CONCLUSION.
It is in respect of the foregoing matters that the Yellowstone National Park has most to fear. The general public, although always in favor of its preservation, knows nothing of the merit of these various projects. A bill is introduced in Congress in the interest of some private enterprise. It is supported by representations and statistics gotten up for the occasion. There may be no one at hand to refute them, and they are the only information upon which Congress can act. More than once these bills have been reported favorably from committee, when every essential statement in the committee’s report was contrary to fact. Unless some friend of the Park is present, ready and willing to devote time, and perhaps money, to its defense, there is only too much danger that these measures will eventually prove successful.
Thus far, the Park has never been lacking in such friends; and there is no more encouraging fact in its history than this, that some one has always been on guard against any thing which might work to its injury. Men like Senator Vest in official position, or William Hallett Phillips in private life, and journals like Forest and Stream, have stood for years, in a purely public-spirited manner, without remunerative inducement of any sort, and often in face of the bitterest vituperation and abuse, against the designs of selfish and unscrupulous schemers. In like manner, government officials connected with the Park have always, with one or two exceptions, earnestly opposed these dangerous projects. It is plain to any one who is familiar with its inside history, that, but for the agencies just mentioned, there would not be to-day any Yellowstone Park at all. It is equally plain, that so long as friends like these are forthcoming, the Park has little to fear from its enemies.
In still another respect, the Park has been unfortunate where it had a right to expect better things. Prior to the admission of Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho into the Union of States, its interests were looked after in Congress, particularly in the Senate, by a few members who took great pride in promoting its welfare. But when the above territories were admitted to the Union, these gentlemen very naturally turned over the charge, which they had voluntarily assumed, to the members from the new States, as being thereafter its proper guardians. It was, of course, believed that in them, if in any one, the Park would find needed championship and protection. It is a matter of great regret that these very reasonable expectations have not been realized. A glance at the list of bills pertaining to the Yellowstone National Park, which have been presented to Congress in the past six years, will show that nearly every objectionable measure has been fathered by the very men whose first duty would seem to have been to oppose them. In a speech opposing the Segregation Project, delivered in the Senate in the winter of 1892-3, Senator Vest referred to this subject with justifiable indignation. He said:
"When those States [Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho] were territories, and not represented in the Senate, I considered it the duty of every Senator, as this Park belonged to all the people of the United States, … to defend its integrity, and to keep it for the purposes for which it was originally designed. Since Senators have come from those States, who, of course, must be supposed to know more about that Park than those of us who live at a distance, and since they have manifested a disposition to mutilate it, I must confess that my interest in it has rather flagged, and I feel very much disposed, in plain language, to wash my hands of the whole business. If the constituencies, who are more benefited than any others can possibly be in the Park, are willing to see it cut off, the best disposition of the matter would be to turn it open to the public, let the full greed and avarice of the country have their scope, let the geysers be divided out and taken for the purpose of washing clothes, … let the water of that splendid water-fall in the Yellowstone River be used to turn machinery, let the timber be cut off; in other words, destroy the Park, and make it a sacrifice to the greed of this advanced age in which we live."
It is only fair to say that generally these members do not personally favor the measures to which they lend official countenance and comfort. One can find a practical, if not a morally justifiable, excuse for their course in the exigencies of political life which too often constrain men to official action not in accordance with their private judgment. Unquestionably, a majority of the people of these young and enterprising states are immovably opposed to any thing which may tend to mutilate or destroy this important reservation; and it is not believed that their broader patriotism will ever be overridden by the narrow and perverted wishes of a few straggling constituencies. [BW]
[BW] The almost prophetic warning of Captain Harris in his last report as Superintendent of the Park has a peculiar force in this connection: