- March 18, 1930 – Newspaper clipping – Schenectady Union Star –
Brown Sees Raid on State Trees:
Fights Amendment in Relation to Conservation of Forests.
“The Hewitt bill proposing an amendment to the constitution, in relation to the forest preserve, to provide for the acquisition of forests thereon, and the establishment of forest nurseries therefor, was advanced to third reading in the senate last night against the protest of Senator Thomas C. Brown of Schenectady who declared that the obvious purpose of the amendment is to remove the constitutional protections against commercial lumbering on state lands hereafter acquired to protect the watershed and for recreation purposes within the forest preserve but outside the blue line. Senator Brown read statement from an unnamed party which said among other things that the proposed amendment would remove the constitutional protection from about one million aces, comprising about 25 per cent of the forest preserve and including many of the most important water shed and recreation areas such as hundreds of thousands of acres in the Lake George section…”