THE MINNESOTA NATIONAL PARK. 
CHAS. CRISTADORO. 
Those asking for this reservation are 
simply asking the government to do its 
plain duty to the Nation at large, and 
to the inhabitants of the Mississippi val- 
ley. We are asking the government not 
only to say that no more government 
timber land shall be sold, but we are also 
asking the government to see that, by a 
system of patrolling, no more timber be 
burned or stolen. 
To sell the standing timber in this 
Itasca region would be simply to denude 
the headwaters of the Mississippi, and 
what that would mean is written in the 
history of the Ohio, the Monongahela, the 
Wisconsin, and scores of other American 
rivers whose timber covered sources have 
been turned over to the < e and the saw. 
No specific territory is being asked for, 
but the thinking lumberman, settler, and 
city resident will, if far sighted enough, 
ask that the government extend its pro- 
tecting arm over them all. There is no 
seizure or condemning of land involved in 
this park plan. 
We know what government:and state 
control has done for the forests of Mon- 
tana, Minnesota, and elsewhere. We know 
what a terrible scourge fire is to the pine 
land owner. It 
timber thief, who buys one 40, cuts the 
timber from 20, and then, to cover his fel- 
onies, burns the tops left in the woods, 
doing further damage to the standing tim- 
ber, which he dared not steal. 
Timber owners in that country, could 
they be assured of the protection of the 
government against fires and theft, would 
be glad to enter into an agreement to 
market their product under some plan of 
graduated cutting. 
Since this park agitation has started, 
there is already one instance where a pine 
land man, in the midst of a deal to cut 
and sell his stumpage, cut short the nego- 
tiations and added $2 a thousand to the 
price of the stumpage. This is a stzaw in 
the wind for the thinking timber owner. 
As to the residents, scttlers, etc., it is 
estimated that with cheap steamship rates 
to Duluth, and low railroad rates from 
St. Paul, Chicago, and other cities, over 
200,000 tourists, campers, fishermen, 
canoeists, bicyclists and invalids would 
seek this favored country every year. 
This being so, there are not white men, 
women and children, and Indians enough 
living in that territory to-day, to grow the 
is worse even than the" 
318 
vegetables, make the butter, cook the 
meals, wait on the tables, wash the clothes, 
row the boats, drive the teams and guide 
all these tourists. 
It is the custom of commercial bodies 
to go to great expense to secure conven- 
tions to their own. cities—conventions 
whose members frequently sleep 6 or 8 
in a room, eat 15 cent lunches, and ride 
on trolley cars. Now figure up, in com- 
parison with such a me-''.g, what 200,000 
people, bent on pleasure, with money to 
spend, would mean passing through St. 
Paul, Minneapolis and Duluth, and out- 
fitting in these cities for a month’s, and in 
some cases, a whole season’s sojourn in 
the park. 
Duluth, with her usual short-sighted- 
ness, howls down the whole park scheme 
as a blow coming from Chicago at the 
supremacy of Duluth. It cries out that 
in reserving the great forests tributary to 
Duluth the main source of her future 
prosperity is destroyed. Let us take Du- 
luth at her word. lf she insists on being 
a lumber town, dependent on her sur- 
rounding forests for her prosperity, you 
can with a pencil in 5 minutes work out 
her finish 10 years from now, when the 
last stick of timher has fallen. And this 
will be the case as to the timber, unless 
congress acts for the interests of the whole 
country in this matter, and refuses to put 
another acre of pine land on the market. 
Duluth a lumber town! Stumpville, 
Mich., 10 years ago was a lumber town of 
the liveliest kind—a town second to none 
in Michigan. We are told that to-day the 
country around is one gfeat vista of 
pine stumps, and that a cannon, placed at 
the head of her principal business street, 
could be loaded with grape and canister 
and fired every 15 minutes for a whole 
day without hitting any one. 
If Duluth, on her own statement, has 
no resources but the timber lands near 
her, then her speedy doom as the Zenith 
City of the Unsalted Sea is written in big 
letters on the wall. 
A government park means good roads, 
improved connecting waterways, substan- 
tial and well equipped hotels, and unlimit- 
ed camping grounds, for those who prefer 
to live outdoors. 
These improvements accomplished in 
the lake region, the patronage of the park 
would be beyond the dreams of its most 
enthusiastic friend. The angler would here 
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