Page 229 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

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SAVAGE VIEW-POINT OF THE GUNNER 207
transport the fruits of the slaughter. At the hands of the ignorant, the unscrupulous and the unsparing, our game has steadily disappeared until it is almost gone. We have handled it in a wholly greedy, unscrupulous and selfish fashion. This has been our policy as a nation. If there is to be success for any plan to remedy this, it must come from a few large-minded men, able to think and plan, and able to do more than that— to follow their plans with deeds.
I have seen the whole story of modern American sportsmanship, so called. It has been class legislation and organized selfishness—that is what it has been, and notning else. I do not blame country legislators, game dealers, farmers, for calling the srorts- men of America selfish and thoughtless. I do not blame them for saying that the
so-called protective measures advanced by sportsmen have been selfish measures, and looking to destruction rather than to protection. At least that has been their actual result. I have no more reverence for a sportsman than for anyone else, and no reverence forhimatallbecauseheisorcallshimselfasportsman. Hehasgottobeaman. He
has got to be a citizen.
I have seen millions of acres of breeding and feeding grounds pass under the drain
and under the plow in my own time, so that the passing whispc" of the wild fowl's wing has been forgotten there now for many years. I have seen a half dozen species of fine game birds become extinct in my own time and lost forever to the American people.
And j^ou and I have seen one protective society after another, languidly organised, paying in a languid dollar or so per capita each yea^, and so swiftly passing, also to be forgotten. We have seen one code and the other of conflicting and wholly selfish game laws passed, and seen them mocked at and forgotten, seen them all fail, as we all know.
We have seen even the nation's power—under that Ark of the Covenant known as the Interstate Commerce Act—fail to stop wholly the lessening of our wild game, so rapidly disappearing for so many reasons.
We have seen both selfish and unselfish sportsmen's journals attempt to solve this problem and fail to do so. Some of them were great and broad-minded journals. Their record has not been one of disgrace, although it has been one of defeat; for some ofthemreallydesiredsuccessmorethantheydesireddividends. These,allofthem, bore their share of a great experiment, an experiment in a new land, under a new theory of government, a theoi-y which says a man should be able to restrain himself, and to governhimself. Onlybyfollowingtheirtheorythroughtotheendofthatexperiment could they know that it was to fail in one of its most vitally interesting and vitally important phases.
But now, as we know, all of these agencies, selfish or unselfish, have failed to effect thesalvationofAmericanwildgame. Notbyanyscheme,device,ortheory,notby any panacea can the old days of America be brought back to us.
Mr. Hough's views are entitled to respectful consideration; but on one vital point I do not follow him.
I believe most sincerely—in fact, / know,—that it is possible to make a few new laws which, in addition to the many, many good protective laws we already have, will bring back the game, just as fast and as far as man's settlements, towns, railroads, mines and schemes in general ever can permit it to come back.
If the American People as a whole elect that our wild life shall be saved, and to a reasonable extent brought back, then by the Eternal it will be saved and brought back! The road lies straight before us, and the going is easy if the Mass makes up its mind to act. But on one vital point Mr. Hough is right. The sportsman alone never will save the game! The people who do not kill must act, independently.