PRESENT STATUS OF THE PARK QUESTION. 120, 



■which, ill the light of today's knowledge, would be fatuous to longer 

 tolerate. 



We supposed our forest wealth unlimited! And today the very 

 nation is alive to the necessity to protect and foster it. The expert 

 foresters say at the present rate of consumption the forests of the 

 United States will supply timber for an hundred years. This does 

 not take into any account the growth of our export trade in timber, 

 which since the opening of Pacific traffic is of vast importance; 

 neither does it regard an increased consumption assured to a rapid- 

 ly growing nation like our own ; while it is acknowledged, even by 

 the lumber interests, that the end of the white pine industry of the 

 northwest is already at hand unless the forests be put under scien- 

 tific management. But these facts do not in the least lessen the 

 rapacity of those who wish to acquire this forest wealth for them- 

 selves and now. 



I want to call your attention to one matter. When the lumber 

 is taken the land is thrown open to settlement. Speculators in 

 townsites and farm(?) lands induce people at a distance and emi- 

 grants to buy it. It is a wicked, pernicious fraud and on the side 

 of honesty should be stopped, because people cannot raise crops on 

 sand barrens covered with stumps any more than of old could figs 

 be grown from thistles! On these poor farms a bitter struggle goes 

 on for a time, and then the discouraged settlers are very apt to drift 

 away to the richer lands, of which there are still such wide acres. 

 Then is, indeed, the northern part of the state given over to a deso- 

 lation that is well nigh indescribable. Witness the desert sands 

 of much of northern Michigan and northern Wisconsin. This, too, 

 will be northern Minnesota's experience unless we can protect it 

 now. 



Failing to secure any concerted action in our congressional dele- 

 gation it was again necessary to resort to the legislature of 1901. 

 We presented a memorial asking that if the "investigation proved 

 it practical, desirable and advisable to set aside and devote to park, 

 sanitarium and forest reserve purposes the non-agricultural land 

 that then steps be taken so to do and laws enacted to accomplish 

 such result." The senate passed it forty-five to five and the house of 

 representatives sixty odd to thirty-eight. Owing to an addition of a 

 sentence relating to the vote of the members being attached, which 

 was added in the house, and not reached for consideration by the 

 senate at the time of adjournment, the Duluth papers announced 

 that it had "not passed." But our overwhelming majorities showed 

 the sentiment of the state, and the records have been sent to Wash- 

 ington. 



