NATIONAL MONUMENTS SYSTEM 289 



Olympus in Washington, for example, needs its four 

 hundred and seventy square miles to conserve its 

 unique species of elk. Of course conserving wild 

 life does not come within the definition of the an- 

 tiquities act ; the area should have been made, as was 

 intended, a game preserve ; but Washington sports- 

 men were then opposed to game preserves (they are 

 no longer) and threatened to stop the project. That 

 was in 1909. Determined to save the Olympus spe- 

 cies from destruction, conservationists persuaded the 

 President to make it a National Monument. Katmai 

 National Monument likewise needs its seventeen 

 hundred square miles to enclose its volcanic basin; 

 less would be insufficient. And Glacier Bay requires 

 its even greater area to encircle its huge amphithea- 

 tre of many large glaciers. 



Created, like the National Parks System, with- 

 out prevision or planning, National Monuments, an- 

 alyzed, also disclose a system built around an unfor- 

 mulated idea. Just as National Parks were studied 

 by the Interior Department in 1915 to determine the 

 creative spirit and motive behind them in order to 

 perpetuate these consciously in the future, so the 

 time has come to study National Monuments and 

 build machinery for sane and orderly development 

 of the system. The fact that three Departments of 

 the government instead of one create and adminis- 

 ter its units stands, however, in the way. From its 

 Secretary down, each Department is traditionally 

 jealous of its own, and unwilling to exploit the mon- 



