BIRD-PROTECTIVE LAWS 

 by the Department of Justice. To enable these 

 officials to execute the law, Congress has appropri- 

 ated $50,000 annually — which is just about one 

 tenth the minimum amount needed for the purpose. 

 This paltry sum has been expended as judiciously as 

 possible with marked results for good. Trouble, 

 however, soon developed in the courts. One autumn 

 day Harvey C. Schauver went a-hunting on Big 

 Lake, Arkansas, and finding no Ducks handy he 

 shot a Coot, which was against the law. When the 

 case came up in the Federal Court of Eastern Arkan- 

 sas, the judge who presided declared that the federal 

 law under which the defendant was being tried was 

 unconstitutional, and wrote a lengthy decision, giving 

 his reasons for holding this view. Within the next 

 two months two other federal courts rendered similar 

 decisions. 



At this point the Department of Justice decided 

 to bring no further cases to trial until the United 

 States Supreme Court should pass on the constitu- 

 tionality of the law, the Arkansas case having 

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