184 UNITED STATES FOREST POLICY 



occasion of so much discussion, so much criticism of the forest reserves 

 and the forest reserve policy, so much questioning of motives, and of 

 the integrity of certain public men, that it merits a bit of close 

 scrutiny. 



As early as January, 1896, Representative Doolittle of Washing- 

 ton introduced a bill to set aside a national park inclosing Mount 

 Ranier, and it passed both houses, but was not signed by President 

 Cleveland — according to statements made later in Congress, was 

 pocket-vetoed. In March of the following year. Senator Wilson, also 

 of Washington, introduced a similar measure, which brought no 

 results ; but a bill introduced by him in December, 1897, and favor- 

 ably reported by him from the Senate committee, finally passed both 

 houses, and was signed by President McKinley. 



The provisions of this act which caused particular trouble were 

 those which related to lieu selections. The Northern Pacific Railroad 

 was permitted to relinquish any of its lands within the park, or within 

 the Pacific Forest Reserve, and to select surveyed or unsurveyed land 

 in any state into or through which its lines extended. The act was too 

 generous to the railroad in several ways. In the first place, it gave the 

 railroad the right to select surveyed as well as unsurveyed lands. 

 Thus it explicitly provided what the Forest Lieu Act itself had only 

 left to implication. In the second place, it provided that the railroad 

 might select these lands in any state into or through which its lines 

 extended. This was interpreted by the Secretary of the Interior to 

 give the right to select anywhere in those states, without restriction to 

 its indemnity limits. The Northern Pacific had only a few miles of road 

 in Oregon, but under this provision, it was enabled to select lieu lands 

 in the wonderfully rich timber regions of Oregon for snow-covered 

 mountainsides and other comparatively worthless mountain lands. A 

 significant decision of the Secretary of the Interior some years later, 

 was on the question as to whether some 17,000 acres of glaciers should 

 be accepted as bases for lieu selections. 



In one of the committee reports favoring the Wilson bill, the state- 

 ment was made that the railroad lands in the park were mostly heavily 

 timbered, and some of them were, but the Northern Pacific was glad 

 to trade 450,000 acres off for better lands elsewhere, some 200,000 

 acres of the latter being afterward sold to the Weyerhaeusers. It was 



