Hunting in Many Lands 



promoters, who thereafter always blocked the passage of 

 the Park bill. In return they were always defeated in 

 their own scheme. The House Committee having the 

 protection bill in charge never failed to burden it with 

 the railroad right of way whenever it came to them, 

 blandly ignoring the evident fact that a railroad was not 

 an appropriate nor a relevant feature to a law for the 

 protection of the Park. And so it happened that the bill 

 which had been the child of affection became an object 

 of dread, and was denounced as bitterly as it had before 

 been advocated by its original friends. It was thought 

 better to have it die on the calendar than to take the 

 risk of its adoption by the House of Representatives 

 with the obnoxious amendment incorporated by the 

 committee. 



AjjaVt from that amendment, it was feared the bill 

 would not only encounter an opposition instigated by 

 pecuniary interests, but might itself fail to call to its sup- 

 port any counteracting influence. Those who opposed 

 the railroad, ana notably the members of the Boone and 

 Crockett Club, who invariably appeared before the Pub- 

 lic Lands Committee to argue against it, were at the 

 very least stigmatized as "sentimentalists," who impeded 

 material progress — as busybodies, who, needing nothing 

 themselves, interfered to prevent other people from 

 obtaining what was necessary and beneficial to com- 

 merce. With practical legislators such animadversions 

 are frequently not lacking in force, for nothing more 

 incurs their contempt than a measure which has not 

 what they call a practical object, by which they mean a 

 moneyed object. While throughout the country there 

 was considerable general interest taken in the preserva- 



408 



