FIFTY-FIRST CONGRESS, 1889-1891. 1411 
The Senator from Vermont speaks about the precedent already es- 
tablished. If there has been one established, which I do not know— 
of course I am bound to accept his statement—it was a most pernicious 
precedent, and if we allow this one to be established there will be no 
escape from it hereafter. They can then plead that the money for 
the original investment having been shared by the District, and the 
money for the first annual appropriation having been shared by the 
District, it has crystallized and passed into the form of law, and can 
not be changed. How far this expenditure will extend nobody can 
tell. It may go into the millions. It will go into the millions. It is 
to be a great national institution, and I protest in the name of the 
people here against imposing upon them this invidious and unjust and 
unnecessary burden in addition to what they already endure. 
Mr. Morr. I shall be quite ready to vote for refunding this to 
the District any time hereafter, but I consider the necessity now for 
the passage of the bill in its present shape as very great. So far as 
the Regents and the officers of the Smithsonian are concerned, they 
will perform all their duties without any charge so far as the conduct 
of the Zoological Park is concerned. 
Mr. F. M. Cocxrett. I hope the conference report will be agreed 
to. We never heard a solitary word in the Senate Chamber about the 
people of the United States assuming the burden of this Zoological 
Park when the bill was passed. The District was only too glad to 
get the bill through appropriating $200,000—$100,000 to be paid by 
the people of the United States and the other $100,000 by the District— 
and it is not until after the ground has been purchased and the park 
established that the claim is brought in here that the people of the 
United States must assume the whole burden of the matter. 
The people of the District wanted it; they sought for it. At their 
instance Congress passed the bill authorizing the purchase of this park 
for $200,000, one-half to be paid by the District and the other half by 
the United States of America. As I understand it, there was no op- 
position to it at that time, and now the effort is being made to saddle 
the whole thing on the taxpayers of the United States. 
Mr. M. C. Burter. May I ask the Senator whether this is a District 
institution that is to be established any more than a public building in 
St. Louis, Mo., belongs to the city of St. Louis. Why should the city 
of St. Louis be required to pay one-half the expense because the public 
building is put up there? . 
Mr. Cockreu. This is for the convenience of the people of the 
District of Columbia nine hundred and ninety-nine times more than 
for the people of the United States. Not one in ten thousand, not one 
in a hundred thousand, of the great mass of the taxpayers of the United 
States will ever see this park; and it is for the beautifying of the city 
of Washington; it is for the increase of the value of property here, 
