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FOREST AND STREAM 
June, 1920 
FORESTS STREAM 
FORTY-EIGHTH YEAR 
FOUNDERS OF THE AUDUBON SOCIETY 
ADVISORY BOARD 
GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL, New York, N. Y. 
OARL E. AKELEY, American Museum of Natural History, New York. 
FRANK S. DAGGETT, Museum of Science, Los Angeles, Cal. 
EDM UND HELLER. Smithsonian Institution, 'Washington, D. C. 
WILFRED H. OSGOOD, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, 111. 
JOHN M. PHILLIPS, Pennsylvania Game Commission, Pittsburgh, Pa. 
CHARLES SHELDON, Washington, D. C. 
GEORGE SHIRAS, 3rd, Washington, D. C. 
WILLIAM BRUETTE, Editor 
i JOHN P. HOLMAN, Associate Editor 
TOM WOOD. Manager 
Nine East Fortieth Street, New York City 
THE OBJECT OF THIS JOURNAL WILL BE TO 
studiously promote a healthful interest in outdoor rec- 
reation, and a refined taste for natural objects 
August 14, 1873. 
FRANK S. DAGGETT 
TN the passing of Frank S. Daggett, a member of 
A Forest and Stream’s advisory board, another man 
becomes a memory. Recently as director of the Mu- 
seum of History, Science and Art at Los Angeles, 
Daggett’s chief interest was in the taking from the 
asphalt deposits at the Rancho La Brea the richest 
collection of fossils ever obtained, arranging for these 
to be properly cared for and adequately studied. This 
will, perhaps, be his monument, not better preserved 
were it of marble. His friends of the great out- 
doors of by-gone years tell us that whether chained 
to business in Chicago or bird-nesting in the open, 
his every undertaking was marked by the enthusiasm 
of the true sportsman, giving his best to the game for 
its own sake. 
Glancing back at random we find Daggett record- 
ing the occurrence (and skinning) of a wild swan 
in the following words: “On November 24, 1906, I 
spent the day four miles north of Waukegan, 111., 
where Big Dead River crosses a strip of alternate 
sand-dunes and marsh a mile wide and a favorite 
place for ducks when Lake Michigan is too rough 
for their comfort. I learned from a hunter of a swan 
which had been shot, and on my way back to Chicago 
slopped long enough at Waukegan to secure it. . . . 
The bird, for a swan, was not over fat, but sufficiently 
so to test the enthusiasm of any but an old timer.” 
We trust there will be such “old timers” about while 
Forest and Stream continues. 
In the death of Mr. Frank S. Daggett the world of 
science suffers an irreparable loss. 
HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF 
/'ALD readers of Forest and Stream will recall a 
^ battle fought thirty-five years ago to keep the 
Yellowstone National Park from being handed over 
to people who wished to use it for money-making. 
At that time this was the nation’s only big park. 
Something very like that is happening now. A 
bill has recently passed the Senate, been favorably 
reported from the Public Lands Committee, and is 
now on the unanimous consent calendar of the 
House of Representatives, which alarms persons 
who value our national park system. The bill seems 
to have the approval of some responsible officials of 
the Government, and is asked for by farmers and 
commercial people out in Idaho. It authorizes 
granting the right to construct reservoirs and irri- 
gation canals in the southwest corner of the Yellow- 
stone Park — the Falls River district — and taking 
the water out of the Park for irrigation in Idaho. 
Its purpose is to change the uses of a region which 
nearly fifty years ago was “dedicated and set apart 
as a public park or pleasure-ground for the benefit 
and enjoyment of the people,” from the object to 
which it was then by Congress devoted — a pleasure 
ground — to a means for making money for private 
local commercial interests; to deprive the people 
to whom this Park belongs of rights which once 
taken away cannot be recovered. 
The Falls River district has long been known as 
a great feeding ground for moose. The construction 
of these reservoirs will not tend to benefit this moose 
range, but the destruction or survival of the moose 
here is a small matter compared to the danger of 
breaking down the whole system of national parks 
in this country. 
If Congress can properly grant to one private con- 
cern the privilege to do a particular thing in one 
national park — if it chooses to give to officials the 
authority to grant to private concerns rights hitherto 
belonging to the public and which these officials now 
have no lawful right to interfere with — the whole 
system of national parks of the United States is 
threatened. To pass this bill will take from the 
people rights enjoyed for many years. The bill is 
H. R. 12466. 
Outcry is made about money losses by ten or fif- 
teen thousand farmers in Idaho whose crops were 
reduced during the very exceptional year 1919 by 
the terrible drought that caused likewise very 
severe losses to a multitude of other farmers and 
live stock raisers in other neighboring states. The 
case of the Idaho men seems hard, but the farmer 
farms with his eyes open; he knows that he must 
take his chances on weather conditions. 
It is for the public to decide whether it is reason- 
able — because of these losses in an exceptional year 
— that a hundred million people, each one of whom 
has rights of possession and occupancy in the na- 
tional parks of the country, shall be deprived of 
those rights. Shall such a precedent be created for 
the Yellowstone Park? The people — who own it — 
must approve or disapprove this measure. Do they 
approve this bill which gives away a corner of the 
Yellowstone Park and at once will produce other 
demands from private interests asking for congres- 
sional action to take away other rights in any other 
park in the land? If they do not approve, if they 
feel that the National Park system of this country is 
too valuable to our people to be sacrificed to the com- 
mercial interest of a few local communities, then let 
each one of our readers say so. Let him write to his 
congressman and tell him that the bill, H. R. 12466 
must not be passed. 
If the great public is not willing to take the 
trouble to speak up for its own rights, it does not 
deserve to possess rights. If it does not act in 
this case further encroachments will be encouraged. 
