least that has been their actual result.  I have no more reverence for a sportsman than for anyone else, and no reverence for him at all because he is or calls himself a sportsman.  He has got to be a man.  He has got to be a citizen.

I have seen millions of acres of breeding and feeding grounds pass under the drain and under the plow in my own time, so that the passing whisper of the wild fowl’s wing has been forgotten there now for many years.  I have seen a half dozen species of fine game birds become extinct in my own time and lost forever to the American people.

And you and I have seen one protective society after another, languidly organized, paying in a languid dollar or so per capita each year, and so swiftly passing, also to be forgotten.  We have seen one code and the other of conflicting and wholly selfish game laws passed, and seen them mocked at and forgotten, seen them all fail, as we all know.

We have seen even the nation’s power—­under that Ark of the Covenant known as the Interstate Commerce Act—­fail to stop wholly the lessening of our wild game, so rapidly disappearing for so many reasons.

We have seen both selfish and unselfish sportsmen’s journals attempt to solve this problem and fail to do so.  Some of them were great and broad-minded journals.  Their record has not been one of disgrace, although it has been one of defeat; for some of them really desired success more than they desired dividends.  These, all of them, bore their share of a great experiment, an experiment in a new land, under a new theory of government, a theory which says a man should be able to restrain himself, and to govern himself.  Only by following their theory through to the end of that experiment could they know that it was to fail in one of its most vitally interesting and vitally important phases.

But now, as we know, all of these agencies, selfish or unselfish, have failed to effect the salvation of American wild game.  Not by any scheme, device, or theory, not by any panacea can the old days of America be brought back to us.

* * * * *

Mr. Hough’s views are entitled to respectful consideration; but on one vital point I do not follow him.

I believe most sincerely—­in fact, I know,—­that it is possible to make a few new laws which, in addition to the many, many good protective laws we already have, will bring back the game, just as fast and as far as man’s settlements, towns, railroads, mines and schemes in general ever can permit it to come back.

If the American People as a whole elect that our wild life shall be saved, and to a reasonable extent brought back, then by the Eternal it will be saved and brought back!  The road lies straight before us, and the going is easy—­if the Mass makes up its mind to act.  But on one vital point Mr. Hough is right.  The sportsman alone never will save the game!  The people who do not kill must act, independently.