- April 30, 1930 – Fred Saunders to JSA –
Dear Apperson:
I have been away from the factory the past week so did not get your letter until Monday, its contents very interesting to me. What you say about the destruction of hardwoods to make room for softwood trees is news. It hardly seems possible in this age of understanding – that such deliberate waste of trees could actually happen. I well know the value of our beech trees.
The next time I see Garth Whipple, I will ask him about the forester’s point of view. (Whipple is publicity man for the College of Forestry and I know is in sympathy with the preservation of our State Parks for recreational purposes. His father was Fish and Game Commissioner for some years and, they say, had much to do with promoting the interest of State owned forests.
I never heard the inside story of how the Forestry College came to be transferred to Syracuse from Cornell, politics I suppose. Former Chancellor Day stood in with the power to be in Albany. I don’t know anything about it except that I always felt it belonged at Cornell and never favored the change. I know Dean Brown, though not as well as his predecessor Franklin Moon, whom I admired very much. Brown is President of the local chapter of the Izaac Walton League, and should be in favor of any project to preserve our State Parks for recreational purposes.
I am very sorry but have only one copy left of my letter to the Port Standard. I sent out about seven or eight copies to friends in different parts of the State. I enclose this clipping. I am talking this everywhere I go.
You are right – I have a job and a family to look out for and not much time for anything else but you can depend upon me for what help I can give you in this fight. As you know my heart is in the right place. It just makes me sick to see the constant destruction going on of our natural heritage, the forests, the flowers, the wild life, and the natural beauty spots throughout the country. Of course the darn automobile has intensified the destruction. I can show you a dozen beauty spots here already that have been completely ruined within the past year. And look at that foolish auto road up to old Whiteface.
Sincerely yours,
Fred Saunders