THE NATIONAL PARKS SYSTEM 247 



has inspired similar ideas and systems in several 

 other nations. Two events during this period stand 

 out. One was ardent acceptance of the principle 

 of complete National Park conservation following 

 George Bird Grinnell's winning of the "first Yellow- 

 stone War," through which he secured from Con- 

 gress after years of popular organization and de- 

 mand laws forbidding hunting in the national park. 

 Not only did this centre public attention upon a new 

 idea, and consolidate public opinion concerning Na- 

 tional Park conservation, but it also inspired the im- 

 mense nation-wide wild life conservation of later 

 years. The other was recognition of the fact that 

 is so clear to-day that natural beauty of supreme 

 quality is essentially a national possession. Yose- 

 mite, which the national government had presented 

 to California in 1862, returned in 1890 as a National 

 Park to record nobly the new conception and confirm 

 Yellowstone. 



Mount Rainier and Crater Lake National Parks, 

 which followed in 1899 and 1902 respectively, were 

 products of the conception at full tide. It is signifi- 

 cant that other ice-clad volcanoes in the Cascades, 

 spectacles of remarkable grandeur which could have 

 become National Parks under conditions then exist- 

 ing, were rejected upon selection of Mount Rainier. 

 The pure public opinion of this current near its 

 source would have none in the System but the one 

 noblest of each kind. 



That the next two years brought into the Sys- 



