119 



Federal Control of International and Interstate 



Waters. 



By Barton W. Evermasn. 



Mr. President. Members of the Academy — I shall talk a very few min- 

 utes on this subject. The idea of federal control in matters pertaining to 

 fisheries and game is a recent one, and one of recent and gradual develop- 

 ment. I think perhaps the idea was first advanced in connection with the 

 control of migratory birds. Ornithologists and others interested in the 

 preservation of birds realized a number of years ago that the state laws 

 of the various states were inadequate for the control of migratory birds. 

 A bird today is in Louisiana or Alabama, tomorrow in Tennessee, next week 

 in Kentucky, then Indiana, then Michigan, and the game laws in the 

 different states are different. In some of these states there would be a 

 law adequate for the protection of migratory birds as they went north 

 or south, but in the next state into which they went there would be no law, 

 so that migratory birds received very inadequate protection or no protec- 

 tion at all. 



The first bill that was introduced into Congress that had any bearing 

 on this question was introduced by George Shiras III, of Pittsburg. In 

 this bill he proposed that the Federal government should take over the con- 

 trol of the regulations for protecting migratory birds. A little later the idea 

 expanded and Mr. Shiras introduced a bill in Congress providing for the 

 protection of migratory fishes. His attention had been called to the fact 

 that in the Atlantic coast States there is no law adequate to protect the 

 shad and other migratory fishes. The difflculty existed in all of the 

 streams where migratory fishes came, but particularly in those streams 

 which lie between two States and which are controlled by two or more 

 States. The Potomac River was taken as an illustration. The laws of 

 Virginia on one side and Maryland on the other were never the same, and 

 at the same time it was legal to fish in one State and illegal in the other. 

 The inevitable result was a series of evasions of the law by the fishermen 

 of these States. 



The Columbia River is another illustration, perhaps the most serious 

 of all. There you have Montana, Idaho, Washington and Oregon, all con- 



