Naturally, we are most interested in our own contingent of the Army of the Defense.

THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT.—­To-day the feeling in Congress, toward the conservation of wild life and forests is admirable.  Both houses are fully awake to the necessity of saving while there is yet something to be saved.  The people of the United States may be assured that the national government is active and sympathetic in the prosecution of such conservation measures as it might justly be expected to promote.  For example, during the past five years we have seen Congress take favorable action on the following important causes, nearly every one of which cost money: 

The saving of the American bison, in four National ranges.

The creation of fifty-eight bird refuges.

The creation of five great game preserves.

The saving of the elk in Jackson Hole.

The protection of the fur seal.

The protection of the wild life of Alaska.

There are many active friends of wild life who confidently expect to see this fine list gloriously rounded out by the passage in 1913 of an ideal bill for the federal protection of all migratory birds.  To name the friends of wild life in Congress would require the printing of a list of at least two hundred names, and a history of the rise and progress of wild life conservation by the national government would fill a volume.  Such a volume would be highly desirable.

When the story of the national government’s part in wild-life protection is finally written, it will be found that while he was president, THEODORE ROOSEVELT made a record in that field that is indeed enough to make a reign illustrious.  He aided every wild-life cause that lay within the bounds of possibility, and he gave the vanishing birds and mammals the benefit of every doubt.  He helped to establish three national bison herds, four national game preserves, fifty-three federal bird refuges, and to enact the Alaska game laws of 1902 and 1907.

It was in 1904 that the national government elected to accept its share of the white man’s burden and enter actively into the practical business of wild life protection.  This special work, originally undertaken and down to the present vigorously carried on by Dr. Theodore S. Palmer, has considerably changed the working policy of the Biological Survey of the Department of Agriculture, and greatly influenced game protection throughout the states.  The game protection work of that bureau is alone worth to the people of this country at least twenty times more per annum than the entire annual cost of the Bureau.  Next to the splendid services of Dr. Palmer, all over the United States, one great value of the Bureau is found in the fact-and-figure ammunition that it prepares and distributes for general use in assaults on the citadels of Ignorance and Greed.  The publications of the Bureau are of great practical value to the people of the United States.