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Politics and the Game Warden 
As verifying our remarks on this subject in 
these columns in the October number, we in- 
vite attention to the case of Game Protector 
Frank E. Rowe, of Wilkes-Barre, Pa., who is in 
jail in that place awaiting trial for the killing 
early in September of Adam Ruscas, an Italian, 
who resisted arrest (with a shotgun loaded with 
buckshot) for hunting grouse out of season. 
The newspaper accounts of the shooting, and 
of Rowe’s arrest, attracted interest among game 
wardens outside of the State, and this resulted 
in some correspondence and the issuing by a 
county warden of Vermont, at his own expense, 
of a printed appeal to all game wardens to con- 
tribute to a fund for Protector Rowe’s defense. 
We quote from letters written (not for publica- 
tion) to this Vermont warden by certain game 
protectors of Pennsylvania: 
niet I can give you better details of the 
affair than the newspapers. I am, in fact, a witness 
on the case and was one of the first on the scene 
after it happened. 
We had a lot of trouble with the foreigners last 
year, and they started in again this year, and even 
sent us black hand letters, and invitations to follow 
them if we wanted to be killed. 
The affray in which Rowe killed the man 
Ruscas took place along a trolley road that runs 
from Hazleton to Wilkes-Barre. This road runs 
through a very good hunting country, which has 
always been infested with foreign poachers. Rowe 
and his deputy were up on the mountain and they 
heard some shooting, so went to investigate. They 
came upon the man Ruscas and another, who 
started to run. Rowe and his deputy took after 
them, and then the Italians stopped and opened 
fire with their shotguns. Rowe returned the fire 
with his revolver, until his cartridges played out, 
when he and his deputy were pursued by one of the 
Italians, who fired several times with his shotgun. 
Both Rowe and his deputy were pretty badly 
shot up about the legs with buckshot. They came 
home and I was notified. I took the next car to the 
place and there found a dead man. I waited there 
about an hour and then a flock of Italians came 
back and I soon found out the one who had been 
with the dead man and arrested him. 
I only found one dead grouse, or “ pheasant,”’ on 
the scene, but Rowe claims they had a blue hand- 
kerchief full of them; I guess the other fellow did 
away with them. ; 
When I came back I went to Rowe’s house and 
told him he had killed a man. He would not be- 
lieve me at first. I went to the authorities and told 
them any time they wanted Rowe and his deputy 
I would bring them down. Then they were taken 
to the hospital to have their wounds dressed, and 
one week later were committed to jail without bail, 
pending the next term of court. We have 
a very crooked court here, and it will take a lot of 
money to get Rowe a semblance of an honest trial, 
to hire good criminal lawyers to make the court 
give him an honest hearing. Why, they won’t let 
me or any of Rowe’s friends or relations into the 
jail to see him. . I wish you could meet 
Rowe; you would like him. He served five years in 
the United States Army, and his discharge papers 
rate his record as “excellent.” 
* * * 
° This case of Game Protector Rowe is 
going to be a test case, and I tell you we are going 
to win; but we are up against a stiff proposition. 
The district attorneys who are in now are men we 
worked against last election, and they have made 
threats that they have Rowe now and they are going 
to fix him. So you see they will do almost anything 
to getevenwithus. . . We have left nothing 
undone ; we have hired the three best attorneys in 
the county to defend the wardens, and it will cost 
an awful lot of money. But we must win the trial; 
it will only be justice. 
You know there is too much of this 
resisting arrest and shooting at wardens by these 
foreigners going on in this country. The other 
Italian who was with Ruscas did some of the 
shooting, but although we had him held under 
charges of felonious wounding and attempting to 
kill, he was released under $2,300 bail. Who went 
bail for him? I don’t think his countrymen could 
raise it, or would if they could. 
I don’t think it is law that none of Mr. Rowe’s 
friends or relatives should be allowed to see him; 
if it is it is unwritten law. 
The following letter from the Pennsylvania 
Board of Game Commissioners, dated Harris- 
burg, October 5, shows that the case of Game 
Protector Rowe, in so far as it concerns the 
criminal lawlessness of Italian hunters, is not 
an isolated one. Furthermore, it confirms the 
preceding reference to the attitude of the Wilkes- 
Barre court: 
EDITOR RECREATION: I am in receipt of your 
_ letter of the 3d, and in reply would say: I consider 
