6 American Fisheries Society 



which must be kept in mind. At the start of our development 

 the little factory was permitted to establish itself. It has acquired 

 by virtue of that permission, a certain sort of a right. If at the 

 present day we were to introduce a law, or enforce a law in such 

 measure as to stop all industry, we should do ourselves, the cause 

 we advocate, and the end for which we are striving with all our 

 might, incalculable harm. I think that no fair-minded man 

 really looks for a solution of the question which would endeavor 

 to introduce and enforce on the moment a radical policy of sup- 

 pression. 



Having considered these general questions, let us pass for a 

 moment to an examination of the situation as it exists, and I 

 take care in this case not to go into it at all exhaustively, but to 

 note a few facts that have come out of my work here in the State 

 of New York. The same thing applies in large degree, if not 

 throughout, to other states of the Union. The mere start on the 

 problem opened up naturally some of the reports on file in the 

 office of the Conservation Commissioner; and it was found that 

 a considerable number of places had been reported because the 

 results of stream pollution were so extreme as to force themselves 

 upon the attention of state officials, and that here a small mill 

 had been prosecuted and fined for pouring waste into a stream 

 that wiped out all life of that stream and there an oil refinery 

 had been handled in somewhat similar fashion. At another 

 point a group of tanneries had been brought under pressure, 

 had introduced a plan for the handling of the waste and had 

 ameliorated the condition, if not entirely corrected it. 



Following upon the discovery of these reports a questionnaire 

 was sent out to every one of the game protectors in the state. 

 Now the New York State Conservation Commission is fortunate 

 in having a considerable force of these splendid employees de- 

 voting their time to a study of natural conditions. The game 

 protectors received and replied to the questionnaire without 

 any suggestion as to the reason for its being sent them. It was, 

 in other words, to them one of the many inquiries that every 

 official receives in the form of a questionnaire which he has to 

 answer and return to the main office; and up to that time there 

 had been no outside discussion of any special consideration of 

 the problem of protection or of stream pollution in general. I 



