6 GAME REFUGES. 



piece of land belonging to the United States as a private owner, so long as it continued 

 to be unoccupied land, would be exempt in this regard from the authority of the State. 

 Wyoming then will have been admitted into the Union not as an equal member but 

 as one shorn of a legislative power vested in all the other States of the Union, a power 

 resulting from the fact of statehood and incident to its plenary existence. 



The court held that no such contention was tenable. 



As indicating the court's view as to the lack of any authority on the 

 part of the Federal Government over the capture and killing of game 

 within a State, is this statement summing up the argument of counsel: 



But the argument goes further than this, since it insists that, although by the treaty 

 the hunting privilege was to cease whenever the United States parted merely with the 

 title to any of its lands, yet that privilege was to continue, although the United States 

 parted with its entire authority over the capture and killing of game. 



I have already referred to the language of the decision to the effect 

 that, "The power of a State to control and regulate the taking of 

 game can not be questioned," "when the United States had called 

 into being a sovereign State, a necessary incident of whose authority 

 was the complete power to regulate the killing of game within its 

 borders." The court held that a repeal of the treaty resulted from the 

 act admitting the State into the Union so far as it related to the hunt- 

 ing of game within the State. 



That case covers every feature of the situation presented by this 

 bill. The complete power and exclusive jurisdiction of the State, the 

 Federal Government having parted with all the authority it had when 

 the State was admitted, and further, that such complete and exclusive 

 jurisdiction related to the public lands just as much as it related to the 

 private lands. 



There are a number of other and more recent decisions of Federal 

 and State courts even more strongly emphasizing, if that were possible, 

 the complete jurisdiction of the State over the taking and killing of 

 game, one of which is the case of the United States v. Shauver (214 

 Fed. Rep., 154), which case is now before the Supreme Court of the 

 United States. That case involves, of course, certain other questions 

 than those directly raised by this legislation, the questions that were 

 raised by the passage of so-called migratory bird law. 



That case challenges the constitutionality of the migratory bird 

 law, and is now before the court for a rehearing. One very good 

 reason for not reporting legislation affecting the control of game within 

 the States at this time is the fact that there is before the Supreme 

 Court that case which raises the general question, and the court in 

 its decision will undoubtedly cover practically the entire field as 

 they did in the case of Geer v. Connecticut, and to a lesser extent in 

 the case of Ward v. Racehorse. 



I feel that I have taken up more time than, perhaps, I should in 

 the presentation of this feature of the case, because as a matter of 

 fact, State control over the hunting or taking of game is either ad- 

 mitted by those who are in favor of this bill, or they entirely avoid 

 that issue in their arguments. It is true that in the discussion before 

 the committee a few days ago, one gentleman advanced the novel 

 theory that the sovereign, whom he admitted had exclusive jurisdic- 

 tion over game, was not the State but the Federal Government. 

 That argument is conclusively settled in the case of Geer v. Con- 

 necticut and Ward v. Racehorse, particularly the first case, where the 

 question, where the sovereign authority rested, was argued at length, 



