1900. 



AMERICAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 



287 



were instrumental in having the general 

 government suspend the cutting of the 

 Pine on the reservations. A plan was put 

 forth to secure a great tract of those lands 

 for a National park. At once the cry 

 went up that the area was too great. 

 State pride and local and personal inter- 

 ests arrayed themselves against it. Fi- 

 nally, the plan was narrowed to an effort 

 to secure for that purpose the four reser- 

 vations containing the 1,297 square miles 

 in question. An organization was formed 

 called the Minnesota National Park and 

 Forestry Association. This was done in 

 July, 1889. In the autumn of that year, 

 a Congressional Expedition consisting of 

 twenty-one Congressmen from eleven dif- 

 ferent States and about eightv other 

 friends of the movement went by special 

 trains from Chicago and the Twin Cities 

 up into the heart of the region. 



The result of that expedition soon began 

 to bear fruit. The thousands of women 

 of Minnesota through their local organi- 

 zations of League Clubs and their central 

 body took the matter up. They secured 

 aid from all over the country. 



On account of the Nelson Law and 

 Rice Treaty, and the lamentable failure 

 of the government to discharge its obliga- 

 tions thereunder to the Chippewa Indians 

 of Minnesota, and from the fact that the 

 1,580 Indians comprising the Cass Lake, 

 Winnibigoshish, Leech Lake and Missis- 

 sippi-Chippewa Tribes, had nearly all 

 elected to take their separate allotments of 

 80 acres each on these reservations where 

 they respectively resided, it was deemed 

 necessary that a commission composed of 

 members of both Houses of Congress, 

 should investigate the whole matter and 

 report their conclusions. 



Accordingly, on April nth, of this 

 year, a joint resolution was introduced in 

 both the Senate and the House, and by 

 each body referred to its Committee on 

 Indian Affairs. This measure provided 

 that a joint commission, to be composed 

 of the chairmen of the Committees on 

 Public Lands and Indian Affairs of the 

 Senate and House, respectively, with five 

 other members of the Senate and five from 

 the House, making fourteen in all, should 



inquire and report whether it is practicable 

 and desirable to create a national park 

 upon the four Indian reservations in ques- 

 tion, with power to subpoena and examine 

 as witnesses, experts in forestry and others ; 

 to visit the reservations and confer with 

 the Indians, etc. The measure contained 

 an appropriation of $10,000 for the ex- 

 pense of the Commission. 



The Joint Resolution passed the Senate 

 unanimously, precisely as it was intro- 

 duced, on the loth of last May. 



The Committee on Indian Affairs of 

 the House unanimously reported the Joint 

 Resolution back to the House, recom- 

 mending its passage, with the number of 

 the Joint Commission reduced from 14 

 members to 6, and the appropriation for 

 expense cut down to $5,000. 



The measure is now on the House Cal- 

 endar, awaiting the determination of the 

 Speaker as to when it shall be brought 

 before the House for consideration and 

 action. The friends of the proposed park, 

 both in and out of Congress, have hi-h 



o o 



hopes that the measure will be brought up 

 and passed at the present session. 



WHAT MAY BE HOPED. 



If this Joint Commission shall be cre- 

 ated under the authority of law as con- 

 tained in the resolution passed by the 

 Senate, an opportunity will be afforded 

 to all the friends of forestry, to have an 

 official record made up, and later, to have 

 a test taken of the practical utility of mod- 

 ern forestry as applied to the forests of 

 this country. No better site could be se- 

 lected than the region of this proposed 

 park. It is the opinion of sonic of the 

 most eminent foresters in the country, that 

 the matured Pine trees can be cut from 

 year to year, and by clearing up the slash- 

 ings and keeping out the forest tires, the 

 Government can verv nearly, if not quite, 

 pay, out of the net proceeds of the Pine, 

 the same rate of interest on its present 

 value which it has bound itself to pay to 

 the Indians, and still have a splendid 1 

 tional park for the people. More than 

 that: surrounding those reservations on 

 all sides are millions of acres, from which 

 the merchantable Pine has been mostly 



