AMERICANS NEED OUTINGS 29 



REFUGE is provided for fish and game; why not for people? Refugees from 

 the strains, the disillusionments, and the personal indignities imposed by a 

 regimented commercial order of life in cities, towns, and on farms are 

 seeking by the millions the healing refuge of our remaining undeveloped 

 places. The people are thronging upon the more than 15 million acres in 

 State parks, forests, or forest parks; upon 9% million acres of national 

 parks; upon 176 million acres of national forests, the country over. Condi- 

 tions, circumstances, and opportunities are so various among these public 

 properties that different types of administration seem wise and necessary, 

 and increased demands raise questions of recreation administration which 

 concern State foresters, members of the National Park Service, and the 

 United States Forest Service alike. 



The results most likely to follow, were the process allowed to increase 

 and accelerate absolutely undirected and ungoverned, would be simply an 

 old story repeated. Rushing, seeking to get away from it all, people tend 

 to take it all back with them, and so clutter up, maim, or destroy the natural 

 beauty, quietude, and freedom they impulsively seek. 



In a manner of speaking, then, the problem comprises the whole prob- 

 lem of civilization. Here are a people sick at heart in the main of jungle 

 drumbeat to swingtime poured into their homes, day and night, under 

 guise of recreation over that magical modern instrument of instant com- 

 munication, the radio. We are sick of noise, bewilderment, confusion; of 

 the imitative, step-it-up technique by which so many of our magazines, 

 talking pictures, tabloids, comic strips, books, and advertisements seek 

 to divert and comfort us. So we pack the car, pile in the family, hit out for 

 the woods with a pile of magazines on the back seat, and the radio blaring 

 full tilt. 



Society may move to restore what it has destroyed or maimed. But to 

 impose strict supervision upon Americans seeking national-forest outings 

 to herd them, however tactfully is to thwart the very spirit of the adven- 

 ture, to slap down any developing spirit of rest and sense of freedom. The 

 wish and impulse of the Forest Service is simply to turn all these millions 

 of forest visitors loose, to govern or regiment them not at all. But experience 

 shows that on more heavily used recreation areas some rules are necessary. 



