THE PRESIDENT: Well, the resolution permits him to do that.
MR. M. P. REED: Did I understand Mr. Kellerman to say the Department hasn't authority to quarantine against such things?
THE PRESIDENT: No. The point brought up was the theory that lay back of the quarantine. The speaker made the point that shipment of infected trees was killing the tree aspirations of the people who ought to be developing the nut industry. Every time a man buys a chestnut tree and it dies with blight that man is chilled out of business. Now this resolution doesn't cover that man. It is based on the ground of injury to the industry. You can't very well define the limits of where the blight is not, but it can be fairly well defined as to where it is, and that is up to the Department.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: The resolutions are offered in a suggestive way, Mr. President. If the Secretary wants to turn the suggestion down, we will meet again next year any way.
PROF. CLOSE: I would like some information as to how you propose to take this matter up with the Department. I was present a year or so ago at a hearing before the Federal Horticultural Board—I don't know whether any one else present was there at the time—but the whole thing hinged largely on Colonel Sober's attitude in propagating and sending out the Paragon chestnut, and I think the Department—the Federal Horticultural Board—originated the question that you are discussing now, and Colonel Sober came there with a whole lot of pretty good information, and people to back up what he said, and the Department put up a mighty poor show, I tell you. I was ashamed of what the Department men had to say, and Colonel Sober won out hands down. Now, if this question comes up again, it will be referred, no doubt, to the Federal Horticultural Board, and you will need a good, strong representation, with plenty of facts back of you, and if you can put up a strong enough case there is no doubt but what you can establish this quarantine. But I would hate to see the question taken up again and floored as easily as it was at that time.
THE PRESIDENT: Prof. Close, I have read part of the testimony.—I was not present at the meeting—and when one considers the number of things that were said at that meeting that are not so, and the amount of other evidence that has come up since, I think the defenders of the public will have the material to make a much stronger presentation than they did then, and, what is more, I think some of them will be there. Of course, when a man has a possibility of getting a quarter of a million dollars out of a lot of junk, he can spend money to hire people to say things, and when "the dear public" is paying nobody to go, as was the case last time, nobody goes. If that hearing comes again, I think some from this Association will be present.
PROF. CLOSE: That is just the point I want to bring up. You have got to be there with the information.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: I just want to say a word, rather endorsing what Professor Close has had to say. The Department of Agriculture, the quarantine board, or anybody else, can't go out of their limitations and get testimony. If we think there ought to be a quarantine, then, whenever there is a public invitation sent out, such as was sent out before, we ought to have the nerve to go down there before the Department officials and tell them the truth. It is very easy for us to stand up here and write papers and articles criticising the quarantine board and the Department of Agriculture. If we have anything to say about these things we ought to go down there and say it. If other people come there and present facts as a matter of record, the Board can't entirely go outside of those facts and decide a case right out of the clear sky. If this organization wants to be effective, it ought to appoint a committee to present those things before that Board.
Resolution adopted.
THE SECRETARY: I have had in mind some time the idea involved in this resolution, which I have hastily drawn up.