Chapter VIII: Front Matter (8)

Nor was he content to stop here. Realizing the rapidity with which commercial greed was sweeping out of existence important marine species of the Northwest, he caused Afognak Island, in Alaska, to be set aside as a perpetual reservation for salmon and sea-lions, and planned the establishment on Amak Island of a reservation for walrus, sea-otter, and sea-lions, and of still another on the Farallones for sea-lions and sea-fowl. These two refuges for the great marine mammals of our western seas have not yet been established, but the good work set on foot by Mr. Noble should be continued to completion with as little delay as possible.

Much more remains to be done. We now have these forest reservations, refuges where the timber and its wild denizens should be safe from destruction. What are we going to do with them? The mere formal declaration that they have been set aside will contribute but little toward this safety. It will prevent the settlement of the regions, but will not of itself preserve either the timber or the game on them. The various national parks are watched and patrolled by Federal troops, but even for them no provisions of law exist by which those who violate the regulations laid down for their care may be punished. The forest reservations are absolutely unprotected. Although set aside by presidential proclamation, they are without government and without guards. Timber-thieves may still strip the mountain-sides of the growing trees, and poachers may still kill the game without fear of punishment.

This should not be so. If it was worth while to establish these reservations, it is worth while to protect them. A general law providing for the adequate guarding of all such national possessions should be enacted by Congress, and wherever it may be necessary such Federal laws should be supplemented by laws of the States in which the reservations lie. The timber and the game ought to be made the absolute property of the government, and it should be constituted a punishable offense to appropriate such property within the limits of the reservation. The game and the timber on a reservation should be regarded as government property, just as are the mules and the cordwood at an army post. If it is a crime to take the latter, it should be a crime to plunder a forest reservation.

The national parks and forest reservations which already are, or by proper protection may become, great game preserves are those given in the list below. In these reservations is to be found to-day every species of large game known to the United States, and the proper protection of the reservations means the perpetuating in full supply of all these indigenous mammals. If this care is provided no species of American large game need ever become absolutely extinct; and intelligent effort for game protection may well be directed toward securing through national legislation the policing of forest preserves by timber and game wardens.

NATIONAL PARKS.

=Yellowstone=, in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho.

=Yosemite=, in California.

=Grant=, in California, included in Sierra Forest Reserve.

=Sequoia=, in California, included in Sierra Forest Reserve.

FOREST RESERVATIONS,

_Created under Section 24 of the Act of Congress of March 3,
1891 (26 Stat., 1095)--showing the locality of the
reservations and the dates of the President's proclamations
creating the same. Complete to March 20, 1893._

ALASKA.

=Afognak Forest and Fish-Culture Reserve.= Afognak Island and its adjacent bays and rocks and territorial waters, including among others the Sea Lion and Sea Otter Islands. Reserved under Sections 14 and 24, Act of March 3, 1891. Proclamation issued December 24, 1892.

ARIZONA.

=Grand Canyon Forest Reserve.= In Coconino County. Estimated area, 2893 square miles; 1,851,520 acres. Proclamation issued February 20, 1893.

CALIFORNIA.

=San Gabriel Timber-Land Reserve.= In Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties. Estimated area, 868 square miles; 555,520 acres. Proclamation issued December 20, 1892.

=Sierra Forest Reserve.= In Mono, Mariposa, Fresno, Tulare, Inyo, and Kern counties. Estimated area, 6400 square miles; 4,096,000 acres. Proclamation issued February 14, 1893.

=San Bernardino Forest Reserve.= In San Bernardino County. Estimated area, 1152 square miles; 737,280 acres. Proclamation issued February 25, 1893.

=Trabuco Canyon Reserve.= In Orange County. Estimated area, 78 square miles; 49,920 acres. Proclamation issued February 25, 1893.

COLORADO.

=White River Plateau Timber-Land Reserve.= In Routt, Rio Blanco, Garfield, and Eagle counties. Estimated area, 1672 square miles; 1,198,080 acres. Proclamation issued October 16, 1891.

=Pike's Peak Timber-Land Reserve.= In El Paso County. Estimated area, 288 square miles; 184,320 acres. Proclamation issued February 11, 1892; supplemental proclamation, March 18, 1892.

=Plum Creek Timber-Land Reserve.= In Douglas County. Estimated area, 280 square miles; 179,200 acres. Proclamation issued June 23, 1892.

=The South Platte Forest Reserve.= In Park, Jefferson, Summit, and Chaffee counties. Estimated area, 1068 square miles; 683,520 acres. Proclamation issued December 9, 1892.

=Battlement Mesa Forest Reserve.= In Garfield, Mesa, Pitkin, Delta, and Gunnison counties. Estimated area, 1341 square miles; 858,240 acres. Proclamation issued December 24, 1892.

NEW MEXICO.

=The Pecos River Forest Reserve.= In Santa Fe, San Miguel, Rio Arriba, and Taos counties. Estimated area, 486 square miles; 311,040 acres. Proclamation issued January 11, 1892.

OREGON.

=Bull Timber-Land Reserve.= In Multnomah, Wasco, and Clackamas counties. Estimated area, 222 square miles; 142,080 acres. Proclamation issued June 17, 1892.

WASHINGTON.

=The Pacific Forest Reserve.= In Pierce, Kittitas, Lewis, and Yakima counties. Estimated area, 1512 square miles; 967,680 acres. Proclamation issued February 20, 1893.

WYOMING.

=Yellowstone National Park Timber-Land Reserve.= On the south and east of the Yellowstone National Park. Estimated area, 1936 square miles; 1,239,040 acres. Proclamation issued March 30, 1891; supplemental proclamation, September 10, 1891.

NOTE. The areas given are the estimated aggregate areas
lying within the exterior boundaries of the reservations.
The lands actually reserved are only the vacant,
unappropriated public lands within said boundaries.

The Exhibit at the World's Fair

At its last annual meeting the Club determined to have an exhibit at Chicago. It was felt that it would be a pity if at the World's Fair there was no representation of so typical and peculiar a phase of American national development as life on the frontier. Accordingly it was determined to erect a regular frontier hunter's cabin, and to fit it out exactly as such cabins are now fitted out in the wilder portions of the great plains and among the Rockies, wherever the old-time hunters still exist, or wherever their immediate successors, the ranchmen and pioneer settlers, have taken their places.

The managers of the World's Fair very kindly gave the Club for its exhibit the wooded island in the middle lagoon. Here the club erected a long, low cabin of unhewn logs; in other words, a log house of the kind in which the first hunters and frontier settlers dwelt on the frontier, whether this frontier was in the backwoods of the East in the days when Daniel Boone wandered and hunted in Kentucky, or later when Davy Crockett ranked not only as the best rifle-shot in all Tennessee, but also as a Whig congressman of note; or whether, as in the times of Kit Carson, the frontier had been pushed westward to the great plains, while new settlements were springing up on the Pacific coast and among the Rockies. The inside fittings of the cabin were just such as those with which we are all familiar in the ranch-houses and cabins of the wilderness and of the cattle country. There was a rough table and settles, with bunks in one corner, and a big open stone fireplace. Pegs and deer antlers were driven into the wall to support shaps, buckskin shirts, broad hats, stock-saddles, and the like. Rifles stood in the corners, or were supported by pegs above the fireplace. Nothing was to be seen save what would be found in such a cabin in the wilds; and, as a matter of fact, the various rifles, stock-saddles, and indeed the shaps and buckskin shirts, too, had all seen active service. Elk- and bear-hides were scattered over the floor or tacked to the walls. The bleached skull and antlers of an elk were nailed over the door outside; the head of a buffalo hung from the mid partition, fronting the entrance, inside; and the horns of other game, such as mountain sheep and deer, were scattered about. Without the door stood a white-capped prairie-schooner, a veteran of long service in cow-camps and on hunting expeditions.

The exhibit was put in charge of Elwood Hofer, of the Yellowstone National Park. On June 15 it was formally opened with a club dinner, at which a number of the gentlemen connected with the World's Fair were present as guests.

Big-game hunters visiting the Fair must have been especially struck with the colossal figures of moose, elk, bison, bear, and cougar which guard the various bridges; some are by Proctor, and some by Kemys. Well worthy of notice likewise were the groups of mounted big game in the Government Building, and those put up by Mr. L. L. Dyche in the Kansas State Building.

Constitution of the Boone and Crockett Club

FOUNDED DECEMBER, 1887.

Article I.

This Club shall be known as the Boone and Crockett Club.

Article II.

The objects of the Club shall be--

1. To promote manly sport with the rifle.

2. To promote travel and exploration in the wild and unknown, or but partially known, portions of the country.

3. To work for the preservation of the large game of this country, and, so far as possible, to further legislation for that purpose, and to assist in enforcing the existing laws.

4. To promote inquiry into, and to record observations on the habits and natural history of, the various wild animals.

5. To bring about among the members the interchange of opinions and ideas on hunting, travel, and exploration; on the various kinds of hunting-rifles; on the haunts of game animals, etc.

Article III.

No one shall be eligible for membership who shall not have killed with the rifle in fair chase, by still-hunting or otherwise, at least one individual of one of the various kinds of American large game.

Article IV.

Under the head of American large game are included the following animals: Bear, buffalo (bison), mountain sheep, caribou, cougar, musk-ox, white goat, elk (wapiti), wolf (not coyote), pronghorn antelope, moose, and deer.

Article V.

The term "fair chase" shall not be held to include killing bear, wolf, or cougar in traps, nor "fire-hunting," nor "crusting" moose, elk, or deer in deep snow, nor killing game from a boat while it is swimming in the water.

Article VI.

This Club shall consist of not more than one hundred regular members, and of such associate and honorary members as may be elected.

Article VII.

The Committee on Admissions shall consist of the President and Secretary and the Chairman of the Executive Committee. In voting for regular members, six blackballs shall exclude. In voting for associate and honorary members, ten blackballs shall exclude. Candidates for regular membership who are at the same time associate members, shall be voted upon before any other.

Article VIII.

The Club shall hold one fixed meeting a year, to be held the second Wednesday in January, and to be called the annual meeting.

Article IX.

This Constitution shall not be changed, save by a four-fifths vote of the members present.

List of Members

_President._

Hon. Theodore Roosevelt, Washington, D. C.

_Secretary and Treasurer._

Archibald Rogers, Hyde Park, N. Y.

_Executive Committee._

W. A. Wadsworth, Geneseo, N. Y.

George Bird Grinnell, New York.

Winthrop Chanler, New York.

Owen Wister, Philadelphia.

Charles Deering, Chicago.

_Regular Members._

Hon. Benj. H. Bristow, New York.

Col. James H. Jones, New York.

Col. W. T. Pickett, Meeteetse, Wy.

Col. H. C. McDowell, Lexington, Ky.

Col. Roger D. Williams, Lexington, Ky.

Hon. Henry Cabot Lodge, Senate Chamber, Washington.

Hon. Bellamy Storer, House of Representatives, Washington.

Albert Bierstadt, New York.

D. G. Elliott, New York.

Arnold Hague, Washington.

Clarence King, New York.

Thomas Paton, New York.

John J. Pierrepont, Brooklyn.

W. Hallett Phillips, Washington.

E. P. Rogers, Hyde Park, N. Y.

J. Coleman Drayton, New York.

Elliott Roosevelt, Abingdon, Va.

J. West Roosevelt, New York.

Philip Schuyler, New York.

Rutherfurd Stuyvesant, New York.

Robert Munro Ferguson, New York.

Royal Carroll, New York.

William Milne Grinnell, New York.

H. C. de Rham, New York.

William B. Bristow, New York.

H. N. Munn, New York.

Percy Pyne, Jr., New York.

Frank Thomson, Philadelphia.

J. A. Chanler, New York.

W. A. Chanler, New York.

R. D. Winthrop, New York.

Hon. Boies Penrose, Philadelphia.