GAME PRESERVES 155 



was not silly at all, but which, when we came back from 

 Africa, repeated the same kind of attack, in the political 

 interest of certain representatives of what was unhealthy in 

 both politics and in business. The paper in question was 

 nominally published in the interest of worthy causes, like 

 protection of children and of dumb animals. In reality, it 

 was published in the interest of certain big financiers and 

 big politicians, who were violently opposed to Judge Ben 

 Lindsey, the judge of the Children's Court, because Judge 

 Lindsey has been one of the most fearless and effective oppo- 

 nents of the commercialization of politics to be found in 

 all the United States. Mr. Roosevelt heartily championed 

 Judge Lindsey; thereupon the paper in question assailed 

 Mr. Roosevelt for having killed a cock and a hen ostrich, 

 and preserved their skins as well as the eggs and young birds 

 for the Smithsonian Institution. The paper denounced this 

 as an outrage on motherhood ! The editor was guilty of a 

 similar "outrage on motherhood" whenever he ate a hen's 

 egg or a spring chicken — and, moreover, in such event, he 

 was merely gratifying his own appetite, whereas the 

 ostrich group in the National Museum is for the gratifica- 

 tion of literally hundreds of thousands of people. It will 

 doubtless be hard for sensible people to believe that this 

 incident really occurred; but it did; and heated partisan 

 sheets throughout the country actually copied the article in 

 question. 



But we must not let our contempt for the silly or sinis- 

 ter people who seek to twist the movement into a wrong 

 course cause us to forget how fundamentally necessary 

 the movement is. Above all, the people, as a whole, should 

 keep steadily in mind the fact that the preservation of both 



