NATIONAL FISHERY CONGRESS. 
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persistent artificial hatching and planting of fish, would result beneficially to the 
fishing interests, both sporting and commercial. The results in the Delaware River 
prove this beyond the possibility of dispute. This being the case, other things being 
equal, there is no question of the propriety of forbidding the use of any device which 
will in any manner tend to depopulate the streams. Fish like the shad, herring, and 
striped bass are of far greater consequence than eels and suckers. Unfortunately, 
“other things” are not equal. The element that exclaims against the severity of the 
laws and demands the right to employ devices to catch eels, suckers, and commoner 
food-fishes, is strong enough in Pennsylvania and in other States to check the 
efficiency of the fish commissions and in some instances to shape vicious legislation. 
After some years’ thought on the subject and as a result of investigating the 
demands of the commercial fishing interests and of personal struggles to secure the 
passage through the Pennsylvania legislatures of efficient fish-protective laws or 
the defeat of bad ones, I have about come to the conclusion that true fish protective 
work, as advocated and attempted to be carried on by fish commissions, is in advance 
of the times. If I am correct in this assumption, it then becomes not out of place to 
consider whether or not it is expedient to yield something to the present demands 
of the commercial fishermen, even though by so doing their interests are not truly 
served, and wait for time and education to bring about a better state of affairs. 
I am inclined to believe that the commissions can accomplish more in the long run if 
they adopt this course. The pulling of the commercial fishermen one way and the fish 
commissions another is not calculated to advance the cause of fish-culture. 
I think Professor Baird advanced the idea that it is better to so increase the 
supply of fishes by artificial propagation that protective laws should not be necessary; 
that it is cheaper to make fish so abundant that the fisheries need not be restricted 
than to spend large sums of money in preventing people from fishing. Theoretically, 
this is an ideal proposition, but, unfortunately, under existing conditions it does not 
and can not work. If State legislatures would appropriate money enough to carry 
on the work of artificial fish propagation to an extent eight or ten times what is now 
done the experiment might be worth trying, but anyone who has attempted to get a 
moderate appropriation through the legislature knows how hopeless such an effort is. 
The tendency of those who control legislatures is rather to interject politics into the 
commission than to assist them to advance the cause of fish culture. Under these 
circumstances it is necessary to have fish protective laws ; but to what extent in order 
to produce the best present results for fish-culture? 
It may be considered heresy to surrender any part of a principle for the sake of 
expediency, but when fighting for a great object it seems to me that the greatest 
advances are made by adopting a give-and-take policy, to gain and retain the regard 
and respect of the other side, and to take what can be got from time to time with a 
feeling that it is a step toward the final objective point. As matters now are, I can 
not see that the fish commissions have advanced much, if any, in popular estimation 
in the last four or five years. On the contrary, it appears, in some States at least, 
that they have had as much as they could do to hold their own. In Pennsylvania, as 
I have already noted, the legislature adjourned without making any appropriation for 
fish-cultural work during the next two years; and out of the popular subscriptions, 
amounting to some $15,000, which have been made to supply this neglect or oversight, 
only $1,000 came from the commercial fishery interests, and that from Lake Erie. In 
