The Alaska daily empire., 1920-12-28

 the following communication from Charles Sheldon of Washington. D. C., one of the worlds most famous big game hunters, concerning the attacks of Dr. Hornaday on George Bird Grinnell, President of the Boone and Crockett Club. Mr. Sheldon l. well known in Alaska. He lived for one year on the North slope of Mt there studying game condi- tiens. He has hunted on the Yukon and on practically all of the islani5 of Southeastern Alaska. His book or hunting in the Upper Yukon is the leading authority on wild sheep. He has been very acti.e in promoting sane game conditions. At all times Mir. Sherdon has been in favor of the most liberal use of game in the de- velopment of Alaska and believes in game protection so that it may con tinue to serve a useful purpose. MT. Sheldon, while personally opposed to the exterminatiOn of brown bears, believes that where brown bears in terfere with industry, that brown bears must go. He is not a fanatic like Hornaday.-Editor)
 To the Editor of The Alaska Daily Empire-My attention has just been called to your issue of September 8, 1920 in which appeared a letter from Dr. w. T. Hornaday discussing letter from MT. George Bird Grin nell which was published in The Elm pire June II, 1920.
 In referring to Mir. Grinnell, Dr. Hornaday says: When an elderly gentleman of the retired type butts
 into a fight between grown meh, hitting him back is painful task; but when you are busy in a fight and a retired party slips your enemy a club with which to knock you out, can you entirely ignore the little token of friendship" '(The italics are mine)"
 Such remarks would need no com ment in the United States where MT. Grinnell and his activities have for forty years been well known from the Pacific to the Atlantic. Permit me to present to the people of Alaska the following facts:
 For the last fifty years continu. ously, Dr. George Bird Grinnell has spent a portion of each year in the wilderness of the West He was member of the Hartman Alaska ex- petition and wrote that part of the narrative of this expedition treating of the Alaska Indians. In the early days he hunted the buffalo with the Indians when their weapons were nothing but bows and arrows. His interest in the wilderness, hunting, natural history, wild life, Indians, and Western American frontier his tory. were so intense he made the study of these subjects the main ob feet of his life When in the early seventies he saw at first hand the reckless slaughtering of Western game, his efforts were naturally di- rected toward saving 1t. In 1876 he made to the War Department a re port on the rapid destruction of Western game and urged protective measures to prevent it's threatened extermination. His efforts were not wholly successful. his experience on the ground taught him that public opinion was not sufficiently aroused on the necessity for protecting game that little could be accomplished until that opinion should become educated on the subject.
 With the object of better cultivat ing public opinion in behalf of wild life and of the wilderness resouces of the country, he purchased the Journal, Forest and Stream, that he
 night use it for an organ for that purpose. For more than twenty years through the columns of For est and Stream, and elsewhere, MT. Grinnell advocated sound ideas of game protection and of general con- servation, and this long before there this end from any other source These persistent efforts, his books reports, his continuous vigorous per. sonal activities. were the prime fac tors in establishing the foundation of American public opinion which later issued in good game protective laws and principles of conservation in general. For years, almost alone, he did the pioneer work. and to him more than to any other individual we today owe the sentiment for conser- vation which Is now a part Of our national aspiration. Mir Grinnell was