Two trains of thought...
I think the key to this quote is when he actually made the quote. If he were a 18 year old FB who had did nothing in the dogs and had not yet built a stellar (life time) game dog reputation people would pounce on him as well. After he made the contributions he did, bred the dogs he did and built that stellar reputation along the way what he says carries more weight.

Secondly, and this is not a nostalgic plea for yesteryear, or a naïve perception everything was better/more honest back then, but...the internet has made it incredibly easy to peddle dogs. So when the next Johnny-come-lately rolls onto a board/forum and says he is breeding his female at 7-8 months old it draws out people's opinions, pro and con.

I look at what he did over time and weight the comment from there. After contributions over a lifetime his experiences say breeding Spook on her first heat was a great idea ( and history says so as well ) but I did not take the comment to mean it would be a great idea to breed every bitch at the first heat.