140 * * * * * "OA, Ranger!" 



landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic 

 and scientific interest that are situated upon lands owned or controlled by the 

 Government of the United States to be national monuments." Another 

 section of this law permitted the President to accept donations of land which 

 might be established as national monuments. It sometimes happens, as in 

 the case of Acadia National Park, that Congress elevates a national monu 

 ment to the status of a national park, and it is not unlikely that one or two 

 of the smaller national parks will be reduced eventually to the status of 

 monuments. 



In the beginning, the Antiquities or National Monument Act was inter 

 preted to authorize only the reservation of small areas including landmarks, 

 historic structures such as old missions, prehistoric buildings such as cliff 

 dwellings, and unusual features of scientific interest such as the Petrified 

 Forest in Arizona, certain fine caves, Muir Woods, et cetera. In 1908 Presi 

 dent Roosevelt, in order to stop exploitation of the Grand Canyon of the 

 Colorado through mining claims and other filings on land which had no legal 

 basis, ordered a national monument created nearly a thousand square miles in 

 area on the ground that the Grand Canyon possessed "scientific interest." His 

 power to do this was questioned in the courts, but he was sustained by them. 



Theoretically, on the precedent of the Grand Canyon case, any president 

 could make a national monument include any area that the nation might 

 want or that should be preserved for all time, but, practically, Congress 

 would not permit such a general usurpation of its powers and could control 

 the reserving of such monuments by refusing to appropriate funds for their 

 upkeep. 



As a matter of fact, were it not for this question of funds for upkeep 

 and operation, the national monuments and national parks would be almost 

 on the same basis, for the National Park Service Act of 1916 authorizes both 

 parks and monuments to be administered in the same manner and under 

 identical policies. Today, Carlsbad Cave National Monument in New Mexico, 

 Petrified Forest and Casa Grande National monuments in Arizona, and 

 Pinnacles and Muir Woods monuments in California are operated exactly 

 like national parks, while Sullys Hill National Park in North Dakota is 

 handled like a monument, owing to lack of funds. 



In spite of this seeming confusion between parks and monuments, no one 

 will deny that Congress, in declaring the establishment of parks and in pro 

 viding for them, has properly distinguished between the various reservations 

 on a basis of merit, giving the great outstanding features, historic, scientific, 

 and scenic, national park status, the lesser features being left to presidential 

 reservation as monuments. And as monuments, because of public interest or 

 because of discovery of more important features, claim national park status, 

 Congress elevates them. It is likely that Carlsbad Cave National Monument, 

 under the National Park Service, and the Bandelier National Monument, 

 under the Department of Agriculture, both in New Mexico, may become 

 national parks, the latter the National Park of the Cliff Cities near Santa Fe. 



It should be noted here that there are fifteen monuments under the 

 Department of Agriculture and eleven under the War Department, because 



