234 



Sierra Club Bulletin. 



The National Parks: A Conference. 



An evidence that there is proceeding a thoughtful attempt 

 to promote efficiency in government is found in the National 

 Park Conference, which was recently held at the instance and 

 under the chairmanship of the Secretary of the Interior. To 

 this Conference, held in the Yellowstone National Park, were 

 invited not only the superintendents of the national parks, 

 but all other government officials having any relation to the 

 nation's pleasure-grounds, the various concessionaires operat- 

 ing in the parks, principal officials of the railways that reach 

 the parks, and, as representing organized effort to promote 

 park efficiency, the President of the American Civic Association. 

 Secretary Fisher had before him, therefore, experts upon the 

 varied relations of the parks. The Forester, the Chief Geo- 

 grapher, the Land Office official who handles some of the 

 national monuments, an entomological authority who had made 

 a special study of insects that attack trees, and the army officers 

 who act as superintendents, presented their views before the 

 Conference. There was free and open discussion, with the ask- 

 ing of pertinent questions by the Secretary. The holding of 

 such a conference of officials, those commercially interested, 

 and a civic authority, is as unique in government practice as it 

 is admirable in any practice. 



The Facts. — The Conference developed an astonishing situation 

 in respect to our national parks. It appeared that while we have 

 thirteen national parks and some twenty-eight national "monu- 

 ments" (the latter including, for instance, the Grand Canon 

 of the Colorado), authority over them is somewhat vaguely 

 exercised by the War, Agriculture, and Interior Departments, 

 sometimes in conflict. No official in any department is definitely 

 charged with the control and management of the nearly six 

 million acres set aside either for pleasure or scientific interest. 

 No uniform policy of improvement, or of control of concessions, 

 exists; and funds for improvement and maintenance are in- 

 cidental and pitifully meager. No skilled landscape engineer- 

 ing advice, such as that almost universally availed of by a 

 city of even a hundred thousand population for the logical 

 development of its parks, has ever been used for the good of 

 the nation's parks, which as Secretary Fisher expressed it, 

 had, Topsy-like, "just growed." Under shifting army superin- 

 tendence, engineering, and policing there is no secure con- 

 tinuity of administration; and in the case of the monuments, 

 particularly those under the Forest Service, very little adminis- 

 tration or supervision of any kind. Although it was shown 



