OUR FOREST RESERVE. 169 



an organization was formed known as the Minnesota National Park 

 and Forestry Association. This body soon became defunct, and 

 nothing was heard of it after the first meeting beyond a pamphlet, 

 issued in its name, containing information about the proposed park. 



And now we come to an important principle which underlies 

 not only this but every other effect for reform. The rights of others 

 cannot be wilfully ignored if success is hoped for. Under the 

 Nelson law, the Indians had received all tracts of land in these reser- 

 vations and had the right to the proceeds of the sale of land and 

 timber. The business interests, lumbering and commercial, and 

 ultimate needs of the public, demanded that the $10,000,000 worth 

 of pine be cut and used for public purposes as lumber. The pres- 

 sure for land, becoming greater each day in the very region affect- 

 ed, and the interests of the settlers and town's people required the 

 opening of the agricultural lands on the reservation to settlement 

 as under the terms of the law. 



The park people recognized the Indians' right and hoped that by 

 means of a new treaty — almost impossible of accomplishment — the 

 Indians might consent to the purchase outright of the reservation 

 and pine. This involved an impossible appropriation by congress 

 and utterly ignored the rights of the lumbermen and settlers, which 

 in their bearing were just as truly public rights as the park rights. 

 It is not surprising nor censurable that in the first inception of the 

 scheme these facts should escape notice, for in a proposition involv- 

 ing such vast interests it takes time and study and effort to grasp all 

 its bearings and possibilities. But it was very unfortunate that the 

 matter could not have been left entirely to those within the state, who 

 by reason of their sympathy with state and local rights were sure 

 to recognize in time these facts. The injection into the struggle of 

 interests from outside, men whose motives were single and consid- 

 erations of local demand, created a prejudice and contempt for the 

 movement that the best efforts of the home people were never able 

 to remove, and which was the greatest stumbling block in the way of 

 ultimate success. 



The first outburst of enthusiasm, in the winter of i898-'99, re- 

 sulted in a memorial from the legislature and a congressional 

 amendment, acting under which the Secretary of the Interior sus- 

 pended the sale of the reservation timber and stopped all work. Dur- 

 ing the next winter an attempt to modify the Nelson law in congress 

 failed, and attempts to secure an examination of the reservation as 

 to its fitness for a park also fell through. Matters dragged along un- 

 til the next winter, iQOO-'oi. It was during this period that the 

 faith of many waxed cold, and their hands became weak. But it was 

 then that the leaders of the Women's Federation, sincere from the 

 first in their desire to strive only for the possible and to deny the 

 rights of no one, came, as a result of their correspondence, effort and 

 study, to occupy a position so consistent and so strong that no force 

 was able afterwards to dislodge them. The state legislature in the 

 spring of 1901 gave them a chance to put themselves on record, and 

 the memorial to congress which was passed by both houses of that 

 body was almost wholly the result, of their effort. In fact, so low 



