10 THE AUDUBON BULLETIN 



"energized minority," as it were, has conducted highly organized efforts 

 to prevent the enforcement of the law. These have taken the form of 

 opposition to the appropriation for enforcing the regulations of the 

 Biological Survey. In February 1914 the Interstate Sportsmen's Protective 

 Association was organized in Kansas City for the avowed purpose of either 

 securing a special dispensation for Spring shooting or of killing both the 

 federal migratory bird law and the proposed international treaty. During 

 the recent sessions of Congress this organization has led off in a fight to 

 strike out of the Agricultural Appropriation Bill an item of $50,000 for 

 the use of the Biological Survey in enforcing the law. The publicity man 

 of the opposition has been Mr. E. T. Grether of St. Louis who edits the 

 Rod-and-Gun department of the St. Louis Globe Democrat and the 

 columns of this paper have been freely used for attacks upon the Biological 

 Survey itself. In this paper the boast was made that "unless the Biological 

 Survey granted their petition for shooting ducks and geese until March 31, 

 they (the Opposition) would "put the Survey out of business." 



Mr. A. D. Holthaus of St. Louis and one of our Illinois citizens, Mr. 

 J. H. Aldous of Alton, lobbied in Washington to defeat the appropriation. 

 Mr. Aldous is quoted as asserting that the people of Illinois were in favor 

 of amending the regulation so as to permit the shooting of ducks and 

 geese until March 31. He is said to have given out a list of seventeen 

 Illinois Congressmen whom he is supposed to have tied up to his proposi- 

 tion. These congressmen will be referred to in a succeeding paragraph. 



The Contest in the House. 



While the contest over the appropriation for the enforcement of the 

 regulations was on in the House, Hon. Wm. E. Williams of Pittsfield, one 

 of the two congressmen at large for Illinois, made on April 24th, a speech 

 in opposition to the appropriation. He stated that "the law, believed by 

 many to be unconstitutional is practically harmless, for all it does is to 

 authorize the Department of Agriculture to adopt rules and regulations 

 for the preservation of wild game." "The whole mischief," he said, "arises 

 in the department which promulgates the rules." He then cited the rule 

 closing the Mississippi from Memphis to Minneapolis for killing migratory 

 birds from "any boat, raft, or other device, floating or otherwise, in or on 

 any of such waters," and declared his opposition to it on the ground of 

 its unfairness to Illinois sportsmen. South of Memphis and north of 

 Minneapolis no embargo is laid upon the hunter, while on the five hundred 

 or so miles of the course of the Mississippi along Illinois, comprising the 

 greater portion of the area between Memphis and Minneapolis and form- 

 ing the chief migration route of the water fowl, hunters are forbidden to 

 kill game. It may be said in passing that there is no evidence in Mr. 

 Williams' published address that he was aware of the fact that the restric- 

 tion had been placed on the shooting of ducks, for example, on the Missis- 

 sippi River because the states bordering the river permitted the use of 

 motor boats in hunting, and of the additional fact that the Biological 

 Survey offered to remove the restriction the moment the states concerned 

 passed laws stopping the pursuits of wild fowl with power boats. 



