The PHOTOSTAT-An Investment (Trade Mark Registered) Equitable Life Assurance Society of the U. S., New York City, says: "For years we have used four Photostats for copying important documents, signatures, and original papers where exact reproduction with speed was essential. The result has been a saving of an immense amount of labor and incalculable time. "An average of 500 Applications a day are copied, as required by law, practically while the policies are being written. No possibility of error exists, and the cost per application is about 3 cents. "Two of the Photostats make 900 photographs a day of the History Cards, which contain a history and description of our policy contracts and must likewise be error proof, as large payments are based upon this data. The Photostat, which is manufactured by the Eastman Kodak Co., is a combined camera and copying machine. The copy is made directly onto a roll of paper. No intermediate glass plate or film or other negative has to be made. By copying thus directly onto the paper, the copy is made very quickly and at a low cost. Also the copy is a facsimile of the original, so that there can be no mistake in it. The print is developed and fixed right in the apparatus itself; this part of the process, as well as the focusing and exposing, all being mechanical. The print is then removed to a tank of running water in which it is washed free from chemicals. Finally the print is taken from the water and dried and is then ready for use. The whole process is a rapid one, the average speed per print being from one to five minutes. The PHOTOSTAT is used to copy at actual size, in reduction, or in enlargement; In Banks and Offices: Reports, Cost Sheets, Vouchers, Accountings, Wills, Contracts, Testimonial Letters, Pages. from Books; In Factories and Machine Shops: Blue Prints, Shop. Orders, Sketches, Pencil Drawings, Tracings, Illustrations for Salesmen, Cuts and Drawings for Patent Work; By Public Service Corporations: Reports for Directors, Insurance Papers, Tariffs, Way Bills, Claims, Traffic Reports, Conductors' Sheets, and Certified Copies of Records. A small book giving detailed description will be sent to you upon request to the This cut shows the operator examining copy COMMERCIAL CAMERA COMPANY 343 State Street, Rochester, N. Y. 325 Grosvenor Building, Providence, R. I. Alfred Herbert, Ltd., Agents, Coventry, England AN ILLUSTRATED MONTHLY MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO THE VOLUME II APRIL, 1918 CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE NUMBER 4 WILD FLOWERS PHOTOGRAPHED IN COLOR Describing a unique work by the State WHEN CLEVELAND WAS GOVERNOR Reminiscences of the campaign of 1884 FUSION CAMPAIGN FUND CALLED SCANDAL NEW CHAIRMAN OF PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION ASSEMBLYMAN BELKNAP ON DEMOCRACY How New York is supplied with water ADVICE OFFERED NEW YORK DEMOCRATS FINANCIAL MACHINERY OF THE STATE PUBLISHER'S AND EDITOR'S CORNER PERSONAL ITEMS OF STATE INTEREST POLITICAL NEWS OF THE STATE NEWS OF THE STATE DEPARTMENTS PUBLISHED BY THE STATE SERVICE MAGAZINE CO., INC., LYON BLOCK, ALBANY, NEW YORK ERNEST A. BARVOETS, Treasurer CHARLES M. WINCHESTER, President GEORGE D. ELWELL, Advertising and Circulation Manager JAMES MALCOLM, Editor SUBSCRIPTION: $3.00 PER YEAR IN ADVANCE; SINGLE COPIES, 25 CENTS Entered as second-class matter October 17, 1917, at the post-office at Albany, New York, under Act of March 3, 1879 COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY THE STATE SERVICE MAGAZINE CO., INC. WE GUARANTEE Copyright Hart Schaffner & Mar T. H. McManus that our clothes will be all that the tailoring will be careful and enduring; that the dyes will be fast We guarantee that clothes Headquarters for Hart, Schaffner & Marx Clothes DOLAN CLOTHING CO.INC. 25 South Pearl Street E. J. Riley AN ILLUSTRATED MONTHLY MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO THE VOLUME II APRIL, 1918 NUMBER 4 WILD FLOWERS PHOTOGRAPHED IN COLOR Beautiful and rare work in course of preparation by the State BY JAMES MALCOLM I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where ox-slips and nodding violet grows; Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine. N SHAKESPEARE Midsummer's Night Dream. EW York State is protecting its public forests against commercial greed; it is safeguarding, by the best scientific methods known to man, the wild life of the State and doing all it can to preserve the scenery in its primeval beauty. Why should it not do something, it may be asked, to preserve the wild flowers before they have been exterminated? A step has indeed been taken in this direction in a law recently enacted by the legislature. It authorizes the State conservation commission to protect rare plants and flowers on lands under its jurisdiction. This amendment to the law is the first recognition of the fact that wild flowers are worthy of conserving by the State government. So much in earnest are the people of this great commonwealth over the preservation of State-owned forests, and to hand them down to generations yet unborn in their pristine beauty and primitive wildness, that for over a quarter of a century there has been imbedded in the State constitution a provision absolutely prohibiting the taking of timber from the State forest preserve. This constitutional provision, whatever may be its defects, is considered as fine an expression of public conscience as may be found in the organic law of the State. With the same eager desire to serve the people, the State is also protecting wild animals in order that they may live in peace and increase in their native haunts of long ago. The beauty of the scenic wilderness in the Adirondacks, Catskills and other sections of the State is being more and more cared for by the State government. The State museum, as a part of the State education department, is exercising the same protecting interest and care over that well known but long neglected kingdom of the wild flowers. No other State, in fact no other government or organization in the world, has ever prepared so comprehensive a work as that now under way and copyrighted by the State museum entitled, "Wild Flowers of New York ". To have photographed 364 wild flowers on the spot where they grow in all sections of the State The story of how the 364 varieties of wild flowers were photographed in colors is intensely interesting. Dr. H. D. House, State botanist, under the direction of Dr. John M. Clarke, head of the State museum, personally supervised the photographing of the flowers. To do this, accompanied time of the year, quick movements were necessary on the part of the State botanist. One day he would be trudging through the marshes of Long Island near the Atlantic ocean and the next day it would be necessary for him and his companion to be in the northern section of the State, either in the mountain woods or near the St. Lawrence river or Lake Ontario. Speaking of this experience Dr. House said: The State museum will soon issue two beautiful volumes entitled: "Wild Flowers of New York" which will contain photographs in natural colors of 364 different varieties of wild flowers. These pictures were taken in all sections of the State. At their meeting September 27, 1917, the board of regents of the university of the State of New York authorized publication of 5,000 copies of this unique work which will be sold to purchasers at 'Wild Flowers of New York" will be the most complete of its kind ever published by any state or country in the world and will be copyrighted by the State cost. museum. Dr. H. D. House, State botanist, whose enthusiasm and teacher who was an enthusiast in the studies to which he States during the summer. In 1913 he left the forestry school to accept the position of State botanist at Albany, by an expert photographer, he traveled to every part of the State. His adventures, as may be imagined, since he had to go into the wildest and least accessible sections, were numerous and sometimes exciting. Every wild flower was photographed separately, and as many of them in widely separated sections blossomed at the same ly "Most of our wild flowers wilt so quickafter they are picked that it is necessary so far as that could be done, to photograph them in their natural habitat, without removing them from their roots. In making these photographs it was found that the success of the work depended upon the solution of two problems, keeping the flowers from moving when the wind was blowing and obtaining pictures showing the flower isolated from its immediate surroundings. "Both of these problems were solved by enclosing the plants (without removing them from their roots) in a cage, the sides and top of which were made of a transparent cellulose compound. The back of the cage was made of light wood before which plain cardboard was placed as a background for the flowers. The front of the cage consisted of an open |