[2 THEVA U'DU.E O Neb Ream 
wanted to take thirty consecutive days or stretch them out several weeks 
or months. True to form our Illinois commission seized upon the chance 
and gleefully ordered the open season in our state to be stretched over 
fifteen week-ends of two days each, Saturday and Sunday. In the face of 
so many representations, even entreaties by experts, one must marvel 
whether this is plain stupidity, or malevolence, or a desire to offend the 
vast majority of their fellow-citizens who do no shooting whatever, or is 
the pressure from commercial interests, allied to politicians—polticians 
with shooting friends—so great that nothing worth while in game pro- 
tection and conservation can be accomplished ? :. 
What is to be done? Get after them and keep on getting after them. 
If the shooters, game-hogs, and ammunition makers aline themselves with 
the politicians, so must we. Let us Lombard our state and federal repre- 
sentatives, our Department of Conservation, so long and often that they 
become either disgusted or convinced that they must do something for 
the non-shooting citizenry. Politicians and their appointees are impressed 
only by numbers, especially numbers of voters. And then let us not forget 
to eliminate from office such officials who show themselves incompetent, in- 
different, or unwilling to the interests of conservation. The language of 
the ballot is the only one that some of these people understand. 
Afterthoughts 
Let us. remind our members again of some of the goals we ought to 
keep in mind with a view of realizing their accomplishment. 
Abolish baiting for ducks and geese. ‘Fhis cowardly practice wins the 
confidence of the ducks and geese by the generous food supplies thrown 
out to them for days or weeks, and gets them used to such places, only 
for the purpose that they may be butchered in a shockingly wholesale 
manner. 
Abolish live decoys, for similar reasons as the preceding. 
Work toward a shortening of open seasons. 
Work toward lowering the bag limit. 
Work for a better carrying out of such regulations. 
Remove the Mourning Dove from the list of game birds to that of 
song birds, which are always protected. After we have allowed the fine 
Passenger Pigeon to be exterminated, let us not allow this gentle, orna- 
mental, and inoffensive bird to share the same fate. Allowing the open season 
on them to begin on September Ist is a heartless cruelty, for the reason 
that at this time many of these doves still have young in the nest, which 
have to perish when the parents are shot. Furthermore it offers an excuse 
to gun-toters to walk about with fire-arms, which they want to make use 
of whether they see any doves or not. 
Exert pressure on our Department of Conservation in Springfield to 
