Fair Play

The night was black as — there isn’t any simile! — just intense unadulterated gloom except where twin triangles of phosphorescent fire angled astern from hawser and bow. The ebb ripples, murmuring faintly against these interferences, accentuated the silence. The little ship swung snugly to her anchor, veering slightly under the tide whims.

Going below and lighting the gimballed lamp I dragged the banjo from its leather lair.

“The ‘Dreadnought’ is sailing down the wild Irish Sea. Yo-ho! Blow a man down!
The passengers are happy as happy can be.
The sailors like lions walk the deck to and fro.
She’s a Liverpool packet — Good Lord! Let her go!”

(No protests: there was no one within ear shot.)

“Then c-o-n-s-i-d-e-r awhile ere you leave me,
Do not hasten to bid me adieu.
Remember the Red River Valley
And the maiden who loved you so t-r-u-e.
There n-e-v-e-r was such a longing
In the heart of a true maiden be —”

This was too much! — A raucous, rude, loud voice interrupted the classical recital by wild cries of HELP! H-E-L-P!

The crescendo increased when my ears cleared the companionway slide.

HELP! HELP! HELP!

Could such yells be human? Erebus, Pluto or some night-wandering god must be in trouble.

The outlines of a capsized boat with two figures atop swung into porthole light rays. A flying jump into the dinghy — a few quick oar strokes — several energetic yanks on any part of their anatomy which my hand touched and I had the two lusty-lunged mariners in the skiff. Appeals continued rising altho in diminished tempo.

“Ease off on your jaw-flapping! You’re safe.”
Tumbled them aboard the “PHALAROPE” and went after their boat.

Mast and sail lay on the water making towing impossible against that powerful tide. Ran the mess ashore where it was safe until the flood made, and returned to the sloop.

One was half asleep, still emitting feeble cheeps for help. The other, down in the cabin, fumblingly extracted bedraggled bunches of feathers from shooting coat pockets. One Green Heron, two Clapper Rails, a Flicker and fifteen forlorn little Sandpipers were hauled forth and laid on the centerboard top with drunken deliberation. The search was continued thru his trowser pockets — a dime discovered.

“Money’s ashor’. All got ‘long. You take’t. Want do somethin’ savin’ us.”

I kept the silver piece for years as a memento of the value that man placed on his life. The estimate was about correct at that! They were both sober enuf in the morning to answer questions semi-intelligently.

“How did you capsize your boat? There was no wind yesterday.”

“She just keeled over when we stepped the mast.”

“Both went for'ard at once?”

“Yes.”

“A sharpie will do that trick nearly every time. Always keep some weight in the stern. —What are you going to do with these murdered birds? Why did you shoot them?”

“Oh, nothin.’ Just like to see ‘em flop.”

“Suppose I’d sent a couple of ounces of duck shot into you last night and watched you ‘flop’—wouldn’t have liked it, would you?”

“That’s different: we’re human.”

“Are you? There’s nothing human or decent in slaughtering anything for the ‘fun of seeing it flop.’ This Woodpecker was a tree surgeon, anteater and bughunter: perhaps accomplished more real good than you both. Food is primary to all: this bird helps produce it. To wantonly destroy such a valuable friend to man is criminal. To have blown you off your precarious perch last night would have been an ethical crime rather than an economical one. If you really believe I saved your lives, let’s make a deal: Hunt only game that will be used for food. Lay off all others!— Is that a go?”

“It’s a go!”

I hope they kept their promise. I never saw them again.

A lean gray U. S. destroyer was slicing northward off the California Coast. A fresh wind crested the ultramarine seas and swept the decks with spray as she knifed into them at twenty knats. One of the crew glimpsed a tiny speck headed toward the vessel on the starboard beam. He ascended the short flight of steps leading to the narrow bridge and saluted:

“Bird to starboard, sir, trying to make the ship.”

The commander’s hand swung swiftly to the telegraph handle and turned it to STOP. Cessation of vibration brought more men on deck curious to see why the engine had been rung off.

“What’d the old man choke her down for, Jack?”

Jack pointed astern to the feathered wanderer who had missed its objective and was struggling bravely forward into the wind's eye.

“Well, I’ll be damned! Stripes must’a jammed on center ter stop this hunk o’ junk fer that.”

“Stow that chatter, you big pea-shooter! ‘Spose you was the bird—a fat lot o’ grouchin’ you’d do then!”

A thrilling scene: a picture to remember. . . . Hundreds of tons of steel brought to a standstill while thirty blue jackets anxiously watched a bird — a tiny Warbler struggling for its life!

The ship’s head fell off as way lessened. The bird was gaining but sinking lower with each wing beat. One of the men commenced pulling his shirt over his head.

“He’s goin’ to make it!”

Reaching the area of dead air under the counter gave that atom respite enuf to lift itself over the rail by a last desperate flurry, and fall on deck. A gob gathered it in his palm tenderly and carried the tired little body below, followed by ruf remarks of satisfaction and comments on the bird's pluck.

That bunch of big-hearted “fighting men” tended their unexpected guest as solicitously as they would have cared for Aphrodite; more so, perhaps. A wave borne goddess might have aroused-but we go no further: the Freudian complex of sailors has too many angles.

The first incident happened thirty years ago when most gun addicts shot anything which ran or flew. The captain of that destroyer is a type of to-day’s American on whose ship the spirit of Fair Play ruled. This old world needs no other guidance than that spirit to fulfil its destiny. Attempting to prove a universal change in ethics by citing individual instances is poor logic. Let us look for further substantiation of the fact that sentiment has changed favorably toward fur and feathers.

Fifteen years ago visitors doubtfully eyed the natural surroundings of my home:

“I suppose you will clear out the brush and beautify the grounds?”

Present comments are different:

“What a wonderful place to study wild life — it is so primitive!”

Suppose I had acted on the first suggestion:

Without thickets — no Chewinks, Chestnutside Warblers, Yellowthroats, Indigo Birds, Catbirds or Goldfinches.

Without saplings and underbrush—no Solitary or Redeye Vireos, Wood Thrushes or Rosebreast Grosbeaks. Phoebes would turn house-breakers rather than desert “the old familiar woodshed.”

Orioles, Robins and Song Sparrows might remain but manicured country means lessened avian life. Many landowners realize this and are permitting unproductive parts of their property to “go wild.” Some farmers even scatter a quart or two of corn along edges of fields as a reward for Crows for the thousands of insects they feed their young and to divert attention from the growing crop!

On the Atlantic coast, especially in the vicinity of Charleston, Northerners are buying islands as well as mainland property for winter homes and not only protecting indigenous species but stocking their acres with game brought from other sections of the country.

When the Attorney General informed Roosevelt that he could find no law authorizing him to sign bills setting aside waste public lands as sanctuaries for wild life, “We’ll make the law, then!” remarked “Teddy,” writing his signature; and today we have thousands of square miles where the crack of a gun is never heard; where the little people are unmolested save by the law of “natural selection.”

Individual fortunes are used to purchase vast tracts such as the Sage and Rainey reservations on the Gulf coast. Large sums have been donated or willed to the National Association of Audubon Societies; their latest financial report shows an annual income of $256,000 (1928). This is expended for education and bird protection under the wise and effective direction of the Societies' fearless president, Dr. T. Gilbert Pearson. Wide stretches of Kankakee marshes and other sections of the Middle West are no longer open to the pot-hunter. We are waking up!

An intensely interesting feature of this humane development is the quick perception by the little fellows of this friendly attitude. Wherever the spirit of fair play predominates they sense it in some mysterious manner: furred and feathered life learns the boundaries of protected areas with astonishing celerity.

A fishing and hunting club has obtained control of 6000 acres hereabout. I yielded fishing but not hunting rights and when the first gun is fired in Autumn, Grouse skurry for Chickadee Farm. (A latent sense of truth prompts a more correct title — “Chickadee Rocks” because that’s what this place is!)

Ducks, congregated in enormous flocks off towns along the Indian River, Florida, gave gangway grudgingly as the “Phalarope” sailed among them. I could have scooped some with a crab net! Ordinances prohibited hunting within town limits. These foxy, impudent Ansers would swim right up to the invisible line and give hunters the merry “quack-quack!” Unrestricted miles of river between were practically deserted.

In one state the proposition is being considered that every county acquire a square mile and devote it to propagating all local forms of plant, tree, animal and bird life. Fine! Think what hundreds of 640-acre sanctuaries scattered over this broad land would mean for perpetuation. . . .

It is a big suggestion: materialization would be only fair amends for past destruction. May the idea spread to every state and take practical form quickly!

Senses of animals and birds are more highly developed than ours. In environment adaptation they are superior. Foxes are numerous in these hills but I seldom see one. Recently, after a good tracking snow, I followed one for miles. On high spots of the trail his footprints showed he had taken time out to watch me yet I never glimpsed a hair of his ruddy coat!

Two human attainments — grasping hand and retentive mind — render their sense superiority useless against the arch killer, man. We hold them in the hollow of our hand. For ages we have ruthlessly closed the fingers, destroying uncountable numbers, even extinguishing many species. The Great Auk, Labrador Duck, Eskimo Curlew, Whooping Crane, Trumpeter Swan and Passenger Pigeon are as the snows of yesteryear.

A hardy race once lived in these rocky Berkshire foothills farming (?) the meagre earth pockets between ridges. Some old homes still endure — wooden pinned frames yield slowly. All that remains of others are crumbling heaps which once were chimneys. When education dissipated the imagined malignancy lurking in lowlands, hillmen left the high places and the original settlers returned. Their coming is furtive; the lesson learned from slaughtered ancestors has bitten deep but they are coming, with high courage, back to the hills of home.

Sharp pointed deer dents are everywhere in old orchards. Uplifted leaf ripples tell where a Raccoon has been grub-foraging. A Fox has dug out a meadow mouse from this mound of tussock grass and a whitened rock reveals the drumming nook of a Grouse. They are returning to find their chief hazard — man's lethal grip — lessening in many places. Schools, colleges, nature societies and scouts are teaching Fair Play and driving home the fact that those who make a comrade of Nature never will be friendless.

Rampant reformation, with its slogan “Thou shalt not,” always has been and will be ineffectual in these United States. Our national existence is founded on the ineradicable trait of rebellion against force. Thru Puritanism, Revolution, Civil and World Wars this truism has held.

“Attempts to dragoon the body when the need is to convince the soul have been followed by revolt.” —Coolidge is a clear thinker.

A prohibition “fan” recently remarked:

“We are going to follow liquor elimination [this was NEWS] by taking tobacco away from you, next!”

He pointed to my pipe. The sacrilegious gesture drew fire!

“Argument is a breath-waster but heed this: ‘Holier-than-thous’ burned ‘heretics’ once. If the flames crackle again, you and your gang of half-witted, self-appointed lictors will be tied to the stake! There are enuf non-conformists to do it and we are becoming fed-up on impudent interference.”

He was perturbed at my earnestness. I meant him to be. I belong to the great American company of torch-bearers but not a single ray is intended to regulate the affairs between men. It is only to light the path of those who cannot fight back.

An amateur captain was marshaling the torchlight procession into ranks preparatory to marching. Transparencies bearing the slogan: VOTE FOR GROVER CLEVELAND were raised aloft. Enviously I watched the crowd take rough military formation.

“Here’s a half dollar, son. Grab a torch and join the gang!” said a voice from heaven. Did I do it? —I did, with eclat, pride and celerity! That was the start of my torchbearing and I have been carrying one ever since. It has smoldered for years but now, with the main task accomplished, flames are flickering.

Even that stern realist, Victor Hugo, recognized the necessity for idealism:

“Ideals are more vital than the real. Without ideals we exist; with them we live.”

Life teems over the world: its value lies in how we use it.

Social progress depends on the opportunity and determination of each to produce what he is best fitted for by inclination and ability. The pseudo idealist who uses neither hand nor mind — who merely dreams — is useless. That the product of those who dare live variantly has been scantily paid is true. The world purchases freely only that to which it is accustomed. The contest between materialism and idealism is old as the race.

Idealists have yielded most. They have always recognized the value of those engaged in transforming natural forces for humanity’s benefit. Materialists have been less resilient but are commencing to give lovers of beauty their rightful places in the amalgam of life.

Everyone who expresses his perception of the finer things in existence is “a stone in the dam which keeps the flood of brutality from overrunning the world.”

Advance of ethics is as slow as physical evolution; sections of the road are so rough, muddy and crevassed that going ahead at all seems impossible.

Fair Play is smothered in such a fog of backfire that her reappearance is doubtful. Part of this smoke comes from friction between nature lovers and so-called sportsmen.

The average trout fisherman demands extermination of everything which feeds upon trout. Herons, Kingfishers, Ducks, Otters, all must be killed because they interfere with his hobby. In 1917 a deputation from Florida to Washington protested violently against the law protecting Pelicans.  — “They ate so many fish we couldn’t win the war!”

Alaska offered a bounty on Eagles. Fifty-nine thousand of these magnificent birds have been slaughtered. They are accused of absorbing such a number of salmon that the cannery industry is seriously threatened!

One of New York State’s largest chicken ranches is located ten miles north of here. Men are hired on this place solely to shoot all hawks because some catch a few chickens. A tactful intimation that only a few Raptores kill chickens was met by the remark:

“They don’t step on your toes.”

Opinions vary according to the side of the fence we are on. There are animal, bird and human outlaws and protecting ourselves from individual viciousness is necessary and touches the primary law of self preservation. Injustice lies in the assumption that all should suffer for sins of the few. If we carried this idea of fairness into human relations the family and relatives of a convicted murderer all would be executed!

The trout fisherman does not consider the pleasure experienced by those who watch the life he would destroy. Cannery owners ignore the good Eagles do in eliminating dead fish. Chicken fanciers forget that a Redtail they murder has caught many woodchucks and rats. Indifference to, or ignorance of, the other side of the case is the prevailing attitude. Only the exceptional man sees “life whole” and is willing to take a slight loss for the sake of greater good to others.

Conserving trees, flowers and countryside is not enuf. We are most deeply interested in animal life because it is similar to ours —  a harmless, even attractive, form of egotism. The beauty of a landscape may hold us but if the thrilling notes of migrating Geese bugle from the blue, how quickly our eyes seek the far flung line! A tiny stir in the brush lures vision instantly. Action counts.

Rights of original settlers have received about the same consideration as the Fifteenth Amendment. Theoretically, said rights are supposed to be pre-eminent. Actually, they are, and always have been, accurately defined by a series of large, very hollow naughts. A glance at history will uphold this statement: —if a group of people coveted land, and were strong enuf, they took it. If premises of a proposition are wrong, conclusions must be false. The doctrine “might is right” belongs in this class and therefore does not invalidate claims of first inhabitants to remain in undisturbed possession.

Are we going to consider rights of those who were here long before Mongols crossed Bering Strait? Will an “Age of Man” replace the “Age of Mammals?”

Prophets of Doom always have had some audience because Calamity is the most ancient and strongly intrenched belief. I have no ambition to become a member of the Doomster Fraternity but if we turn thumbs down against birds and animals, an “Age of Insects” may follow. Exit humanity!

Congress has just appropriated (1929) $10,000,000 to fight the corn borer.

Tie these facts together in your mind and give them serious consideration.

“Treachery in the heavens! from land
And sea and every forest way.
From frightened pastures and darkened sand
Rises a cry of wild dismay.”

There is enuf without our hand against them. Nature is one vast appetite forever on the food trail, and overcoming this tragic fact taxes their power of survival to the limit. These willing little assistants of ours do not ask much — only a bit of waste land and to be let alone. Give them twin protections and their grip on the “silver cord” will strengthen. Watching the gallant way they play the game will help us take life in the same spirit.

LEND A LIFT!

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