256 OUR FEDERAL LANDS 



Whereas, Both its conservation and scenic 

 standards have been continuously attacked in Con- 

 gress during the last four years by interests seeking 

 the ruin of national values for local advantage ; and 



Whereas, The General Federation of Women's 

 Clubs has promoted for many years the development 

 and higher uses of our National Parks, and has ar- 

 dently defended them from debasement; therefore, 

 be it 



Resolved, That the Federation reaffirm its 

 steadfast purpose to continue working for the pres- 

 ervation of the System's ideals, pressing untiringly 

 for the correction and perfection of its protective 

 laws, until Congress definitely recognizes the Na- 

 tional Parks System as a beneficent national insti- 

 tution whose conservation and highest standards 

 must by no means be imperiled, but maintained for 

 the Nation's benefit for all time. 



In 1926, the Conservation Council of Chicago, 

 then representing forty-six organizations of diversi- 

 fied civic interests, expressed itself in the following 

 resolution : 



"The Conservation Council of Chicago sees the 

 National Parks System as a national institution of 

 untold importance to the education, as well as to the 

 health, recreation and spiritual inspiration, of the 

 American people. It should be conceived, not merely 

 as a better system of playgrounds in a nation and 

 age of playgrounds, but also as our Super-Univer- 

 sity of Nature, in which Nature herself, in her lof ti- 



