to gratify a certain class of
sportsmen.

The game wardens will then find it hard enough to enforce the law.
Say, comrades, I wish to call your attention to an article in the
December number of H-T-T, 1912, by Mr. J. R. Bachelder. Mr. Bachelder
is an old and respected man and one of the rural mail carriers of
Cameron County. Mr. Bachelder describes how the trap law of
Pennsylvania has deprived him of the only pleasure that he was able
to enjoy in the open, that of tending a few traps.

And comrades, we of the trap line and trail, who are not blessed with
the dollar and the automobile, will soon find that our pleasures in
the open, like Mr. Bachelder's, are laid by for all time. If the club
man, through his leasing policies and the trespass law that he has
before the House of Representatives, becomes a law, we can go away
back and sit down.

But, comrades, I consider that we are to blame to a large extent for
these "one man" game laws. Had we come out at the right time and
fought for our rights in the open instead of slinking back in the
dark, whining, I believe that the law, as applied to the trap, would
be different and I should not violate the game laws after passed, no
matter if they are not wholly to my liking.

The professional sportsman makes a great talk about the amount of
birds that the fox destroys. Now, the facts are, one weasel or snake
will destroy more rabbits or birds and birds' eggs than a dozen
foxes. The fox gets the greater part of his food from the field
mouse. This fact any close observer knows.

* * *

Brother trappers, you are aware that the nations--the United States,
Great Britain, Japan and Russia, have taken the fur seal under their
protection, and will protect the seal and sell their skins. I wish to
ask you, brother trapper, if your wife, daughter or sweetheart wears
furs made of the seal skin. No? Well, your wife, daughter or
sweetheart does wear furs made from the fur bearer that runs on the
hillside back of your house. Then, why do you stand for a bounty on
these animals from which the furs are made for your wife, daughter or
sweetheart to wear, to hasten the extinction of these fur-bearers,
while the millionaire gives the word to the government, and the
fur-bearer of the millionaire is protected at the expense of the people?
Say, you wives, daughters or sweethearts of the trapper, do you stand
for this kind of a deal?

A few words in regard to the protection of the game and ga