Down-East Government

Maine's government took to the woods last week. It found the experiment exhilarating, and incidentally hoped it would be stimulating to the state's big (more than $100,000,000 a year) vacation business.

Bespectacled Governor Horace Hildreth, his Secretary of State and the seven members of his Governor's Council, who have the power to overrule him on almost any point, journeyed to the heavy pine forests north of Bangor for the Council's regular semimonthly meeting. By way of telling the world about Maine, they also had four days of deer and bear hunting, lobster eating, biscuit baking, rye drinking and poker playing.

First day out, the woods were so noisy with dry leaves that no one had any real luck. Governor Hildreth got a porcupine, ceremoniously toasted its liver for lunch. He also used his deer rifle on a partridge, cleanly cut off the bird's head. Next day he missed a deer at 25 yards (his gold-rimmed glasses were steamed by the rain). But on the third day he bagged his buck.

Finally someone remembered that there was state business to transact. Calling the Council together for an open-air session, Horace Hildreth had a hunting knife at his hip. To call the meeting to order he rapped on a tree stump with an axe.

The business was routine. The Council gave a $1-a-day raise (to $6) to rangers who search Maine's woods for lost persons; it increased one liquor inspector's salary from $33 to $39 a week; and approved various appointments of notaries public and justices of the peace. The meeting lasted an hour. Then the Council sat down to a feast of deer liver, bear steak and biscuits.

Driving back to the 115-year-old Governor's Mansion, once the home of Maine's most famed statesman, James G. Blainer. Governor Hildreth had his four-point buck resting on the fender of his black limousine. He well knew that he had discharged his duties in a fashion which all true Down-easters would approve: pleasure, but business too.

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