12 THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE 



creation of the bureau and recommended it in their reports. 

 President Taft thought well enough of it to address a special 

 message to Congress on the subject. This was afterwards in- 

 corporated in a bulletin of the American Civic Association and 

 given wide publicity. President Taft said in part: 



I earnestly recommend the establishment of a bureau of 

 national parks. Such legislation is essential to the proper 

 management of those wondrous manifestations of nature. 

 Every consideration of patriotism and the love of nature 

 and of beauty and of art requires us to expend money enough 

 to bring all these natural wonders within easy reach of our 

 people. The first step in that direction is the establishment 

 of a responsible bureau which shall take upon itself the 

 burden of supervising the parks and of making recommenda- 

 tions as to the best methods of improving their accessibility and 

 usefulness. 



The work of the Division of Publications in the Secretary's 

 office was also of material assistance in the bureau campaign. 

 Its annual circulars on each park were widely distributed, and 

 as a knowledge of what the country possessed in the parks 

 became disseminated, sentiment in ^avor of their more effi- 

 cient management was crystallized. The issuance by the divi- 

 sion in 19 1 6, of an elaborate illustrated brochure entitled The 

 National Parks Portfolio, in an edition of 275,000 copies, 

 aroused popular interest in the parks, and copies of the publica- 

 tion were eagerly sought. The resuh of this well-directed 

 campaign was the introduction of a number of bills in Congress 

 providing for the creation of a national park service. Hear- 

 ings were held before the Public Lands committees in 1912, 

 1914, and 1916, and on August 25, 1916, the National Park 

 Service Act became a law (39 Stat. L., 535). 



The National Park Service Since 19 16. The text of the 

 National Park Service law will be found in the appendix. 

 The law as originally enacted is in force to-day except for two 

 slight amendments. The first of these is a mere proviso 

 in the act of February 26, 1919 (40 Stat. L., 1175), creating 



