Page 285 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

HOW TO MAKE A NEW GAME LAW 263
are sympathetic and responsive good-citizens, as keenly sensitive re- garding their duties as any of the rest of us are, and from the earliest times of protection they have been on the firing line, helping to beat backthedestroyers. Itisindeedararesighttoseeaneditorgivingaid, comfort or advice to the enemy. I can not recall more than a score of articles that I have seen or heard of during thirty years in this field that opposed the cause of wild life protection.* At this moment, for instance, I bear in particularly grateful remembrance the active cam- paign work of the following newspapers:
The New York Times
The New York Tribune
The New York Herald
The New York Globe
The New York Mail and Expiess The New York World
The New York Sun
The Springfield (Mas;^.) Republican The Chicaeo Inter-Ocean
The vSan Francisco Call
The Rochester Union and Advertiser
The Victo'ia Colonist
The Brooklyn Standa id-Union The New Yo-k Evening Posr The New York Press
The Buffalo News
The Minneapolis Journal
The Pittsburgh Index-Appeal The St. Louis Globe-Democrat The Philadel])hia North Amencju The Utica Observer
The Washington Star.
These magazines have done good service in the, cause; and some of them have spent many years on the firing line:
Forest and Stream
The American Field Field and Stream Recreation (old and new; Rod and Gun in Canada In the Open
Sports Afield Western Field Outdoor Life Shield's Magazine Sportsman's Review Outing
Collier's Weekly The Independent Country Life Outdoor World Bird Lore
In cainpaigning, always appeal for the help of the newspapers. If there are no private axes to grind, they help generously. The weekly journals are of value, but the monthlies are printed so long in advance of their dates of issue that they seldom move fast enough to keep abreast oftheprocession. Theirmechanicallimitationsaremanyandserious.
Every newspaper likes "exclusive" news, letters and articles. On that basis they will print about all the live matter that you can furnish. But at the same time, the important news of the campaign must be sent to the press broadcast, in the form of printed slips all ready for the fore- man. Many of these are never used, but the others are; and it pays. The news in every slip must be vouched for by the sender, or it will not be used. Often it will appear as a letter signed by the sender; which is all right, only the news is most effective when printed without a signature. Do not count on the Associated Press; because its peculiar demands render it almost impossible for it to be utilized in game protection work.
How TO Meet Opposition.—There is no rule for the handling of oppositionthatisfairandopen. Foroppositionthatisunfairandunder-
* Just one hour after the above paragraph was written, a long telegram from San Francisco advised me that the Examiner of that city had begun an active and aggressive campaign for the sale of all kinds of game.