- October 31, 1929 – JSA to Mrs. Roosevelt –
My dear Mrs. Roosevelt:
I do so hope my appeal to your help in making known the situation on the Paradise Bay land did not bother you too much. We had a long uphill fight to make the park appropriation apply to this area, and all my efforts to see the Governor failed.
The misinformation given out by Macdonald is exasperating and I am fearful that Franklin even now does not appreciate the fact that it is easy to get new appropriations for the purchase f the land MacDonald has in mind, but extremely difficult , if not impossible, to get new appropriations for the purchase of the Paradise Bay Land. The funds now available could be used for acquiring the Paradise Bay land and new appropriations easily secured for carrying out Mr. MacDonald’s plan further north.
I certainly do not want to do anything that will increase the multitude of things the Governor has to do, but I think it is safe to say that the four national organization and the nine state organizations that advocated the purchase of this land in 1923-24 will be greatly disappointed if the land is not acquired, and would support the Governor enthusiastically if he brought about the acquisition of this area by the State.
Credit for this work, of course, is incidental, but the effort to have this achievement delayed until we have a Republican administration is very noticeable. Only recently Mr. Lutz, Secretary of the Park Council, remarked that the Paradise Bay land would probably not be acquired until we had a Republican governor. Mr. Woodbury, President of the Lake George Association, recently stated that he was present when Mr. MacDonald made some kind of agreement with Mr. Knapp, which would preclude the State’s ownership, although the Commissioner previously declined to make an agreement with the small landowners, on the ground that it limited the freedom of future administrations. [2nd page missing]