BULLETIN NUMBER FIVE 
211 
This, men of the West, is the logical outcome of our fool¬ 
ish and abusive treatment of the hunting privilege. As 
blind devotees of the dangerous fetish called “Personal Lib¬ 
erty” we undertake to give every “citizen” — and many, 
many aliens also—good, bad and worse—all the free shoot¬ 
ing they want, for a paltry one-dollar resident license an¬ 
nually ! We turn millions of guns loose on the remnant of 
game and near-game; we maintain a corporal's guard of 
game wardens to watch that huge army of 3,000,000 gun¬ 
ners, and we calmly stand or sit by while our finest wild 
birds and mammals are exterminated. 
Our republican form of government is a deadly curse to 
our best wild life. There are one thousand times too many 
men who want to kill what they want, when and where they 
want it; and any man who tries too hard to preserve legiti¬ 
mate sport with the gun from becoming extinct is finally 
spoken of as “the bitterest enemy of sportsmen.” 
The 6-year medicine will seem bitter; but if the case is 
to be cured it must be swallowed now! Far be it from me 
to prescribe trivial measures, for a quarter-way cure. Don't 
waste valuable time talking about “shortening the bag lim¬ 
it,”—unless you cut it down to zero. For vanishing game 
all bag “limits” are a fraud, a delusion and a snare. I think 
they never yet have saved a game bird species, and that they 
never will! 
And do not be cajoled or deceived by plausible talk about 
“shortening the open season” as a real means of saving and 
bringing back the grouse. That, also, is a delusion, in every 
case of the kind that has come before us. Just now the sage 
grouse can not stand any open season! 
Secretary John Sherman said: “The way to resume specie 
payments is to resume!” He was correct. The way to save 
and bring back the sage grouse is by stopping everyone 
from killing them, for a number of years. Even with a 
6-year close season, it will be hard enough for them to come 
back, —which is what we all wish to see. The heath hen 
failed to do it; in all localities save one, where the 21 sur- 
