Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1916-02-24

in the eyes of the law as the man who
steals cattle, hogs or timber. And if
Christian takes this property know
ingly he violates the law of God, for
our Savior's words are plain in
this regard: "Render unto Caesar the
things that are due to Caesar" and he
was the government. The voice of
our people is our government and
they have made this law for US to
obey.
l have read in a paper to-day that
there.was not one hunting license is
sued in Crawford county last year, 16
in Reynolds and something over 200 in
Iron. There are three classes who vio-
late the fish and game laws; the first
are as ignorant as children of the law;
the second are thoughtless in regard
to the matter, have never thought it
over carefully, and regard the law as
dead letter; the third class are a
lawless set and will steal any thing at
any time when they think they will
not be caught at it. We have many
in Reynolds county of the first class.
1t is only few days ago that neigh
Dor of mine, preacher, told me that
he did not know that resident of the
county was required to take out a Ii
cense to hunt. He is good man and
know will not commit'a crime know
ingly.
Some time since I was talking with
an official of one of our Southeast
Missouri counties in regard to the uni
versal disregard of our game laws. In
the conversation ne remarked that he
''never shot any more game than his
family could use." That is, The would
kill game at any time of the year.
When / asked him how it would do for
the officials of his county to take from
the treasury just what money they
could use," at any time they chose,
he could give me no answer There
is no difference in taking property, or
taking, money from the state that
does not belong to us. This man was
a good man and we'll liked by every
body. He had never thought the mat
ter over carefully.
Recently, in reading an article on
preparedness" I came across the
following: "as is well known, there is
in this country much laxity in the
matter of home discipline and, conse-
quently, very little authority any
where. In some sections the people
are law unto themselves and crime
is prevalent in many places" Now
this can truly be applied to Iron and
and Reynolds counties. Last spring
some one wrote letter from Glover
to the REGISTER in regard to lawless-
ness in Iron county and unjustly ac-
cused the sheriff of being the cause
of it by not doing his duty. am sure
the officials of Iron and Reynolds
counties will do all in their power to
prosecute and convict all violators of
law in their counties. To do this we
must have strong public opinion to
cooperate with them.
Now, Bro. AXE, l have plan that |
am sure will create strong public
opinion which will stop the greater
part of this lawlessness. 1t is much
better than to. try to arrest and con-
vict the hundreds of law breakers in
Iron and Reynolds. The jails in twen-
ty of our counties would not hold all
of those who have violated the game
laws in Reynolds county the past
year. There are six hundred or more
men and boys who live in our county
who hunt in season and out of season,
and just 16 have taken out license
the past year. Now we will try and
show that the greatest evil is not the
determination of our game and fish,
but it is influential men who teach our
boys by their acts that it is right to vi
olate the laws of our state.
Let me relate one instance. Last
April my grandson was out gigging
fish with his uncle. The man proba-
bly, knew it was unlawful, the child
did not The child and uncle would
at once sell all the fish they could not
use. Now let me read part of the fish
law, Section 654S, Revised Statutes of
MissouriI "It is unlawful to gig fish,
or spear fish, during the months of
January, February, March, April and
December Of each Fyear. 1t is also a
misdemeanor to offer for sale fish that
have been gigged or speared." Some
times you can see as many as twenty
Of our best citizens killing fish in this
beautiful stretch Of water, in an un-
lawful way. This is what hides the
great evil to the young and they grow
up to be lawless men to swell the mob
such as we read about in Ohio q short
time ago, and be ready to dance in
hellish glee while some poor wretch is
burning.
A short time agoI read that In my
native state, which has but eight
counties, that one Thousand deer we're
killed this winter, as there had been
several closed seasons. | presume
there are not one third as many in all
Missouri, which has one OF the best
natural game preserves In all the mid
die west. Why did so many deer ac.
cumulate in this small state OF eight
counties2 Are there no lawless men
there9 | presume they have as many