344 RECREATION 
This warden’s answer to the reply to the 
foregoing letter was as follows: 
Yours of 24th received. I am glad my letter 
interested you. I write to ask you not to 
make the mistake of supposing that I am 
a native of West Virginia. My business is 
here—hence my misfortune. 
There are worse things here than the game 
laws. Politics is rotten and ‘‘graft” is ram- 
pant. I have an income from my business 
of over $6,000 per year, but I am so disgusted 
with the way things are run here that I am 
accepting all the positions that the grafters 
despise, in order to work in and try to do some 
good. I think I am making progress, but it is 
slow. I believe I shall be able to write a book 
when I am through. 
I will gladly answer your questions and 
accept any help you may give us. I may add 
that I don’t know the State Game Warden 
by sight and perhaps never shall. I only 
wanted tu give the Devil his due. 
-There spoke a sincere man, the kind of 
game warden this article aims to help. 
The work of one sincere warden laboring 
against the worst of conditions, however, 
could not serve as an example of the good 
that comes of clean, honest and unswerving 
protection by a corps of picked wardens 
of the game and fish of any particular com- 
monwealth. It was necessary, for an ex- 
ample, to go where the game and fish were 
recognized as being one of the principal 
natural resources of the country, and as 
such carefully conserved; and furthermore, 
it was important that the example of 
efficient protection should have no taint of 
graft or of having a ‘“‘diplomatic adminis- 
tration.” And so I went to Vermont— 
to Vermont in spite of the fact that the Ver- 
mont Fish and Game League is the strongest 
political organization in the State. For 
the office of the State Commissioner of 
Fisheries and Game was filled by just such 
another man as our deputy warden of 
West Virginia—and the politicians wisely - 
left him alone. 
A visitor to the office of State Commissioner 
of Fisheries and Game Henry G. Thomas, 
at Stowe, Vt., is first impressed of what 
sincerity and enthusiasm can accomplish in 
the face of nonsupport and opposition. 
More real business, the business for which 
the office is maintained, is transacted there 
oyer one desk than the people of the State 
will ever realize. And when it is said that 
the total appropriation for the work of 
protecting the State’s game and fish, and 
for running the State fftsh hatchery (no more 
successfully managed hatchery. exists any- 
where) is but a paltry $5,000, a sixth of 
what it should be, the reason for the 
Commissioner’s being left to his own 
- devices by the politicians is almost apparent. 
Since the office of the Game and Fish 
Commissioner is not made use of politically 
(an impossibility so long as the present 
incumbent remains in office), and since this 
particular commissioner is indeed a man 
of parts, some very good’ stories may be 
unearthed in the records of the office. 
For example: The Commissioner decided 
upon the appointment of a certain man as 
warden of a certain county, despite the fact 
that the political boss of that particular 
county, who was also president of the 
county game and fish “‘ protective” associa- 
tion, vigorously opposed the appointment. 
Then, in contempt of the newly. appointed 
warden and of the law against hunting 
on Sunday, the politician, the first Sunday 
afterward, took his gun and dog and went 
out for grouse. But it so happened that 
the new warden was well chosen, and the 
arrest of the boss of the county quickly 
followed; and as he was ‘‘caught with the 
goods”’ there was no alternative but he 
should be fined and disgraced. The Com- 
missioner not only backed up his warden 
at every turn of the uproar the incident 
stirred up, but he went further and com- 
pelled the resignation of the politician of 
the presidency of the county game and fish 
protective association. The politicians side- 
step the Commissioner of Fisheries and 
Game; yes, indeed! 
I might relate many stories of the kind 
«that I found on the records of the Commis- 
sioner’s office. I might retell many things 
about him, his life and his work, that were 
told me by his wardens and by men who 
have watched his career, but Mr. Thomas 
is not looking for hero worship nor does he 
need it. He is a man who has been out 
into the world, who returned to the old 
Green Mountain State as his home, sweet 
home, when active business life in the West 
lost its charm for him, and now, as the 
crowning work of his life, he is bringing 
