FIFTIETH CONGRESS, 1887-1889. 1159 
on Rock Creek, for which it is proposed to pay $142,000. - In the first 
place, that is an immense price for that. kind of land. Then, after we 
have spent $142,000 for the 121 acres of land, there are $58,000 left 
with which to commence building houses. Next year we will be called 
upon to appropriate $200,000 to buy buffaloes, tigers, lions, monkeys, 
and other animals to put in there. The next year after that we will 
have to appropriate another $200,000, because we will have to buy 
reptiles, snakes, and things of that kind. So really, Mr. Speaker, it 
simply means $200,000 this year, and $200,000 a year for the next five 
years, and then we have a zoological garden. There is a zoological 
garden in New York and another in Cincinnati. Of course we must 
rival them, and it will cost $100,000 every year for all time to come. 
‘Now, are we ready to commence this business? I say not; and why? 
Because the Government has no business to enter into this matter 
until we are out of debt, and if the gentleman will postpone this 
measure until 1907, when we have paid our debt, I will join in the 
business. - I now yield to the gentleman from Alabama [Mr. Herbert. |* 
Mr. J. G. Cannon. Mr. Speaker, I doubt the wisdom of providing 
for this expenditure at the present time. I have no hesitation about 
the right and expediency, at the proper time and in a proper way, of 
improving the parks about our cities and establishing, at proper places 
and under proper safeguards, zoological gardens. In nearly all of our 
great cities you find them. Since this measure has been pending I 
got on my horse and went up Rock Creek road along the northern and 
the southern boundary of the proposed zoological garden. I went along 
the creek, and, as nearly as I could, found the boundary of that pro- 
posed park. Nature has done a great deal for that location; and I am 
very frank to say that I hope to live a good many years after the 
zoological garden shall have been established there or at some other 
good point; and I doubt whether any better location can be found 
any where. 
Yet I am frank to say I do not favor this measure at this time, 
because we are not ready. I believe the time is near at hand when 
there ought to be a park established, commencing at Massachusetts 
avenue and running a considerable distance north of the proposed 
northern boundary of this garden; and in that park ought to be placed, 
I believe, the zoological garden. 
It may be, and I think it quite likely, that a portion of the expense 
of this park proper ought to be borne by the District of Columbia; 
but whether that shall be done or not, we are not ready at this time to 
establish the park; 1 mean as disconnected with the zoological garden. 
If you establish the garden there now, and the Government begins to 
spend money upon it, my opinion is that the cost for the land north 
'The remarks then made by Mr. Hiliary A. Herbert were held over for revision, 
but were never recorded. 
