This statement of these reflections brings us to the point of suggesting the broader historical significance of Mr. Bracklin’s article in the present number of the WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY. One of the prolific factors making for the waste of our lumbering resources was fire. In the words of a recent writer this was “the dread scourge of the lumber industry.” The sawmills and sawmill towns, flimsily constructed of inflammable pine, were periodically swept by the flames. Although the mills and mill towns were commonly rebuilt with characteristic American vigor, the forest fires were the source of appalling loss to the state. Yet the public mind was for many years indifferent to these losses, and the fires were commonly left to burn themselves out, with no human effort to impede or check the course of the flames. In 1864 one of the greatest conflagrations which had ever visited the state swept for weeks through the northern pinery regions, yet so indifferent were the people of southern Wisconsin to the matter that it received scarcely any notice in the newspapers of this section. Our numerous forest fires, then, have possessed not only thrilling human interest but vast economic significance. Mr. Bracklin’s narrative describes a single personal experience with one small forest fire. What he experienced and here describes, however, applies with suitable variation of details to hundreds of similar events in Wisconsin. In this fact consists its broader significance. CONSOLATION FOR THE PRESENT CRISIS It seems evident, from the sources of information at our command, that the Imperial German Government counted largely on its ability to neutralize the national will of America by fostering among Americans of German descent a spirit of disloyalty to their country. That the citizens of the Badger State in particular could thus be cajoled into playing a traitor’s rôle was not only believed in Germany, but widely feared in our own country as well. That our citizens of German descent should be enthusiastic about going into the war was not reasonably to have been expected; that, faced with a hard duty, they should prefer to play the rôle of traitor is quite another matter. We do not believe, and from the beginning have not feared, that any considerable number will make such a choice.