after he had been appointed, at the first meeting, the organizing meeting--the organization meeting of the Commission, he stated openly that, "I don't know a thing about this work or the program, but," he said, "I'm going to find out." That man devoted his time to doing just that, and he was one of the finest commissioners that we ever had--he was a businessman with perspective and understanding. And he knew men, and knew human nature, and devoted his time to finding out the purpose of the commission, and then the objectives, and to study the program that had been set up for them, and he became chairman, and he was just a very outstanding man. I think he did more than any individual in getting the commission off the ground and off to a good start. He went along appointing Nagler as the first director, but he recognized--[inaudible]--but he recognized in a very short time that he wasn't the man for it--that he was the man who ended Nagler's tenure in less than a year. So he was a very cooperative individual when he did get into it. None of the conservation groups or organizations, including the League, had any, I'll say respect for the Governor's appointment at all, but Mauthe got to be quite a friend of the League, and so did some of the others.

SCOTT: Well, Bill, why don't we close this up with a little bit about what the League really did in some of these projects; for instance, the Upper Mississippi Fish Refuge and the National Forests, and then Horicon Marsh--I think it would be a good idea to get some of that into the record, as to--you were in on all these things.

ABERG: Well, the Winneshek project was one of the leading major projects that is acquisitioned by the government of a 300-mile stretch of the Mississippi River bottoms extending from Wisconsin down through Iowa and Illinois, and that required Congressional action and appropriation of large sums of money, and Will Dilg, who was the organizer of the League nationally, just worked his heart out on that to get it through Congress. That was an accomplishment that I think was a very major one, and when the time came to dedicate the Winneshek, President Coolidge was in office, that was in 1928 when he spent his summer vacation up on the Brule. He had a summer white house in Superior at the office at the Blaine High School. I went up there with a League delegation to invite him to dedicate the Winneshek. Of course, we had started here in Wisconsin. We planned to have it done on the Wisconsin side. Well, some--that was wrong. Some Minnesota congressmen immediately grabbed the ball and started to promote having it done over in Winona, and the result was it scared Coolidge off entirely, and the dedication never came off. We met with him at Blaine High School, and Hoover was up there at the time as a guest of Coolidge, to fish on the Brule, and he was at the meeting when we extended the invitation to Coolidge to dedicate the Winneshek. Coolidge listened and began tapping quietly, and then he started [inaudible] looking out of the window. I thought he was never going to come to, and he looked out the window for several minutes, and then he turned around and he said, "Who would write the speech?" [laughter] Seth Gordon was one of our group. Seth said, "Mr. President," he said, "we'll take care of that, we would provide for that--you need have no worry about that, and it would be to your satisfaction," but our mission failed in spite of that.

At that time Sanders was his secretary, told us some of the incidents about the Governor--or, about the President in his fishing on the Brule. There was quite a hatchery down on the Brule operated by the owners of that estate, and when they would decide which section of the river the [inaudible] President was fishing, they would release a couple hundred good-sized trout. They kept them in a pen where they didn't feed them at all, and they would let them out in this area, and then the guide would take him out through that stretch of the river. We asked the President how the fishing was. "Wonderful! Wonderful!" "And how is Mr. Hoover as a fisherman?" He said, "He is better than I am." A newspaperman said, "May I quote you to that effect?" And he says, "I'd rather not." [laughter]

That reminds me of a story about the President going to the church in the little village of Brule, a church about twice the size of this room. Mrs. Coolidge didn't care to go this Sunday, I guess the Sunday before we went up there--we went on Monday. [inaudible] At dinner--they had several guests--Coolidge, and Grace Coolidge, and their son, and Mrs. Coolidge was trying to make conversation. She said, "Calvin, how did you like the sermon?" He says, "Very good. Excited." "What did he talk about?" "Sin!" "What did he say about it?" "He was against it."

SCOTT: [inaudible]

ABERG: Well, that was one of the major things: the Winneshek problems, and then the federal forests program. At that time, we were just trying to get the forest service into Wisconsin to acquire some of the other lands.

SCOTT: [inaudible]

ABERG: [inaudible] in the conservation interests in the state. We tried to use every means anyone could think of to get lands back into forestry use and in operation, and we had the assurance of the forest service that they were interested, if we could get enabling legislation passed. The first attempt was in 1925, Blaine was Governor, and he was opposed, of course, to federal forests. And he was opposed to the Winneshek, because he said it would disturb the sovereignty of the state, the federal government coming in to acquire the [inaudible]. It was very difficult to get him to approve of the Winneshek, and he put a lot of restrictions on that, but they did pass the enabling act, as did the Winneshek.

Then the Federal Forest Enabling Act came up in '25, and he indicated he would veto it. Well, every effort was made to try to get him to change it, and to do--and to circumscribe it until he would be satisfied, and here's what we came out with. 100,000 acres--when you think back on that, it was laughable--and the area to be acquired must have the approval of the Conservation Commissioner--they had one man--the County Board of the county in which the land was located, and the Land Commissioner of Wisconsin, all had to approve it before the land could be acquired. The first reaction of the Forest Service was to ignore it and say, forget it. They weren't interested in any 100,000 acre tracts, [inaudible]. But they set up a new district, district, what did they call it, number nine? Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan, with the headquarters in Wisconsin. They tried to get it in Madison, but the headquarters are in Milwaukee. And Tinker--you must have known Tinker.

SCOTT: Yeah, I do.

ABERG: Tinker was a man with a lot of vision and foresight. And he said, "Well, if we can get our foot in the door, let's take it, and [inaudible] later."

So they decided to go ahead. And he came here, and they selected a tract up in Vilas and--I think most of it was in Vilas County, some in Oneida, of about 100,000 acres. And I knew [inaudible] worked together. And he came to me and said, "Now, how do we get these consents?" By that time, Zimmerman was governor, and, well, I said, "Zimmerman was a good showman and he liked to show his authority." I said, "Let's go over to see the Governor and tell him what it's all about, and ask him to call in the land commission and the Conservation Commissioner. Call a meeting in his office and tell them to sign it." "Well," he said, "I haven't anything for them to sign." Well, I said, "We can cure that," and I drafted up a form of consent for them to sign. He had the area and descriptions. We made the date to assemble for 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and he agreed to summon the different [inaudible] in there. So there we were at the meeting, and he was quite a persuasive sort of fellow. He had it all planned and laid out the law to them, and said that it would be necessary to act today, because if we don't, he said, we are going to lose some of these lands where we couldn't [inaudible] in ten years. And we walked away with the consents of the three land commissioners, the attorney general, the Secretary of State and the State Treasurer, and the consent of the Conservation Commissioner. Then all that was needed was the County, and that took some time because the county is not a very strong force. Tinker worked that out, and it took about six months. We had all the consents except the county's immediately. So we left the Governor's office, and Tinker said, "Well, that's one way to do business," he said, "it kind of makes me dizzy, but I guess it will stick."

And they started with that little tract, and the following year in '27 it was increased to 500,000 acres. In '29, it was increased to, I think it's [inaudible], about 2,000,000 acres.

SCOTT: '29.

ABERG: '29. And they have actually acquired 1,600,000 acres, [inaudible] federal forests, land [inaudible] forestry practice, land which is producing annually substantial income from forest products. And 25 percent of it goes to the locality, the county, towns, and schools, of that income.

SCOTT: That was a big valuable push.

ABERG: Oh, that was terrific--but you know, we had opposition right here in the Department. Harrington was up there. [inaudible] That went on for years. Right before it--

SCOTT: You had to check it from the state, or the county?

ABERG: I suppose--before a committee, the Senate Judiciary Committee, and he was opposed to it. Well, I remember I pulled kind of a dirty trick on him. We had a publication that the department did back in the early twenties.

SCOTT: Wow. The early years.

ABERG: Yes. I had kept copies of that, [inaudible].

SCOTT: [inaudible]

ABERG: There was an article in there by Harrington written in the early twenties, 1920 or 1921, or in there, urging the Federal Forest Service to come into Wisconsin as an opportunity for them to use some of our cutover land as a demonstration area.

SCOTT: It was written by Neal!

ABERG: And I had dug that up and had it at the committee hearing, and he was there--I knew they were going to oppose it, and in appearing in favor of the bill, I read this to this committee, but fortunately our state foresters [inaudible] [laughter]. That's what they call [inaudible].

SCOTT: [?] Horicon Marsh [?] When did that start?

ABERG: The restoration of Horicon Marsh was talked about in the early twenties, but it reached the Legislature in 1925. And a campaign was put on by Horicon people, who were interested in restoring it. The delegations called on the Legislature at the hearings--Louis Radke was the chief exponent from down there, and [inaudible] on it. The marsh had been acquired by private interests who were trying to drain it and sell the land for [inaudible] growing produce of that sort. And they had succeeded in partly draining it. Their program was to build these--dig these ditches, a big one right down through the middle and then laterals, and then their plan was to remove the dam at Hustisford, because that backed up the water on Horicon and drained lakes above the city of Hustisford. These landowners who acquired the marsh bought the Hustisford dam and plant and then were going to remove it. That would have lowered the waters on Horicon dam, to the point where they could have drained all the land. Well, when they reached that stage, a suit was started, and they were restrained from removing the dam at Hustisford.

SCOTT: Who started that suit?

ABERG: That was started by individuals, citizens, and taxpayers in Horicon. And it was very bitterly fought. And the court held that they couldn't remove it, because it had been in there for fifty years or more, and it had created a lake, and that--what was originally an artificial lake had become a natural lake, with all the attributes of any ordinary, natural meander lake. The rights of the public had [inaudible] and they couldn't disturb those. They had to maintain the dam--they had to keep it.

Well, that ended the dream of growing [inaudible] in Horicon Marsh, and from then on it was growing up into cattails. There would be fires in the dry years, which burned the peat way down and it was neither fish [inaudible] nor fowl. The migratory birds disappeared from it, unattractive to look at, or for wild fowl or for muskrats, or for anything else. That continued for a number of years till the legislature passed an appropriation, [inaudible] appropriation for $20,000 to build a dam. Now, that was done in 1927. And they seemed to think that all they needed to do was to build a dam and raise the water. The theory was that the water had been lowered illegally, and that the surrounding lands, which had benefited from a lowered water table, they could use meadows that were formerly underwater. It had no rights, because it had been done illegally. But there again, it had been done so many years before that that their rights had become fixed, and Radke, who was the chief exponent of restoration and a very vital fellow, had a voice like a foghorn, and was a high-strung and high-tempered man. I tried to persuade him that the state had to acquire land rights or acquire the land before they could raise the water an inch, and the dam couldn't be used until they did that. "Well, the only answer I could get was you damn lawyers standing in the way of progress all the time."

The Commission with Mauthe as Chairman was very much for the Horicon Marsh restoration, and Mauthe's theory was to raise the water a little at a time. Well, that's like cutting off a dog's tail an inch at a time. The only man on the Commission that I could get any sympathetic ear from was Immell, who was a lawyer, and agreed. But the Commission voted to raise--to close the dam. Well, when they did that, they promptly drew a lawsuit and lost. So, there they were, sitting again with the dam built, with the drained marsh and with no right to raise the water.

[telephone rings]

[tape break]

SCOTT: [inaudible] And Immell was the only guy you could talk to, you said, and they flooded it?

ABERG: They flooded it, and they had to open the dam again and let it down. The public service commission had fixed levels--that was all out of the way. And Governor Heil came in in '39, and they were besieging him. We had a big Horicon restoration meeting in Horicon, with all the Legislature invited, and the Governor. There must have been three or four hundred in attendance at that meeting.

SCOTT: What year was that now, '28?

ABERG: No, that was in '39.

SCOTT: '39.

ABERG: The marsh had been sitting there for a number of years.

SCOTT: Oh, I see.

ABERG: And the question was money, when they found that they had to buy the land. Then there was the question of money, where was the money coming from. Well, just before that, the Pittman-Robertson bill had been passed, that had passed in '37, became operative in '38, as I remember.

SCOTT: I remember when that first went in.

ABERG: Yeah. And the commission had adjusted [inaudible]--set up their number one project, some upland game project at Poynette. I thought that Horicon Marsh should be the number one project, and it was eligible for Pittman-Robertson funds. Well, at this meeting in Horicon, the Governor talked, and he talked about the money, and there being none and so forth. I was called, and I said, "I know one source of money, and if the Commission will adopt Horicon as number one project, we can get that money from Pittman-Robertson." Well, the Governor seized upon that. That was meat for him. And we did change that designation, that Poynette project [inaudible]

SCOTT: Yeah, I remember that. [inaudible]

ABERG: Yes, [inaudible] Horicon as our number one project [inaudible]. We got the consent of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to set it up as a Pittman-Robertson project.

Then [inaudible] came how to acquire some of these lands, because we were in disrepute down there. Some of our representatives would call on landowners and get thrown out on their ear because they hadn't made good on promises, and the public relations down there were terrible. We got a man in the department by the name of Henry Kramer. Most of these farmers were German, Henry was a German; he was a trained forester from Germany, and he was in charge of the forest, where was it--Black River Falls. We pulled him off that job and sent him to Horicon, and he spent, I don't know, a year or two years acquiring Horicon Marsh land. He called on these farmers and talked German to them, and spent the night with them often, and got to be a friend of these people and acquired every acre that was necessary to--for flooding. They closed the dam and restored Horicon Marsh to its present point. Then the Federal Government came in and acquired the north half of it.

SCOTT: Was that agreed to in the beginning, Bill?

ABERG: Tentatively. Tentatively, so we kept our active aid program in the south half, but they didn't finalize that until about '43. They built a big causeway to impound the water on two different levels to [inaudible], of course, but it's done and it's working. The Horicon Marsh is restored, and the federal authorities rate it now as the number three refuge in the United States. Now in that fight, the League sponsored the legislative end of it for--beginning in '25, '27, '29, '31, '33 for a period of ten years until it began to take form.

SCOTT: What year did it start again?

ABERG: In 1925. That was an independent project.

SCOTT: They stuck with it until 1939, then--

ABERG: Well, they stuck with it throughout, but there wasn't any need for any of the active and aggressive work after it became accepted as a Pittman-Robertson project.

SCOTT: Yeah. Well, Bill, you know, I think you have done a wonderful job. Do you realize all the stuff you have covered? You have covered a lot of the most important things that have happened in conservation in the State of Wisconsin over all this time, and I think it will be a very valuable document.