474 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[May 19, 189S. 



and I never care to go there again. The steep hillsides 

 are clothed with pines and hemlocks so thickly set that 

 beneath their branches the sun never shines. Great rocks 

 piled one upon the other, with caverns between, afford 

 harboring places for panthers, wolves and wildcats- 

 wilder and more dreary than any part of the mountain 

 proper. When the hounds raise a fox in the valley at 

 Ferndale he will generally cross the creek to Hogback 

 Hill, and after circling two or three times, if closely 

 pressed, will lead across the bleak ridges to Rocky Hol- 

 low. As the hounds enter the dismal place one can hear 

 their music reverberating in a hundred echoes; then all 

 will be still, and soon the hounds will return in search of 

 their master, puzzled and beat and not caring to hunt 

 more that day. The sounds which issue from beneath 

 those great rocks are too much for me. Some say it is 

 the water making its way through the crevices. But it 

 sounds to me more like the moaning of an imprisoned 

 spirit anxious to escape from its thraldom." 



Mejicano. 



THE SENATE AND THE PARK. 



AS stated last week, Senator Warren's bill relating to 

 the Yellowstone Park passed the Senate. It is en- 

 titled "A bill to establish the boundaries of the Yellow- 

 stone National Park and for other purposes," and its 

 number is S. 2373. One of the other purposes referred 

 to in the bill's title is the cutting down the forest preserve 

 established to the south and east of the Park a year ago. 

 We print some extracts from the debate which took place 

 on this measure a week ago, regretting that we cannot 

 give the whole discussion: 



Senator Vest's Position. 

 Mr. President, so long as Idaho, Montana and Wyo- 

 ming were Territories those of us who took some interest 

 in the Yellowstone National Park felt an obligation to 

 rest upon us to give considerable attention to the matter 

 in view of the efforts that were being made to break it up; 

 but those Territories are now States, and I confess frankly 

 that I feel very much inclined to submit largely all ques- 

 tions in regard to the Park to the Senators representing 

 the States immediately contiguous. My own constitu- 

 ents are not more interested in the matter than the 

 people of any other State of the Union, locality always 

 being considered. 



I have fought persistently and consistently all attempts 

 to disintegrate the Park and to mutilate it in the interest 

 of speculators. I confess, with considerable humilia- 

 tion, that I have been defeated, and I have found, what 

 has been gradually forcing itself upon my convictions 

 for the last twelve years during my service in the Senate 

 —that a persistent and unscrupulous lobby are able to do 

 almost what they please with the public domain. 



That portion of the Park cut off upon the north is being 

 cut off simply because the friends of the Park are unable 

 to resist the aggressive action of a lobby in the city of 

 Washington that for years have been endeavoring to 

 force a railroad into the Park under a charter from Con- 

 gress in order to sell it for a large sum to the Northern 

 Pacific Railroad Company ; that evidence has been placed 

 before the committees of both Houses of Congress, but 

 the fact remains that no legislation can be had for 

 the Park until the demands of these people are conceded. 

 It is not a comfortable or a pleasant reflection to a public 

 man to make such an admission, but it is the truth. 



I have been utterly opposed to cutting off that portion 

 of the Park north of the Yellowstone River. It furnishes 

 a rendezvous for the game, and while there are not many 

 objects of great curiosity in that portion of the reserva- 

 tion, still it is in the nature of a mutilation to which I 

 have never been willing to consent. I have been forced 

 to it, hovever, by the circumstances to which I have 

 alluded. 



* * * ->:• * 



I do not believe that the concession we are now making 

 will result in satisfying the people who have for years 

 been endeavoring to secure this charter. I think it will 

 be found that the same influences which have been so 

 potent in the past will continue in the future, and that 

 this bill will be defeated in the co-ordinate branch of 

 Congress simply because it defeats the object of these 

 people to get into the market a charter which gives them 

 a right to advertise the fact that they are entering the 

 Yellowstone National Park. The Columbian Exposition 

 at Chicago it is anticipated will add largely to the travel 

 of European tourists to this great reservation, and if these 

 speculators can go into the market with an exclusive 

 charter for a railroad into the Yellowstone Park, they 

 may put their own terms as to the price of it. 



If this bill should pass and all this part of the reserva- 

 tion be cut off north of the Yellowstone River, as a mat- 

 ter of course no monoply could be created, and that is my 

 sole reason for not now opposing this bill most strenu- 

 ously, I am willing to cut off, much as I have been op- 

 posed to it heretofore, that portion of this territory north 

 of the Yellowstone River in order that there may be no 

 monopoly, but that any one company which sees proper 

 may construct a railroad from Cinnabar to Cooke City, 

 outside of the limits of the Park. That would defeat the 

 objects of the lobby now in existence here. 



For that reason, as I have said, I do not believe they 

 will permit — and I use that language with its full signifi- 

 cance — this bill to go through the House of Representa- 

 tives. They have some sort of influence which hereto- 

 fore has defeated every bill even for the police regula- 

 tions of the Park, and the friends of the Park, who have 

 had no other interest than that of American Senators and 

 American citizens, have been humiliated into the posi- 

 tion of standing by and seeing these parties dictate to the 

 Congress of the United States what shall bs done with 

 this great reservation set aside for the enjoyment of the 

 people and their children after them. 



I submit. Mr. President, to this legislation because I 

 cannot help myself, not because my judgment ap- 

 proves it. 



* * * -» * 

 When Samuel S, Cox, of New York, died, there was no 



friend who had so deep an interest in the Yellowstone 

 Park in the House of Representatives to speak in its de- 

 fense or take any action in its behalf. There are no votes 

 in the Yellowstone Park for the Republican or the Dem- 

 ocratic party or for the third party. The result is that 

 outside of tiiose of us who are ajsthetic and sentimental, 

 as we are told in regard to this reservation, there seem to 

 be very few persons who care anything about it, 



This lobby is exactly like a compact military organiza- 

 tion working for one object alone. They are persistent, 

 aggressive, sleepless, untiring, and they are determined 

 to own a charter from the United States Congress for the 

 only railroad that goes into this reservation. Then you 

 will see flaring advertisements that they have a charter 

 from the United States Government for the only railroad 

 that runs into the Yellowstone National Park. As a 

 matter of course, they will sell it; it has already been put 

 in the market, and I produced that evidence before the 

 committee of the House of Representatives, where I ap- 

 peared personally in order to make it known. Notwith- 

 standing that fact a bill was reported giving them the 

 privilege, and it is now on the Calendar of the House. 



***** 



I want the Senator from Massachusetts to understand 

 that the only possible reason why I do not oppose this 

 legislation very rigorously is because I save this point in 

 it, at any rate, that no railroad enters the Park, and the 

 next company that comes with another project, as it will 

 come, to enter the Park at some other point, can not 

 plead this as a precedent for going into the Park. In 

 order to go into it under similar conditions they would 

 have to cut off another slice of the Park, and I suppose 

 those Senators who want to break up the Park ought to 

 favor this legislation, because slice by slice and in detail 

 they can finally pare it down to nothing. 



Senator Sanders on the Railroad Lobby. 



I hold in my hand, Mr. President, and I do not know 

 but that, inasmuch as it has been mentioned here I might 

 as well make it a part of my remarks — the articles of in- 

 corporation of that Montana and Mineral Railway Com- 

 pany, a company created two years ago last February, if 

 I remember aright, in the State of Montana, to build a 

 railroad, nine-tenths of which is in the State of Wyom- 

 ing, a State which at that time, if my recollection does 

 not fail me, had no law of any kind whatever authoriz- 

 ing the creation or exercise of a franchise of this kind 

 within her limits. 



Two citizens of Montana and five or six citizens from 

 Washington, or that are ordinarily found here, filed a 

 certificate of incorporation with the Secretary of State of 

 the State of Montana, which, by the laws of the State of 

 Montana, created them a corporation. That law pro- 

 vided that shey should open books for subscription to 

 their capital stock; that law provided that when a sub- 

 scription was made to the capital stock, 10 per cent, of it 

 should be paid down; that law provided that they should 

 build fifteen miles of their railroad every year or their 

 charter would be forfeited. There never" has been a 

 meeting, I think, of that corporation; there never have 

 been any books opened for subscription to its capital 

 stock; there never has been a penny paid; there never has 

 been a report made; there never has been a mile nor a 

 rod of railroad built by it; and by the laws of the State of 

 Montana its rights have long since ceased to be. 



I am not going into any discussion as to what is neces- 

 sary to have that forfeiture declared. I simply say that 

 this corporation is not a bona fide corporation, and, so far 

 as the citizens of the State' of Montana are concerned 

 whose names are here as corporators, they repudiate the 

 matter, and say the entire tiling so far as they are con- 

 cerned is fundus officio. 



Senator Vest on " Practicality." 



I will say in response to the Senator from Arkansas 

 [Mr. Berry] when by his remarks here he intimated that 

 some of us who had been the friends of this park were 

 excluding agricultural lands from the markets for actual 

 settlers, that I know and every other man who has been 

 in that park knows, that there is not enough agricultural 

 land in it, with the climatic conditions there existing, to 

 induce any sort of settlement for agricultural pursuits. 



I concede that in the spirit of this age it would be a 

 great deal better to have in the Mammoth Cave a sub- 

 terranean railroad, use the Falls of Niagara for manufac- 

 turing purposes, and turn the geyser of Old Faithful, 

 which has an eruption every fifty-five minutes, into a 

 Chinese laundry, that there would be some money in it; 

 but I submit most respectfully that there are uses for the 

 Yellowstone National Park besides those of the tourist. 

 When the Senator from Arkansas says that this park is 

 alone for the rich, I want to make this assertion upon my 

 own personal knowledge and that of a good many 

 Senators here who have visited the park, that there is not 

 the same extent of travel anywhere, certainly, in this 

 country — I have never been to Europe — so cheap as a trip 

 to the Yollowstone Park. 



Our people, it is estimated, are to-day spending $150,- 

 000,000 a year in going to Europe. If the Yellowstone 

 were among the Italian or Swiss Alp3, every American 

 who went there would visit it, and he would go there 

 especially for the purpose; but as it is an American pro- 

 duction our people run away from it. The men who go 

 there to a large extent are men of moderate means who 

 can not afford to go to Europe, but who desire in the 

 rushing roar of active business life a vacation in the sum- 

 mer, and a place where they can re6t their tired nerves 

 and then- overworked brains. I assert here again, there 

 is not a trip in this country as cheap as to buy a round- 

 trip ticket to the Yellowstone National Park, not one. 



But over and above all that, Mr. President, living upon 

 the banks of the Missouri River, I have a direct material 

 interest in the preservation of the timber upon the head- 

 waters of that stream, the great tributary of the Missis- 

 sippi River. Senators do not understand, perhaps, that 

 for more than ten or eleven months in the year not a 

 drop of rain falls in that region. The result is that the 

 vegetation becomes so dry that a single spark will start 

 a fire which will extend for hundreds of miles and de- 

 vastate not only townships and counties but even States. 

 Every one who has been there has been forced to travel, if 

 he went through that country, on horseback (and he 

 can go in no other way) for days over fallen timber, 

 when twenty miles a day was considered a good 

 journey. The destruction of this timber increases 

 the flood, because it leaves the surface as baxe as 

 the top of this table, over which the water rushes in vast 

 volume and great velocity down upon the lower lands. 

 If the woods are protected, if the ferns and mosses are 

 protected from fire, they absorb this water, and it does 

 not have the ruinous effects which are now being 

 witnessed upon the banks of the Mississippi, the Mis- 

 souri and the Illinois rivers by the enormous volume of 

 water which is pouring through tbem. Every considera- 



tion should induce us to protect this Park, as I have said 

 here frequently. 



Mr. Berry the "Practical" Man. 



I do not believe that a company of United States sol- 

 diers should be kept around about that Park for the pur- 

 pose of guarding those animals in order that the tourists 

 of whom we hear may see the animals unmolested when 

 they reach that particular point. I do not believe we 

 have any right to take the people's property and use it for 

 the benefit of a few wealthy individuals, when the great 

 body of the people can get no benefit from it. If that 

 land is suitable for homestead settlement and cultivation, 

 then I would say open it up to the citizens of the United 

 States with all the other public domain. If it is not suit- 

 able for that purpose, if it is suitable for park purposes or 

 any other, then I would put it up and sell it to the high- 

 est bidder, to private individuals, to be used for such pur- 

 poses, and I would turn that money into the Treasury of 

 the United States to belong to the whole people. 



[Mr. Call is not Quite so Narrow. 



Mr. President, I think that my friend, the Senator 

 from Arkansas (Mr. Berry), carries the idea? a little too 

 far as to the extent that the poor people of this country 

 who must always constitute the great majority of it, 

 will not in the future be able to do anything but to cul- 

 tivate the soil or engage in the severest labor; that they 

 will not have the advantages of any exhibitions of art; 

 that they will not have the privileges which belong to 

 the rich, of places of amusement, but that they will be 

 confined to the drudgery and hardships of life. That is 

 not my idea of the American citizen. I think the rail- 

 road transportation of this country should be placed upon 

 a |basis where the great mass of the people may travel 

 cheaply, and be enabled to enjoy the privileges of art 

 and the exhibitions of this great natural wonder, and the 

 animals that constitute the class of animal life which 

 formerly inhabited this country. 



That is the theory of a free government that appeals 

 to my admiration and to my fancy. That is what 1 be- 

 lieve democracy to be. If all the pleasures of life are by 

 public policy to be confined to those who by grasping 

 avarice may become rich, then I want some other kind 

 of government in which the mass of the people may have 

 the privileges of the highest art and the greatest inven- 

 tions and the best of everything that modern civiliza- 

 tion can produce. 



CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 



[From a Staff GmrcspondfM.'] 



CHICAGO, 111., May 14.— The heavy floods which have 

 so extraordinarily distinguished the past two weeks 

 in this region, are only now beginning to show signs of 

 abating. The rains continue at Chicago to some extent. 

 This is a black spring for Western sportsmen. The up- 

 land marsh shooting at snipe and plover has been practi- 

 cally ruined by the wet weather, and fishing has been 

 impossible and will be for some weeks to come in northern 

 Illinois and Indiana. 



The damage to sport has not consisted only in the tem- 

 porary deprivation, but has been more serious in other 

 regards. A season like this destroys untold thousands of 

 game birds in the nest or egg. This is especially true in 

 regard to prairie chickens, for which bird a wet spring is 

 nearly as exterminating as a band of market shooters. 

 Quail also must have suffered frightfully over a great 

 section of the West. The woodducks, teal and occasional 

 mallards which nest along the Kankakee and make the 

 earliest of the fall shooting, can not have escaped the high 

 waters. Woodcock are hatched before this time in this 

 region, and the young birds must have perished in num- 

 bers. These are the worst blows at sport, for it takes 

 years for the game to recover after such a visitation. 



The injured district extends from Ohio and southern 

 Michigan to western Nebraska. On May 8 snow fell to 

 a depth of 16in. at Rushville, Neb. This most have been 

 hard upon the sharptailsin the sandhill country. On the 

 south the flood affected Arkansas and Mississippi, and 

 north as far as northern Wisconsin the trout streams 

 have been flooded for several days, although not so seri- 

 ously as in the lower country. 



When I was in St. Louis a month or so ago I heard 

 some talk among the shooters there about the safety of 

 shooting snipe on the Illinois side of the river. It seemed 

 that there had been or was to be a case involving the 

 question whether or not snipe should be classed as "water 

 fowl," a question not altogether new, I believe. It has 

 always been understood among our shooters that snipe 

 were not protected, and thousands of shooters have gone 

 out after them under that supposition. Aud now comes 

 Game Warden M. R. Bortree and puts forth an edict 

 which publicly proclaims the snipe to be a waterfowl. 

 He does this under legal advice. After making up his 

 mind to this effect he announced in the first place that 

 all dealers having snipe or plover in possession after May 

 9 would be prosecuted. Alter consultation with the lead- 

 ing dealers, however, he later agreed to extend the time 

 to May 20 to give all time to dispose of such game already 

 on hand. Of course these dates are merely compromise 

 ones. If snipe and plover are waterfowl, it is illegal to 

 shoot them after April 15 until Sept. 15. 



The question of the waterfowhtiveness of snipe and 

 plover is purely one of construction. We have not yet 

 had the case in question cited, nor has the test been final. 

 The wording of the statute is as follows: "It shall be un- 

 lawful to kill, hunt, destroy, snare, entrap, or to attempt 

 to kill, hunt, destroy, snare, entrap, or otherwise destroy 

 any wild goose, duck, brant or other waterfowl at any 

 time between the fifteenth day of April and the fifteenth 

 dav of September of any year." 



The sportsmen of Illinois will not be behind the game 

 dealers in any protective work, whether or not that may 

 involve the sacrifice of their snipe shooting. 



E. Hough. 



Rebounding Locks. 



That a correspondent signing himself "Awahsoose'' 

 should make the assertion that "there is no safety in the 

 rebounding lock," leads me to think he has not looked 

 into the matter very far. A blow on the back of the 

 hammer will not discharge the shell unless the lock gives 

 way, which is no more likely than if it was another kind 

 of lock at half cock. The hammer cannot get to the 

 firing pin unless the trigger is pulled — while the trigger 

 is pulled it can be pushed against the firing pin. It is 

 doubtful that there is a safer device about the breech 

 loader than the rebounding lock.— Observer, 



