FOREST AND STREAU*. 
[March 24, 1900, 
Statutes at Large, 1895-97, Vol. 29, p. 228. Con- 
tinuing: improvement of reservoirs at the head- 
waters of the Mississippi * 80,000 
Statutes at Large, 1897-99, Vol. 30, p. 1,146. For 
improvemetit of reservoirs at headwaters, etc, 
survey of flovi^age Hnes of Leech Lake, Winne- 
bigoshish, Pokegama Falls and Pine River 
reservoirs 210,000 
Grand total $1,115,000 
So it would seem that Uncle Sam has been willing to 
spend over a million dollars to help the lumbermen. Not 
to help you or me, but to help the lumbermen. It was 
surely class legislation with a vengeance. Now let us see 
something more about the history which goes with this 
history of the "Government" dams. 
All these big questions of Congressional action are so 
complicated in their details that they sometimes make 
poor reading for the average man, that comfortable in- 
dividual sometimes having a way of letting the whole 
thing slide, so that it takes care of itself. But there are 
.some things connected with this Minnesota pine land 
problem which are so simple, and which make such ex- 
cellent reading, that the only wonder is they were not 
brought into print long ago, as they are now for what is 
very probably the first time. Let us get at this step by 
step, so that it shall all seem very plain. 
The Nelson Bill and Its Treaty. 
When the lumbermen wanted this Minnesota pine, they 
had to have a treaty in order to remove the Indians from 
the lands. This treaty has its enacting measure in the 
famous "Nelson bill," passed by Congress Jan 14, i88g, 
and closely connected with the treaty and the Nelson bill 
is the dead and fallen timber act, known generally as the 
"dead and down timber act," which was passed Feb. 16, 
1889. 
The Nelson bill in brief is entitled, and most in- 
famously entitled, "An act for the relief and civilization of 
the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota." It provides for the 
removal of all the Chippewa Indians to the White Earth 
reservation, excepting the Red Lake reservation Indians, 
it stipulates a tAvo-thirds acceptance by the adults of 
4:-ribe. It sets a price of not less than $3 per acre on the 
pine lands, arranges for a treaty commission, and for a 
series of "experienced examiners" after the conclusion of 
the treaty, the latter to estimate the timber on the lands as 
set off into forty-acre tracts. The moneys derived from 
the sale of the Indian lands were to be created into a 
fund, interest on which was to be paid the Chippewas an- 
nually. , 
On the face oi it the Nelson bill is an innocent and 
beneficent measure, in line with the path of progress. You 
might think there was something really intended in the 
way of "relief" of the Indians. You would be wrong. It 
is a bill for the personal benefit of Minnesota lumbermen. 
As a matter of fact, the Rice treatj% whicli was the 
treaty following on the Nelson bill, was, of all rotten In- 
dian treaties, absolutely the most rotten. It is strange 
indeed that the facts of this "treaty" have never laefore 
become known. Following are some of these facts : 
The bill mentions the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota, 
and it was in Minnesota that the coveted lands lay, no- 
where else. It was therefore necessary to get the signa- 
tures of these Minnesota or, as they are more generally 
known, Mississippi Chippewas to the treaty. The com- 
missioners — let us not give their names — failed to get 
more than a few names of the Mississippi Chippewas, and 
those only by fair talk and empty promises which never 
were fulfilled. The open meeting of these Chippewas re- 
fused to sign any such treaty. They wanted their land as 
it was. They did not care for the money. They did 
not want to go to the White Earth reservation, because it 
was farming region and not hunting country. They 
exercised their undoubted right, and they refused to 
sign. 
Foiled in their attempt to get the signatures, the com- 
mission visited three other Chippewa reservations — one at 
Fond du Lac, one at Bois Fort and one at Grand Portage. 
Two of these reservations had no timber left. These 
three bands, known as the Lake Superior Chippewas, 
were in no wise interested in the Mississippi Chippewa 
tribe. The agents conceived that they could get these 
people to sign, for they had money to gain, and no timber 
to lose and no residence to exchange ! It was the signa- 
tures of these alien, foreign Chippewas, not the Mississippi 
Chippewas, which made this treaty possible. The outside 
Indians, being wise in their day and generation, smiled 
and signed! By this Government, the signature of a 
"Chippewa," thus illegal and fraudulent, has to this day 
been accepted as valid ! 
These fraudulent signatures were still insufficient, and 
many others, obtained from minors, under eighteen years 
of age. were added. The commission was at last able to 
proceed to business. Some few Indians were wheedled 
into going to the White Earth reservation. Yet other 
Indians of all sorts were picked up wherever possible, all 
over the country, and taken to White Earth, full-bloods, 
half-bloods, eighth-bloods, because the commission had to 
make some sort of showing. Many of those who left 
the Leech Lake reservation to go to White Earth came 
back home and are there to-day, and they say they 
. will only leave when they are driven of? by bayonets. 
It Is Not Good Money, 
The Indian is no fool. He knows when he has been 
fobbed. All these Indians up at Leech Lake to-day un- 
derstand this whole treaty better than you and I do. It 
was pulled off more than ten years ago. For more than 
"ten years some o£ these Indians have refused to touch one 
dollar of the money which has been accumulating- from 
the sale of their .stolen pine — theft is too mild a word 
to use in description of the Rice treaty. 
0<:tencib1v this sum raised for the Indians might indeed 
"relieve" them and go toward "civilizing" them, as good 
Mr. Nelson (born a Norwedan and mostly raised in 
Minnesota) seems to have stated it. Let us see. 
The co^t of the commission has been up to date $230,000. 
On ton of that are "examiners' " exnenses, which have 
been $.4/io,oon more. So that nboiit $670 ooo may now be 
said to ha^'e been pxnended. Do the lumbermen pav that' 
Does good Mr. Nelson pay that? Oh, no — it is charged 
lip to the Indians, to the very Chippewa branch who were 
robbed of their pine by fraud ! More than this, the United] 
States Government has annually advanced, as against this' 
sum, $90,000, much of which has been refused by the 
Mississippi Chippewas as dirty money, they not takmg it 
because they thought that by doing so they embarrassed 
their rights, out of which they knew very well they had 
not signed themselves. Does ihis refused money lie in 
bank for them ? Oh, no ! It has been pro-rataed among the 
alien branches, the Superior Chippewa bands, who have 
nothing to do with the pine lands reservation, but who 
were complaisant enough to sign where the commissioners 
asked them to sign ! 
Now, how is that for honorable and lofty treatment of 
the people whom it was sought to "relieve"? How is that 
for statemanship How is that for plain, ordinary, decent 
honesty a.s between Government and those governed? 
Upon this disgraceful "treaty" is hung the full operation 
of the Nelson bill. It has been operating all right for ten 
years. If you do not believe it, go up into Minnesota and 
see for yourself. But take your own train, and go where 
you like, and stick to your trip till you have got your facts. 
Don't be led away by lumbermen, 
Some More Facts. 
That the Indians have felt bitterly their wrong and yet 
helpless position need not be said. Here are some more 
facts which the public knows nothing about, though the 
Indians know them perfectly: 
The Indians know that when the "sufficient number of 
experienced examiners" began to make their "careful and 
competent examination" on the Red Lake reservation the 
said examiners found it most convenient to stay in a 
comfortable camp and not to go out into the woods. The 
Indians were told their land would yield $2.50 to $3 per 
1,000 feet stumpage. It brought them 40 cents per 1,000, 
and this was wiped out by "expenses" charged up to them 
for surveys. The sale of that Red Lake timber netted the 
Indians not one dollar ! 
The examiners, comfortably lodged in camp, "esti- 
mated" timber twenty miles away. Some of these esti- 
maters had been there before, and had jotted down in 
their note books the numbers of some magnificent quarter 
sections of pine. They sold this information to the big 
lumbering firms who were hanging on at every step of 
these operations. These best tracts of pine were sold as 
"agricultural land," at $1.25 per acre, thus showing one 
more of the possibilities for fraud in this obnoxious 
measure. Off some of these "agricultural" lands there 
was cut to the quarter section from 700.000 to 2,500.000 
feet of tlie best white pine ever marketed. H<.iw is that for 
the long-suffering lumbermen? 
Yet More. 
This would seem to be all, or at least enough; but it is 
not all. Under the Nelson act the Indians were to sell 
their white and Norway pine. The tail with the hide, they 
were to give for nothing all the jack pine and all the 
hardwood. Yet to-day men who applaud the Nelson 
act as a great "civilizing" agency are selling their jack 
pine alone at $2 per 1,000 stumpage ! Under the Nelson 
act the Indians do not get $l of this. 
Now, remember that all this wealth belonged to the 
Indians, and that it was by cheating and fraud that they 
were robbed of it. Then sit down, and try to figure 
out, if you can, how much the robbery means in figures. 
Do you blame the Indians for being bitter and for feeling 
ready to lie down and die, giving up the fight for an even 
show ? Do you blame them for the statement— which you 
can hear for yourself up there if you like — that they wil/ 
not go to White Earth, that they will stay where thej 
are and die before they will give Up any further? 
Here Is "Where the Patk Comes In. 
I hope readers have had patience to follow the story 
thus far, because here is where the proposed forest re- 
serve and park comes in. It comes as a measure of 
actual relief and not of fraudulent and only so-called re- 
lief. This is what the park will do for the Indians ; 
- It will leave them where they are. It will not send 
them to White Earth. It will not condemn them to brood- 
ing misery. It will not condemn them to the bayonets of 
the troops. It will leave them their pine. It will leave 
them the graves which they venerate, will leave them the 
homes which they selected and whicli they love as we do 
ours. It will give them employment as guides, and 
bring them money for their little pative wares, for tlie 
tourist is always a purchaser. (The tourist party last 
fall left more money on the Leech Lake reservation than 
all of Senator Knute Nelson's bill for their "relief" by 
timber recovery ever did.) Moreover, the proposed park 
means a steady and legitimate income for the Indians- 
one which will really found schools and improve their 
places. It is intended to leave the forest as it is, but to 
cut off yearly a certain portion of the mature pine, which 
would otherwise fall and be destroyed. It is proposed 
to actually pay the Indians for this, and not merely to 
promise to pay them. There is in this one meager pro- 
vision tenfold more money than they ever had under the 
Nelson act. The Indians know all aJbout this park move- 
ment, and they are hoping for its success. 
For the people of America this park will leave a large 
body of wild country practically untouched to all appear- 
ance, a wilderness with its pine, its game and its fish still 
as nature left them. This will be a playground close to 
the homes of many millions of people. 
To the lumbermen of Minnesota, who have been identi- 
fied with this Nelson bill all the way through, this park 
means that they will have to stop lumbering on the 
reservation included under the reserve lines. (Some of 
them -have mills already up at Cass Lake, on the Cass 
Lake reservation. Why?) This means a stop to a certain 
amount of industry. Yet no firm can operate in. there that 
has not already hundreds of thousands of capital. Is 
there enough money already accumulated — some of it ac- 
cumulated by methods above described — to prevent these 
lumbermen from feeling want for the rest of their lives? 
The end must come to these operations at any rate, un- 
less we .set rules for cutting off the nine a little at a time. 
Is not the park idea of cutting a little mature pine an- 
nually reallv better for the lumbermen themselves than the 
present wild and selfish scramble, whose end is visible and 
all too near? 
For the Congressmen who vote for this Minnesota Park 
there will be the approbation of the people who undefi 
stand. Perhaps that is little. There will be the approba' 
,ij|i|tion of their own consciences. Perhaps that is nothing! 
' I do not know. That is for them to say. 
For the Congressmen who vote against this Minnesot; 
Park, and for the Nelson type of legislation, there maj' 
well be recommended a very careful weighing of thiS' 
situation. It is easy to make a wrong vote. Wrong votes 
have cost seats in Congress. We do not know. It is 
for them to guess at that. This thing is worth thinking 
over, and the facts are worth knowing. The facts shall goi 
wider. and wider. All over Minnesota. 
The Minnesota Delegati<»i. 
Of the Minnesota delegation in Congress, Tawney is' 
thought to be friendly to the park, and so is Stevens, the 
latter not so sure. Heatwole is not sure. Nelson is on 
record against the park, and so. is Morris, of Duluth. 
Eddy is promised to the ladies' clubs as their champion;, 
but that is easy, and is not a convention pledge. Davis is 
guessing over Puerto Rico as much as over the park. 
Minnesota as a whole will probably reject the park 
proposition. 
Pending Legislation. 
Meantime two measures have come up in Congress af- 
fecting this park movement. Senator Knute Nelson has 
introduced a greater Nelson bill, tacking it on innocently 
as a rider to an appropriation bill. This is side-tracked 
for the time. 
Curtis, of Kansas, has thrown something of a bomb- 
shell into evervbody's camp by a bill proposing to estimate 
and sell this Indian pine on an honest basis. 
Far up in the wind swept pine lands the Chippewas 
are keeping track of all these things better than you and I 
are doing. They fear the park idea will fail, and next to 
that they want the Curtis bill. They are tired of being 
robbed. Why mince matters? Why call the old ways 
anything but robbery? Why call their continuance any- 
thing but a robbery which will steal from the American 
people something which they can never replace? 
Data. 
For data regarding the Rice treaty and its concom 
.Uant events, I am indebted to Mr. Chas. Cristadoro, who 
is just back from a trip to Walker, on the Leech Lake 
reservation, where he learned many interesting facts. For 
data regarding the Government dams on the Mississippi. I 
am to own obligations to Col, J. S. Cooper^ who sends 
with same the following .letter : 
"I send you herewith the completed statement of the 
appropriations by Congress for dams at the headwaters 
of the Mississippi. You see the whole thing foots up a 
total of $1,115,500. My information is tliat from Winne- 
bigoshish Dam down to St. Anthony's Falls, the beginning 
of navigation on the Mississippi, is something over 400 
miles. If you will send to Washington or St. Paul and 
find the average stage of water at St. Paul, say prior to 
1880, during the summer months of July, August and 
September, and then follow the same thing on down, since 
the dams were built and opened (and the rule is to opell 
them in the summer time), I think you will find that tliose 
dams have not appreciably affected' the stage of water in 
the Mississippi River, even at St. Paul, You understand 
the Government is now engaged in rebuilding the Winne- 
bigoshisli Dam, which went out over a year ago. 
"A thorough exploitation of this reservoir system at the 
headwaters of the Mississippi would form a very strong 
argument in favor of our park, because, for the Govern- 
merit to reservoir the water at the sources of the Mis- 
sissippi, and at the same time denude the forest there, is 
as illogical as it looks crooked. The truth is that that 
whole system of reservoirs is being used solely and entirely 
for the benefit of the lumbermen in northern Minnesota 
and the proprietors of the mills at Minneapolis." 
An Incident. 
A little incident occurred last week in the White House 
at Washington over this park proposal. Mrs. Proi 
Sanford, of the University of Minnesota, one of the ladies 
who have gone to Washington to see what they can do for 
the park, gained audience with President McKinley. She 
placed before him the proposition. 
"Ah, niadame," said the President, suavely, "this is 
the gentleman you want to see," and he waved a hand to 
Secretary Hitchcock. 
"Excuse me, madanie," said Secretary Hitchcock, "but 
this is the gentleman you wish to see," and he waved his 
own hand to Senator Nelson, who had introduced the lady 
at the White House. Senator Nelson is said to have 
laughed all the way home. 
One must not make of Forest and Stream a political 
sheet, and of course politics is not dreamed of in this 
presentation of facts. But these facts are inseparably con- 
nected with the fate of the Minnesota Park, and they are 
facts which carry therefore a double interest. Perhaps 
they will make more plain the exact nature of the fight 
which is now going on at Washington over this bit of pine 
I'and that is left up there in Minnesota. It is not sports- 
men alone who want that park. It is the people. Not 
the least pleasant of the consequences of the establishment 
of this park would be the secure sense that justice had 
been done at last, and in at least one instance, to those 
people w^ho were the first owners of that land, and who 
have been cheated and defrauded thus far out of their 
ancient heritage. Fair play's a jewel. 
Weather. 
Our weather out here in this section is still unfavor- 
able and ominous so far as the year's crop of game 
birds is concerned. The snow of last week was heavy, 
and it was crowned with three inches of sleet and ice. 
Then came thaws and freezes. At present the icy cover- 
ing is moving off with considerable rapidity, but it is 
all too likely that out in the country the poor birds found 
it hard getting anything to eat, ■ It is also very likelv 
that the heavy body of water which now lies on the 
ground will not be drained off in time to prevent a very 
wet spring. Up to this time the winter had not been verv 
bad. It is growing warmer now, .and perhaps the near 
approach of spring may save the situation after all. 
Spring Shooting. 
We have had no shooting as yet this sprlrs 
though 
