Birdman of the Senate

McLean biography traces politics of passage of Migratory Bird Treaty Act

Published April 7, 2023, in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle.

By Barb Gorges

            It’s spring migration season.

            Mid-March, the mountain bluebirds were back and could be seen at the High Plains Arboretum, where we hope they will find the new nest boxes put up by Rustin Rawlings.

            Cheyenne Audubon’s March 18 field trip to Lingle to see northern cardinals was a success. I never expected to see one in Wyoming. They even produced a breeding record for the state last summer.

            We also checked out the reservoirs at the Springer Wildlife Habitat Management Unit, finding two trumpeter swans and sandhill cranes amid the usual ducks and geese. The following week, a storm of snow geese showed up.

            Studies show there are fewer birds in North America than 50 years ago. But the losses would be much worse if not for the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

            Because “our” birds cross international boundaries, it is important that there is international law. And we have the persistence of one man to thank for it, George P. McLean (1857-1932), former governor of and U.S. senator from Connecticut.

            McLean’s great-great nephew, Will McLean Greeley, has written his biography, “A Connecticut Yankee Goes to Washington, Senator George P. McLean, Birdman of the Senate.” An archivist by trade, Greeley inherited the story of a man who is a fascinating subject, with a well-documented life, too.

            I admit, I jumped right to Chapter 8, “Saving the Birds,” only skimming the previous chapters describing McLean’s rise from home-spun-wearing farm boy to governor. He was a champion of nature, especially birds.

            In the late 1800s wild birds were being harvested for feathers for women’s hats (the impetus for the founding of the National Audubon Society). Chickens were less available than wild birds, including songbirds, for putting on dinner tables. States had hunting regulations, but not well enforced.

            McLean’s first efforts, as a Republican elected to the Senate in 1911, were for federal protection of migratory gamebirds. But as he acquired supporters, including hunters, gun and ammo manufacturers, the U.S. Agriculture Department and conservation groups like the National Audubon Society, he extended protection to songbirds and insectivorous birds.

            In the era before chemical pesticides, protecting insect-eating birds protected crops. So it made sense to add the Weeks-McLean bird protection bill to the massive ag appropriations bill. President Taft was so tired on the last day of his administration that he signed it without reading it.

            The Weeks-McLean bill also defined bird hunting seasons, allowed federal laws to supersede state wildlife laws when more stringent, placed a five-year-ban on killing vulnerable species including whooping cranes, wood ducks and swans, and funded seven federal field agents and 172 local game wardens paid by the U.S. Agriculture Department.

            Protecting birds should be an easy sell, but Missouri Senator James Reed felt the need to oppose McLean at every stage, even though biographer Greeley discovered the two men and their families socialized outside work.

            McLean next had to work with a Democratic president, Woodrow Wilson, and the distractions of World War I, the 1918 pandemic, plus opponents wanting the Supreme Court to judge whether the federal government could usurp the states’ control of wildlife. Greeley points out that this was the Progressive Era and McLean was one in the best sense of progressivism, including federal regulations we take for granted today, like labor laws.

            Since international treaties are more impervious to Supreme Court decisions, McLean went after one next. In the final push, he had to let the president’s man take credit for the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Updated over the years but briefly tampered with during the 2017-2021 presidential term, it’s recovered its full effectiveness.

            Although George McLean became one of the wealthy elite, he was not miserly with his estate. He left substantial sums to all his nieces and nephews, great-nieces and nephews, employees and conservation groups like the Connecticut Audubon Society. His estate established the McLean Fund and the 4,400-acre McLean Game Refuge.

            Historical, political biographies are not my usual literary fare, but I was intrigued by the bird connection. And I was rewarded with a riveting story in which, under the leadership of one man, America and the other treaty signers were convinced to do the right thing for birds.

            Author Greeley found that McLean’s rationale for protecting birds was that he found them to be beautiful. So, get outside this spring and look for those beautiful birds. Or at least look out your window.

            Say a little thank you to George P. McLean that the robins weren’t all baked into pies, and that they are still patrolling your lawn.