Page 416 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

394 OUR VANISHING WILD LIFE '
world. NewYorkespeciallycontainsagreatnumberofmenwhoyearin and year out work hard for money—in order to give it away ! The depth and breadth of the philanthropic spirit in New York City is to me the most surprising of all the strange impulses that sway the inhabitants of thatseethingmassofmixedhumanity. Everyimaginablecauseforthe benefit of mankind,—save one,—has received, and still is receiving, millions of gift dollars.
Some enterprises for the transcendant education of the people are at this moment hopelessly wallowing in the excess of wealth that has been thrustuponthem. Menarebeinghiredathighsalariestohelpspend wealthinhigh,higher,highesteducationandresearch. Itisnowfashion- able to bequeath millions to certain causes that do not need them in the least! In education there is a mad scramble to educate every young man to the topmost notch, often far above his probable station in life, and into tastes and wants far beyond his powers to maintain.
In all this, however, there would be no cause for regret if the wild life of our continent were not in such a grievous state. If we felt no con- science burden for those who come after us, we would not care where the millions go; but since things are as they are, it is heartbreaking to see the cause of wild-life protection actually starving, or at the best sub- sisting only on financial husks and crumbs, while less important causes literally flounder in surplus wealth.
This regret is intensified by the knowledge that in no other cause for the conservation of the resources most valuable to mankind will a dollar go so Jar, or bring back such good results, as in the preservation of wild life! The promotion of "the Bayne bill" and the enactment of the Bayne law isafairexample. Thatlawisto-dayonthestatutebooksoftheState of New York because fifty men and women promptly subscribed $5,000 to a fund formed with special reference to the expenses of the campaign for that measure; and the uplift of that victory will be felt for years to
come, just as it already has been in Massachusetts.
At one time I was tempted to show the financial skeleton in the closet of wild-life protection, by inserting here a statement of the funds available to be expended by all the New York organizations during the campaign year of 1911-1912. But I cannot do it. The showing is too painful, too humiliating. Fromitourenemieswouldderivetoomuchcomfort.
Even in New York State, in view of the great interests at stake, the showing is pitiful. But what shall we say of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New Jersey, and a dozen other states where the situation is much worse ? In the winter of 1912 a cry for help came to us from a neigh- boring state, where a terrific fight was being made by the forces of de- struction against all reform measures, and in behalf of retrogression on
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' Thesituationinourlegislatureis Our enemies are very strong, well organized, and they fight us at every step. We have no funds, and we are expected to make bricks without straw ! Is there not something that
you can do to help us"""
springshooting. Theappealsaid: the worst that it has been in years.