124 * * * * * "OA, Ranger!" 



road building was done at all. There was little money for the main 

 tenance and protection of the parks. In the early days, following Mr. 

 Langford's administration and preceding the coming of the military, 

 protectors of the Yellowstone received little compensation and their 

 earnings came principally from dividing fines and fees with justices of 

 the peace who were appointed for the territories in which the park lay. 

 This system was particularly vicious because the visitors to the parks 

 were harassed and fined for minor infractions of the rules or for no 

 breach of conduct at all, in order that the justice of the peace and the 

 arresting officer might increase their incomes. 



The politicians who followed the public-spirited Langford and his 

 successor, Colonel P. W. Norris, in Yellowstone, were so careless and 

 inefficient in the performance of their duties that employment of troops 

 was necessary to preserve the park from despoliation. Fort Yellow 

 stone was built at Mammoth Hot Springs, not so much to combat red 

 skins, as was commonly supposed, as to keep the "white Indians," the 

 grafters, and exploiters out of the nation's playground. 



When Yosemite and Sequoia parks were created in 1890, troops 

 were assigned to them at once. These parks never had civilian admin 

 istrations the year around until 1914, when troops were removed and 

 National Park Service officials assumed their duties. In Yellowstone, 

 the cavalry stayed until 1918 ; likewise the army engineers. 



As a rule, it took from three to seven years after the creation of a 

 national park before funds for its care and upkeep were provided, and 

 up to 1910 there was little that a non-military park superintendent could 

 do. In that year, following the formation of Glacier National Park, 

 the American Civic Association, led by its vigorous and able president, 

 Dr. J. Horace McFarland, who had carefully watched the growth of 

 the national park idea for years, launched a campaign for the creation 

 of a national park bureau. The Secretary of the Interior, Walter L. 

 Fisher, and President Taft himself, urged Congress to set up a central 

 bureau for the administration of the parks. The President sent a special 

 message to Congress on the subject. Senator Reed Smoot of Utah and 

 Congressman John E. Raker of California introduced identical bills in 

 the Senate and the House creating such a bureau. 



That was the situation when Franklin K. Lane became Secretary 

 of the Interior in 1913 upon the inauguration of President Wilson. 

 The parks were the orphans of the federal government. They were 

 nobody's charge and anybody's worry. Officials looked after them in 

 odd moments as best they could. Fortunately, in spite of the many 

 political wires pulled for the private exploitation of the parks, the vari 

 ous secretaries and their assistants frowned upon all commercial de 

 velopment, thus establishing a precedent and a policy. Credit for this 



