PLATFORM : False Impressions

Twenty million dogs and cats are put to sleep annually, not because they’re sick but because they can’t find homes. Doing something about spaying and neutering pets is far and away the biggest issue. Then there’s raising animals or trapping them to make some type of wearing apparel.

The fur people never talk about the issues. All they want to talk about is if you’re for animals and against fur coats, then you’re some kind of wacko. That’s one of the reasons I spoke up in the first place. I was tired of hearing that people who speak in behalf of animals are left-wingers who don’t eat meat, don’t take baths very often, grow beards and are against everything true Americans are for. That’s so much crock. I’m around these animal people. The great majority of them are just normal people who have a warm spot in their hearts for animals and have decided to try to help.

There are some important distinctions between using leather gloves and leather baseball covers and trapping an animal or raising him on a farm for fur. One is that everything used in baseball is a byproduct. No animal is killed so baseball can be played. But animals are being killed just to put a coat on your back.

Secondly, if there were no other way to stay warm except a fur coat, then I wouldn’t have much to say. But it’s very easy to find alternatives to furs and still look good. But the profession I’m engaged in has no other recourse at this time. The day there is an alternative to the type of ball or gloves we use, I’ll be the first to endorse them.