Reports of Field Agents 419 



for that purpose in New Hampshire. In Massachusetts several bills similarly 

 designed have been defeated. 



No one will ever know the story of the weary days and nights spent by 

 your agent in promoting federal legislation during the year 1913. So far as 

 can be learned, every representative and senator from New England has 

 been in favor of national legislation for the protection of birds, except 

 Senator Johnson of Maine. Possibly, in some way, the influence of the 

 feather importers reached him. Among those who did wonderfully effective 

 work in New England for the feather proviso in the Tariff Act was Dr. William 

 R. Lord, of Dover, Massachusetts. He was one of the several Audubon workers 

 who went to Washington in the interests of the measure. He secured reports 

 on every senator, and presented arguments to Senators Lane and Chamberlain, 

 of Oregon, which, no doubt, influenced them in their final stand against their 

 colleagues in the Democratic caucus on the Tariff Bill. Mrs. E. O. Marshall, 

 of New Salem, Massachusetts, Secretary of the State Grange Patrons of 

 Husbandry, Committee on the Protection of Birds, and her fellow members 

 of the committee, did very effective work not only in Massachusetts but in 

 other states. Mr. Charles M. Gardner, Master of the State Grange, supported 

 the cause in his paper, the organ of the National Grange, and raised up friends 

 among the farmers throughout the land. Mrs. Emmons Crocker, of Fitchburg, 

 Massachusetts, Chairman of the Conservation Department of the General 

 Federation of Women's Clubs, was able to secure much influential work 

 through the organization which she represents. The secretaries of the Audu- 

 bon Societies of New England nearly all used their organizations to forward 

 the tariff plumage proviso. It would be impossible to mention by name 

 even a small part of those in New England who worked without ceasing to 

 help accomplish the result finally achieved. To all are due the thanks of 

 everyone who is at all interested in preserving the wild-bird life of the world. 



It is now nearly seven years since your agent first began attempts to influ- 

 ence bird-protective legislation in New England. Within that time he has 

 seen laws licensing hunters enacted in five of the six New England States, 

 where hunters' licenses now contribute a very large sum toward the pro- 

 tection of birds and game. He has seen spring shooting practically abolished 

 in every state in New England but Rhode Island, and now the federal law 

 prohibits spring shooting throughout the United States. Gulls are now pro- 

 tected all along the New England seacoast, and there has been a general 

 improvement, not only in the enactment of laws, but in the enforcement 

 of them, and a wonderful improvement in public sentiment. 



The Audubon Societies of Vermont and New Hampshire have rather 

 stagnated during the past two years. Your agent has made some attempts 

 to revive and reorganize them and these attempts have met with recent 

 success. 



