Yellowstone Park Protection Act 



tion of the Park, such influence was not sufficiently con- 

 centrated to make itself felt by Congress. The Park 

 was everybody's affair, and in the House of Representa- 

 tives no one could be found to take any special interest 

 in it. And so the fight went on from year to year. In 

 Congress after Congress the bill was passed in the 

 Senate, and emerged from the House Committee on Pub- 

 lic Lands weighted down by the burden of the railroad. 

 Secretary after Secretary of the Interior protested against 

 this feature of the bill, and so did every officer of the 

 Government who had any part in the administration or 

 exploration of the Park. But their protests were with- 

 out effect on the committee, which in those days seemed 

 to regard the railroad as the most important feature of 

 the bill. 



It was clearly shown that the railroad would not only 

 be most harmful to the Park, but could serve no useful 

 purpose ; for it was quite possible for a railroad to reach 

 the mines without touching the Park, whereas the pro- 

 jected route cut through the Park for a distance of some 

 fifty miles. The public press throughout the country 

 was almost unanimous in denouncing the threatened 

 invasion of the reservation. But the railroad in interest 

 had a strong lobby at work, and many of the inhab- 

 itants in the territories and States nearest the Park 

 showed the most selfish indifference to its preservation, 

 and a greedy desire to plunder it. The railroad lobbyists 

 were very active. They saw the necessity of trying to 

 avoid openly outraging public opinion. Accordingly 

 they changed the bill, so that, instead of conferring a 

 right of way through the Park, it segregated and threw 

 out of the reservation that portion through which the 



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