16 GAME BEFUGES. 



property. The Federal Government may go to the limit in the 

 protection of its own property but it can not legislate for the pro- 

 tection of the game, because that is not its property. If it does it at 

 all it does it entirely by indirection. 



In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, the proposed legislation deals with a 

 subject over which Congress has no constitutional authority. It 

 attempts to do by indirection what it is generally conceded "could 

 not be done by direction. It proposes a plan which would dot 

 western Commonwealths with Federal game principalities and would 

 result in endless conflict of authority. It would subject the citizens 

 of certain western States to the danger of being arrested and taken 

 hundreds of miles from their homes to be tried and sentenced by a 

 Federal court for trifling offenses. It would involve largely increased 

 expenditures by the Federal Government. 



If game preservation is sought, it should be sought through proper, 

 legitimate, and constitutional channels. The States are clothed 

 with complete authority to protect game in the manner proposed 

 by this bill, or in any other way. The States have and are showing 

 a growing disposition and inclination for game preservation within 

 reason, as witness the States of Maine, Pennsylvania, and others, 

 and in the region which this bill affects, the States of Colorado and 

 Wyoming. The bill is a bold and brazen attempt to invade State 

 jurisdiction in a matter in which the States have exclusive juris- 

 diction and in regard to which they are acting with ever-increasing 

 foresight and care. 



There is one statement in the bill that I have not referred to. 

 because I did not think it ought to be dignified by an argument, 

 That is the proposition contained in the stump speech of the last 

 session, that all of this is for the purpose of increasing the supply of 

 food — the meat supply of the country. Within certain limits game 

 can be maintaind in the rocky, rough, and broken country where 

 domestic animals will not or can not go. The maiDtenance of that 

 game is a clear gain, because they do consume grasses and shrubbery 

 that domestic animals will not reach. But as soon as } r ou leave that 

 kind of a region, then any increase of wild game in a country that may 

 be advantageously grazed by domestic animals is not an increase in 

 the food supply of the country, but results in a decrease of the food 

 supply of the country to the extent that game consumes forage that 

 would otherwise be consumed by domestic animals, such as sheep 

 and cattle. Such animals produce much more in meat and other 

 prod acts than any sort of wild game produces in proportion to the 

 vegetation they consume. Domestic animals are the final product 

 of centuries of effort in producing the animals that give the greatest 

 and most satisfactory returns for what they receive in the way of 

 sustenance. Therefore, the increase of game in these game pre- 

 serves beyond a certain point would not result in an increase of the 

 meat supply, but an actual decrease. This illustrates the fallacy of 

 some of the arguments that are advanced in support of the legislation. 

 In our State we have an elk herd estimated at from 20,000 to 35,000 

 head; we do not know just how many there are. From one-third to 

 a half of them are in the Yellowstone Park during the summer, the 

 balance of them south of the Park; all of them are in the State south 

 of the park in the winter time, the country being too high and snowy 

 for them in the Yellowstone Park during that season. That herd, 



