168 WILD LIFE CONSERVATION 



active hostility of thousands of gunners who are 

 ever ready to fight for their killing privileges, even 

 unto the destruction of their own game commission. 

 Any game commissioner who defies that body of 

 men, in order to do his duty, takes his official life in 

 his hands and must expect to meet his enemies in a 

 death grapple before his legislature. 



Fourth. It is only the strongest of the state 

 game commissions, those whose members are 

 assured of strong outside support, who dare to 

 advocate before their legislatures the drastic meas- 

 ure which alone will serve to save the present wild- 

 life situation. 



Private citizens and humanitarian organizations 

 must not think that all the work and all the fighting 

 for the saving of wild life should be done, or can be 

 done, by the state game commissions. That demand 

 would be unfair and its adequate fulfilment quite 

 impossible. The drastic and unpopular measures, 

 such as stopping the sale of game, the conferring of 

 long close seasons and the stoppage of all hunting 

 in the national forests, should originate with outside 

 men, who are not open to vengeful assaults by 

 gunners, and who can say what they please in sup- 

 port of their cause. These independent promoters 

 of wild-life protection measures always receive the 

 hearty support of their respective state game com- 

 missions, but the arrangement saves the latter from 

 being converted into targets for universal assault. 



I do not mean to imply that state game commis- 



