DUTY AND POWER OF THE CITIZEN 193 



Every year, about a thousand men who have been 

 jarred, virtuously seek to salve their consciences 

 by writing to me, and pointing out what I should 

 do next! Such men are a weariness to the flesh. 

 In sixty seconds a child in wild-life protection can 

 block out tasks that would keep an army of men 

 busy for an entire year. We can do such a thing 

 now, in about twenty-five words, thus: 



Have Congress enact a law making every na- 

 tional forest a hard-and-fast game preserve, with all 

 hunting forever prohibited, save of predatory 

 animals. 



As every human heart knoweth its own bitter- 

 ness, so does every state of the American nation 

 know its own sins of omission and commission 

 respecting the wild life within its borders. I know 

 that they know, because the black list has been 

 printed in a book, and sent to each member of each 

 legislature. Much as has been done in wild-life 

 conservation during the past five years, the amount 

 that remains to be done is appalling; and the shame- 

 less repealer of good laws, like the poor of Holy 

 Writ, we have with us always. 



It is high time for the great universities and col- 

 leges of our country seriously to enter upon the 

 work aye, let me say the drudgery, for that it is 

 of wild-life conservation. The majority of our 

 zoologists are engrossed in charming zoological 

 studies while the everyday birds and beasts of their 

 country are being swept away. As a class and a 



