THE LEAGUE OP AMERICAN SPORTSMEN. 



391 



The majority placed this right of the 

 "States not only on the ground above 

 stated, but on the further ground that the 

 State owed the duty to its citizens to pre- 

 serve for its people a valuable food sup- 

 ply, and had the police power to enact 

 such laws as would preserve it. In the 

 Geer case, the Supreme Court of the 

 United States sustained the constitutional- 

 ity of a law which forbade the transporta- 

 tion of game killed within the State, be- 

 yond the limits of the State. It sustained 

 it as falling within the principle settled in 

 the oleomargarine cases (Plumley vs. 

 Mass., 155; U. S., 461-473). In that case 

 a State law was enacted to prevent the 

 bringing into the State of oleomargarine 

 unless identified as such. The object was 

 plainly to prevent the practice of fraud on 

 consumers. The law undoubtedly did in- 

 cidentally affect interstate commerce, yet 

 the Supreme Court sustained it as within 

 the police powers of the State. 



We have seen, therefore, that the right 

 of the State to forbid the exporting of 

 game killed in the State to a point be- 

 yond its own limits has been upheld. We 

 are now confronted with the converse of 

 the proposition. Can the State with the 

 same object in view forbid the bringing 

 into its jurisdiction for sale of game killed 

 without its limits? I say that undoubtedly 

 it can do so. We have seen the right of 

 the State in regard to game announced by 

 the Supreme Court in the Geer case, as 

 embracing the power to "absolutely pro- 

 hibit the taking of it or traffic and com- 

 merce in it, if it is deemed necessary for 

 the protection and preservation of the 

 public good." We have heard this right 

 planted on a double ground — the power to 

 protect the property of the people and the 

 police power to preserve a valuable food 

 supply. We have seen a decision which, in 

 the protection of th^. food supply, placed 

 restrictions on an article of unlimited com- 

 mercial traffic, to wit, butter; and it is 

 demonstrable that, if game killed beyond 

 the State may be brought in and exposed 

 for sale within the State, every law of the 

 State for the protection of the game within 

 its own boundaries may be evaded and 

 rendered null by the presence, against the 

 law of the State, of foreign game. , 



There is no implied guarantee on the 

 part of the United States that such an im- 

 ported article may be sold everywhere. 

 Innumerable instances might be cited in 

 which imports, on which duty has been 

 demanded and paid, have immediately, on 

 reaching the community, been subjected 

 to lawful restrictions and their sales lim- 

 ited, both as to quantity and location. The 

 police power of the States over such has 

 never been questioned. Drugs, for ex- 

 ample; immoral prints and publications; 

 things deemed moral in one section, and 



the sale of which has been prohibited as 

 contrary to public policy in another sec- 

 tion. In all such instances, it has never 

 been pretended that the importations thus 

 brought in were, by the fact of importation 

 and the payment of duties, exempted 

 everywhere in the United States from 

 local laws prohibiting their presence or 

 sale as against public policy. Yet the ar- 

 gument here made is that the mere act of 

 importation and payment of duty to the 

 United States has invested these imported 

 wild deer with such commercial inter- 

 changeability in every part of the United 

 States that no State can forbid their un- 

 restricted sale within its limits, and that, 

 even if such sale vitally affects its laws for 

 the protection of the common property 

 of its people, and laws enacted to preserve 

 to its people a valuable food supply, they 

 must yield to the dominating power of 

 Congress to regulate commerce with for- 

 eign nations and between the States them- 

 selves. 



In the case of The People vs. The Buf- 

 falo Fish Company Judge Lambert has 

 sought to fortify his argument by reference 

 to some undefined treaties between Eng- 

 land, Canada and this country, on the sub- 

 ject of fisheries. England herself has 

 never recognized that any such treaties 

 compelled her to surrender her right of 

 self-protection or to preserve for her peo- 

 ple this valuable food supply under her 

 police powers. The argument shows a 

 singular tenderness for treaty obligations 

 with England which she has not dis- 

 covered herself in her dealings with 

 others. In the case of Whitehead vs. 

 Smithers (2 C. P. D., 553) Lord Coleridge 

 held exactly as I contend. An English 

 statute forbade the possession of plover 

 during the close season. A party imported 

 dead birds from Holland and sold them 

 in the British market, and Lord Coleridge 

 decided that they fell within the prohibi- 

 tion of the English statute. He said: 



"It may well be that the true and only 

 mode of protecting British wild fowl 

 from indiscriminate slaughter, as well as 

 of protecting other British interests, is by 

 interfering indirectly with the proceedings 

 of foreign persons. The object is to pre- 

 vent British wild fowl from being im- 

 properly killed and sold under pretence of 

 their being imported from abroad." 



In this brief statement lies the gist of 

 the whole prosecution aginst Silz, and 

 paraphrasing the language of Lord Cole- 

 ridge, I state the case as follows: 



It may well be that the true and only 

 mode of protecting the game of New 

 York State from indiscriminate slaughter, 

 as well as of preserving for the people of 

 New York a valuable food supply, is by 

 interfering indirectly with the proceedings 

 of persons in foreign countries or in other 



