ILLINOIS AUDUBON SOCIETY 9 



Concerning the War on the National Parks 



The following circular letter sent out by Robert Sterling Yard, Ex- 

 cutive Secretary of the National Parks Associaticn, should be given the 

 widest publication. Who is your congressman? Write him what you wish 

 him to do when the affairs of the National Parks come up for consideration. 

 Let us do what we can to make Illinois' delegation in Congress one hundred 

 percent in favor of the complete conservation of our National Parks. 



WHAT HAS HAPPENED 



After forty-eight years of uninterrupted national parks conservation, 

 the last Congress nearly passed a bill permitting irrigation reservoirs in the 

 Falls River Basin of the Yellowstone National Park, and actually passed 

 one creating a Federal Water Power Commission with power to lease all 

 public waters, including those of national parks and monuments. Yet 

 twenty-four consecutive Congresses had confirmed the purpose of complete 

 conservation for national parks and had denied hundreds of attempts to 

 commercialize them. 



Neither of the last session's bills attracted any attention in Congress, 

 and neither came to the knowledge of the public until nearly the session's 

 end. A hastily gathered group of public spirited associations stopped the 

 Falls River irrigation bill in the House on May 25th after it had slipped 

 quietly through the Senate, but did not defeat it. It will come up again 

 this winter. The W r ater Power bill passed both Houses before we dis- 

 covered that it applied also to national parks and monuments, and became 

 law. A bill to amend the Water Power Act so that it ivill not apply to 

 national parks will be introduced at this session, under the auspices of 

 the Department of the Interior. 



Meantime a thoroughly organized and well financed movement was un- 

 covered in Montana with the object of damming Yellowstone Lake, and a 

 bill is in preparation with that purpose for introduction in this session 

 of Congress. 



Local irrigation interests behind these bills have combined w'ith other 

 irrigation interests in the hope that one or other of the projects will pass, 

 thus creating the precedent for which many irrigation projects for other 

 national parks are waiting. There is no doubt that local water power in- 

 terests are concerned i nthis combination also. Already applications have 

 been made to the Water Power Commission for privileges, including dams, 

 power houses and transmission lines, in the Grand Canyon and Sequoia 

 National Parks. 



This combination of interests bordering on the parks is very powerful. 

 It is intrenched in politics, and has strong leaders in both Houses of 

 Congress. 



WHAT WILL HAPPEN 



If Congress grants one single irrigation privilege in any national park, 

 no matter how inconspicuous the dam, or how little it injures the park, it 

 destroys the histoi'ic principle of Complete Conservation which alone dif- 

 ferentiates national parks from national forests. It opens the door. Entire 

 commercialization of all national parks will follow logically and inevitably. 



