HOW TO SAVE OUR BIRDS AND MAMMALS. 



Speech of the Hon. Johu F. Lacey, M. C* at the Dinner of tlie League of American Sportsmen. 



Mr. Toastmaster and Gentlemen: I am 

 delighted to meet so many of the lovers 

 of wild American birds, beasts and fishes 

 from so many different States and Terri- 

 tories here to-night. The attempt to pre- 

 serve any of our native resources of this 

 character comes very late, but I hope not 

 too late. It is proposed to lock the stable 

 door before the horses are all stolen. Dur- 

 ing my own service in Congress it has 

 been my fortune, on the Committee on 

 Public Lands, to do what I could to aid 

 in the saving of our remaining forests from 

 uttef destruction, and the good work done 

 in that line is already bearing fruit. Let 

 the forests be wholly destroyed and the 

 climate becomes entirely changed. The 

 streams dry up, and agriculture, the foun- 

 dation of all our wealth, suffers irreparable 

 injury. The streams are the childen of the 

 forests, and the fish are the children of 

 the streams. In my childhood the brooks 

 of my native State, West Virginia, and her 

 sister State, Ohio, were full of pools, and 

 the hillsides gushed with living springs. 

 The forests have been destroyed and all 

 this is changed. Dr. English sounded his 

 protest as early as 1842, when he wrote of 

 "The shady nook by the running brook 

 Where the children went to swim; 

 Grass grows on the master's grave, Ben 



Bolt, 

 But the spring of the brook is dry." 



The deadly hand of man is committing 

 the same crime in the far West. On my 

 first visit to Oregon 13 years ago I got off 

 the cars at The Dalles to take the boat 

 down the Columbia. As I walked out on 

 the pier someone shouted to me with great 

 excitement: 



"Run this way quick and you will see 

 Mt. Hood!" I said laughingly, 



"There is no danger of the mountain 

 running away, is there?" and the answer 

 came, 



"Come quick, if you want to see it." 



I ran out, and there in the clear light 

 stood the beautiful, snowy peak. I watched 

 it for probably 30 seconds, when the cloud 

 of smoke rolled back over it again, ob- 

 scuring it from view, and that was the first. 

 last and only time I ever saw Mt. Hood. 

 Last summer I revisited the same locality 

 and did not even get a half-minute glimpse 

 of the mountain. The region was clouded 

 with the smoke of the burning forests, just 

 as it had been on my first visit in 1887. 



With fire and axe the destroyer has been 

 doing his work. A splendid tree, 300 years 



old, is attacked with auger and coal oil 

 and swept from the face of the earth for 

 the "improvement" of the country; a tree 

 that took from 300 to 500 years to grow, 

 and which in a few years would be worth 

 as much as 40 acres of land, has been de- 

 stroyed in a day's time. 



Along the banks of the Columbia fish 

 wheels have been planted, and the salmon 

 packers are diligently engaged in the ex- 

 termination of those beautiful fish. No 

 adequate recognition of the necessity for 

 permitting a sufficient number to escape 

 seems to exist, but t' e fish is treated as a 

 common enemy rather than as a friend. 

 Such destruction of our natural resources 

 has but one end on the Pacific coast, as it 

 has had on the Atlantic. 



Terrapin were once so plentiful in Mary- 

 land that a law was passed prohibiting 

 masters from feeding their slaves on this 

 succulent reptile more than twice a week. 



In Connecticut the avaricious master fed 

 his apprentice so freely on salmon that a 

 law was passed forbidding too much of a 

 fish diet for those unfortunate boys. Now, 

 with terrapin worth $5 apiece, and salmon 

 at 75 cents a pound, there is no danger of 

 the excessive use of these articles of diet, 

 unless it be among the millionaires. And 

 so it is with all our other natural resources. 

 At Delphi natural gas was worshipped by 

 the Greeks 2,300 years ago. Now it is 

 harnessed and set to work in the gas fields 

 of the United States, but a reckless disre- 

 gard for its preservation has been shown 

 in every field, and it is only a question of 

 comparatively a short time until the gas 

 and the coal oil will take their places in 

 history, along with the buffalo, the wild 

 pigeon, the terrapin and the salmon. 



The presence of this assembly to-night 

 indicates that the conscience of the Ameri- 

 can people has been quickened on these 

 questions. The hunters and the fishermen 

 begin to join hands in the preservation of 

 the inhabitants of the forests, the air and 

 the streams. 



St. Paul was the persecutor and de- 

 stroyer of the saints, but he saw a great 

 light, and spent his after life in their de- 

 fense. The birds and the beasts appeal to 

 the sportsmen who have persecuted them 

 in the past and have not appealed in vain. 

 I am talking to gentlemen who may have 

 been "game hogs" or "fish hogs" in their 

 early youth. Every true sportsman out- 

 grows this mania for indiscriminate slaugh- 

 ter. No doubt some gentleman here has 



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