Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation by William Temple Hornaday
page 180 of 733 (24%)
page 180 of 733 (24%)
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generations, the people of Italy have been taught to believe that it is
_perfectly right_ to shoot and devour every song-bird that flies. The Venetian is no respecter of species; and when an Italian "ornithologist" (!) can go out and murder 180 linnets and pipits in one day for the pot, it is time for Americans to think hard. We sincerely hope that it will not require blows and kicks and fines to remove from Antonio's head the idea that America is not Italy, and that the slaughter of song birds "don't go" in this country. I strongly recommend to every state the enactment of a law that will do these things: 1.--Prohibit the owning, carrying or use of firearms by aliens, and 2.--Prohibit the use of firearms in hunting by any naturalized alien from southern Europe until after a 10-years' residence in America. From reports that have come to me at first hand regarding Italians in the East, Hungarians in Pennsylvania and Austrians in Minnesota, it seems absolutely certain that all members of the lower classes of southern Europe are a dangerous menace to our wild life. On account of the now-accursed land-of-liberty idea, every foreigner who sails past the statue on Bedloe's Island and lands on our liberty-ridden shore, is firmly convinced that _now, at last_, he can do as he pleases! And as one of his first ways in which to show his newly-acquired personal liberty and independence in the Land of Easy Marks, he buys a gun and goes out to shoot "free game!" If we, as a people, are so indolent and so somnolent that Antonio gets |
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