Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1899-1903, 1902-02-04

air would be unfit to breathe.
Public sentiment is growing in IA
vor of the conversation of our re-
sources. 1t is timely as to some
things. 1t is far too late as to others.
The salmon industry, so called, is hur-
rying with the aid of wheels and ma
chinery with headlong speed toward
its own destruction. The law ought
to call halt if self-interest will not
lead these men to protect their own
business. We have at last federal
law which takes long step in that
direction.
The slaughter of our birds has
gone apace but this law is being stead
lily and successfully invoked to reduce
this destruction within more moderate
limits. In single transaction in Lon
don 100000 birds were sold, and
among them 100000 humming birds
Prof. Jordon, of Leland Stanford
University, wrote me that in recent
visit to Japan he found that the trees
had been lined and the song birds ex-
terminated by the people who were en-
gagged in supplying the horrid de-
mands of the bird millinery trade. The
Dlngley law protected the water fowl
~ SoiieiuJ anu tl1C AlCShd SouC ulu tllC
same for the birds of Alaska by pro-
hibiting the shipment of their eggs to
the United States.
Attorney General Knox, one of the
clearest-headed lawyers that has ever
administered the department of JUS
tioe, has recently, at my request, con-
sidered the subject of the national
power over the public lands and forest
reserves, and his opinion is to the eff
feet that congress can, within ever the
limits of state, legislate and make
regulations by which animal life may
be protected in the peoples forests
This opinion of the attorney general
will be land mark in the history of
protective legislation, for, as con-
gress gives the power it should not
and will not fail to exercise it.
The wild pigeon has gone to join
the great aux and the dodo in the
realm of obliteration.
We may well pause and consider the
situation with which we are confront
ed. | read the other day of hunt in
the south where two prominent gentle
men from New York killed sixteen
| hundred ducks in two days and gene
rously gave them away to show that
| they We're not mere ordinary pot hunt,
ers. These sportsmen should have
| for two days for Swift and Armor,
where they might have glutted their
appetites for gore in a more creditable
way. The reckless, imprOvident and
lnd1scriminate slaughter of our fish in
the rivers and the seas are only il
Illustrations of that large waste of our
national resources going on in all di.
rections. The natural gas was well
worshipped as something supernatural.
Now it is used for the most practical
| OF all purposes. But it has been as
recklessly wasted as though it were
infinite in quantity and the depleted
fields show the results of our extrava
gance.
Oil and forests have been eXtrava.
gantly exploited in the same way
Since have been in public life have
devoted much of my time to the sub
| Ject of the conservation and restora
ton of our natural resources. 1t is a
shocking thing to see the people OF
the Pacific coast wantonly engaged in
making their populous Salmon streams
prolific Connecticut now is.
. Atoihihu lHuSG COuSeING THESE re
sources OF nature or the world will al
no distant day become as barren as &
sucked orange.
When the people were cutting each
others threats during the war of 1861
to 1865, game in the south became
abundant, for men had ceased to hum
anything but human flesh; but wher
peace came the war against the ere
atures OF the field and forest was again
renewed and waged with unremittine
zeal. 1t is no credit to mankind tina,
animal life is more abundant today
around the inaccessible poles than any
where else on the planet. Fish in the
inhospitable Hudson Bay region are
so plentiful that it is impossible t.
furnish names for them all and like
the statue to the unknown God at Ath
ems one of these Canadian fishes was
called the inconnu' or the unknown
fish. The proposed railway to Hudson
Bay will change all this.
4 Saul of Tarsus ceased to bai
Christians after the scales fell from
his eyes at Damascus and became the
best friend and preserver of the faith
full, So, tonight, 1 appeal to club O.
hunters, not only of hunters but Of
mighty hunters, as the best friends
and preservers of American birds ant
beasts. There are now $4,000 .OO(
acres of our forests preserved to keel
up the supply of waite: for our rivers
This is great step in the direction
of outstanding natures resources. Far
seeing and practical men saw that
part of the forests must be saved O.
the remainder Of the land would be
come desert, and the forest reserve!
We're established against the protests
of the unthinking. These woods thu
set apart as the sources of water sup
ply may be made the city of refuge TO-
the remnant of the mighty throng O.
animal life that once filled the cont
nent. We have seen the buffalo S,
nearly exterminated that less than fiv,
hundred living specimens today ma,
be found in the entire world. Thei
domestication was as practicable al
that of the reindeer. the horse or thu
COW. Perhaps out of these scant,
remnants new hards may again D
produced.
Let me recall the general history O
our national legislation upon this sub
ject: