In 1996, Frank Celaya, a Phoenix cockfighting supporter and Vietnam veteran, took off his artificial leg and held it out to the committee, hollering, "If this is not enough for my country, to be able to come and fight chickens whenever I want to fight chickens, then what is this country coming to?" To its senses?

The victories in Missouri and Arizona are not only major but unique: never before in any state has there been a ballot measure banning cockfighting. Jamie Massey (AZ), Sandy Mickelson (MO) and their troops who won these ballot battles, illustrate the famous paradox, "All great ideas degenerate into hard work." And the equally important paradox, "Only hard work can make a great idea come true."

United Poultry Concerns was pleased to provide our full support from beginning to end in the form of information about the normal social life of chickens, Action Alerts, financial assistance, and letters to the editor. As the campaign to ban cockfighting nationwide pushes on to other states such as Oklahoma and Louisiana, let it be proclaimed: cockfighting is a strictly human activity. (See Jamie Massey's excellent fact sheet, "What Cockfighters Don't Understand.") If cockfighters would simply imitate the rooster in his natural condition, this would automatically eliminate cockfighting.

For more information, call AZ Citizens Against Cockfighting (Tucson: 520 722-0129, Phoenix: 602-392-4272); and Missourians Against Cockfighting (St. Louis: 314-644-7070).