FIRST BIENNIAL STATEMENT 85 



licity, for five years ! To-day I shudder when I think what 

 might have happened if the fund had been handed over to 

 me with no conditions attached. 



The idea was positively bewildering; and Opportunity 

 was all ready to step over the threshold. 



"Mr. Leonard," I said, "your people would not make 

 that arrangement with me except on one condition. They 

 never would make it unless I would agree to stop fighting 

 the automatic and pump gnns; now, would they?" 



There was not a moment's pause or hesitation. 



"Well, of course, they would not expect the man who was 

 spending $25,000 a year of their money to go on fighting 

 their product." 



"No; of course not. And on those terms I can't accept 

 your $25,000 a year. My best advice to you is to form an 

 organization all your own, and spend the money yourselves. 

 An organization for such work is easily made." 



Thus ended the interview with "$36,000,000 of invested 

 capital." Thus vanished in thin air my opportunity to 

 spend $25,000 a year in this Cause. Five years before I 

 had told Mr. Browning that "the New York Zoological So- 

 ciety will not sell out its principles against the use of ma- 

 chine guns for a million dollars!" 



Just as usual, the Winchester-U. M. C.-Arms Company 

 did not (at first), take my advice; and it made a serious 

 tactical error. 



They offered the $25,000-a-year-for-5-years to the Na- 

 tional Association of Audubon Societies, founded by 

 William Dutcher, who as President has officially and most 

 strongly denounced the automatic gun! The only condi- 

 tion named was that "Hornaday should have nothing to 

 say regarding the expenditure of the funds." And in an 

 evil moment a majority of the directors of the Audubon 

 Association voted to accept it! The acceptance was voted 

 despite the protests of several good friends of Mr. Dutcher 

 and the Association, who feared the consequences of an 

 acceptance of money derived from the sale of shotguns and 

 cartridges. 



