This Way to the Egress

The title of today's post comes from P. T. Barnum who fooled gullible New Yorkers to leave his often overcrowded museum of curiosities by installing a sign with that sentence. Among many other things New Yorkers apparently couldn't tell an Egress from an Egret. The visit of a Great Egret to Shovel Shop Pond made me think of old P. T. the other day. The Great Egret is an all white relative of the much more common Great Blue Heron.

I always think of pterodactyls when I see a Great Blue in flight, but the Great Egret was a thing of beauty as it took off from Shovel Shop and then flew a big circle over the property. Both the Heron and the Egret were saved by the MBTA. No not the MBTA that needs billion dollar bailouts for poor service and outdated technology. I'm talking about the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

Around the turn of the century, the women of America decorated their hats with feathers from birds. The herons grow incredibly long and delicate feathers on their backs during the breeding season so they were shot by the tens of thousands. Dedicated birders fought to get a federal law passed only to see it get shot down by state's rights bird killers who, like our fisherman, believed it was their god given right to drive species into extinction.

The birder's didn't give up and got the Migratory Bird Treaty Act passed in 1918. This included a treaty with Great Britain (acting for Canada). When the enlightened state of Missouri sued to have this law thrown out, the Supreme Court was happy to point out that the treaty power of the federal government trumped the right of Missouri to kill birds. It was a precedent setting case on federal power. Massachusetts own Mr. Justice Holmes used the term "living Constitution" in his decision a view that is the basis for the "loose construction" philosophy of judicial decision making.

Thus, the Egret was protected, and so today it lives on as does the spirit of Barnum. Note that it is Shovel SHOP Pond, but the new development, no doubt to attract the Von Snootens to Easton, insist on calling it the Shovel WORKS.  Apparently Spade Verkstad, Pá Fabrica , or Shovel Mhonarcha, (Swedish, Portuguese, and Irish) were too reflective of the blue collar people who, you know, actually worked there. Let's go all the way and call it the Schaufelwerks from now on. After all we did steal the idea of the folding army shovel from the Germans.