Our Vanishing Wild Life Part 43

No one can "educate" such people. For the gunners, game-hogs and pot-hunters, there is no check, save specific laws that sternly and amply safeguard the rights of the wild creatures that can not make laws for themselves.

Nor can anyone educate the heartless woman of fas.h.i.+on who is determined to wear aigrettes as long as her money can buy them. The best women of the world have _already been educated_ on the bird-millinery subject, and they are already against the use of the gaudy badges of slaughter and extermination. But in the great cities of the world there are thousands of women who are at heart as cruel as Salome herself, and whose vicious tastes can be curbed only by the strong hand of the law.

"Sentiment" for wild birds is not in them.

Because of the vicious and heartless elements among men and women, we say, Give us _far-reaching, iron-bound_ LAWS for the protection of wild life, _and plenty of courageous men to enforce them_.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE ARMY OF THE DEFENSE

It now seems that the friends of wild life who themselves are not on the firing-line should be afforded some definite information regarding the Army of the Defense, and its strength and weakness. It is an interesting subject, but the limitations of s.p.a.ce will not permit an extended treatment.

Over the world at large, I think the active Destroyers outnumber the active Defenders of wild life at least in the ratio of 500 to 1; and the money available to the Destroyers is to the funds of the Defenders as 500 is to 1. The _average_ big-game sportsman cheerfully expends from $500 to $1,000 on a hunting trip, but resents the suggestion that he should subscribe from $50 to $100 for wild life preservation. If he puts down $10, he thinks he has done a Big Thing. Worse than this, I am forced to believe that at least 75 per cent of the big-game sportsmen of the world never have contributed one dollar in money, or one hour of effort, to that cause. But there are exceptions; and I can name at least fifty sportsmen who have subscribed $100 each to campaign funds, and some who have given as high as $1,000.

Once I sat down beside a financially rich slaughterer of game, and asked him to subscribe a sum of real money in behalf of a very important campaign. I needed funds very much; and I explained, exhorted and besought. I pointed out his duty--_to give back something_ in return for all the game slaughter that he had _enjoyed_. For ten long minutes he stood fire without flinching, and without once opening his lips to speak. He made no answer no argument, no defense and finally he never gave up one cent.

Wherever the English language is spoken, from Tasmania to Scotland, and from Porto Rico to the Philippines, the spirit of wild life protection exists. Elsewhere there is much more to be said on this point. To all cosmopolitan sportsmen, the British "Blue Book" on game protection, the annual reports of the two great protective societies of London, and the annual "Progress" report of the U.S. Department of Agriculture are rea.s.suring and comforting. It is good to know that Uganda maintains a Department of Game Protection (A.L. Butler, Superintendent), that so good a man as Maj. J. Stevenson-Hamilton is in control of protection in the Transvaal, and that even the native State of Kashmir officially recognizes the need to protect the Remnant.

There are of course many parts of the world in which game laws and limits to slaughter are quite unknown: all of which is entirely wrong, and in need of quick correction. No state or nation can be accounted wholly civilized that fails to recognize the necessity to protect wild life. I am tempted to make a list of the states and nations that were at latest advices dest.i.tute of game laws and game protectors, but I fear to do injustice through lack of the latest information. However, the time has come to search out delinquents, and hold up to each one a mirror that will reflect its shortcomings.

Naturally, we are most interested in our own contingent of the Army of the Defense.

THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT.--To-day the feeling in Congress, toward the conservation of wild life and forests is admirable. Both houses are fully awake to the necessity of saving while there is yet something to be saved. The people of the United States may be a.s.sured that the national government is active and sympathetic in the prosecution of such conservation measures as it might justly be expected to promote. For example, during the past five years we have seen Congress take favorable action on the following important causes, nearly every one of which cost money:

The saving of the American bison, in four National ranges.

The creation of fifty-eight bird refuges.

The creation of five great game preserves.

The saving of the elk in Jackson Hole.

The protection of the fur seal.

The protection of the wild life of Alaska.

There are many active friends of wild life who confidently expect to see this fine list gloriously rounded out by the pa.s.sage in 1913 of an ideal bill for the federal protection of all migratory birds. To name the friends of wild life in Congress would require the printing of a list of at least two hundred names, and a history of the rise and progress of wild life conservation by the national government would fill a volume.

Such a volume would be highly desirable.

When the story of the national government's part in wild-life protection is finally written, it will be found that while he was president, THEODORE ROOSEVELT made a record in that field that is indeed enough to make a reign ill.u.s.trious. He aided every wild-life cause that lay within the bounds of possibility, and he gave the vanis.h.i.+ng birds and mammals the benefit of every doubt. He helped to establish three national bison herds, four national game preserves, fifty-three federal bird refuges, and to enact the Alaska game laws of 1902 and 1907.

It was in 1904 that the national government elected to accept its share of the white man's burden and enter actively into the practical business of wild life protection. This special work, originally undertaken and down to the present vigorously carried on by Dr. Theodore S. Palmer, has considerably changed the working policy of the Biological Survey of the Department of Agriculture, and greatly influenced game protection throughout the states. The game protection work of that bureau is alone worth to the people of this country at least twenty times more per annum than the entire annual cost of the Bureau. Next to the splendid services of Dr. Palmer, all over the United States, one great value of the Bureau is found in the fact-and-figure ammunition that it prepares and distributes for general use in a.s.saults on the citadels of Ignorance and Greed. The publications of the Bureau are of great practical value to the people of the United States.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NOTABLE PROTECTORS OF WILD LIFE (1) MADISON GRANT Secretary and Chairman Executive Committee, New York Zoological Society

HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN President, New York Zoological Society

JOHN F. LACEY Ex-Member of Congress; Author of the "Lacey Bird Law"

WILLIAM DUTCHER Founder and President, National a.s.sociation of Audubon Societies]

Dr. Palmer is a man of incalculable value to the cause of protection.

No call for advice is too small to receive his immediate attention, no fight is too hot and no danger-point too remote to keep him from the fray. Wherever the Army of Destruction is making a particularly dangerous fight to repeal good laws and turn back the wheels of progress, there will he be found. As the warfare grows more intense, Congress may find it necessary to enlarge the fighting force of the Biological Survey.

The work that has been done by the Bureau in determining the economic value or lack of value of our most important species of insectivorous birds, has been worth millions to the agricultural interests of the United States. Through it we know where we stand. The reasons why we need to strive for protection can be expressed in figures and percentages; and it seems to me that they leave the American people no option but to _protect_!

STATE GAME COMMISSIONS.--Each of our states, and each province of Canada, maintains either a State Game Commission of several persons, one Commissioner, or a State Game Warden. All such officers are officially charged with the duty of looking after the general welfare of the game and other wild life of their respective states. Theoretically one of the chief duties of a State Game Commission is to initiate new legislative bills that are necessary, and advocate their translation into law. The official standing of most game commissioners is such that they can successfully do this. In 1909 Governor Hughes of New York went so far as to let it be known that he would sign no new game bill that did not meet the approval of State Game Commissioner James S. Whipple. As a general working principle, and quite aside from Mr. Whipple, that was wrong; because even a State game commissioner is not necessarily infallible, or always on the right side of every wild-life question.

As a rule, state commissioners and state wardens are keenly alive to the needs of their states in new game protective legislation, and a large percentage of the best existing laws are due to their initiative. Often, however, their usefulness is limited by the trammels of public office, and there are times when such officers can not be too aggressive without the risk of arousing hostile influences, and handicapping their own departmental work. For this reason, it is often advisable that bills which propose great and drastic reforms, and which are likely to become storm-centers, should originate outside the Commissioner's office, and be pushed by men who are perfectly free to abide the fortunes of open warfare. It should be distinctly understood, however, that lobbying in behalf of wild-life measures is _an important part of the legitimate duty of every state game commissioner_, and is a most honorable calling.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NOTABLE PROTECTORS OF WILD LIFE (II) EDWARD HOWE FORBUSH Ma.s.sachusetts State Ornithologist

T. GILBERT PEARSON Secretary, National a.s.sociation of Audubon Societies

JOHN B. BURNHAM President, American Game Protective and Propagation a.s.sociation

ERNEST NAPIER President, Fish and Game Commission of New Jersey]

Of the many strong and aggressive state game commissions that I would like to mention in detail, s.p.a.ce permits the naming of only a very few, by way of ill.u.s.tration.

NEW YORK.--Thanks to the great conservation Governor of this state, John A. Dix, the year 1911 saw our forest, fish and game business established on an ideal business basis. Realizing the folly of requiring a single man to manage those three great interests, and render to each the attention that it deserves and requires, by a well-studied legislative act a State Conservation Commission was created, consisting of three commissioners, one for each of the three great natural departments.

These are salaried officers, who devote their entire time to their work, and are properly equipped with a.s.sistants. The state force of game wardens now consists of 125 picked men, each on a salary of $900 per year, and through a rigid system of daily reports (inaugurated by John B. Burnham) the activities and results of each warden promptly become known in detail at headquarters.

Fortunately, New York contains a very large number of true sportsmen, who are ever ready to come forward in support of every great measure for wild-life protection. The spirit of real protection runs throughout the state, and in time I predict that it will result in a great recovery of the native game of the commonwealth. That will be after we have stopped all shooting of upland game birds and sh.o.r.e birds for about eight years.

Even the pinnated grouse could be successfully introduced over one-third of the state, if the people would have it so. It was our great body of conscientious sportsmen who made possible the Bayne-Blauvelt law, and the new codification of the game laws of the state.

TENNESSEE.--Clearly, Honorable Mention belongs to the unsalaried State Commissioner of Tennessee, Col. J.H. Acklen, "than whom," says Dr.

Palmer, "there is no more active and enthusiastic game protectionist in this country. Whatever has been accomplished in that state is due to his activity and public spirit. Col. Acklen, who is now president of the National a.s.sociation of Game Commissioners, is a prominent lawyer, and enjoys the distinction of being the only commissioner in the country who not only serves without pay, but also defrays a large part of the expenses of game protection out of his own pocket."

Surely the Commonwealth of Tennessee will not long permit this unsupported condition of such a game commissioner to endure. That state has a wild fauna worth preserving for her sons and grandsons, and it is inconceivable that the funds vitally necessary to this public service can not be found.

ALABAMA.--I cite the case of Alabama because, in view of its position in a group of states that until recently have cared little about game protection, it may be regarded as an unusual case. Commissioner John H.

Wallace, Jr., has evolved order out of chaos,--and something approaching a reign of law out of the absence of law. To-day the State of Alabama stands as an example of what can be accomplished by and through one clear-headed, determined man who is right, and knows that he is right.

NEW JERSEY.--Alabama reminds one of New Jersey, and of State Game Commissioner Ernest Napier. I have seen him on the firing-line, and I know that his strong devotion to the interests of the wild life of his state, his determination to protect it at all costs, and his resistless confidence in asking for what is right, have made him a power for good.

The state legislature believes in him, and enacts the laws that he says are right and necessary. He serves without salary, and gives to the state time, labor and money. It is a pleasure to work with such a man.

In 1912 Commissioner Napier won a pitched battle with the makers of automatic and pump guns, both shotguns and rifles, and debarred all those weapons from use _in hunting_ in New Jersey unless satisfactorily reduced to two shots.

Ma.s.sACHUSETTS.--The state of Ma.s.sachusetts is fortunate in the possession of a very fine corps of ornithologists, nature lovers, sportsmen and leading citizens who on all questions affecting wild life occupy high ground and are not afraid to maintain it. It would be a pleasure to write an entire chapter on this subject. The record of the Ma.s.sachusetts Army of the Defense is both an example and an inspiration to the people of other states. Not only is the cause of protection championed by the State Game Commission but it also receives constant and powerful support from the State Board of Agriculture, which maintains on its staff Mr. E.H. Forbush as State Ornithologist. The bird-protection publications of the Board are of great economic value, and they are also an everlasting credit to the state. The very latest is a truly great wild-life-protection volume of 607 pages, by Mr. Forbush, ent.i.tled "_Game Birds, Wild-Fowl and Sh.o.r.e Birds_." It is a publication most damaging to the cause of the Army of Destruction, and I heartily wish a million copies might be printed and placed in the hands of lawmakers and protectors.

The fight last winter and spring for a no-sale-of-game law was the Gettysburg for Ma.s.sachusetts. The voice of the People was heard in no uncertain tones, and the Destroyers were routed all along the line. The leaders in that struggle on the protection side were E.H. Forbush, William P. Wharton, Dr. George W. Field, Edward N. G.o.ding, Lyman E.

Hurd, Ralph Holman, Rev. Wm. R. Lord and Salem D. Charles. With such leaders and such supporters, any wild-life cause can be won, anywhere!

PENNSYLVANIA.--The case of Pennsylvania is rather peculiar. As yet there is no large and resistless organized body of real sportsmen to rally to the support of the State Game Commission in great causes, as is the case in New York. As a result, with a paltry fund of only $20,000 for annual maintenance, and much opposition from hunters and farmers, the situation is far from satisfactory. Fortunately Dr. Joseph Kalbfus, Secretary of the Commission and chief executive officer, is a man of indomitable courage and determination. But for this state of mind he would ere this have given up the fight for the hunter's license law (of one dollar per year), which has been bitterly opposed by a very aggressive and noisy group of gunners who do not seem to know that they are grievously misled.

Fortunately, Commissioner John M. Phillips, of Pittsburgh is the ardent supporter of Dr. Kalbfus and a vigorous fighter for justice to wild life. He devotes to the cause a great amount of time and effort, and in addition to serving without salary he pays all his campaign expenses out of his own pocket. His only recompense for all this is the sincere admiration of his friends, and the consciousness of having done his full duty toward the wild life and the people of his native state.