298 OUR FEDERAL LANDS 



see. Gettysburg in southern Pennsylvania followed 

 in 1895, and Vicksburg in Mississippi in 1899. 



After that, an interval of seventeen years 

 marked public absorption in matters wholly differ- 

 ent, during which time several historic National 

 Monuments were created. In 1916, Lincoln's birth- 

 place in Illinois having come into national posses- 

 sion, the question of its administration arose. There 

 was only one appropriate place for it, the National 

 Monuments System; but somebody under the delu- 

 sion that Lincoln's birth was a military event asked 

 to have it made a National Military Park, which 

 was done. 



That act again called public attention to this 

 system, which resulted in creation of Gilford Court 

 House National Military Park at Greenboro, North 

 Carolina, the following year. 



With our entrance into the Great War began a 

 new demand for National Military Parks which, no 

 doubt fanned by the motor touring tidal wave, has 

 since reached large dimensions. The War Depart- 

 ment had set its face relentlessly against the expan- 

 sion of a system which, having no limiting stan- 

 dards, may easily override control and involve the 

 Treasury in unlimited expense. Only one of very 

 many bills, that in the last Congress creating 

 Moore's Landing National Military Park, has been 

 enacted recently. 



Each battle-field park in this system includes 

 all the lands obtainable over which contending forces 



