Page 135 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

BIRD-SLAUGHTER IN THE SOUTH 113
of the half-grown boys, and the halfbreed bird dogs are busier than they were even in winter. Theyoungrabbitsarekilledbeforetheygetoutofthenest,andthequail eggs must be hidden rarely well that escape both the eyes of the boys and the noses of the dogs. After all it is not surprising that but three bevies remained of the sixty. Doubtless they would not, except that nature is very kind to her own in the sunny South.
Not every white man in the South is a sportsman or even a shooter; many are purely business men who have said let the "nigger" do as he likes so long as he raises cottonandbuysourgoods. ButDixiehasherfullshareoftruemenoftheout-of-doors and they have sworn in downright Southern fashion that this thing has got to end. Nevertheless their problem is deep and puzzling. In Alabama they made an effort andabeginning. Theyaskedforalawrequiringeverymantoobtainwrittenpermission before entering the lands of another to hunt and shoot ; they asked for a resident license law taxing every gun not less than five dollars a year; for a shortened season, a bag limit, and a complete system of State wardens. Unfortunately, a lot of white farmers were in the same range as the blacks, and being hit, too, they raised a great out- cry. The result was that the Alabama sportsmen got everything they asked for ex- cept the foundation of the structure they were trying to build, the high resident license or gun tax which alone could have shut out three dollar guns and saved the remnant ofthegame. Underthenewlawthesaleofgamewasforl:)idden,neithercoulditbe shipped out of the State alive or dead ; the ever popular non-resident license was pro- vided for; the season was shortened and the bag limited ; the office of State game warden was created with deputies to be paid from fines; hunting upon the lands of another without written permission became a misdemeanor; and then the whole thing was nullified by reducing the resident license to nothing where a man shot upon his own land, one dollar in his own county, and two dollars outside of it. In its practical workings the new law amounts to this: A few northern gunners have paid the non- resident license fee, and enough resident licenses have been taken out by the city sportsmentomakeupthehandsomesalaryoftheStatewarden. Thenegrostillhunts upon his own land or upon the land of the man who wants corn and cotton raised, "with perfect indifference to the whole thing. Who was to enforce the law against him? Not the one disgusted deputy with three big counties to patrol who depended for his salary uponthefinescollectedfromthenegroes. Itwouldtakeonemantoeverythreemiles square to protect the game in the South.
The one effective way of dealing with the situation in Alabama was to have legis- lated three dollar guns out of existence with a five dollar tax, adding to this nearly a likeamountondogs. HardlyasportsmanintheSouthwilldisagreewiththiscon- clusion. ButsportsmenneverhadamajorityvoteeitherintheSouthor'ntheNorth, and the vSouth's grave problem is yet unsolved.
I do not favor depriving the black man of his natural human right to hunt and shoot. Ifheistheownerofland,orifheleasesorrentsit,orifhedoesnot,heshould haveexactlythesameprivilegeofhuntingthatthewhitemanhas. Thatisnotthe question now, however, but how to restrict him to legal shooting, to make him amen- able to the law that governs the white man, to deprive him of the absolute license he now enjoys to kill throughout the year without mercy, without discrimination, without restraint. Ifonlyforselfishreasons,weoftheNorthshouldreachtosouthernsports- men a helping hand, for by and by the last of our migratory song birds will go down into Dixie and never return.
Mr. Askins has fairly stated a profoundly disturbing case. The remedy must contain at least three ingredients. The sportsmen of the South must stop the unjustifiable slaughter of their non-migratory game birds. As a matter of comity between states, the gentlemen of the South must pass laws to stop the killing of northern song-birds and all crop- protecting birds, for food. Finally, all men, North and South, East and West, must unite in the work that is necessary to secure the immediate enactment by Congress of a law for the federal protection of all migra- tory birds.