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       THE NEW ERA OF THE CONTINENT
              MAKES NEW CLAIMS.
   In the beginning of the new hundred years on
which the continent now enters, the six hun-
dredth of our continent since it came into the
career of history, it becomes us, for Wisconsin,
to be deliberately constructing for our guidance
the best possible plan for the contribution we
may make to a splendid future for her. No state
in the Union is more promising than ours as a
field for generous and honorable patriotism.
How many are the ways in which the heart
urges us to be enterprising and tributary! . *We
met in a neighboring room only a few even-
ings since to deliberate upon the requisites for
making the discipline of criminality such as to
enthrone in the hearts of our citizens the laws.
My lips are eager to speak of others. But among
them aMl I do not say that there is none more
imperative in its immediate claims than the or-
dering of the forests. Certainly there is hardly
any one, which, judging by the negligence of the
past, and the natural remoteness of it from our
ordinary lines of thought, is more likely to be left
in so much unconcern, to result, according to all
principles involved and the previous experience
of nations, in so great disaster.
*Conference of state Board of Control for Charities and Cor-
rections, March 2,1893.
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