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Sierra Club Bulletin 



money to do the job, such as Mr. Schwab would give them if they were 

 working for the Bethlehem Steel Corporation. 



I am not throwing mud at Congress, because Congress does the best 

 it knows how, and we who elect its members are the responsible persons. 

 When we get around to having a budget in the United States and work- 

 ing with it like any business man, then we will get plenty of money for 

 parks ; but I do not want to wait so long. This appropriation of i cent 

 apiece for every inhabitant of the nation ought to come right away, this 

 session ; and it should be an automatic, continuing, annual appropriation 

 of I cent apiece. That would mean the automatic increase of the sup- 

 port in proportion to the population. . . . 



"The economic destiny of national parks" is to promote patriotism; 

 but there is another aspect to it. If we want to be a little bit calculating 

 — and Americans are sometimes said to be a little sordid — then, the 

 economic destiny of the national parks is to bring a tremendous amount 

 of money into the United States from abroad. I wonder if you realize 

 that the one great natural wonder of the United States which is most 

 attractive, and which is not yet safe until it becomes a big national park 

 — Niagara Falls — is estimated to produce $30,000,000 a year of travel 

 revenue outside of any power use that has been taken from it. Niagara 

 Falls is easily accessible and is visited by 1,500,000 people each year. 

 There is one truly tremendous travel revenue possibility for the United 

 States — a possibility beside which the doings of Switzerland in attract- 

 ing visitors might sink into insignificance. Indeed, Switzerland could 

 be lost in Rocky Mountain Park. If we are willing to provide the con- 

 ditions and facilities, the handling of the national parks becomes a pure- 

 ly economic proposition ; an investment, not an expense. 



But the greatest of all park products, Mr. Chairman and ladies and 

 gentlemen, is the product of civilization, the product of patriotism, the 

 product of real preparedness, the product of manhood and womanhood, 

 unobtainable anywhere else than in the broad, open areas which alone 

 the nation can provide. There, ladies and gentlemen, is a product 

 which we must promote and which we must have, and everything we can 

 do and everything we can spend which will increase the facilities of the 

 United States for intensifying our all too feeble national spirit for in- 

 creasing the fervor and vigor of our spirit of devotion to the country — 

 every such thing we can do is thoroughly worth while. That is then, 

 ladies and gentlemen, the "economic destiny of the national parks" of 

 the United States. 



Hon. J. Arthur Elston, 



House of Representatives, 



Washington, D. C. May 8, 1917. 



Dear Sir : At a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Sierra Club 

 held in San Francisco on May 5, 1917, the secretary was requested to 



