62 CALIFORNIA FISH AND GAME. 



law is the life of the law," and we must teach the mass of the laity 

 the reason of the law if we wish to put life into the law and get hearty 

 cooperation in its enforcement. 



The greatest o])stacle that we encounter in doing this is the vanity 

 of the American people. For more than a century it has been a mark 

 of so-called patriotism to claim that the resources of our country are 

 inexhaustible, and anyone who called attention to the danger of extrav- 

 agant wastefulness, was considered an hysterical alarmist or almost a 

 traitor. In consequence of this foolish talk, we are now seeing the end 

 of our forests, and geologists are estimating, with alarming accuracy, 

 the length of time that will elapse before our stores of iron and coal 

 will be exhausted. National and state governments are frantically 

 taking steps to check the ruthless destruction of these reserves of 

 natural wealth before it is too late, but their efforts will bear scanty 

 fruit unless the people be shown that the wonderful wealth of our 

 country is not limitless. "When this is grasped, and not until then, 

 conservation will become an accomplished fact. 



When America Avas first being settled by Europeans, the abundance 

 and variety of the fisheries of both the salt and fresh waters made a 

 deep impression on the colonists. The Grand Banks fisheries played 

 no small part in causing the adjacent continental shores to be colonized, 

 and the fishes along the coasts and in the rivers supplied the colonists 

 with a large part of their food during the earlier years of the settle- 

 ments. The widespread belief that this resource was inexhaustible 

 led to such reckless destruction that the fisheries began to decline, and 

 about the time of the Civil War the shad catch had diminished to such 

 an extent that its restoration was one of the main reasons for the 

 establishment of the United States Commission of Fi.sh and Fisheries, 

 the predecessor of the present Bureau of Fisheries. Following the 

 example of the national government, many of the states have estab- 

 lished commissions charged w^ith the duty of restoring or increasing 

 their respective fisheries, and it is a part of the duty of our society to 

 aid these commissions in the accomplishment of their task. 



This can best be done by arousing the interest of the people in the 

 work, and as said above, this can* only be done by spreading abroad 

 knowledge of the economic value of the fisheries and showing that in 

 preserving them, something more is intended than merely restricting 

 the rights of the fishermen. Our society can do good work in this 

 direction, both as individuals and as an organization, and I M^ant to 

 make a few suggestions as to how we may go about it. 



At the meeting of the Fourth International Fishery Congress, held 

 in Washington in 1908, 0. M. Dennis, former .state game warden of 

 Maryland, gave some reasons for the failure of fish protective legis- 

 lation, and among them he placed the selfish jealousy of sportsmen nnd 

 commercial fishermen in regard to bills introduced by either class. He 

 said that this being true, "The country members of the legislature, as 

 well as the fishermen themselves, look with suspicion on any measure 

 presented to the legislature which has for its purpose the protection 

 of fish and game when such measure is presented by city men." 

 Unfortunately this is true, and it is not confined to Maryland by any 

 means. The antagonism between country men and city men is so 



