THE VALUE OF NATURAL SCENERY 



By J. HORACE MACFARLAND, President American Civic Association 



Address Delivered at the While House Conference. May U. 



1URGE this august and influential as- 

 sembly to consider the essential value of 



one of America's greatest resources her 

 unmatched natural scenery. 



It is well that we should here take full 

 account of tin. peril to our national pros- 

 perity, indeed t n our very national existence, 

 which lies in further wasteful disregard of 

 our waning resources of forest and mine, 

 of water and soil. By the possibilities of 

 conservation here discussed, the mind is 

 quickened, the imagination tired. But the 

 glory of the United States must rest and 

 has re-ted upon a firmer foundation than 

 that of her purely material resources. It 

 is the love of country that has lighted and 

 that keeps glowing the holy fire of patriot- 

 ism. And this love is excited, primarily, by 

 the beauty of the country. Truly inspired 

 is our national hymn as it sings 



"My native country, thee, 

 Land of the noble, free, 



Thy name I love ; 

 I love thy rocks and rills. 

 Thy woods and templed hills: 

 My heart with rapture thrills 



Like that above." 



Paraphrasing a recent utterance of Mayor 

 McClellan upon city beauty, I insist that 



"The country healthy, the country 

 wealthy, and the country wise may 

 excite satisfaction, compl'aisance and 

 pride, but it is the country beautiful 

 that compels and retains the love 

 of its citizens." 



\Ve cannot destroy the -ccncrv of our 

 broad land, but we can utterly change it- 

 beneficial relation to our lives, and remove 

 its stirring effect upon our love of coun- 

 try. \\V can continue to ("inert the fair 

 est land the -un -lime- upon into a desert 

 of ugliness. Indeed, we are abundantly able 

 to OUtdo the Sahara itself in desolation, for 

 tint vast waste, SO singularly like the l"i 

 States in contour and extent, and once, 

 geologists iii-i-t. as well wooded and war 

 as was oni d land a century ago. has 



somber dignity in its barrenness a dignity 

 eomplei, 1\ a!i-ent from our civili/ed Sahara- 

 .f culml'ank and ore dump, from timber 

 dashing and tilth tilled river. 



Scenery of some -on will eiidi: 

 as sight remains. It i- for u- to 

 whether we shall permanently retain a! 

 valuable national a--et am consider;'.' 1 

 tion of the natural scenery which i- 

 I" -netic< ntly influential upon our h\es. or 

 whether we shall continu. I '.-titim 

 it the unnatural scenery of man's can 

 waste. Shall we ga/e upon the -inilmg 

 beauty of our island-dotted river-, or l<>k 

 in disgust upon great op--ii sewers, lin-d with 

 careless commercial tilth, and alternating 

 tween disastrous flood and painful di 

 Are we to consider and hold by de-ign tin- 

 orderly beauty of the countryside, or permit 

 unthinking commercialism to make it a 

 horror of unnecessary di -order? 1- the 

 Grand Canyon of the Colorado ti ally 



held as nature's great ti-mple of scenic '-"!r. 

 or must we see that temple punctuated and 

 profaned by trolley poles? Shall we hold 

 inviolate all the glories of the Yosemite, or 

 are we to permit insidious corporate attack- 

 upon its beauty under the gni-e of question- 

 able economics? Shall the White Moun- 

 tains be for us a great natural sanitarium, or 

 shall they .stand a- a greater monument to 

 our folly and neglect? 



It is certain that there ha- been but -rant 

 thought given to -cenic pre-er\ ation hitlv 

 I remember the contempt with which a 

 lawyer of national renown alluded to the 

 absurdity of any legislation by (V.n-n-s in 

 preservation of -emery, when, in its wisdom, 

 that body chose to yi\,- a measure of :em 

 porary protection to a part of Xiauara'- 

 tl 1." 



Indeed, one of the potent for ' -h 



struction to the legislation now demanded 

 by the country in -cant protection to the 

 almost de-t roved mountain forc-t- of the 

 Ka-t has expressed it-elf in a coutc" : I 

 sneer at national expenditure- tor f 

 ervation of -cm, TV ' 



We meet in a historic place, in a In 

 city The I-'ather of our t'ountry was not 

 only greatest in war and in lan-hip. 



but i me ' >f the t of his time in 



of natural beauty, and in the desire t 

 urban beauty in what he wisely planm d a- 

 the Federal City ' Washington 1 



dignified beauty, and the \\i-di in of hi- : 

 died in making a national capita 1 

 admirable in m to the pub- 



is, l.ut . hi- plans are car 



ried OU 



