eard 



For pure sport, for the search of truth, health and happiness with no condemnation 

 without a hearing, to listen carefully-, to speak cautiously and to be gentlemen without the 

 necessity of tailor-made clothes — that is our aim, nothing more. — Dan Beard. 



THE TRUSTS. 



We hold these truths to be self-evident: 

 that all men are created equal ; that they are 

 endowed by their Creator with certain un- 

 alienable rights ; that among these are life, 

 liberty and the pursuit of game. This 

 is by some considered a little old-fashioned, 

 but it is nevertheless good doctrine and one 

 we can safely depend upo n to solve all prob- 

 lems of justice and lair dealings in the game 

 field. Recreation has nothing to do with po- 

 litical parties, with the trusts or with the la- 

 bor unions or scabs except when any of these 

 try to govern the game fields and trespass 

 upon the domain of Recreation, then we 

 propose to look upon them as a common 

 enemy of our family and on the principle of 

 self-protection being nature's first law we will 

 not hesitate to rap them with all the power 

 of our pen, backed by the moral and political 

 force of our army of readers. , 



THE FISH TRUST. 



Mr. George B. Catilin, in the Detroit 

 Tribune, asks shall the Fish Trust be per- 

 mitted to control the lakes, and says : 



To permit any single trust organization 

 to secure absolute control of the business 

 of the great lakes would be against pub- 

 lic policy. . . To permit a fish trust to 

 establish a monopoly of the business of 

 the great lakes is to consent to similar 

 abuses. It would mean an arbitrary dic- 

 tation of prices to the fishermen who take 

 the fish and to the retailer who sells 

 them to the consumer — the lowest pos- 

 sible price to the fisherman* the highest 

 poEsible price to the consumer. It 

 means the placing of millions of people 

 under tribute, to perhaps a score of men, 

 for the sake of making them multi-mil- 

 lionaires. 



Such an organization could control sup- 

 ply. It could control inspection and 

 make it a farce. If it saw fit to pursue 

 the destructive policy of quick realization, 

 it could bring about just such conditions 

 as now prevail in the Atlantic coast fish- 



eries. Indiscriminate fishing without a 

 well organized system for collecting and 

 ■distributing the daily catch, and a close 

 monopoly., would seem to be things that 

 are equally to be avoided. The people 

 want the food fishes preserved for all 

 time. They are willing to pay a fair 

 profit for the taking and handling of the 

 catch, and in addition they are willing to 

 spend the public money freely in the 

 work of propagation of species that can 

 be so perpetuated. They are not willing 

 to propagate fish at their own expense 

 and at the same time to allow a single 

 close corporation to exercise a monopoly 

 to the detriment of all who are not 

 sharers in the profits of the business. 

 Mr. Catilin is right in his summing up of 

 the conditions, and we hope that the people 

 of Michigan and her sister States will see 

 to it that the plans of these would-be trust 

 promoters are nipped in the bud. 



OYSTER TRUST, TOO. 



Now comes the news of a scheme to con- 

 trol the shell fisheries of Long Island, in 

 other words, an oyster trust, if we are to be- 

 lieve the following report from a daily paper : 

 Plans for the organization of a syndi- 

 cate to control the oyster fisheries of 

 Long Island Sound are said to be ap- 

 proaching completion, about 68 per cent. 

 of the seed growing grounds being in- 

 cluded in options already given to the 

 projectors, one of whom is G. A. Mor- 

 rison, of New York. 



It is said that more options will be se- 

 cured and that in about ten days the 

 company will be incorporated with a capi- 

 tal of $10,000,000. 



Other reports tell of a lobster trust. 



There are certain tendencies which have 

 developed within the last ten years, and 

 which are the direct result of the segrega- 

 tion of immense fortunes in the hands of ill- 

 balanced people. These tendencies all lean 

 towards depriving the great American public 

 of their national and natural right of pur- 



408 



