@Linkat,
Adlai Stevenson's Cat Bill Veto
STATE OF ILLINOIS
EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT
SPRINGFIELD, April 23, 1949.
To the Honorable, the Members of the Senate of the Sixth-sixth General Assembly:
I herewith return, without my approval, Senate Bill No. 93, entitled, "An Act to Provide Protection to Insectivorous Birds by Restraining Cats." This is the so-called "Cat Bill." I veto and withhold my approval from this Bill for the following reasons:
It would impose fines on owners or keepers who permitted their cats to run at large off their premises. It would permit any person to capture or call upon the police to pick up and imprison cats at large. It would permit the use of traps. The bill would have statewide application -- on farms, in villages, and in metropolitan centers.
This legislation has been introduced in the past several sessions of the Legislature, and it has, over the years, been the source of much comment -- not all of which has been in a serious vein. It may be that the General Assembly has now seen fit to refer it to one who can view it with a fresh outlook. Whatever the reasons for passage at this session, I cannot believe there is a widespread public demand for this law or that it could, as a practical matter, be enforced.
Furthermore, I cannot agree that it should be the declared public policy of Illinois that a cat visiting a neighbor's yard or crossing the highway is a public nuisance. It is in the nature of cats to do a certain amount of unescorted roaming. Many live with their owners in apartments or other restricted premises, and I doubt if we want to make their every brief foray an opportunity for a small game hunt by zealous citizens -- with traps or otherwise. I am afraid this Bill could only create discord, recrimination and enmity. Also consider the owner's dilemma: To escort a cat abroad on a leash is against the nature of the cat, and to permit it to venture forth for exercise unattended into a night of new dangers is against the nature of the owner. Moreover, cats perform useful service, particularly in rural areas, in combating rodents -- work they necessarily perform alone and without regard for property lines.
We are all interested in protecting certain varieties of birds. That cats destroy some birds, I well know, but I believe this legislation would further but little the worthy cause to with its proponents give such unselfish effort. The problem of cat versus bird is as old as time. If we attempt to resolve it by legislation why knows but what we may be called upon to take sides as well in the age old problems of dog versus cat, bird versus bird, or even bird versus worm. In my opinion, the State of Illinois and its local governing bodies already have enough to do without trying to control feline delinquency.
For these reasons, and not because I love birds the less or cats the more, I veto and withhold my approval from Senate Bill No. 93.
Respectfully,
ADLAI E. STEVENSON, Governor
Veto Messages of Adlai E. Stevenson, Governor of Illinois, on Senate and House Bills Passed by the 66th General Assembly of Illinois. Springfield: State of Illinois, 1949.
http://www.mrgunnar.net/ap.cfm?subpage=348265
) Many of them had people at one time but were simply abandoned when the people moved back to their regular homes on the mainland. Many others have been born in the wild. These ferals do help to keep the rat and mouse population down. They don't do much harm other than killing the occasional songbird that was too weak and/or sick to fly off. Healthy birds ignore them until they get dangerously close. Then the birds fly off, laughing their heads off. But, of course, we have no coyotes or other predatory animals on the island. Outside of hunger, the only predator that might be of concern to the wild cats could be the feral pigs. These, too, are offspring of pigs that were originally domesticated, rather than a wild breed. Farms ceased functioning and, in many cases, the livestock was simply let loose into the rainforest. So pigs are plentiful and it's pretty much open season on them for hunters. There are also small herds of wild cattle, similarly offspring of domesticated cattle. A season on them is declared whenever they seem to have reached a crritical population point.
