140 WILD LIFE PROTECTION FUND 



In course of time, following the ratification of the treaty 

 with Canada, the Department of Agriculture proceeded to 

 draft an enabling act. Various interested parties urged 

 that a bill be ready for introduction on the first day of the 

 session of 1916-17, because of the shortness of that session, 

 the pressure of other bills, and the difficulties certain to be 

 experienced in bringing any new bill to an actual vote. 



It was with a feeling of genuine dismay that we saw week 

 after week of that short congressional session pass by with- 

 out action. It was not until January 13, that Senator 

 Hitchcock received, from the Department of Agriculture, 

 and introduced, Senate Bill No. 7858 "to give effect to the 

 convention between the United States and Great Britain for 

 the protection of migratory birds." The same bill was in- 

 troduced in the House of Representatives by Representative 

 Flood, also on January 13, as H. R. No. 20,080. 



The full text of the original act is appended hereunto. 

 It will be noted that it provides for stopping, everywhere, 

 the sale of game that consists of migratory birds; that it 

 provides power to search and make arrests without the 

 deadly delay and the rigmarole of a warrant; that it em- 

 powers the Secretary of Agriculture to fix bag limits on the 

 killing of migratory game birds ; and that it provides $170,- 

 000 for the cost of a year's operations in 48 states and 

 Alaska in the enforcement of the terms of the act. 



In the Senate the Hitchcock bill was referred to the Com- 

 mittee on Agriculture and Forestry, of which Senator 

 Thomas P. Gore was Chairman. The report of that Com- 

 mittee was rendered to the Senate on February 21, and it 

 is so brief that it easily can be quoted in full : 



The Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, to whom was re- 

 ferred the bill (S. 7858) to give effect to the convention between 

 the United States and Great Britain for the protection of migratory 

 birds, having considered the same, report thereon with a recom- 

 mendation that it do pass with certain amendments. 



The object of the amendments is to restrict the operation of 

 the bill to the terms of the above mentioned treaty and to such 

 State laws as are now in force in relation to the protection of migra- 

 tory birds and game. 



The above report was very good, — but for one thing. It 

 cut the vital organs out of the bill! The document as re- 



