46 GAME REFUGES. 



ADDITIONAL STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK W. MONDELL, A 

 REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF 

 WYOMING. 



I think our friend, in citing the decision in the Mid West case, 

 made his statement stronger than he intended to make it. The 

 Mid West case involved no question whatever except the right 

 of the President to set aside lands and to withdraw them from 

 entry*. There is nothing in the Mid West case that can possibly 

 be tortured into any bearing upon the question at issue in this 

 case. The committee's attention has been called to the fact that 

 the Federal Government has legislated in some few cases somewhat 

 along these lines. Well, I am glad the gentlemen did call attention 

 to that fact because that legislation illustrates how these Federal 

 bureaus edge in on the claim that certain legislation is restricted in 

 its effect or local in application, establishing no precedent, and then 

 cite the legislation is an argument for further encroachment. The 

 Federal camels nose gets into the tent and then he bumps the tent 

 over. 



You take the case of the Wichita Bird Game Preserve. That was 

 Indian land down there and the argument was that this land be- 

 longed to the Indians anyway; it was Indian land; it was not public 

 land, and we badly needed to preserve the game down there. These 

 Indians were a lawless, outrageous set, it was said, and there was no 

 such thmg as protecting the game in such a country under a State law, 

 that there was a peculiar situation down there, and so by common 

 consent, but against the better judgment of many, that action was 

 taken. I remember very well the arguments which were made in 

 behalf of it. Then it came to the matter of the Grand Canyon game 

 refuge. The Grand Canyon is a national monument. Some day it 

 will be a national park. That is conceded by everybody. It just 

 remains for some fellow to draw a bill, get busy and urge Congress to 

 establish a national park there and it will be done, followed by the 

 cession of jurisdiction. When it came to the question of protection 

 for that country which was a national monument — and which will 

 eventually be a national park, with complete cession of jurisdiction 

 by the State — there was no particular objection to what was pro- 

 posed to be done with'regard to the birds and animals down in the 

 bottom of that awful chasm, far from the haunts of men. 



The matter of bird preserves recalls some very interesting and 

 curious recollections upon my part, because I was a member of the 

 Committee on the Public Lands when that thing was put over, and 

 I am not going beyond the bounds of proper legislative speech when 

 I use the term "put over." 



Mr. Jacoway. Do you not think it would be better, from your 

 viewpoint, to say "run over"? 



Mr. Mondell. No ; we were not run over. Run over means some- 

 thing gotten over in spite of you. That was not true in that case; 

 we agreed to it. What I mean is that it was put through— well, I 

 will not say on false pretenses, but it would come as near being that 

 as anything could be. This was the situation : The President had, on 

 the Gulf coast, set aside some uninhabited islands as game refuges. 

 Nobody cared what the President did with those uninhabited islands 

 which were, for a considerable portion of the time, under the wash 



