Are National Parks Worth While f 



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in any other in the world, he comprehends fully the American 

 service park idea. 



There is, then, hope for the parks. The Congress will not 

 refuse, I am sure, to enact legislation creating a bureau of 

 national parks, to the custody of which all the nation's pearls 

 of great price shall be entrusted. Under such a bureau, aided 

 by a commission of national prominence and scope, I predict 

 that there will be undertaken not only such ordering of the 

 parks as will vastly increase their use and their usefulness, but 

 such a survey of the land as will result in the establishment of 

 many new national parks, before it is too late. 



Delay means but enhanced and compounded cost. With such 

 a truly patriotic provision for the future as well as the pre- 

 sent as would be involved in the creation of a great national 

 park system, available to the people of the east as well as to 

 those of the west, our federal scenic possessions would come 

 to attract the travel of the world. Inadequate though they are 

 now, inaccessible as they are now, unadministered as they are 

 now, our national parks have added very definitely to the re- 

 sources of our people, and are well worth while. When they 

 shall have been given the attention that is in the minds of our 

 President and our Secretary of the Interior, they will increase 

 in efficiency, in beauty, in extent, and in benefits open to all 

 the people, so that they will even more be entirely worth while. 



Niagara, never more in danger than at this moment, must 

 eventually, if it is to be a cataract and not a catastrophe, come 

 under the federal mantle as a national park. In no other way 

 can America be sacred from the lasting disgrace that now threat- 

 ens our most notable natural wonder. A nation that can afford 

 a Panama Canal cannot afford a dry Niagara ! 



