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DUCKS VERSUS RICE
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^[[San Francisco Chronicle 8/16/18]]

The Country Must Make Up Its Mind Which It Prefers to Have

WE DO not know that wild ducks have any economic value whatsoever except for food. If they are valuable for that those who get them should pay for the feed which the pests consume. They are "protected," however, by State law, and are unavailable for food at any time of the year except by those able to go and kill them to the limited amounts permitted, after they have been fattened at other people's expense. As a matter of fact, they are not "preserved" for food, but for the gratification of those who find pleasure in killing something.

In addition to this, being "migratory" birds, there is a Federal law, savagely enforced—probably under the "Interstate Commerce" clause of the Constitution, or possibly the general welfare clause—which overrides state authority, and would  penalize any rice grower who sought to protect his property, whatever the state law permitted. There are, therefore, two sets of sleuths watching the rice growers to see that they do not prevent the ducks from eating and wasting their rice by any means more deadly than shooing them away. Thus far that has not been forbidden, but if the United States Government may lawfully interfere in the matter at all it may do so to any degree of efficiency it desires.

There is, if we remember correctly, something in the Constitution which purports to prevent any public authority from taking private property without compensation or otherwise than by due process of law. But the Constitution seems not to count any more.

The Government urges the utmost possible production of grain, including rice. We suggest that as a war measure it surcease from its efforts to fatten ducks for the pleasure of sportsmen on other people's rice. It would help a good deal in increasing rice acreage.

Original copied by Smithsonian Archives