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Show Mistorical Highlights ' if Llmo. Scott Watio. (Released by Western Newspaper Union.) Peacetime Hero THE recent petition of the American Ameri-can Humane association to President Pres-ident Roosevelt and Postmaster General Frank Walker to issue a special stamp this year in honor of Henry Bergh has made many Americans Amer-icans aware, for the first time, of the services of one of those "peacetime "peace-time heroes" who are all-too-often unhonored and unsung. For Henry Bergh was the founder of two great agencies for relieving distress the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children both of which were pioneers in their fields. Bergh was born in New York city In 1823, the son of a ship-builder who died in 1843, leaving the fortune which he had made in the service of the government to his three children. chil-dren. Young Henry Bergh entered Columbia college but before finishing finish-ing his education there went to Europe Eu-rope where he remained for five years. In 1862 President Lincoln and Secretary Sec-retary of State Seward appointed him secretary of the legation at St Petersburg and acting vice-consul. But the severity of the climate forced him to resign in 1864 and he spent the next two years traveling on the continent and in the Orient. The cruel treatment of their livestock live-stock by the peasants of many of the countries which Bergh visited sickened him and he resolved to devote de-vote his life to the interests of dumb animals. When he returned to his native land, be discovered that there was plenty of cruelty to animals here, too, so he began his crusade in the streets, in the court room and before be-fore the New York state legislature. He encountered great difficulty in rallying the public to his cause but, alone and in the face of ridicule and even active opposition from men who loudly asserted their "right to treat their property any way they chose," he persisted on his course. Finally the legislature passed a law, governing the treatment of animals, ani-mals, which he had prepared, and on April 10, 1866, Bergh organized and became the first president of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to carry on his humanitarian work on a nation-wide scale. In 1871 Louis Bonard, a wealthy Frenchman, who lived in great simplicity in New York, died and left $150,000 to the society which facilitated its work. Soon afterwards the attorney general authorized Bergh to represent him in all cases pertaining to cruelty to animals and with this official indorsement of his society, Bergh started out on a lecture lec-ture tour in the West which resulted in the organization of similar societies so-cieties in other states. In 1874 Bergh's attention was drawn to the case of a little girl who had been inhumanely treated by her parents and this resulted in the founding, with the aid of El-bridge El-bridge T. Gerry and others, of the New York Society for the Prevention Preven-tion of Cruelty to Children. This was the first organization of its kind in the world and it was the forerunner fore-runner of an international movement move-ment to protect unfortunate children. chil-dren. From his crusades have grown the modern licensing system for pets which requires owners to care for them, and dispose of them mercifully merci-fully and at the same time provide revenue for cities and towns having such a system. He encouraged the education of children in kindness to animals and the building of animal shelters and hospitals, such as are found in thousands of cities throughout through-out the country. Bergh's work also had far-reaching results in matters of health. He was responsible for the first fight for clean milk, and the society which he founded still has something to say about the purity of milk. It also looks after the transportation of cattle cat-tle intended for market and it fixes the time and manner of slaughtering slaughter-ing animals for food. In the matter of contribution to the health of our nation alone, it is difficult to estimate esti-mate the importance of the pioneer work of this "peacetime hero." |