JEFFERSON COUNTIANS----INTERVIEWS

Professor Barry Ellis taught American History at Jefferson College, Hillsboro, Missouri. One of his assignments each year was to have his students interview an older adult in their community. This adult did not have to be related to them, although many students did interview relatives and friends of their families.

As part of their efforts to preserve our history, the Jefferson County Heritage & Historical Society has prepared transcriptions of the people interviewed. Pertinent information (name of interviewer and date of interview) is included if available. Note that IVR refers to the person doing the interview and IVE is the response of that person.

Transcribed by Betty Olson

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WALL, CHARLES

IVR: Mr. Wall, this interview will become part of a public record to be used by historians /researchers in Jefferson County. Response: “Yes.”

IVR: Are there any restrictions you would like to put on the use of this tape recording? WALL: No none that I can think of.

IVR: Is there any way the recent increase in population has changed your life?

WALL: Yes, it’s changed my life in quite a few different ways. The county is a whole lot more crowded now than what it used to be. The highways are a lot busier, it takes a lot longer to get to work. I first started to work some 10 to 12 years ago, up in the St. Louis area, Fenton to be exact. I don’t know, but it seems like there is more people all over in the area, everywhere you go. It used to be you could go up 21 Highway at night and heck, you’d be lucky if you even seen a car. Now you’re lucky if you can come down the highway without seeing 10 or 15 cars at night—any time of the night or morning. It’s just busy all the time. I guess at the same time though with the increase in the population, there’s been more stores, more industry, more shopping areas, different things to do, more entertainment. I guess it’s an advantage in a lot of ways. You don’t have to go all the way into the city to see a good show or go dancing or whatever you like to fo-drinking, partying. It’s all right close to the area, so I guess it’s got advantages with disadvantages .

IVR: Have you noticed any great differences between the county now and the way it was 10 years ago, and, in your opinion, what is the most important need that has resulted in this larger population boom in Jefferson County?

WALL: Well, as I stated in the previous question, I think one of the greatest difference is the increase in the population, the density of the population, of the traffic. Land is becoming more scarce, it’s hard to buy a piece of land where 10 or 15 years ago, you could have probably went out and bought pretty good chunks of land at a reasonable cost. Of course, this is an advantage to the people in the area selling land. The population is a whole lot greater than what it used to be. I don’t know the exact figure, but you can sure tell it when you move around. Some of the important needs that would rise from these different situations would be a need for more hospitals, which we are fast accumulating in this area. St. Anthony’s just opened up this year. We’ve got the hospital at Festus. Of course, you need bigger law enforcement operations which Sheriff Buck Buerger at the Hillsboro Courthouse has greatly taken care of. I think he has done an awful good job over there because the crime I’m sure has probably increased tenfold along with the population. Got sticky-fingered people all over. You know how that goes, but I think the Sheriff’s Department and even the small towns like I live in here in De Soto, they do a darned good job with what they’ve got.

With these big increases in population, we also have a need for a greater lot of better roads than I think we’ve got. Some of the roads are very outdated. They are small, narrow and made for traffic for the old type cars, but they could be improved, especially Highway 21. I think it should be four lanes all the way down to Potosi, Missouri at least. Some of the back roads are kinda narrow and twisty. Of course I know it takes money, and taxes, and problems like that, but with the increase in the population, the tax budgets… I’m sure a lot of it could be taken care of in time. It could be done gradually.

Then there is the doctor problem with health. With an increased population like this you’ve got to have a better health service. We’ve accumulated a lot outside of medical help from foreign countries. We’ve got doctors in this town I think from India, Japan, Korea. We’ve even got on right here from our own home town, Dr. Blanks. They all seem to do a pretty good job, I guess, for the number of people that they have to take care of.

IVR Well, Mr. Wall, has this new increase in population caused you an worries in any way?

IVE Well, I wouldn’t hardly think that you could call these exactly worries. Apprehension maybe in a sense. For one thing, to go fishing or to do anything in the outdoors, hunting, it’s getting harder to find a good place to hunt. People are thicker. Everybody is trying to hunt and fish. It’s just become a lot more crowded. For instance, fishing, you can’t go to a lake within 100 miles of the St. Louis area, a large size public lake, that’s not crowded every weekend and pretty much so during the week too often. But I think eventually if they get the Meramec Basin Project in with the big dams they are talking about, there would be a lot more recreational areas for the people in these areas. It would be on a big enough scale that everyone would have a place to go fishing. Water skiing, swimming, whatever they like. It would be close to this area. I think it would alleviate a lot of the problems.

I have a daughter growing up and six to eight years ago, even going back that far, the dope problem wasn’t really a problem in this area, but I guess the increase in the population and the different encounters that the kids have in this area with the city, it is easily accessible. The dope problems seems to be a little worse down in this part of the country than I ever imagined it would get to be. I don’t know, I think it’s something that society itself is going to have to cure. It’s just a problem that seems to be everywhere.

IVR, Mr. Wall, you mentioned the Meramec Basin Project. I know I’ve read and heard that a lot of people are opposed to it because of various reasons, the Indiana Bat for one. Then there is the possible stoppage of some of the streams and rivers in that area to form the lake. What are your views on this?

IVE: Well, this might be a kind of hard statement but I have this to say on the bats. If the people in Indiana like their bats so well, let them come back over here and get them and take them back. I not too much worried about a bat myself. Who needs them anyway!

As far as a navigable stream goes, the only stream that would be affected violently by it would be the Meramec. I’m sure that there’s probably a lot of people who really enjoy getting out in canoes and floating or fishing, whatever they like to do for their recreation, but there would still be plenty of streams in the area that could be used for this. There are a lot of smaller creeks that the people could go down, and it wouldn’t eliminate all these streams by just blocking up that one. And you have to look at the majority as a whole. After all, that’s what the whole country is set up on, the majority rule, but there would be much more people get entertainment and pleasure out of a large lake than there are canoeists. But look at the industry that this project that this project alone would bring in. I mean there’s going to be boat docks, tackle shops, people can make money off that I’m sure that the only people making money off the navigable streams now are the people selling canoes. On the overall picture of the whole project, I think as far as economies go, there would be a lot more people who would derive money from this project. You’re going to have stores built up there in the area for groceries and tackle and whatnot, and not only that but you are going to draw lots of people outside the St. Louis are into this fishing spot. There’s going to be a lot more money moving into this area. I think this is important, after all St. Louis is the center of the country, you might as well say the hub. It sure in the heck wouldn’t hurt for us to have a nice lake right in this area. Of course we’re going to have opposition to everything. That’s the democratic way, but majority should rule as usual.

IVR Mr. Wall, do you think that means of transportation in this particular area have changed any in your lifetime., or do you expect them to change any more in any way during the future?

IVE Yes, the means of travel have changed greatly since I was a small boy. Back early enough that I can remember. I can remember my grandfather and my grandmothers, well, they didn’t walk too much, but my grandfather whenever they wanted to go somewhere, they just took off on the shoe leather and that’s how they got there. As I grew a little older, I can recall that some of my uncles as they had grown up and went away to the city and make their fortunes, so to say, they came home with some fancy cars. Grandpa, he didn’t really care too damn much about driving around in them. He was always scared; he was kind of hanging on the back seat, watching the speedometers, and stuff like that, making sure they didn’t go too fast. Then I guess the cars progressed steadily for years. They’ve gotten better, smoother riding, faster, more economical in ways I guess, for a while anyway. Then, right here in town as a small boy, I can remember the train used to stop. There were three of them that stopped every evening, 6:00, 7:00, 8:00. They called them Sunshine Specials, and it seemed like a third of the town would be down there every Friday or Saturday night going to St. Louis and that’s how they traveled in and out of there

They’d come back home the same night or sometimes the next evening about the same time. They were a good means of transportation for people going into the city to shop, go to the shows, whatever they wanted to do in those days. You know, the people that couldn’t afford cars. Then the buses, they used to come through here. We had a bus stop downtown. Seems like there was 5 or 6 buses stopping here every day, take people into the city and different place for the journey if that’s where they were going. Now the buses, I think there’s a limit to one a day. The trains, they don’t even stop anymore. There’s not a train stop in town, I guess unless you jump ooout in the middle of the tracks, you might stop one, but the transportation has definitely moved from public to private. The individual has to find his own way up and down the highway any more now. But of course I guess the economy had a lot to do with that, people being able to afford to buy their own cars. Less and less of these rode buses and trains, so they eventually just stopped the traffic in them altogether.

IVR Mr. Wall, you mentioned the trains taking people to St. Louis. Do you remember when your first trip to St. Louis was, or do you remember how often you got to go or anything, when you were younger?

IVE The very first train trip I can recall making to St. Louis, me and my mom and dad all got on the train down here one Saturday evening as I recall, found a seat by the window and the thing that I remember most about it was the fact that going up to St. Louis was that the railroad train ran right close to the Mississippi River. I don’t know if they are still that close or not, but in my little mind I was afraid that the train might fall off into the river and we’d all drown. I had a big fear of that, it was quite a thrill. The only thing I never did like about train riding was the clacking, clacking, clacking, clacking. That would get on your nerves after a while, but they had places where you could go to get something to eat, and they had bathrooms. It was pretty good travel for those days. There wasn’t the money flow that there is now, or as there has been in the last 20 to 25 years. America has had increased so much that now we can kind shrug off the train and get in our own cars and go where we want to go, but it was in its own way quite a thrill to ride the train . It has its own attraction to it.

IVR Do you think a large city like St. Louis has any influence on Jefferson County?

IVE Definitely so. The attitudes, the atmosphere, the industry, the attractions for entertainment, for money, for business, for jobs, it’s all these It has very strong influence on this area. There’s no doubt about that. I guess in its own way it would be like the city of St. Louis would be a large magnet; it pulls people toward it like most big cities do I guess. Everyone likes to go look at the bright lights. It used to be that when you went to St. Louis you would drive up a the highway and there was a big blank area, and you knew exactly when you were in St. Louis. You would come to the big borderline of houses, you might say from the woods to county, but in the last 10 to 15 years, that line has steadily increased out into the county to where now you can go up the road 5 or 10 miles from here and you’re actually almost in the city. The county is as big an area in population, and as far as looking out with your eye and seeing something, it’s almost like being in the city. So the city has expanded our further and further that even as far down as I am here right now, you might say we’re almost in the city right now, so that the mileage in here between the city and here has decreased to where there’s hardly no definition boundaries for the city any more.

IVR What kind of work did you do when you were younger, Mr. Walls? Is it pretty close to the kind of work that you do today, or have you noticed any significant work changes in the last 15 to 20 years?

IVE It was 7 miles from my home. I could get up 15 or 20 minute before work and brush my teeth and wash my face and I would be at work by the starting time It was a pretty good job, but there was a hazard, a health hazard, you might say, there at this area and that was the reason why I quit that job. I worked there for about a year and a half and then got out of it. And then I went to Chrysler Corporation which was undoubtedly the best job I ever had. I make good money. I work a lot of overtime if I want it. It is close to home. It’s not bad. It’s about 25 miles up the road and we’re in car pools which makes it a lot easier for travelling. Just drive once or twice a week. And I make enough money in a year to keep my house going, my cars and everything paid for, and keep my neck above the water line you might say. It has increased the work opportunities.

Of course unionism has made a big help in this matter. There’s no doubt about it. If there weren’t no unions, we wouldn’t be near in the position we are today because I don’t think the companies would be nearly good- hearted as what they are with the union demands. Also, the cost of living has gone up, but with the money that a person makes, it’s a lot better life style than what it was when I first started.

IVR Were there any large businesses or anything in the particular area that you lived in when you were young , or do you remember or know anything about these businesses, how they were run differently today than they were when you were young?

IVE There were a few what you would call large businesses, I guess. We had the shoe factory which we still have today. There was a lot of people worked at the shoe factory. We have railroad car shop here in town, which probably, when I was younger, which had I would say , oh, in the neighborhood of 1200 men working. They’re down to 300. That industry has slowed down some. Of course, I guess with a lot of automation, there’s a lot less need for the number of people that they had before, but I don’t know too much about big business, but I know even on the little business scale, it used to be you could go to the little corner grocery store and credit was extended to most of the people because there was less people in the area. Everybody knew each other. They had little old books, you could go in there and pick out your grocers’ you wanted, and the would write a list down. Pay day came and you would pay them off. But the big supermarkets in this day, they’ve eliminated the little man in this area. You don’t go in there and buy nothing on credit. It’s all cash and carry. If you haven’t got the cash you just don’t do the carrying. But business attitudes and practices have definitely changed. I don’t know whether you would say it’s for the good or for the worse. In a way, I guess, it’s good and better for everybody, because like I was saying earlier, people make more money you’ve got more cash, you can afford to go into the big grocery store and you can buy things cheaper, I sure than you could in a small grocery on account of volume alone. Business practices have changed quite a bit compared to what they used to be.

IVR Was there any large differences in the farm life and agriculture and things when you were young?

IVE Sure, there was a big difference. Farming, like all other businesses nowadays, is a big business operation. A guy doesn’t have a faithful old Bossey the Cow that he milks every night for his family. They get the cream and milk for their own need at the time. Used to be every little farm had a little pig pen. They’d ha 4 or 5 pigs in there that they would butcher. Every little farm had its own chicken house. They would raise their ow chickens and eggs, had their own setting hens and the frying hens, and every farm had an old mule or horse hanging around for some reason or the other, whatever purpose they needed it for.

But all the little farms, seems like the majority of them are gone. Big business has taken over. These big industries have got into them and it’s all done automatic. The cattle are brought into big large Grade –A spotlessly clean barn. Their heads are put in stanchions automatically when they go up to eat. The food is dropped down from the top of the barn in pellets by machine The push a lever and the hay falls down. The cow starts eating, I don’t know, it just seems like they’ve gotten away from the old hand-to-hand contact. The milking is done by machine. The old mule they used to have on the farm, I can remember, they used to have to go out and feed them and take a pitchfork every so often and kind of clean the bottom of the stall out where he’d be standing around in there.

The old cow, it used to be fun for the kids to go out and watch grandpa put the bucket under there and get that thing full of milk. There always seems to be an old cat around. Where that old cat learned that trick where they would stand under there and holler meow and grandpa would aim one of those dumaflotchets at it and squirt milk and the old cat would drink that milk up. It seems like the home atmosphere or the natural atmosphere of the farm is gone. It’s all big business now. Big fancy tractors, big trucks, it’s all commercialized, no contact any more.

IVR: Mr. Wall, what kind of schools do you think we have in the county today?

WALL There’s no doubt about it . The school system from the time when I went to school and the school system now compared to each other are greatly different. My little girl (granddaughter) is in kindergarten and she is already learning things that it seems like it took me to the third grade before I even got into them. The education that the teachers bring to the students is just a whole lot greater. The selection, the choices, the things that they teach them at an earlier age, they’re absorbing a lot more knowledge at an earlier age than I am sure that I did when I was in school.

I’m positive that the quality of the education is a whole lot better and of course it has to be. The world is a lot more technical. There’s just that much more for a kid to learn. They’ve got toget started earlier I guess.

As far as the High Schools I don’t know too much about the high schools. I can’t judge them too well, but I’m sure that they’re of the same caliber, but Jefferson College over here where I go in the evenings is one of the better schools I guess in the whole area. I don’t know of any other as far as the St. Louis Junior Colleges I could compare it with and it actually outshines them in anyway. The activities are really abundant. There’s a lot of things that a person can do over there and learn from mechanics to just about every field you would want to go into. All types of businesses and things like that they can greatly help help a person in the future, and in the present as far as that goes, and it’s good to get back in school and stay there really. It helps a lot. Back when I was young and in De Soto School system here, we had a little small Lutheran School. The school that I went to was a Catholic School (St. Rose of Lima) the first eight grades. It was pretty well run, both of them, I would say. But as time progresses, these smaller parochial schools have gotten phased out. The public school system has expanded and expanded and probably tripled and everything else, but the little schools, even the old country schools out at the edge of town, they’re beu=ing phased out. The kids are bussed into these areas now, brought into the better schools, so I think everyone is getting a whole lot better education than what they did even when I was younger.

Getting back to the Junior College at Hillsboro, getting back into your special activities, there’s archery, there’s golf, there’s shooting classes. I took that this summer and there were a lot of the girls came in and I think they really enjoyed that class. It was something that everybody gets an enjoyment out of. They learned a lot of skills in that area. Some of them, when they first got there, couldn’t even hit the piece of paper that they was shooting at, and when they left they were knocking the bull’s eye out, so I’m sure that they really enjoyed that course.

We had a speech class that I really enjoyed. It was “Interpersonal Communication, which I think that everyone who goes to school should have. It’s a very well suited course that everyone can learn something from and we had an awful good teacher in it. Wes Robertson was his name.

IRV What do you think about the churches in your particular area? Do you believe they are important in the community, or do you believe all these churches conflict with each other in matters of religion? How do you feel on it?

IVE We have a number of different denominations in De Soto. Everyone has a purpose. Everybody believes in the same God I’m sure. But everyone has his right to believe how he wants to believe in it. That’s why there is a number of different churches. Their activities, I’m sure they do no harm. There activities are very important, keeps a lot of people walking a little straighter. Some of their activities that I can think of right off, is giving baskets to the needy. If a family gets down and out, where some fathers get hurt or get sick, they will pay some of the bills to keep this family from going under.

The preachers, and the priests, and the Reverends and all those, they visit the sick and the elderly. I see them around quite a bit They have different parties, and bake sales and things like that. The money is all used for a good purpose I’m sure, sent to different organizations to help people. The whole church atmosphere is one of helping and trying to keep people walking straight, I guess you might say.

IRV Do you believe that there is any conflict among the religious in the area in which you live?

IVE Well, conflict, I don’t know whether you would call it conflict or not. Maybe a few radicals in each system might have a few harsh words here and there in a tavern some night or something, but I think they all pretty well basically go drink a few once in a while. If there’s any conflict in it at all, it wouldn’t be in a good farm because I think what they do they compete against each other in traying to outdo each other and a the same time while they’re doing this, they’d actually accumulating more moneys or making a better show or whatever the cause may be, so that they’re actually helping people by this competition. I don’t think it’s a drastic measure where actually people get to hate each other because they belong to a different religion. It’s just that each person thinks that his is right or maybe better or closer to the true form, but again, like we said, earlier, everybody has a right to his own opinions and his own religion. That’s a guarantee in our Constitution’s Bill of Rights.

The only drawback or the only complaint that I have concerning all the religions I guess, would be a minor one. It seems like that they are involved and so obsessed with money, it seems to be the main objective anymore, it’s commercialized like everything else. They stick that basket under your nose four times a morning and their objective for a family is to give 10% of your wages which is kind of hard to do at times. Most of the times I’d say. It’s like everything else , they have so many projects going that they kind of dry your wallet out if you tried to keep them all going with them.

IVR What forms of social life were carried on in your younger years? Dating and things like that . Was there much of it, or did you just find you a girl and get married?

IVE The big social parts of f growing up when I was young, was having a bicycle and going out to the creek and going swimming, having a big day at the creek. There wasn’t a whole lot to do, fish, swim, do a little hunting , if you could afford a gun and bullets in those days. A big Saturday night and Sunday would be to go to a show. You might have seen it two or three times already, but that didn’t matter. That’s where everybody was at.

As age progressed I guess the social needs of youth changed with it. Of course, I joined the service and went in there and had quite a social life there, guess you’d say. Went to quite a few different place in the world. Saw a lot of the western hemisphere. As you’d come out during the school days and things like that if you had a car, you could go courting. If you didn’t you could get a buddy with a car and go double dating with him---different things like this. You’d go to the show, the drive-in, go to the big city, eat out, whatever yoou wanted to do. I guess it was as entertaining as a lot of areas. There ws plenty to do. You could find plenty to do. Sneak off in the park somewhat, do a little drinking, smooching, things like that. The hot area, you might say, was the dance hall over at Herculaneum called the Artesian. As you got a little older, you’d kind of spruce up, put on a little after shave, shave 4 or 5 whiskers, do a little dancing, drinking, whatever you have, go to the pizza house afterwards and have a pizza

IVR I imagine when you were young you had quite a large family. How were the holidays and certain celebrations carried out? Did all of the large family member seem to get together, and things like that?

IVE The holidays in our family when I was young, haven’t really changed a bit now. We practiced them pretty much the same way. Although a lot of the old folks are gone we still all get together, everybody that can, and we make sure we can. We have a big meal, sit around and play cards, drink a few highballs or a little beer, whatever you like, but it was all a home atmosphere at the tie, and we still try to keep it the same way. All the kids, of course, was given a little special treatment as usual, kind of spoil them, of course everybody does. Everybody got around and talked listened to the radio, whatever they liked to do. We played games and we still pretty much do the same today. We try to keep the same atmosphere going for the kids of this generation, so that maybe they can carry it on. It’s a lot more enjoyable this way.

IVR What was the land in this part of the county used for when you were young Mr. Wall?

IVE Well, most of the land, you might say was vacant. It was just a lot of trees and brush, but the land that was cleared; the majority of it was small farms. Individual homesteads, that people had built them a log cabin on, cleared it off with the old mule, cut the stumps out, took the brush out, took the old mule out there and plowed it up, and raised enough corn and wheat. If they had a combine, different crops.

I remember all kinds of different things growing. At the same time they would make their money off of the larger crops. They would all have a big garden. The women would get out and work the gardens, and they’d do the canning. Tomatoes, corn, everything that grows typical to a garden. And it was all for home use, to keep this small homestead, the families themselves, fed through the winter.

Most of the land though, was really just heavy timber and just wild country. There was a lot of game, rabbits and squirrels and things like that. Turkeys weren’t as plentiful then as they are now, but as times progressed the logging companies got in here and took the bigger trees for logs, and the farmer himself cut down a lot of cedar trees when there wasn’t nothing going on, and sell these to have the spending money that they needed for necessities of life. But the land is slowly and steadily, this wild land anyway, this timber land . became cleared up.

People move in from different areas and have a bulldozer come in there and wipe down three or four acres of trees, and build a nice, fancy brick home on it. Just the whole atmosphere of the land has changed completely. You might say that it has went from a frontier type of area where the old people lived in the last 20 to 25 years to where it’s a lot of cattle grazing land, what land has been cleared off by some of these people who have the better jobs and are allowed to get in there and clear this land off. They’ll plant permanent pasture. They raise beef cattle. They’ll have a few horses, here and there. Some sheep, I imagine in different spots. But it is a time, you might say, become commercialized, like everything else. It has gone from the old substance to where the family had to have it to survive, to the point to where the man is sitting there with cattle running all over it and making money off of it. It’s changed from frontier to I guess you might say economic .

IVR You mentioned hunting earlier. Did you do quite a bit of hunting when you were younger?

IVE Yes, as far as hunting went, I would have to say that I couldn’t give a definite answer. Yes, it was better at that time than it is now, because it has conditions to it. My answer would have to be twofold. Yes, rabbit hunting was better definitely in those times than it is now, because it has conditions to it. My answer would have to be twofold. Yes, rabbit hunting was better in those days because they had a lot of natural habitat for rabbit hunting itself. There was a lot more spots that the rabbits cold hang around, a little more coverage for him in those days, more woods, more brush. When the farmer cleared the fields and stuff, he’s make big brush piles, natural spots for rabbits to hide in. Of course, I guess the rabbits would sneak upon that same farmer that night and eat out of his gardens, but rabbit hunting was definitely better. I’d say squirrel hunting might have been some better than it is now, but there’s still some awful good squirrel hunting in this part of the state.

But now, we’ve come to a different phase of the hunting. In those days, if you saw one turkey in ten years you would be lucky, because there just weren’t that many of them. Turkey hunting, the fowl itself, has progressed steadily , probably to where Missouri is one of the best known turkey states in all of the Unitec States. Our Conservation Department, our game wardens, have increased in number and they have done a lot better job in patrolling. I’m sure that they catch a lot more of these poachers and different types of people that violate the game laws. They’re lot nicer people than would y’ou
re really expect them to be. They’re polite, they’re courteous, they’ll help you any time they can and they’ll nail you if you are wrong! But that’s the way it should bel. Deer hunting for the last 15 to 20 years ago was not as great as it is now. Of course, this last year Missouri has had the biggest kill that they have ever had. They send out about 250,000 hunters in the deer season and I think they kill over 50,000 this year, so I'm sure that the increase over what it used to be is tenfold at least. It’s a lot better deer hunting than what it ever was. And quail, it has its ups and downs. There’s a lot of quail hunters. There’s a lot of people out every weekend shooting quail. Lots of these hunters get out and have a good time. But hunting has increased on the whole greatly in this state in the last 20-30 years, and is mainly due to our Conservation Department, I’m sure.

IVR Mr. Wall, do you believe that there are still any people in say the remote parts of Jefferson County, or anywhere that you might know, that live off the land?

IVE Oh sure. In the last few years just in running down all backwoods lakes and things, and hunting off the roads, you know, deer hunting, getting out, get away from the city here, get down below Potosi, or even in between here and Potosi, there’s still quite a few people who subside in the old way, provide themselves with small tractors, they farm their land. They live basically the same old style. You’ve got that in every state, I’m sure, people who won’ go to the new. They like the old, and who knows, it may still be the best system. Men may have to go back to that eventually again anyway. But you can get down below Potosi and get out and run into quite a few of these old homes, farm places, pull in the driveway and a lot of times the people will just sit there and chat with you all day. They enjoy the company.

IVR Mr. Wall, you mentioned poachers and people living off the land and our wilderness management program. Now these old people that may still live off the land, surely they have to do hunting out of season and bag more game than game regulations call for. Do you believe that this will upset or hinder the wildlife program in any way? What are your views on that?

IVE You’re going to have a certain number of people who, due to the financial situation that they are in, are going to poach, kill things out of season to eat. But, at the same time, it’s probably necessary if a man’s family is hungry and there’s enough game in the state and the area he’s in, he’ goes out and shoots something out of season to keep his family from going hungry. Morally, he’s right I’m sure in the eyes of most people, but again he runs into a conflict with the game warden who is hired by the state. He knows the law and he only has one system that he can follow and that is the law is made for everybody.

I’m sure that the game warden probably realizes a lot of times when he catches some of these particular persons that morally, the man is right in doing what he does, but the game warden has to uphold the law that the state has provided for him to follow...people themselves have made. I’m sure that it probably rubs him the wrong way, a lot of times, to take one of these people into the courts, have him prosecuted, but in these kind of situations I think that the judge if he’s got time, the people have got time to check this type of person out, that they maybe just give him a slight reprimand and send him on back home. It’s basically not right because the laws are made for everybody really to follow. But again when a man’s family is hungry, he’ll do things a man normally wouldn’t do.

IRV. Well, Mr. Wall, I’d like to thank you for your time on this interview. You’ve been very helpful.

CONCLUSION OF INTERVIEW