necessary. Just how this may be done is not a matter of agreement; certainly full relief is apparently impossible without constitutional amendment, and, even granted that, great care will be necessary, as Governor Brown remarked, to relieve timberlands without unduly burdening the heavily timbered towns. The problem is not beyond solution. however, once the need be clearly recognized. Such activities as the forestry conference are going to be of great value in working out an enlightened system.

The success of this year's conference was due in no small part to the cordial co-operation of Director Mason of the Normal school and of the well-known civic spirit of Keene as expressed by the Chamber of Commerce and a committee of arrangements, headed by the mayor, the Honorable Orville E. Cain.

Another and even more important discussion of the question of state taxation was that held on September 14 by the newly organized New Hampshire Civic Association at the State College at Durham. President. Hetzel presided and there was an attendance of about one hundred representative men from all parts of the state including three former governors, a justice of the Superior Court, the secretary of the Tax Commission and other public officials, representatives of the lumbermen, farmers, bankers and business men, clergy men, teachers and lawyers.

The discussion was opened by former Governor Bass and Fletcher Hale, secretary of the Tax Commission, after which the conference resolved itself into a discussion of the

specific problems represented by intangibles and growing timber.

There was practically unanimous agreement that the tax situation in New Hampshire is critical and that it is desirable to find some way to tax intangibles and so to change the system of timber taxation as to encourage growth to maturity. The need of economy and of making every dollar of revenue do the work of a dollar was also emphasized.

There was a long discussion as to the scope of constitutional amendments needed to bring about the ends desired. All shades of opinion were expressed, ranging from the

view

that no amendment was necessary to advocation by a considerable number of such an amendment as would throw the whole subject of taxation wide open to the legislature, so that it might frame a taxation system which should be elastic and susceptible of prompt change to meet new conditions.

It was voted to authorize the executive committee to select two committees of five each to consider the two problems of intangibles and timber and to report to a later meeting a plan for legislative action.

On the same day of the meeting at Durham a session of no less importance was held at Manchester. This was the first of a series of hearings by the commissioners commissioners recently appointed by Governor Brown to represent New Hampshire in the New England conference relative to railroad organization. The future of the railroads in this section will hardly have less influence on the prosperity of New Hampshire than will the system of taxation.

Further hearings have been ill attended. New Hampshire's citizens should awake promptly to the seriousness of this problem.

A first prize of $15.00 and a second prize of $10.00 will be awarded, and the prize-winning essay will be published in the magazine. The editor of the magazine will reserve the right to publish any manuscript submitted which is considered deserving of special mention even though it does not win a prize.

The following will be the conditions of the competition:

1. All manuscripts must be received by the Granite Monthly, Concord, New Hampshire, on or before April 1, 1923.

2. No manuscript is to 1,500 words in length.

exceed

3. No manuscript will be considered unless clearly written on one side only of the paper.

4. The subject of the essay may

be chosen by the writer, with the restriction that it must have to do with the author's personal observation of the men, women and things about him. Historical and biographical papers and literary criticisms will not be considered. The object of the competition is to test the ability of the High School students to observe, to think and to express their thoughts clearly in good English.

5. The essay must not be corrected or revised by any other hand than the author's. Except for this, it does not matter whether the essay is written as a part of the school work or otherwise.

6. The manuscript should not bear the name of the author. The title of the essay and the author's name should be placed upon a separate sheet of paper, to which should be appended a statement of the principal of the school that the author is an undergraduate student of his school.

The names of the judges will be announced at a later time.

time of his death, or until failing health a few months previous, compelled retirement.

A Democrat in politics, located as he was in a strong Republican town and county, Mr. Parker enjoyed little opportunity for public political service, nor did he aspire to the same, preferring the steady pursuit of his profession, in which he soon took high rank; but he took strong interest, nevertheless, in the cause of his party, to whose principles he was devotedly attached, and served it faithfully, as opportunity offered, in its conventions, upon its state committee for many years, in no less than three National Conventions, and on the stump in many campaigns.

In 1871 he was the candidate of the Democratic party for Representative in Congress in the old Third District, the Rupublican candidate being that distinguished soldier, Gen. Simon G. Griffin of Keene. Although the district was normally Republican by a good majority and had never elected a Democrat since the Republican party came into existence, Mr. Parker was elected by a substantial plurality, and served so efficiently that he was re-elected in 1873, and completed the two terms then generally the extent of service accorded a New Hampshire Congressman. It was during his second term that the sewing machine monopoly, whose important patents were about expiring, put up its great fight for the extension of those patents. Mr. Parker was a member of the House Committee on Patents, and it was through his vote and influence in the Committee that an adverse report was made, and the monopoly defeated in the House.

At the close of the forty-second Congress Mr. Parker returned home, and resumed his legal practice, which had been interrupted by his absence during the several sessions, following the same closely through the balance of his long life; but never neglecting the duties of citizenship, which appealed to him no less strongly than those of his profession. He took an active interest in everything pertaining to the welfare of the community, and was particularly active in furthering the cause of education. It was mainly through his efforts that the bequest of the late Paran Stevens for the establishment of a high school in Claremont was made available. He served for a long series of years as a member of the board of trustees of the school, and had been for more than a generation moderator of the school meeting, as well as town auditor, and

legal consel. He was universally recognized as the town's "first citizen," and his judgment was ever sought, upon all measures and projects of public concern, and almost always followed.

In business affairs he was also active. He was for many years, and up to the time of his death, president of the Woodsum Steamboat Company, operating steamers on Lake Sunapee, was president of the People's National Bank of Claremont, and long a trustee of Tufts College, serving for some time as president of the board. He was also prominent in the Masonic order and had served for twenty-one years as Emment Commander of Sullivan Commandery, Knights Templar.

In religion Mr. Parker was a lifelong Universalist and had been for many years the most eminent layman of the denomination in the country. He was a lay reader in the little church at East Lempster, in youth, and for more than sixty years the leading spirit in the Universalist church at Claremont and superintendent of its Sunday School. He was for many years president of the Universalist Sunday School Convention; served for two terms as president of the General Convention of the United States and Canada, and had been for the last sixteen years president of the New Hampshire Convention of Universalist churches and, ex-officio, chairman of its Executive Board, his last service in the capacity having been at the meeting of the board in Concord last May.

Mr. Parker presided at the last great legislative reunion in New Hampshire, in connection with the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary celebration of the charter of Concord, and also served as temporary chairman of the last Constitutional Convenion, in which he was a delegate and a member of the Legislative Committee. He had been for the last seventeen years president of the Sullivan County bar, by which he was honored with a complimentary dinner, on the occasion of his eightieth birthday anniversary, at the Hotel Claremont. In 1883 Tufts College conferred upon him the honorary degree of A. M., and in 1912 that of LL. D.

May 30, 1861, he was united in marriage with Caroline Louisa Southgate, of Bridgewater, Vt., who died September 14, 1904. He is survived by a daughter, Elizabeth S., wife of Rev. Lee S. McCollester, D. D., Chaplain of Tufts College and Dean of the Crane Divinity School; one grandson, Parker McCollester, assistant counsel of the New