FIFTY-FIRST CONGRESS, 1889-1891. 1365 
think that is a thing for which the Government should pay the whole 
expense. 
Mr. J. C. S. Buacksurn. I am very sure, Mr. President, that this 
Zoological Park has no more sincere advocate or friend than I am, but 
I will not vote for any bill that proposes to impose upon the people of 
the District of Columbia any portion of the expense incident to its pur- 
chase or its maintenance. I do not intend, either, to offer the plea of 
poverty on behalf of the people of this District in support of this pro- 
vision. There is not within the limits of this land a heavier taxed 
community than the people who reside in this District to-day. It is 
not going beyond the record nor overstating the facts to say that the 
bulk of the indebtedness which rests upon this city and this District 
to-day was put there by reason of the negligence of Congress, it having 
absolute legislative control over the District. 
The Government of the United States supports and maintains the 
Yellowstone Park at its own expense. It would be just as rational 
and just as fair to levy a 50 per cent tax upon the District of Columbia 
property for the maintenance of the national park in the Yellowstone 
as for this park here. It would be just as fair to levy upon the prop- 
erty holders in the District of Columbia a percentage of the tax that 
is needed to support the Botanical Garden right near the Capitol, or 
the public building in which we are sitting, or any of the public prop- 
erty that this Government owns within the limits of this District. 
With all deference to the action that the other House may take or 
may have taken, protesting and declaring my earnest and honest sup- 
port of the measure that looks to the establishment and maintenance 
of a park here in this District, not only for entertainment and enjoy- 
ment but for the education of the people of this country, I protest that 
I will not vote for any bill that is so unfair in its exactions as to 
require one-half of the money which is needed either to purchase or 
to maintain it to be collected from the property holders of this District. 
Why, Mr. President, we are told by those whose sources of informa- 
tion are the most reliable that the herds of buffaloes which once roamed 
the prairies and the plains of this country in uncounted numbers, 
which many of us within the last ten years have spent weeks in the 
pleasure time of hunting and destroying, have shrunken until to-day 
there are less than one hundred buffalo within the limits of the United 
States outside of the Yellowstone Park and the private parks of 
private citizens. There are less than one hundred, according to the 
information that we get from those whose business it is to inform 
themselves and know. The moose has disappeared practically from 
our country. Now and then a stray specimen is found in the wood- 
lands of Maine; but from the Northwest the moose has disappeared 
almost entirely.’ 
This proposition is to establish here at the capital city a zoological 
