56 WILD LIFE PROTECTION FUND 



A little later, on the strength of an appeal from Senator 

 George P. McLean, the item was restored with $10,000 

 as the amount to be allowed. 



Now the friends of wild life already were painfully 

 aware of the fact that for the enforcement of that law 

 throughout 48 states, $10,000 was just the same as nothing. 

 On account of the fact that only $10,000 had been made 

 available for enforcement on October 1, 1914, the govern- 

 ment had been utterly unable to make even a good showing 

 of enforcement, and from many localities throughout the 

 North caustic complaints were coming to us, and people 

 were demanding: "Why does not the government enforce 

 its own bird law?" 



To the best of our ability we had been informing our 

 friends of the disagreeable facts, and assuring them that 

 on July 1, 1915, there would be available funds sufficient 

 to enforce the law. In the winter and spring of 1914 it was 

 painfully evident that the best bird law ever enacted was 

 rapidly becoming discredited, and that in many localities it 

 was being treated as a joke. 



Without a moment's loss of time, the New York organiza- 

 tions for the protection of wild life joined forces in an 

 effort to correct the intolerable situation that had been 

 created by Senators Robinson and Reed, at the mischievous 

 initiative of Mr. Galloway. It was pointed out to senators 

 that already the standing of the bird law had suffered 

 severely through lack of funds for its reasonable enforce- 

 ment, and that an appropriation of anything less than 

 $50,000 meant that the law would be trodden down in the 

 mire by lawless persons, and be made a measure of con- 

 tempt. It was pointed out that the interests of both the 

 producers and the consumers of farm and fruit crops im- 

 peratively demand the enforcement of the law, and that 

 its non-enforcement would be regarded as intolerable. 



In the end, and in spite of the bitter opposition of Sena- 

 tors Reed, Robinson and a few others, by a vote of 45 to 

 17, the Senate voted to sustain the law with an appropria- 

 tion of $50,000. Thus the record of the Senate in the pro- 

 tection of wild life remained absolutely unbroken. 



