THE VALUE OF OUR NATIONAL PARKS 



359 



the civil service. It would have been easy to have them 

 classified, but that would have kept in office many wholly 

 unfitted for their places. Mr. Mather's policy, then, 

 was to withhold classification until he could reasonably 

 perfect the force. This force then, remains today open 

 to political enterprise. It is the one necessarily weak 

 place in the organization of the National Park Service. 



Under Mr. Mather's leadership, the National Parks 

 have not only become a great system astonishingly 

 efficient when you consider the brief period of their de- 

 velopment, but they have become the idol of the people. 

 The system is the most popular work under government 

 control today. Visitors have increased manyflold. They 

 more than doubled even during the war. And Mr. 

 Mather has nearly quadrupled Congressional appro- 

 priations. He has added new and splendid parks 



Grand Canyon, Mount McKinley, Hawaii, Lassen Vol- 

 canic, and the first national park in the east, Lafayette. 



But Mr. Mather's ideas are by no means confined to the 

 upbuilding of a well organized and well administered 

 system. His dream sees them a system of international 

 fame, drawing many thousands of foreign visitors yearly 

 to America. He sees these Parks the objective points 

 of great systems of automobile highways, county, state 

 and national, drawing a million motorists from all the 

 states to common meeting grounds. He sees them the 

 lure to great increases of railroad travel. He sees them 

 important prosperity-makers for the states which border 

 them. To all these ends he is indefatigably shaping his 

 building. 



It is a great dream which he no longer possesses alone. 

 America shares it with him. 



THE VALUE OF OUR NATIONAL PARKS 



BY HON. ALBERT B. FALL, SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR 



SCENERY is one of the most valuable resources of 

 any country. This was evidenced before the war 

 by the great part tourist travel played in the income of 

 France, Switzerland, Italy, and other countries, and 

 the effort now being made by foreign countries to re- 

 establish the tourist industry on a larger plane. For 

 touring is based on the enjoyment of scenery, and the 

 country that has the best to show will enjoy the largest 

 influx of visitors. As a Nation we are richly endowed 

 with scenery, but pre-eminent stand the National Parks. 

 Briefly stated, these now number nineteen, and, including 

 the tremendous volcanic exhibits of the Hawaiian Islands 

 and the Mount McKinley game section of Alaska, are 

 areas of supreme scenic splendor or possessing other 

 unique quality, which Congress has set apart for all time 

 for the use, health, recreation and enjoyment of the 

 people. , . : ' 



In the creation of National Parks the element of size is 

 of no importance. The scenery must be of such supreme 

 and distinctive quality or there must be natural features 

 so extraordinary or unique as to be of national interest 

 and importance. Areas which express in less than the 

 highest terms the particular class or kind of exhibit which 

 they represent are not included, for to do so lowers the 

 standard, and impairs the dignity and prestige of the ex- 

 isting National Park system. This principle is readily un- 

 derstood after a study of the individual characteristics 

 of the existing National Parks. 



The appeal these nationally preserved wonderlands 

 have made is fully proven by the phenomenal increase of 

 travel to the Parks during the last three years. Includ- 

 ing travel to a few of the 24 National Monuments, travel 

 to the Parks in 191 8 amounted to 451,661 people; in 191 9 

 to 811,516; and during the last season, 1920, to 1,058,455. 

 The majority come in their own motor cars. Every op- 

 portunity is afforded the public to enjoy their visits in 

 the manner that best satisfies the individual taste, and to 

 enable this, the fullest possible freedom of action is 



granted and the varied forms of outdoor entertainment 

 are provided. Hotels and camps are established provid- 

 ing a variety of accommodations. Mountain climbing, 

 horseback riding, hiking, motoring, swimming, boating, 

 and fishing, and above all camping, are the favorite spcrts 

 during the height of the summer season. In winter the 

 development of winter sports in such parks as the Yosem- 

 ite, Rocky Mountain, and Mount Rainier already offers 

 opportunities for skiing, sleighing, snowshoeing, tobog- 

 ganing, skating and the like amidst ideal surroundings; 

 indeed, most significant is the fact that during the last 

 winter the Yosemite Valley entertained visitors from 37 

 States of the Union, and from 23 foreign countries. 



The educational values of the National Parks are also 

 becoming more and more recognized. They offer oppor- 

 tunities to universities and schools for the conduct of 

 vacation period studies. The nature guide courses that 

 have been instituted have proven exceedingly popular, 

 and will gradually be extended to other Parks. In time, 

 adequately equipped museums containing specimens of 

 wild flowers, shrubs, and trees, and mounted animals, 

 birds, and fish native to the individual Parks, may be pro- 

 vided. Already the Park's are developed with roads and 

 trails which are being expanded as appropriations are 

 made available by Congress, and yet are established with 

 such care that any over-development to disturb the quiet 

 enjoyment of the wild places is guarded against. Hunt- 

 ing, of course, is not permitted, except in the Mount Mc- 

 Kinley Park, in Alaska, under exceptional circumstances, 

 because one of the prime purposes in the establishment 

 of the Parks is that they are to constitute game sanctuary, 

 where wild life may be observed and developed in its nat- 

 ural habitat. 



The term "National Parks," therefore, has a definite 

 meaning. It means that as long as this policy of National 

 Park maintenance endures, there will always be an un- 

 touched bit of native wilderness preserved from the level- 

 ing forces of economic development. And yet they play 

 a most important part in the development of the part of 

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