272 OUR FEDERAL LANDS 



sible, professional National Park Service. At this 

 writing, by the way, the Kentucky boomers have not 

 raised the two and a half millions to avail of the au- 

 thorization. 



A logical descendant of the Mammoth Cave 

 bill appeared in February, 1928 (preceding another 

 election) in a demand from Arkansas to turn ex- 

 cellent Mena National Forest into an under-class Na- 

 tional Park (to be called Ouichita National Park) 

 in opposition to the Secretaries of Agriculture and 

 Interior and the chiefs of both the National Forest 

 and National Parks Systems. Bills of this destruc- 

 tive kind, products of localism and ignorance, will 

 continue to appear at intervals, but when the stand- 

 ards of the System shall become recognized as a 

 tradition, even if unwritten in the law, the parks will 

 have their final test. 



THE TRUTH ABOUT PARK PATRONAGE 



The third great danger to the National Parks 

 System during this decade came from sudden crowd- 

 ing from 1915 on as a result of development of na- 

 tion-wide motor touring. 



Park patronage totals follow: 1912, 229,084; 

 1913, 259,703; 1914, 235,293; 1915, 344,799; 1916, 

 356,079; 1917, 488,268; 1918, 451.661; 1919, 755r 

 325; 1920, 919,504; 1921, 1,007,335; 1922, 1,044,- 

 502; 1923, 1,280,886; 1924, 1,422,353; 1925, 1,760,- 

 512; 1926, 1,930,865; and 1927, 2,354,643. 



With announcement of Mr. Mather's plans for 



