SECOND BIENNIAL STATEMENT 161 



Up to January 1, 1917, the upland game birds of the whole 

 Great West were being swept into Oblivion, because the ma- 

 jority of sportsmen there wished to continue killing them as 

 long as any remain alive. 



Look at the quail-hunters of Long Island ! 



Look at the League of Ohio Sportsmen, and its fight in 

 1917 against the stoppage of quail-killing. (The legislature 

 swept them off their feet, with a law placing the quail in the 

 list of fully-protected song-birds.) 



Look at the organized "sportsmen" of Iowa, always fight- 

 ing quail and prairie chicken protection. 



Look at the Wyoming Game "Protective" Association, of 

 Cody, fighting Mr. W. L. Simpson's bills to give the Wyom- 

 ing remnants of mountain sheep and sage grouse five years 

 of protection. (They defeated both bills.) 



Look at the organized "sportsmen" of Missouri, fighting 

 continuously for three years, to destroy the whole federal 

 migratory bird law and the treaty, so that they can have 

 spring shooting. 



Look at the organized sportsmen of Texas, (1917), bit- 

 terly fighting the Metcalfe bill to save the upland game birds 

 of Texas from utter annihilation. (They defeated the bill.) 



But why go on? 



The trouble is that in the saving and perpetuating of the 

 game of the nation, the sportsmen of the nation are a thou- 

 sand times too slow on the draw! They are great, however, 

 on locking the stable door after the horse, harness and 

 wagon have been stolen. They lack initiative, they lack in- 

 telligence, they lack a sense of the eternal fitness of things ; 

 and many of them utterly ignore the foundation ethics of 

 sportsmanship. Because I tell them the truth about these 

 things, the irreconcilables sometimes call me "the bitterest 

 enemy of sportsmen," even while I am endeavoring to pre- 

 serve legitimate sport from becoming an extinct pastime. 



