33 8 OUR FEDERAL LANDS 



gress to defend National Parks, conservation organi- 

 zations of very many kinds, with memberships ag- 

 gregating four millions, leagued in active work; in 

 fact, this alliance of defense could have been ex- 

 tended to several times its size had there been need. 

 Every blow struck in this fight (and there have been 

 hard ones) had behind it, unrealized, the inspiration 

 and power of the whole from the beginning. 



It was this fight which completed the definition 

 begun by Roosevelt. The principle of conserving 

 our natural resources for the prosperity of the fu- 

 ture had long since become an axiom; conserving 

 some of them for pure preservation sake aroused 

 antagonisms. The distinction had not been widely 

 clarified, and able men who attempted in Congress 

 to break down the conservational barrier of the Na- 

 tional Parks System were quick to charge that those 

 who defended conservation for preservation were 

 opposing the development of our natural resources. 



The argument destroyed itself by driving con- 

 servationists to definition. The National Parks As- 

 sociation called our National Parks national mu- 

 seums of nature's creations and processes, and the 

 trick was done. Popular imagination needed no bet- 

 ter handle for this new concept. What if there were 

 water power opportunities in some of our National 

 Parks ? The country was rich enough to keep these 

 special places for exhibits of original wilderness. 

 What if it did cost more to dam irrigation waters 

 outside than inside National Park boundaries? 



