THE NATIONAL PARKS 



547 



Photograph by Arthur Chapman. 

 Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde. 



The number of visitors to the national parks has increased from 

 30,000 in 1906 to 93,000 in 1911. With this increase in the number of 

 visitors the administrative problems have increased, and in order that 

 national park affairs may receive the careful and detailed considera- 

 tion they deserve, Secretaries Ballinger and Fisher have advocated the 

 creation of a bureau of national parks. President Taft has warmly ap- 

 proved the proposal to create this bureau and in his message of Feb- 

 ruary 2, 1912, referred to it as follows: 



I earnestly recommend the establishment of a bureau of national parks. 

 Such legislation is essential to the proper management of those wondrous mani- 

 festations of nature, so startling and so beautiful that every one recognizes the 

 obligations of the government to preserve them for the edification and recreation 

 of the people. The Yellowstone Park, the Yosemite, the Grand Canyon of the 

 Colorado, the Glacier National Park and the Mount Eainier National Park and 

 others furnish appropriate instances. In only one case have we made anything 

 like adequate preparation for the use of a park by the public. That case is the 

 Yellowstone National Park. Every consideration of patriotism and the love of 

 nature and of beauty and of art requires us to expend money enough to bring all 

 these natural wonders within easy reach of our people. The first step in that 

 direction is the establishment of a responsible bureau which shall take upon itself 

 the burden of supervising the parks and of making recommendations as to the 

 best method of improving their accessibility and usefulness. 



One of the chief functions of such a bureau should be to arrange a 

 series of publications that will deal clearly and in general terms with 

 the geology, the botany and the zoology of these great reservations that 

 are being administered by the government for the benefit of the people. 

 The educational value of such a series of publications can hardly be 

 estimated. 



