The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-11-24
DEER SHIPPED
 INTO ALABAMA
Southern Express Company Charged With Violating
 State Game Law

Montgomery, November 2s.-(speciaD.-
 State Game and Fish Commissioner John
 H. Wallace, Jr., has been apprised of the
 fact that a deer. alleged to have been
 shipped from Wisconsin was transported
 to Mobile by the Southern Express com
 pany. MT. Wallace asserts that If the
 shipping of game from other states to
 Alabama be permitted it would be only
 an invitation to pot hunters within the
 borders of Alabama, to continue the ne-
 farious practice of exterminating game,
 only to run it across the line and ship 1t | from some point in a neghboring state
 back into Alabama. Mir. Wallace has l been informed that the agent of the Southern Express company has admitted | that said corporation transported the deer, said to have been shipped to a gentleman by the name of Zimmerman, of Mobile.
 Today the state game and fish commits sioner addressed a communication to Hugh Gillis, game warden for Mobile county, as follows:
 November 2s. 1911.
 Hon. Hugh Gillis, Mobile, Ala.
 Dear Sir: note by the papers that per my instructions you have sworn out warrant against the Southern Express company, charging said corporation with the Illegal transportation of one deer in this state. The Southern Express com pany is undoubtedly and confessedly gull ty of violating section 6970 of the code of Alabama, which provides that any per son, company, corporation or common carrier who shall ship or transport any birds or game without ascertaining if the person offering for shipment or trans- portation such birds or game Is in pos session of a hunting license duly issued to him and covering the period when such shipment is offered, and without requir- ing such person to accompany the ship ment, shall be guilty of misdemeanor, and, upon conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine of not less than $50 nor more than s1O0."
 It may be contended by those not post ed in the law governing such cases that, since this deer was shipped from another state into Alabama, no law was violated, and that under the law governing inter- state commerce shipments, the common carrier had right to transport this game. Anticipating that such contentious would likely arise. an act that was passed by Congress and approved May 25 1900, de- molishes any such argument. This con gressional act is known as the Lacey act" Section of said act bears directly on the case in point:
 Sec D. That all dead bodies, or parts thereof, of any foreign game animals, or game birds, the importation of which is prohibited, or the dead bodies or parts thereof of any wild game animals, or game or song birds transported into any state or territory, or remaining therein for use, consumption, sale or storage therein, shall, upon arrival In such state or territory, be subject to the operation and effect of the laws of such state or territory enacted in the exercise of it's police powers, to the same extent and in the same manner as though such animals or birds had been produced in such state or territory, and shall not be exempt therefrom, by reason of being introduced therein In original packages or other wise. This act shall not prevent the im- portation, transportation sale of birds or bird plumage manufactured from the feathers of barnyard fowl"
 In passing upon the constitutionality of the game law in the case of Hyde ys the state, 155 Alabama, page 133, quoting from the case of Geer vs. the state of. Connecticut, 161 United States supreme court, page 519, Judge Denson employs this language:
 Aside from the authority of the state, derived from the common ownership of game and the trust for the benefit of it's people, which the state exercises in rela- ton thereto, there is another view of the power of the state in regard to the prop erty of game which is equally conclusive, The right to preserve game flows from the undoubted existence in the state of a police power to that end, which may be tl1 because by doing so interstate commerce may be remotely and indirectly affected Indeed, the source of the police power as to game birds Qike those covered by the statute here called in question: flows from the duty of the state to preserve for it's people a valuable food supply.-Pheips vs Recey, 60 N. Y, 10, 19 Am. Rep. 140 The exercise by the state of such power, therefore, comes directly within the prin- ciple of Plumley vs. Massachusetts-155 U. S 461, 473, 15 Sup. Cy. 154, 39 L. Ed. 223, 27. The power of a state to protect by adequate police regulation it's people against the adulteration of articles of food (which was in that case maintained, although in doing so commerce might be remotely affected, necessarily carries with it the existence of like power to preserve a food supply which belongs in common to all the people of the state, which can only become the subject of ownership in a qualified way, and which car never be Ne object of commerce, ex- cept with the consent of the state and subject to the conditions which it may deem best to impose for the public good. State vs. Chapel, 64 Minn. 130, 66 N. w. 205 32 l.. R. A. 131, 5S Am. St. Rep 524; 1f Am. and Eng. Ency. Law (second edi- tion), D. 661 and cases cited in notes to text. It suffices to say our views on the subject accord with those expressed In the very able opinion of Justice White
 JOHN H. WALLACE, JR.,
 State Fish and Game Commissioner