Chapter 4:
The Early Years in Yellowstone: 1882-1886
ON APRIL 1, 1882, ten years and one month after the
passage of the Act creating the Park, Patrick H. Conger replaced Norris
as Superintendent. [1] Conger had been a
Deputy United States Marshal in Dubuque, Iowa, but his appointment as
Superintendent of the Yellowstone was due more to the fact that he was
an Iowa Republican. Secretary of the Interior S. J. Kirkwood was a
Republican; he was also from Iowa. Conger was faced by a problem unknown
to the two Superintendents who preceded him, a problem that frustrated
his attempts to enforce the few regulatory rules: monopoly power in the
Park. His administration was a stormy one, fraught with charges of
incompetence and maladministration. Unfortunately, some historians have
given too much credence to the reports of his enemies and paid too
little attention either to his refutation of the many malicious charges
made against him or to the political atmosphere in which such charges
were made.
In the fall of 1882 the Northern Pacific Railroad had
laid track as far west as Livingston, Montana Territory, and a branch
line south to the Park was anticipated. Since this transportation
promised an increase in the number of tourists, concessions within the
Park became more attractive. Henry M. Teller of Colorado had been
appointed Secretary of the Interior by President Arthur, and under his
auspices, in 1882, a tentative agreement was reached granting exclusive
privileges on 4,400 acres of Park land to Carroll T. Hobart of Fargo,
Henry F. Douglas of Fort Yates, Dakota Territory, and Rufus Hatch, a New
York stockbroker. [2] The new Superintendent
established a basis for the later enmity between him and the expectant
lessees when, asked by the Secretary for his opinion on the advisability
of granting the proposed lease, he replied with some foresight that he
thought the lease covered entirely too much ground, it would in the
future be worth "a very large sum of money because of increased tourism,
and the public would be "restive" if all the proposed privileges were
granted to a single party or corporation. [3]
The proposed lease would have given a ten-year
monopoly for the erection of hotels, the operation of a stage line, and
the construction of telegraph lines within the Park. The lease would be
granted to a newly formed corporation, the Yellowstone National Park
Improvement Company, which would pay an annual rental of two dollars per
acre.
The Act establishing the Park had authorized the
Secretary of the Interior to grant ten-year leases "of small parcels of
ground" for the erection of hotels. When the Hobart-Hatch lease was
proposed by Secretary Teller in 1882, some members of the Senate thought
that 4,400 acres failed to qualify as a small parcel of land and
directed the Secretary to transmit to the Senate available information
pertaining to leases in the Park. In doing so Teller deliberately
ignored Conger's written opposition and defended the proposed lease,
claiming that since "no means to protect the curiosities within the park
from injury" had been stipulated in the organic Act, such leases were
proper and necessary to provide the needed protection "with the least
possible expense to the government." Prompted by Conger's adverse
opinion, Senator George C. Vest of Missouri, in a report from the
Committee on Territories, maintained that the entire business was
contrary to the Act establishing the Park. The proposed monopolistic
lease was therefore defeated, but the antagonism between Conger and C.
T. Hobart increased with later developments. [4]
Lieutenant-General P. H. Sheridan toured the Park in
the summer of 1882 and in his annual report to the War Department he
attacked the Hobart-Hatch contract, regretting "exceedingly to learn
that the National Park had been rented out to private parties," and
advised the extension of the boundaries of the Park. He made another
suggestion that materialized four years later. Noting that large numbers
of deer, elk, moose, and mountain sheep had been slaughtered in the
Park, he stated: "If authorized to do so, I will engage to keep out skin
hunters and all other hunters, by use of troops from Forts Washakie on
the south, Custer on the east, and Ellis on the north, and, if
necessary, I can keep sufficient troops in the Park to accomplish this
object." [5] His remarks were seconded by the
Governor of Montana Territory, John Schuyler Crosby, who further
suggested the appointment of an "engineer officer of the Army" as
general superintendent of the Park with means to lay out roads and make
improvements; this officer should be vested with authority to "call upon
the military stationed in the neighborhood" for aid in enforcing such
laws as might be passed for protection of the Park. [6] The Inspector General of the Army, Brigadier
General D. B. Sacker, thought that a single troop of cavalry assigned to
duty in the Park during the summer months would afford all the
protection needed against fire and vandalism, and the assignment of such
a unit could be accomplished with little expense to the War Department
and none to the Department of the Interior. [7]
In response to Sheridan's plea that some action be
taken toward protecting the Park, and fearing that the area might be
transferred from civil control if some remedial action were not soon
taken, Senator George C. Vest [8] undertook
the leadership of the movement in Congress for national park development
and protection. He secured the adoption of a resolution by the Senate on
December 12, 1882, calling upon the Committee on Territories to review
possible legislation needed to afford protection to the Park. On January
5, 1883, as Chairman of this committee, he reported a bill (S. 2317) to
amend the original Park Act of 1872. Noting that the annual
appropriation for the Park was too small to furnish the Superintendent
with a sufficient number of men to adequately protect the Park, Vest
proposed the "employment of one or two companies of cavalry," as
suggested by General Sheridan, to "exclude the mercenary wretches" who
were then reportedly killing the game within the Park. The bill as
submitted extended the area of the Park, placed it within the criminal
jurisdiction of the Montana Territorial courts for offenses against life
or property, and created within the Park a police jurisdiction for the
arrest, examination, and punishment of violators of regulations made by
the Secretary of the Interior. A similar bill was introduced in the
House, but no action was taken on either. [9]
Unable to obtain the desired Congressional action,
Vest informed the Secretary of the Interior that he had reason to
believe that timber was being illegally cut and that game was being
killed to fulfill contract obligations. He demanded that such actions be
immediately stopped. [10] Teller at once
notified Conger that the regulations heretofore in force regarding the
Park were amended so as to "prohibit absolutely the killing, wounding,
or capturing at any time" of game animals within the Park; fishing was
henceforth to be done by hook and line only. No longer was it legal to
hunt or trap within the Park "for purposes of procuring food for
visitors or actual residents." [11] The
Secretary's statement and the revised rule were published in the Bozeman
Avant Courier, February 22, 1883, by G. L. Henderson, who was
then acting as Assistant Superintendent of the Park during Conger's
absence, and Senator Vest was immediately informed of the Secretary's
actions. [12]
Remedial action against vandals was sought from
another quarter when the United States Attorney for Wyoming Territory
wrote to the Attorney General suggesting that a Grand Jury, soon to be
impaneled in the Territory, be authorized to investigate the acts of
vandalism "said to be common in the Park. At the same time the Governor
of Wyoming Territory implored the Secretary of the Interior to make some
provision whereby the Judge of the Third Judicial District of Wyoming
Territory would be allowed to hold court "within or near the Park in
Uinta County" since the usual sessions of the Court were so far removed
from the scene of violation that "by the time the officers get there the
parties and witnesses have left the country." [13] No action was taken on either of these
requests.
Realizing that he could hardly make an investigative
body out of the Senate Committee on Territories, Vest presented a
resolution of February 17, 1883, for the appointment of a special
committee of five Senators who would:
. . . examine and report to the Senate . . . what is
the present condition of the Yellowstone National Park and what action
has been taken by the Department of the Interior in regard to the
management of said Park. . . . Also what legislation . . . is necessary
to protect the timber, game or objects of curiosity . . . and to
establish a system of police and to secure the proper administration of
justice therein. . . .
He further requested that the Secretary of the
Interior "take immediate action for the protection" of the Park, and to
that end "he is requested to call upon the proper military authorities
for such force as may be necessary to accomplish such purposes." The
Senator maintained that Park Superintendent Conger was not to blame for
the deplorable conditions in the Park; the trouble was that neither
sufficient money nor men were available to rectify the situation. [14] The resolution was debated, but no further
action was taken. [15]
Though Senator Vest failed to form an investigative
committee, he had directed Congressional attention toward the West and
the Yellowstone Park. When the House Committee on Appropriations
reported the sundry civil bill, with the usual $15,000 appropriation for
the Park, the bill included a new clause which would prevent the
Secretary of the Interior from allowing any "exclusive privileges or
monopoly" to any person or corporation. Congressman Anson C. McCook of
New York offered an amendment to prohibit the Secretary from making
any leases within the Park, voided leases already made, and
directed the Secretary of War "to make necessary details of troops to
prevent trespassers or intruders entering the park with the objects of
destroying the game therein or for any other purpose prohibited by law."
McCook called attention to Sheridan's proposals of the previous November
and observed that, while men engaged in the "indiscriminate slaughter of
game" paid but scant attention to civil authorities, "they have a
profound respect for the power of the General Government as represented
by the officers and men of the Army." Congressman John A. Reagan of
Texas stated, in support of McCook's amendment, that whenever leases
were let for "hotels, for gardens, or for grazing lands," jobbery was
sure to occur. [16]
When discussion of the McCook amendment resumed,
Congressman James H. Blount of Georgia rose in support and stated that
he did not believe McCook meant the Park to remain permanently under the
control of the War Department; it was his understanding that the measure
was but a temporary expedient. The only way Blount could see to prevent
the establishment of a monopoly and stop the depredations was to put the
Park "in the hands of the War Department." Congressman Frank Hiscock
from New York, the only member of the House to oppose the amendment,
withdrew his objection and the McCook amendment was accepted. [17]
The amended sundry civil bill came before the Senate
on March 1, 1883, and the Yellowstone Park appropriation was increased
from $15,000 to $40,000. Senator Vest proposed another amendment
providing that $2,000 of the appropriation would be paid annually to a
Superintendent and $900 to be paid to each of ten Assistant
Superintendents, "all of whom shall be appointed by the Secretary of the
Interior, and reside continuously in the park." The Vest amendment,
after brief debate, was accepted. After the payment of the stipulated
salaries, the remainder of the $40,000 appropriation was to be expended
on the construction of roads and bridges under the supervision of an
Army engineer appointed by the Secretary of War. The McCook amendment
was stricken and a paragraph was inserted in its place authorizing the
Secretary of the Interior to lease small plots of ground "not exceeding
ten acres in extent" for a period not exceeding ten years. Such leases
were not to be granted within one-quarter of a mile of any of the
geysers or of the Yellowstone Falls, and all previous leases were
declared invalid.
The lease provisions of the amended bill brought
forth sharp criticism. Senator Preston B. Plumb of Kansas thought the
visitors to the Park should be made to "rough it" and wanted to abolish
that part of the bill providing for hotel leases. In the opinion of
Senator John J. Ingalls, also of Kansas, the Park was getting to be "a
good deal of an incubus"; he thought it would be best for all concerned
if the government were to survey and sell the entire area. The Senator
deplored the fact that moneys had already been spent laying out "roads
that nobody uses," and could not understand why the government had
entered "into the show business in the first place." While these two
Senators were in a minority at that time, their type of protest might
later have grown into majority opinion except for the provident
inclusion of an other amendment.
This addition, indeed was to save not only the
Yellowstone National Park but the whole future national park system of
the United States. This amendment provided that:
The Secretary of War, upon the request of the
Secretary of the Interior, is hereby authorized and directed to make the
necessary details of troops to prevent trespassers or intruders from
entering the park for the purpose of destroying the game or objects of
curiosity therein, or for any other purpose prohibited by law, and to
remove such persons from the park if found therein.
The bill, thus amended, passed the Senate and was
agreed to by the House. [18]
Congress had plainly set forth its intention in
regard to leases by inserting the statement, "nor shall there be leased
more than ten acres to any one person or corporation" into the bill.
Nevertheless, only six days after its passage, Secretary Teller
intentionally evaded the meaning of the law while staying within its
literal bounds. On March 9, 1883, a lease totaling ten acres was granted
to the Yellowstone National Park Improvement Company, the same
organization that had failed three months earlier in its attempt to
lease 4,400 acres of Park land. The land granted by the new lease was
divided into seven parcels, of a little more than one acre in size, each
located at or near one of the seven major points of interest in the
Park. Since all of the choice hotel locations were now in the control of
the Improvement Company, it was evident that the Company was safely
entrenched as a monopoly in the Park. Secretary Teller admitted as much
when he stated that it was for the best interest of the government, the
Park, and the public, that the number of persons permitted "to engage in
the business enterprises in the Park" be held at an absolute minimum.
[19] Firmly established in the Park, the
Improvement Company constructed a large hotel at Mammoth Hot Springs and
rumors and charges concerning the inefficiency of the Superintendent
commenced.
The ten Assistant Superintendents provided for in the
appropriation bill could be hired at the beginning of the new fiscal
year, but in the meantime Superintendent Conger reported that owing to
the vigilance of his present assistant and his gamekeeper, "the killing
of game in the Park is partially stoped [sic]," and discounted
various reports of the slaughter of game as having been "immensely
exaggerated." [20] A few weeks later,
however, no less a personage than Buffalo Bill Cody, in a letter to the
New York Sun, pleaded for the protection of the game found within
the Park, adding that the indiscriminate killing of game "does not find
favor in the West as it did a decade or so ago." [21]
By the end of June, 1883, ten Assistant
Superintendents had been appointed by the Secretary of the Interior at
the designated salary of $900 per annum; they paid for their
transportation to the Park and their subsistence while on duty there.
These men were, for the most part, totally unsuited to the rigorous
service demanded of them, having obtained their positions through
political influence. Born and brought up in the East, they had little
understanding of the duties they were supposed to perform. The few who
attempted to enforce the regulations and to protect the Park from
vandals found their efforts "laughed at" by the trespassers, for the
only penalty for violating the regulations was confiscation of the
violator's "outfit," which at times was limited to his wearing apparel.
[22]
Superintendent Conger had requested that the
Secretary of the Interior furnish him and his assistants with a quantity
of circulars containing the laws, orders, and regulations governing the
Park; he planned to distribute them to tourists, so that none could
"plead ignorance as an excuse for a violation of the Law." [23] Unfortunately, more than a knowledge of the
Park regulations was necessary to end the destructive vandalism, for one
visitor blandly told of killing ducks, badgers, birds of all
descriptions, and indeed, shooting at everything that came into his
sight, before casually adding, "it is against the law to shoot anything
but bears in the Park." Nor satisfied with violating the game
regulations, the same visitor related that, when visiting Old Faithful
Geyser, his party "threw a tomato can" into the famous geyser just
before its eruption, left their "names with date in several places" on
the geyser formations, and inscribed "Detroit Safe Co." at another
place. [24]
The Superintendent's problems were not confined to
apprehending tourists, however. The already unfriendly relationship
between the officers of the Improvement Company and Conger were further
exacerbated when Conger, contending that any person had the right to
transport passengers in the Park, found himself in opposition to the
company's claim that it alone held the franchise for the transportation
of its hotel visitors. C. T. Hobart, General Manager of the Improvement
Company, retaliated by complaining to Secretary Teller that the roads in
the Park were in a sad state of disrepair, that professional hunters
were plying their trade with impunity throughout the Park, and that meat
illegally obtained by such men was stored in the cabins of Assistant
Superintendents who had been hired to prevent such depredations. Conger
retorted that these and other allegations impugning his character and
efficiency were false and without foundation, but admitted that his new
assistants were hampered in the performance of their duties by the lack
of legislation and moneys with which to equip and house them. [25]
In an attempt to learn what was actually going on in
the Park, M. L. Joslyn, Acting Secretary of the Interior, instructed W.
Scott Smith, special agent of the General Land Office, to visit the Park
while en route west and, without disclosing his official connection with
the Department of the Interior, investigate and report upon the
management of the Park. Smith's report was a scathing denouncement of
Conger and his administration. The Superintendent had "either failed to
comprehend the importance of the duties of his office," Smith reported,
"or had intentionally disregarded the same," never having attempted "to
execute some of the most important instructions of the Department."
Conger and his assistants had failed to inform visitors of the
regulations and had evidently shut their eyes to the fact that
professional hunters were working throughout the Park to supply the
Improvement Company with fresh meat. The secret investigator was
surprised to find no Assistant Superintendents patrolling the geyser
basins to prevent vandalism and his astonishment was further increased
when he was informed by visitors that "they had purchased very fine and
choice specimens" directly from some of the Superintendent's assistants.
Smith declared that the assistants who were hired to protect the
curiosities were responsible for "acts of vandalism . . . more
outrageous than those perpetrated by visitors," and concluded his report
with, "I think the interests of the Government demand a more active,
energetic and competent Superintendent than the present one. Mr. Conger
is well advanced in years and . . . he does not . . . combine the
qualifications required to make an efficient Superintendent. [26]
When the contents of Special Agent Smith's report
were made known to him, Conger vehemently denied any wrongdoing and
blamed the entire report upon the malice of the Vice-President of the
Improvement Company. [27] This was given
some support by one of his assistants. Having noticed a reference in the
St. Paul Press, December 17, 1883, charging Conger with
incompetence, Assistant Superintendent D. E. Sawyer wrote that the whole
trouble could be traced to the insidious reports of Hobart, who resented
Conger's refusal to allow the Improvement Company to "monopolize the
whole park." Sawyer charged the Improvement Company with killing game
for their hotel tables, adding, "they claim to have permit from Sec.
Teller to kill for their own use . . . we have never been advised by the
Secretary what priviledge [sic] they have, no copy of their lease
has ever been furnished us." Referring to Conger, Sawyer maintained that
"no man was ever more zelous [sic] in seeing that every law is
lived up to and carried into effect than himself," and, after noting
that there existed no law whereby the Park officials could make arrests,
no penalties established and no courts of justice within the Park, he
asked the plaintive question, "will you tell me in the name of heven
[sic] what more we can do?" [28]
Conger apparently thought that the existing rules and
regulations were comprehensive enough to achieve the purpose for which
they were designed if only the Superintendent were supplied with the
necessary legal machinery . . . to compel obedience to them." He had no
legal power to arrest and detain anyone charged with a violation of the
rules, nor was there any penalty attached to a conviction for such
offenses. He wrote Teller that "some legislation is needed immediately
to correct and remedy the existing state of things" in the Park, since,
without it, an order from the Secretary or the Superintendent was "just
about as effective as was the ancient Popes bull."[29]
The legislation requested by the Superintendent and
obviously needed by the Park officials was refused by Congress. At the
opening of the 48th Congress in December, 1883, Senator Vest introduced
a bill to revise the Yellowstone Park Act. It provided for the
punishment of offenses and extended the laws of the Territory of Montana
over the Park. For jurisdictional purposes, the Park was declared to be
a part of Gallatin County, Montana Territory. The bill conferred on the
Superintendent and his assistants the powers and duties of United States
Marshals. The Vest bill was brought before the Senate on March 4, 1884,
and, after considerable debate, passed the following day. [30]
During the second session of the 48th Congress, the
House considered the Senate bill as amended by the House Committee on
Territories. The most important of these amendments were meant to reduce
the size of the Park and change the judicial jurisdiction from Montana
to Wyoming Territory. These amendments were agreed upon on the House
floor, and the bill passed, only to die in a conference held by a joint
committee. [31]
If protection was not to be afforded the Park at this
time, improvements were, and the development of the Park road system was
already underway. In the appropriation bill approved March 3, 1883, [32] Congress had stipulated that $29,000 of the
$40,000 appropriation would be expended, under the supervision and
direction of an engineer officer detailed by the Secretary of War, in
the construction and improvement of roads and bridges within the Park.
Accordingly, on July 6, 1883, 1st Lieutenant Dan C. Kingman, Corps of
Engineers, "in addition to other duties as Chief Engineer Officer,
Department of the Platte," was ordered to the Yellowstone National Park.
[33] Lieutenant Kingman's appointment
brought the first systematic direction and development of improvements,
the first division of authority, and the first increment of military
personnel to the Park. All had an effect upon the development of the
national park system. Kingman's contributions were not limited to road
and bridge construction, however, for he, with others, vehemently
opposed the entrance of a railroad into the Park.
A proposal for the construction of a railroad line in
the Park had been presented to Congress in 1882, but no action had been
taken. [34] Rumors circulated that certain
parties were interested in laying track into the Park; they were given
substance when the railroad financier Jay Cooke visited the Clark Fork
mines on the northeast boundary of the Park and promised the miners that
they would soon be connected with the main line of the Northern Pacific
by a branch line that would run through the National Park. Cooke City
came into existence as a result of this visit and promise. [35] An article in the Madisonian, a
Virginia City newspaper, stated that an engineer in charge of a survey
party for the Utah and Northern Railway was laying our a route through
the Park. Superintendent Conger immediately protested and maintained
that a railroad would prostitute the Park. [36] Lieutenant Kingman was aware of the several
railroad plans and earnestly recommended that such action "be deferred
for a few years at any rate," eloquently maintaining that if the Park's
valleys were to be scarred by railroads, its hills pierced by tunnels,
"its purity and quiet . . . destroyed and broken by the noise and smoke
of the locomotive . . . it will cease to belong to the whole people and
will interest only those that it helps to enrich." [37] The conflict thus begun lasted for more
than ten years before the railroad interests were finally defeated, but
it is to the credit of Conger and Kingman that they recognized and
opposed the danger.
More material threats to the preservation of the Park
were facing Conger, however, for the new Assistant Superintendents were
proving to be unreliable and inefficient. They were characterized as
being about as "useful in protecting game . . . as a Sioux Indian would
be in charge of a locomotive," [38] and one
observer, noting that most of them were "boys under age," thought that
"a prairie wolf would frighten them out of their pants." [39] A more voluble contemporary portrayed the
Assistant Superintendents as being.
. . . a herd of irresponsible imbeciles . . . a lot
of poor relations and hangers on of officials who have doubtless had
them pensioned off in this manner with scant hope that they will some
time come into conflict with a cowboy, a wild indian, or at least wander
so far away as never more to be heard from. These employees are largely
made up of inefficient young fellows, ignorant of the ways of the west,
and utterly incompetent to perform the duties for which they are
ostensibly employed. . . . A couple of cowboys could put the whole
brigade to flight with blank cartridges. [40]
The Assistant Superintendents were aware of the poor
esteem in which they were held by the general public and some, after
spending a few months in the wild surroundings, fled back to their homes
in the East, to be replaced by other inexperienced political appointees.
Some remained, but a note of resignation and despair pervaded their
thinking. One of the more conscientious assistants wrote that "tourists
as a rule continue to test the power of the Geysers by throwing timber
in them, this and the neglect of many campers to extinguish their fires
gives me all I can do." Echoing the sentiment of many Senators and
Congressmen, this man tersely advised his superior to "Let the Military
have charge of the Park." [41] At least one
assistant was not discouraged, and, writing about a man he knew to be
responsible for the slaughter of game within the Park, Edmund L. Fish
knew that "nothing can be done now but if we should be empowered to
enforce the laws . . . I should dearly love to snatch the son of a
Bitch bald headed." [42] What he
needed, he said, was legal power to reach them poachers and arrest them
for violation." He would have willingly taken "the part of a detective"
in order to "straighten out their crookedness," but as it was, he could
"see no [illegible] in it for what could I do if I caught them in the
very act." He ended his letter with a plaintive cry, stating that he was
"getting very anxious for power to act like a man and not like a sneak
in Park matters" and hoped that Conger could soon "send good news from
Congress."[43]
Unfortunately the "good news" was not forthcoming and
the Park management continued to be berated by the press for allowing
depredations to continue. [44] One supporter
of the harried Superintendent blamed the insidious newspaper releases
condemning Conger upon the "so-called Park Improvement Co. who desire to
control the entire park for their own benefit," and maintained that
Conger was a good Superintendent, doing all that he could with a
worthless group of Assistants over whom he had no control of appointment
or discharge. [45] Another, speaking for
"all of the old timers and frontiersmen" who were in the vicinity of the
Park, thought that Conger had "done all he possibly could with the power
he had." [46]
Even Secretary of the Interior Teller realized that
Conger and his assistants needed further power if they were to stop
vandalism and the slaughter of game, and he finally requested Congress
to take some action. [47] Congress, however,
refused to consider the request, and supporters of the Park were forced
to look elsewhere for help. The first effort to solve the vexing problem
of the absence of an enforceable legal code was made by the Territory of
Wyoming, which included about 98 per cent of the Park. On March 6, 1884,
its legislature passed a law that extended the laws of the Territory
over that section of the Park lying within the Territorial boundaries,
authorized the Governor to appoint two Justices of the Peace and two
Constables upon the recommendation of the Park Superintendent, and
provided penalties for the defined misdemeanors of trespass and
vandalism. An appropriation of $8,000 was provided "to carry this law
into effect and to assist and aid the Government of the United States in
keeping and maintaining the park as a place of resort." [48] Thus supported by legal machinery, a
conscientious and efficient Superintendent (like Conger), if backed by
an equally efficient group of assistants, might have been able to bring
law and order to the area. Such was not to be the case.
In a terse letter, dated July 12, 1884, Secretary
Teller informed Conger that "In view of the unsatisfactory condition of
affairs in the Park and the improbability of improvement," he was
requested to tender his resignation "to take effect on the appointment
and qualification" of his successor. [49]
Rufus Hatch and other officers of the Improvement Company, with whom
Conger had so often disagreed, were named as having "a hand in securing
Conger's removal." Surprisingly, the editor who had previously
castigated Conger for his alleged lack of law enforcement now came forth
in his defense, expressed "deep feelings of regret at his removal," and
published a letter, signed by sixty residents of the area, commending
Conger for his forthright administration. [50]
Conger's short administration had not been a
successful one, but this was due more to the lack of enforcement
procedure and the poor calibre of his assistants than to malfeasance on
his part. He had correctly and courageously opposed the powerful
influence of the Improvement Company; he had taken a similar stand
against the railroad interests. He can perhaps be justly criticized for
ineffectiveness, but he was neither dishonest nor corrupt.
Unfortunately, his successor was both.
Robert E. Carpenter was appointed Park Superintendent
on August 5, 1884, and assumed his duties on September 10, when he
relieved Conger. [51] His appointment was
purely political, [52] and Carpenter looked
upon his new office as a source of profit for himself and his friends.
The only beneficial step taken by him was the forcible removal of
homesteaders who had illegally "squatted" within the Park. In this he
had the full backing of the Department of the Interior; the Secretary
even advised him that if he found such ejection impossible with the
force at hand, the Secretary would invoke the assistance of the Army.
[53] This was not needed, however, as
Carpenter simply burned the settlers' dwellings and thus forced their
evacuation. [54] When he returned to
Washington, the new Superintendent joined forces with members of the
Improvement Company and lobbied Congress for the passage of a measure
designed to grant vast tracts of land within the Park to private parties
for commercial purposes. The Superintendent's complicity in the scheme
was exposed when it was discovered that his name appeared on the claim
notices and that he had selected for himself the most desirable tracts.
[55] When Acting Secretary of the Interior
M. L. Joslyn attempted to defend Carpenter, claiming that the charges
against him were "frivolous and unworthy of consideration," the editor
of the Livingston Enterprise gloated with "satisfaction to know
that in a few weeks [when the federal administration changed hands] Mr.
Joslyn will be relieved from the necessity of taking cognizance of such
frivolous matters as the business of the interior department," adding
that Joslyn "has always been the tool of the Park Improvement Company."
[56]
With the advent of the Cleveland Administration in
Washington, Henry M. Teller was superseded by L. Q. C. Lamar as
Secretary of the Interior. The ever alert Senator Vest immediately
recommended that Carpenter be removed from the superintendency and that
a Mr. Magoffin be named in his place. Defenders of the Republic opposed
the recommendation on the grounds that Magoffin had been a Confederate;
Vest then requested the appointment of Colonel D. W. Wear, who had been
a "Colonel of a Federal Regiment, is in the prime of life, accustomed to
field sports of all kinds, and a thoroughly honest man." [57] Colonel Wear, at that time a member of the
State Senate of Missouri, was notified of his appointment "vice R. E.
Carpenter to be removed," on June 1,1885, and was commissioned
Superintendent on June 20, 1885.[58]
The new Superintendent immediately set about his task
with enthusiasm and vigor. His first act was to suggest that the force
of assistants be changed, since he found them to be "very inefficient .
. . and utterly unfit for the service" and thought that "a change of the
entire force would be beneficial to the proper administration" of the
Park. [59] Less than two months after taking
office he could report that a man hired by him at his own expense had
apprehended two hunters, who were found guilty: one received a fine of
$100 and six months imprisonment, the full extent of the new Wyoming
law, and the other a fine of $75 and costs. [60] This marked the first prosecution for
depredations in the Park. The Superintendent then asked that Edward
Wilson, the man responsible for the arrests, be appointed to the
position of Assistant Superintendent, along with C. J. Baronette, since
he was "compelled to have experienced mountain men to enforce the laws."
[61] This request for "mountain men" was
renewed a month later when Colonel Wear asked that he be authorized to
select those appointed to the post of Assistant Superintendent from
Westerners familiar with the ways of the frontier. He thought that
Westerners could be "judiciously substituted for any of the Assistants"
he presently had, and added that "Whiskey" seemed to be the "besetting
trouble" with most of the men then filling those positions. [62] By November he could report the
apprehension and conviction of four more poachers. [63]
Members of Congress, unaware of the better protection
now afforded the Park, appointed on March 4, 1885, a Special House
Committee to investigate Indian education and the affairs of the
Yellowstone National Park. This committee met at Omaha the following
summer, and after visiting various Indian agencies and reservations,
four members of the committee spent five days in the Park. In their
report, the junketeering Congressmen laid down what was to become an
important statement of Park policy:
The park should so far as possible be spared the
vandalism of improvement. Its great and only charms are in the display
of wonderful forces of nature, the ever varying beauty of the rugged
landscape, and the sublimity of the scenery. Art cannot embellish them.
[64]
But the majority of the Committee were not so sure
that nature needed protection from the hand of man. The Superintendent
and his ten assistants were thought to be of no "special value" in the
protection of game, and the committee thought it was improbable that
"any of these animals will for any considerable period remain, even in
imagination, an interesting feature of this Park." The Congressmen did
mention, however, that a small police force would be necessary to
protect the forests from destruction "either by fire or the ax." In a
minority report, two members of the committee advocated the construction
of more roads and the relocation and reconstruction of the old roads;
while agreeing that "the most important duty of the 'superintendent and
assistants in the Park is to protect the forests from fire and ax',"
they believed it was also important to "protect the objects of interest
from injury, especially at the hands of the relic hunter and the
professional collector of specimens, and the game from injury or
destruction." [65] The majority report
recommended that Congress recognize the validity of the Wyoming
Territorial Act of March 6, 1884, which provided legal machinery for
protection of the Park. The report also recommended turning the Park
over to Wyoming's jurisdiction when the Territory became a state. [66]
Before the committee filed its report, Secretary
Lamar realized that his office would be severely criticized if the
report declared conditions in the Park to be what the press had long
claimed. He therefore appointed his own committee of one to examine into
the conditions of the Park. Special Agent W. Haller Phillips was to
direct his attention particularly to existing leases, the question of
need for additional hotels, and whether there were at that time any
persons living illegally within the Park. [67] Phillips reached the Park on July 26 and
remained there until September 6, 1885; two weeks after his return to
Washington his report was in the hands of the Secretary. [68]
The question of Park government was raised once again
in the Phillips report, which focused upon the somewhat arbitrary
administration of justice practiced in the Park under the Wyoming
Territorial statute passed the year before. Phillips thought it strange
that Congress should have neglected to provide any government for the
Park. After carefully reviewing legal precedents, he concluded that a
Territorial legislature had no authority to enforce its enactments
within the Park. The Wyoming law had never received the assent of
Congress. In his opinion, some provisions of the Wyoming law were
"highly ridiculous" and other sections were "Draconian legislation."
Phillips seemed to be particularly incensed over the fact that some
"prominent citizens of Philadelphia" had been arrested and fined for
collecting specimens, and that other visitors of "the highest
respectability, ladies and gentlemen," had been fined for similar acts
of vandalism. Section 12 of the Wyoming law provided that all fees
collected by the Justices of the Peace were to be retained by them, and
Section 17 allowed the prosecuting witness to keep one-half the fine
assessed against an offender. The stimulus of such prospective rewards
could lead to wholly "unjustifiable" arrests.
Agent Phillips appended to his report a column taken
from the Chicago Tribune, August 22, 1885, dateline Cinnabar,
Montana. According to the newspaper report, Judge Payson, member of
Congress from Illinois, had been arrested by an Assistant Superintendent
for allegedly leaving a campfire smouldering. The case was heard by
Justice of the Peace Hall; Payson was found guilty, fined $60 and
ordered to pay $12.80 costs. Refusing to be fined by what he considered
to be no more than a "kangaroo court," the indignant Congressman posted
a $1,000 bond and announced his intention to appeal the judgement to the
United States District Court in Wyoming. Here the proceedings took on
the aspect of high comedy. Judge Hall, a former woodchopper, called upon
the defendant, a former judge, for legal advice and asked him whether
he, as Justice of the Peace, had the authority to "remit the fine, or
costs, or either." He was advised by the defendant that he indeed had
the legal power to remit the fine and "at least so much of the costs as
were illegal and excessive." Hall then offered to accept $10 for the
fine and to reduce the costs from $12.80 to $4. Payson refused; Hall
then offered to take $1 for the fine and whatever the defendant
considered "right for the costs." Payson refused to pay any fine, but
offered to pay a small sum "for the trouble that the alleged constable
has been put to." In such a manner was justice carried out under the
Wyoming statute. [69]
Phillips commended Superintendent Wear and thought he
was thoroughly efficient and "desirous of promoting the interests of the
Park," but also thought that the Superintendent was handicapped by
having too few assistants. He opposed the granting of a right-of-way
through the Park to the railroad interests, or segregation of any
portion of the Park for railroad purposes, and suggested several rule
changes and more stringent enforcement of the existing ones,
particularly the one prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors.
Phillips also urged that two United States Commissioners be appointed
with jurisdiction to try all offenses not above misdemeanors, with
Congress providing "the pains and penalties for a violation of the laws
or regulations." He ended his pleas for proper legal machinery with the
statement, "in a national park, the national laws and regulations should
be enforced by a national tribunal." Nine years passed before this
recommendation was converted into law, but the Phillips report did serve
to bring about a more immediate change in the Park administration. On
March 10, 1886, the Governor of Wyoming approved the repeal of the
Territorial Park law, and the Park was once again left without any form
of effective legal government. [70]
Superintendent Wear had been so persistent in his
demands that he be allowed to dismiss assistants who were unfit for duty
and replace them with men of his own choosing that by April, 1886, he
had achieved a complete turnover of the ten Assistant Superintendents.
The inept political appointees were gone, and in their place stood the
"stalwart mountaineers" so praised by Wear and Senator Vest. Given time,
sufficient appropriations, and additional men as travel to the Park
increased, Wear might have been able to provide adequate protection to
the Park. But the scandals of his predecessor, the ineffectiveness and
later the repeal of the Wyoming Territorial statutes, the penurious
nature of Congress, the avowed hostility on the part of some Congressmen
toward the Park, the ill repute into which the government of the Park
had fallen, and recollection of the several suggestions that troops
alone could offer the needed protection for the Park, frustrated Wear's
attempts to vindicate civilian administration of the Yellowstone
National Park.
When the 49th Congress began its first session in
December, 1885, Senator Vest introduced Senate Bill 101, to revise the
Yellowstone Park Act and provide the necessary legal machinery for
continued civil protection, but he was unable to garner enough support
to get the bill up for consideration. He was successful in opposing a
bill introduced by Senator Samuel J. R. McMillan of Minnesota to grant a
railroad right-of-way through the northern end of the Park, but in so
doing he alienated a group of Senators whose support he needed for his
own bill.
The Senate received Special Agent W. Hallett
Phillips' report on February 1, 1886, and two weeks later the Holman
Select Committee reported to the House their findings on the situation
in Yellowstone. [71] Both reports served to
aid the opponents of Senator Vest, but it was in the House that the
civilian administration was most vociferously attacked and finally
ended.
The annual appropriation for the Park was included in
the sundry civil appropriation bill for the fiscal year ending June 30,
1887, and, as reported by the House Committee on Appropriations, the
bill called for $40,000 to be expended in the same manner as had been
done in previous years. The House reduced the appropriation for the Park
by $20,000 and stipulated that the money be used for road construction
only, deleting the provision for the salaries of the Superintendent and
his assistants. The purpose of the deletion was to end civil control of
the Park and force the Secretary of the Interior to call upon the
Secretary of War as provided in the act of March 3, 1883. [72] When apprised of the situation, Secretary
Lamar immediately wrote to the chairmen of both the Senate and House
Committees on Appropriations suggesting that "the control of the Park .
. . be transferred . . . to the War Department" since that Department
would have control of the only appropriation available for the Park. [73] Lamar's letter was too late to have any
effect on the bill, but in the Senate the original $40,000 appropriation
was restored, as was the provision providing for compensation for a
Superintendent and assistants. After brief debate the bill was passed by
the Senate on July 24, 1886. [74] But the
House refused to accept the restored appropriation, [75] and the conference committee's efforts to
reconcile the House and Senate positions ended in a deadlock. [76]
Returned to the floor of the Senate, the bill was
debated at length. Senator Vest, supporting the original appropriation,
stated that "It was never intended [in the 1883 law] that the Secretary
of War should put a cordon of troops around the park." In his opinion,
soldiers "would be more than useless" for Park protection. He admitted
that he had previously endorsed the use of troops but he was now
convinced that the change would benefit only speculators who had been
unable to control and direct the present Superintendent. He sincerely
believed that if the civil administration were replaced by the War
Department, it would mean "virtually an end of the Yellowstone National
Park."[77]
Senator James B. Beck of Kentucky supported the Vest
argument. Senator Preston B. Plumb of Kansas, claiming that a monopoly
existed within the Park, thought the entire Park should be "lopped off,"
later adding that perhaps some of the curiosities should be saved, with
the remainder of the area being returned to the public domain. [78] Vest, supported by Senators Dawes and
Teller, asserted that while there may have been monopolistic control of
the Park in previous years, this was no longer true. Teller, while
defending the purpose of the Park and its government under his
administration, thought that military control would serve only to
"destroy the park," but agreed with Plumb by stating that the government
should abandon control over the Park, retaining only "the small points
where these large geysers and other things are." [79]
Senator John R. McPherson of New Jersey, supporting
the House provision, contended that a military force drawn from the
"five thousand soldiers" then in the vicinity of the Park, and who were
serving "no purpose in the world," would afford excellent protection to
the Park. Vest retorted that the character of the men in the Regular
Army was such that any hope for protection would be precluded if the
Park were handed over to them, and he claimed that the "government of
the park today is in better condition than it ever has been." He then
castigated the advocates of military rule as being stooges for the
proponents of a railroad right-of-way through the Park, maintaining that
he had been told time and time again that unless he withdrew his
opposition to the various railroad bills "the park would be broken up."
The ending of civil administration would be but the first step in a
maneuver to "break it up and destroy it forever." In conclusion, Vest
asserted that the present Superintendent was an honest man, that game
was increasing while lawlessness was decreasing, and if the House
conferees were allowed to have their way, it would be tantamount to
repealing the act which created the Park itself. Vest's motion to uphold
the Senate's amendment carried and another conference with the House was
requested. [80]
The House debate on the Yellowstone question was as
extended and intense as that in the Senate. Representative D. B.
Henderson of Iowa [81] spoke for those who
desired to turn control of the Park over to the War Department.
Superintendent Wear's two predecessors had been from Iowa, while he was
from Missouri. Thus the House debate soon degenerated into a partisan
duel between the leaders from those two states. Henderson charged
Senator Vest with desiring to keep the Park under civil government only
in order to maintain Wear in the superintendency, and ridiculed the
"mountaineers" employed by Wear, who, he said, had originated in
Illinois and Missouri and "did not know a bear from a jackal or a jack
rabbit from a jackass." Wear was wrongfully charged with having an
interest in a coal mine near the Park line and lobbying to have that
section of the Park segregated, leaving him with title to the mineral
land. He was also excoriated for having an interest in the Yellowstone
Park Association and for aiding that company to gain a monopoly of the
hotel business in the Park. Representative John J. O'Neill of Missouri,
replying to Henderson's false charges, claimed that Wear was blameless
but that Conger and Carpenter, who were from Iowa and had preceded Wear
as Superintendent, were the ones responsible for scandal and corruption
in the Park.
Wear subsequently refuted all charges made against
him and was strongly supported by the one man who could claim an element
of objectivity in the affair. In a personal letter to the Secretary of
the Interior, W. Hallett Phillips maintained that Wear was "a man who
has done great credit to himself in the administration of the park," and
described him as "honest, sober, scrupulously conscientious." He denied
the charges made against Wear in the House and believed that the
Superintendent "had done more for the park than all those who preceded
him." But Congressmen seldom aspire to objectivity and the facts were
largely ignored. [82]
The future of the Yellowstone, and with it the future
of the National Park system as a whole, came near to repudiation when
Representative John A. Reagan of Texas suggested that all the laws
setting the territory apart as a park be repealed, all of the men
engaged in taking care of it be discharged and the whole area be placed
in private hands. He did not think it was the duty of the government to
enter "show business" or to provide "imperial parks for the few wealthy
persons," and he for one would be happy when the entire enterprise was
abandoned. Representative William S. Holman of Indiana, recalling that
Mackinac Island had been transferred to Michigan [83] and that Yosemite had been ceded to
California, thought that the Yellowstone should be turned over to
Wyoming. The debate ended with the House instructing its conferees to
insist upon its provision ending the civilian administration. [84]
The appropriations bill was again referred to the
conference committee. The House conferees were instructed to limit the
appropriation to $20,000 for roads and bridges only, while the Senate
conferees were told to withhold consent to abolition of the civilian
administration of the Park. The end of the Congressional session was but
two days off, 325 men were eager to leave a hot and humid Washington to
take care of their political fortunes, and only one point of contention
remained between the two branches of the national legislature. Senator
William B. Allison of Iowa, reporting for the Senate conferees, stated
that "The House of Representatives refused to agree to the Senate
amendment, and I believe the very last thing we did before finally
separating was to surrender the amendment put on by the Senate in
reference to the Yellowstone Park." The civilian administration of the
Yellowstone was facing legislative destruction. [85]
Senator Vest was disgusted, but not disheartened. He
announced that in the next session of Congress he would introduce a bill
to restore the Park to civil government. [86]
The Act of August 4, 1886, [87] did not prevent the Secretary of the
Interior from retaining the present force of civilian employees, but it
denied him money to pay them. Therefore, on August 6, 1886, the
Secretary of the Interior called the attention of the Secretary of War
to the act of March 3, 1883, [88] which
provided that:
The Secretary of War, upon the request of the
Secretary of the Interior, is hereby authorized and directed to make the
necessary details of troops to prevent trespassers or intruders from
entering the park for the purpose of destroying the game or objects of
curiosity therein, or for any other purpose prohibited by law, and to
remove such persons from the park if found therein.
The Secretary requested that "a Captain, two
Lieutenants and twenty selected mounted men from the Army be detailed
for service in the park" for the purposes contemplated in the act, and
to perform such other duties in connection with the management and
superintendency of the Park as might be required by him. He remarked
that since his Department had no funds for such purposes, the War
Department would have to furnish subsistence, forage, and transportation
for the requested troops. [89]
Secretary Lamar's letter was referred by the
Secretary of War to Lieutenant-General P. H. Sheridan, who recommended
that "Troop 'M', 1st United States Cavalry, Captain Moses Harris
commandingstation Fort Custer, M. T. be ordered . . . to
perform the duties in the Yellowstone National Park that recently
devolved upon the Superintendent of the Park and his assistants." [90] Accordingly, Captain Harris and his troop
were ordered to proceed at once to the Park, there to take station and
report to the Secretary of the Interior. [91] On August 20, 1886, Captain Moses Harris
relieved Superintendent Wear of his duties and the era of civilian park
administration came to an end.
Looking backward, it appears that Congress acted
somewhat precipitately and without full knowledge of the improved
conditions brought about by Superintendent Wear and his handful of
assistants when it acted to replace the civilian administration with
that of the military. Given legislative and financial support, civilian
administrators might well have been able to bring success to the
nation's first large-scale attempt at conservation and preservation. It
is equally possible, however, that the political venality that marked
the late nineteenth century might have so transcended the best efforts
of a conscientious civilian administrator as to produce complete failure
in the Yellowstone venture; a failure that would probably have brought
an end to the incipient movement toward a national park system.
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