Preservation of the Falls 



pages we have tabulated the sums expended by the State; but 1914 

 these do not take into account the many thousands of dollars Dow 

 spent by the original Niagara Falls Association in the campaign 

 which culminated in the creation of the Reservation at Niagara; 

 nor do they include the money spent by individual commissioners 

 of the Reservation since its establishment and by organized bodies 

 like the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society, the 

 American Civic Association, commercial associations, and other 

 bodies in their vigorous defense of the Falls, to say nothing of the 

 countless private citizens who have joined in the work. 



Was it, is it, worth while? Worth while to spend so much 

 money for the preservation of a waterfall? Worth while for the 

 members of the Niagara Commission — all men of extensive 

 affairs and pressing responsibilities in other directions — to give 

 gratuitously to the defense and administration of the Reservation, 

 time and attention which might otherwise be employed to their 

 personal advantage? The answer is an unqualified affirmative. 

 The reasons are not far to seek. 



In the first place, all these sacrifices of time and money by the 

 Commissioners and the army of citizens who have co-operated 

 with them, have been made in response to a natural and irre- 

 pressible human instinct of the highest order, the love of the sub- 

 lime and the beautiful for its own sake. Most convincing proof 

 of this is the fact that over a million and a quarter persons go to 

 the Falls annually — not as they go to a great city to visit 

 museums and art galleries ; not as they go to the mountains or to 

 the seashore, to recuperate their health ; not as they go to the cities 

 and storied ruins of the old world ; but simply to see the wonderful 

 downpouring of waters which constitutes the grandeur of Niagara. 

 The very simplicity of the fact is eloquent. That the Falls have 

 the power to attract more than a million persons a year, not 

 because they supply anything to educate the intellect, but just 

 because they appeal to the human soul in a manner which, while 

 it cannot be described, can never be forgotten — this alone is a 

 sufficient justification for all the labor and pain and sacrifice that 



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