Evening star., 1934-07-29
BUREAUCRACY In NEED
OF DEMARCATION LINE
Hard TO Tell Good From Bad When
Welfare of Wild Duck Collides With
That of Duck Hunters.

zona, the other day. particularly
able wolf came along and attacked
and did 10 death, In rapid succession.
three especially valuable Hereford
COWS This vas near a town called
Douglas. Did Mr.. Douglas Douglas
neighbors catch that wolf7 Let's not
be too theoretical. Let's be a bit prac-
tical. Perhaps in theory they should
have done so. In fact. In life as lived,
there wasn't one Of them equal as a
wolf catcher TO Federal Hunter Z. A.
Anderson. Mr.. Anderson took up the
trail of that wolf and in less than a
week had cornered II and captured 1t.
/ regretfully ADMIT that the Gov
ernment can do some things better
than can. and among them is wolf
catching and bob-cat-tickling. |
also-and even more regretfully-ad-
NIT that in some matters It is quite
inevitable and quite right that
should get extremely arbitrary orders
from the Government and its bu-
reaucrats.
The duck-shooting season Is coming
on. That is. bureaucratic prepara-
tions for II are being made. AS
duck shooter, shall presently re-
ceiVe a lot Of highly irritating per-
emptory commands from my fellow
newspaper worker. the supereminent
cartoonist Ding" now the bureau
crat in chief of the very same Bureau
of Biological Survey which in this ar
ticle has so steadily held my attention.
That bureau, by the way, was
started under President Cleveland
just to make studies and pictures of
birds. Then President Theodore
Roosevelt, Republican, instead of
saying TO the bureau, stop making
bureaucratic pictures of BIRDS" said:
Start some bureaucratic bird refugees
in this country and don't only make
pictures OF the birds, but also take
care Of them" Now the bureau has
more than a hundred bird refugees
in various parts of the country: and
now 1t also, under legislation signed
by both Democratic and Republican
Presidents, has the power to tell me
just when and how may shoot migra-
tory birds even in the free spaces"
outside the bird refugees. That's how
bureaucracy" grows. If you want to
yell about it; but you ought to be sure,
IN any given instance, that it hasn't
been growing to your benefit.
Ding" - sometimes called Mr..
Darling-is going to tell me. probably.
that can't shoot duck before octo-
Der i, or after January Is next. He
is going to tell me, probably. that /
can't try for that duck on more than
so different days between October I
and January Is. He is going to tell
me, perhaps, that cannot spread
bait for any water fowl anywhere near
q blind except on special permit from
the Departments OF Agriculture. He
will, perhaps, tell me that I must not
shoot at any waterfowl with any
rifle bigger than number 10 gauge or
from any boat operated by motor or
even by sail. He most particularly
will not permit me to shoot at any
waterfowl from an airplane. And /
hear that this year he will not let
me shoot at any migratory bird in the
dim light before sunrise. I must
wait for sunrise.
And how does he arrive at these
ideas? He arrives at them right out
OF his own bureaucratic head. His
rules and regulations" are absolutely
arbitrary" and ''discretional." For
what does the law say?
1t says, first, that 'it shall be un-
lawful to hunt any migratory bird"
a previous private right. And then it
goes on to say that the hunting of
birds may be done If it is
done in accordance with regulations"
issued by the Secretary of Agriculture
and approved by the President.
In other words, the law takes a
whole right away from us and then
We get back such fragments of it as
may be dealt out to us, from moment
to moment, by the discretional wis
dom of Ding" Henry Wallace and
Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Question Of Ducks.
Fellow citizens, shall we revolt
against this tyranny? Yes, if we
don't want any more ducks. We are
well on our way, anyhow, toward hav-
ing no more ducks I mean, of course.
wild ducks. Free unrestricted shooting
could easily now in decade reduce
our wild duck life to approximately
nothing.
So then we have to have restrictions.
And who shall make them? Shall
they be made by the people on referen-
DUN? Preposterous. Shall they be
made in all their enormous unavoid-
able detail by the votes of the un-
specialized members of the upper
and lower houses of the Congress?
Equally preposterous. They just have
to be made by buresucratS. There is
just no escape from that conclusion.
But the biggest argument usually
made against bureaucracy-by me as
well as by other fanatical anti-bureau-
crats-is precisely on that point of
arbitrary discretion" in bureaucratic
hands. We say that the line between
freedom" and "enSlavement" is the
line between an administration of
known fixed law and a promulgation
and enforcement of the "fancies" and
'whims" Of "appointive Office holders"
Yet I have just shown that in. a.
any rate, the matter of ducks and
geese and swan and snipe. and so on.
this line is not valid. 1t does not
a distinction which / can
in all matters defend. I must dis
cover some other distinction between
which is necessary and
serviceable and bureaucracy which is
oppressive and intolerable.
I contend, on reflection, that no
one-and not even Senator Borah-
has yet told us Just where and what
that distinction is. I remember that
Senator Borah earnestly defended the
Federal bureaucracy which undertook
to come into our homes-or. at least,
to surround our homes-and prevent
US from getting vinous, malt, or spirit
Gus liquors. That was a fairly anabi-
tious bureaucracy and yet had Sena-
tor Borah's support. I should like
therefore TO ask him; Senator, just
where, really, do you draw the line?
! also ask that question of anybody
else, / need light on it, The whole
population. think. needs light on
il IT f1eaHS the cen{t1S who will oou