THIRD BIENNIAL STATEMENT 57 



The deer could not be exterminated in one season, could 

 they? No. Perhaps some good would come out of it, some- 

 where. The present situation is intolerable, and there must 

 be a change of some kind. Let's try this Everett bill for one 

 season, and if it don't work satisfactorily, I'll help you re- 

 peal it next winter!" 



At the last moment the writer strongly recurred to the 

 danger to human life, and predicted a slaughter of men 

 under any doe-killing law. To this the Governor replied : 



"The other side declare that there won't be any more men 

 killed under the new law than there have been under the 

 buck law. If there are, of course I may be blamed, as I have 

 been in my life for other things, but if I am I will have to 

 stand it." 



At heart Governor Smith is opposed to the killing of fe- 

 male deer, and to endangering human life in that way, or in 

 any other way. But the lawless doe-killer of the North 

 Woods had created a situation that held him as in a vise, to 

 the stern duty of trying something different, of trying to 

 find a way out. 



Forced by a situation that bad citizens had rendered be- 

 yond control, and quite against his own feelings and inclina- 

 tions, Governor Smith finally signed the Everett bill. 



Knowing all that Commissioner Pratt and I know, I do not 

 hold our Governor blamable for any one thing that has oc- 

 curred under the fatal Everett law. 



Governor Alfred E. Smith is a true friend of wild life and 

 of legitimate sport, and a true conservationist. He has fav- 

 ored all measures for the better conservation of our state's 

 assets in wild life, and he has not permitted "politics" to lay 

 even one hand upon the State Conservation Commission. I 

 believe that his act in signing the Everett bill called for real 

 courage and determination. 



