Mayflower Miracle

In the U. S. Press one day last fortnight appeared a cartoon which, if it had been printed in the Communist Daily Worker or New Masses, would almost certainly have caused Representative Fish to intro duce a resolution in Congress and the Hearst Press to roar: "The Revolution is AT HAND." U. S. hunters outnumber the U. S. Army 30-to-1. The cartoon summoned them to take up arms against the Government. It showed a mighty army of sportsmen, scientists, bird-lovers and miscellaneous conservationists armed with double-barreled shotguns and high-powered rifles marching on Washington, forcibly dragging a bewhiskered "Congress" off his perch atop the Capitol (see cut).

One reason why the cartoon did not get its author and publishers arrested for treason was that it had been drawn by patriotic Jay Norwood ("Ding") Darling, appeared in the arch-Republican New York Herald Tribune and its syndicate customers. Another reason was that, at the time, any hope of united action by U. S. conservationists seemed pure fantasy. For years the people who want to look at animals and the people who want to shoot them have fought each other far more vigorously than they have fought for the preservation and replenishment of the nation's wild life resources. Meantime lakes have dried up, marshes have been drained, forests cut over, rivers polluted, birds, beasts & fish killed off by millions.

Last week, summoned by President Roosevelt, "Ding's" army marched peace fully on Washington, sat down 2,000-strong in the Mayflower Hotel for a North American Wild Life Conference. Conservationist Darling, who resigned as Chief of the Biological Survey last November after a discouraging year and a half spent trying to interest Congress and the Administration in his conservation program, led off the speechmaking. Cried he: "As our esteemed collaborator, Thomas H. Beck, has pungently remarked, 'Ducks don't vote,' and I might add that neither do conservationists. Our scattered and desultory organizations--36,000 of them--have never, to my certain knowledge, influenced so much as the election of a dog catcher. Thirty-six thousand clubs, leagues and associations whose chief objective is wild life conservation. . . . And yet, with all this potential voting strength, the wild life conservationists altogether exert less political influence on our governments, both State and national, than the Barrel-Rollers' Union in Pumpkin Center. . . . The problem resolves itself therefore into one of federation of the group interests to bring to bear their voting strength upon the men who are willing to serve when the demand is made impressive by numbers."

Other speakers took up "Ding's" cry.

As vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Conservation of Wild Life Resources, Nevada's Key Pittman sagely observed: "We of the legislative branch of the Government feel the necessity for support, moral and sentimental, of our constituents in every matter." Darling & friends scurried through corridors, in & out of bedrooms, buttonholing stubborn delegates, arguing the cause of union.

On the third day the miracle was brought to pass. Convinced at last that they would get nowhere unless they first got together, zoophiles and gunners agreed to sink their crotchets in a national General Wild Life Federation. A constitution was adopted providing for a temporary organization until 48 State federations could be formed and welded into a permanent body. Chosen with a roar to be temporary president was Conservationalist "Ding" Darling.

Not even the digs of his good friend & onetime superior, Secretary of Agriculture Wallace, could mar President Darling's happiness at the conference banquet that night. "There are some folks," jibed the Secretary, "who think that human beings are just as important as ducks. . . . Jay thinks I just don't have any appreciation whatever of wild life as an economic asset. . _. I think he is an awfully good cartoonist. I don't think much of him as an economist."

"I knew he never read all my memorandums," replied "Ding" mildly. "All heads of departments should listen to each others' broadcasts and read each others' memorandums and then they'd know more about what they're trying to do."

Next day another Cabinet member, Interior's Ickes, pleased the nature-lovers by announcing his opposition to further road-building in national parks. "Of course," added Secretary Ickes, "the roads in the parks that were there when I came, I will have to accept."

Content with their new harmony, the Federation leaders wisely refrained from jeopardizing it by proposal of a concrete program. That could wait on permanent organization, after which they were sure they would have President Roosevelt's warm support. But the conference celebrated something more than harmony when, at the closing session, it learned that a Migratory Bird Treaty even stricter than the U. S.-Canadian pact adopted 20 years ago had just been signed by representatives of the U. S. and Mexico. Prime aim: To stop the slaughter of 7,000,000 to 18,000,000 North American wildfowl which winter in Mexico.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.