176 State Papers and Addresses

CONOCOCHEAGUE SPORTSMENS' CLUB

April 4, 1940
Hagerstown

COMING to Hagerstown seems to be getting quite a habit with me, but I
hope you will believe me when I tell you that it has been a real pleasure
to look forward to this gathering, and to the opportunity to renew acquaintance
with many of my sportsmen friends of Western Maryland and surrounding
States.

Your group has a long and honorable history, and its efforts along the
lines of conservation and general betterment of game and fishing in your sec-
tion are widely known and thoroughly appreciated. Through a quarter of a
century that has seen a great change in attitude on the part of our people
towards these most important problems, you have continued to make steady
advancement, and now with your recently acquired tract along the Potomac,
you have in prospect as fine a home as any sportsmens' organization could de-
sire. Undoubtedly, you are all looking forward to the completion in May of
your new club house. Certainly it should be a splendid additional attraction for
your club members, and I am sure it will bring to you many years of enjoyment.

Along with the efforts that have been made, and are continuing to be made,
by such organizations as yours towards the protection of the interests of our
fishermen and hunters, I believe it would be in order to give deserved praise
to the State Game and Inland Fish Commission, which as the State's repre-
sentative is working hand in glove with such organizations as yours. Garner
W. Denmead, Chairman, is a genuine sportsman, genuinely interested in better-
ment of conditions affecting both the fisherman and hunter.

In Fulcher P. Smith, and James H. Gambrill, Jr., both of Western Maryland,
along with S. Scott Beck, Jr., of the Eastern Shore, and A. Gordon Fleet, of
Anne Arundel County, we have a Commission that can be depended upon to
safe-guard both the State's and your interests. With E. Lee LeCompte, State
Game Warden; Frank L. Bentz, Chief Clerk; and the other executive personnel
of the Commission, Mr. Denmead and his colleagues are backed up by an intel-
ligent, far-sighted working group whose members are fully acquainted with
hunting and fishing problems, and fully qualified by knowledge and long ex-
perience to help solve them successfully.

There are so many phases that one might consider in seeking to evaluate
the work of the State Game and Inland Fish Commission that I could talk for
quite a long while without exhausting the subject. Probably it would exhaust
you, however, and I won't do it. It seems to me desirable, though, to call to
your attention just a few things being done by the Commission most success-
fully, in your interests and in the interests of all the sportsmen, and of all the
people of Maryland.

A splendid idea was the formation of a County Advisory Council in each
of the counties of the State, to work with the Commission and to supplement
its efforts. There is no other way that I know of that could so fully enlist
wide-spread cooperation in all of our twenty-three counties as this. These
Councils, composed of farmers and others interested in forestry, wildlife, and
the outdoors generally, bring to the aid of the Commission a broadened, in-
telligent point of view that will be most helpful not only in solving the problems