Part 12
The Cook Forest in western Pennsylvania, the greatest existing primeval growth of white pine; a splendid redwood forest near Eureka, California; the Dunes on the shore of Lake Michigan in northern Indiana; the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky; the Luray Caverns in Virginia; and a stretch of the seashore in eastern North Carolina,--all ought to be public property, though now privately owned. These places might be saved for the people for all time in State Parks, but their unique and splendid characteristics justify their becoming National Parks.
Nearly all proposed National Park areas are of territory in the public domain--still owned by the Government. The privately owned areas that are proposed for National Parks are places admirably fitted for park purposes, and are located close to millions of people.
It is important that the remaining scenic areas in the country be at once made into State or National Parks. Fortunately there still are a number of these wild places, but it will require effort to save them. Each Park proposed will have powerful and insidious opposition. The insidious opposition to National Parks will say, "There is a feeling in Congress that we should not have any more National Parks at this time"; or, "We should wait until present ones are improved."
Scenery is perishable--is easily ruined. The better parts of scenery are birds, flowers, and trees. These are easily despoiled. No work, no public service, is more noble than that of the Park extension and improvement which now presses us. Every National Park needs appropriations. It is the duty of every one to ask and urge Congress at once to make adequate appropriations.
Much is to be gained and nothing to be lost in acting promptly. It is important that new Parks be created now, a working plan made for all, and the development pushed. When all our National Parks are ready for travelers, we shall not need to shout, "See America First."
The phrase "See America First" may have done a little good, but it is now obsolete. A plain condition now confronts us. Scenic America is to be made ready to be seen. Only a small percentage of the area of our National Parks is really ready for the traveler.
Congress should not be blamed for this condition; neither should we severely blame ourselves. But we ought promptly to see that these Parks receive adequate appropriations. If we do this, in a short time the National Park Service, through its Director, will say, "Your National Parks--our matchless wonderlands--are now entirely ready for millions of travelers."
[Illustration: MOUNT BAKER FROM THE WEST Mount Baker is likely to be a National Park
_Copyright, 1900, by W. H. Wilcox, Port Townsend, Wash._]
The plan for the development of National Parks includes three types of hotels, the luxurious, the popular-priced, and inns or shelter cabins that are clean and comfortable, and that give simple entertainment at the lowest possible cost. And all buildings should be of an architecture that harmonizes with the landscape.
Guides in Parks should be of the highest type of culture and refinement, naturalists who can impart information. Of course they must be masters of woodcraft. The wilderness is destined to have a large and helpful place in the lives of the people. This is to be
## partly brought about by guides and Park rangers. There should be
guides of both sexes.
The ultimate development should embrace a scenic road-system, roads built so as to command scenery and to be for the most part on mountain-sides and summits. They should touch the greatest and most beautiful spots, and should follow, not the lines of least resistance, but those of greatest attraction. In places along the forested roads, openings might be cleared so as to expose near scenes and to enable travelers to see the game which may come to these openings.
Many roads should be paralleled by trails for people afoot or on horseback. Of course trails should be made to numerous high or wild places not reached by roads.
Many persons do not realize the difference between a forest reserve and a National Park. A forest reserve is primarily used for cattle-grazing and saw-mills, while a National Park is a region wholly educational and recreational for your children and yourselves. A forest reserve is a commercial proposition, while a National Park must be estimated by higher values. In a paper on the conservation of scenery, in "The Rocky Mountain Wonderland," I have said:--
We need the forest reserve, and we need the National Park. Each of these serves in a distinct way, and it is of utmost importance that each be in charge of its specialist. The forester is always the lumberman, the park man is a practical poet.... The forester must cut trees before they are over-ripe or his crop will waste, while the park man wants the groves to become aged and picturesque. The forester pastures cattle in his meadows, while the park man has only people and romping children among his wild flowers. The park needs the charm of primeval nature, and should be free from ugliness, artificiality, and commercialism. For the perpetuation of scenery, a landscape artist is absolutely necessary. It would be folly to put a park man in charge of a forest reserve, a lumbering proposition. On the other hand, what a blunder to put a tree-cutting forester in charge of a park! We need both these men; each is important in his place; but it would be a double misfortune to put one in charge of the work of the other.
In this connection Stewart Edward White recently wrote:--
If the public in general understood the difference between a National Park and a National Forest, there could be no doubt as to the opinion of any intelligent citizen. The distinction is so simple that it seems that it should be easy to get it within the comprehension of anybody. A National Park is an open-air museum set apart by Congress either to preserve from commercial development beautiful scenery, trees, natural monuments, or some of the forests that are being cut commercially both in private and national forests. The idea is not commercial development along even conservative and constructive lines, but absolute preservation in a state of nature. Once this distinction is grasped, no one can doubt that these two institutions demand entirely different management. It would be as sensible to put men with the same training in charge of both National Park and National Forest, as it would be to place the same men with the same training in charge of a busy shoe factory and a museum of archæology.
[Illustration: MOUNT ST. ELIAS FROM EAST SIDE OF AGASSIZ GLACIER, ALASKA]
Says Frederick Law Olmsted:--
Why should there be a distinction between National Forests and National Parks? If the public is at liberty to use both as recreation grounds, why should they not all be under one management, in the interest of a more economical administration?
The National _Forests_ are set apart for economic ends, and their use for recreation is a by-product properly to be secured only in so far as it does not interfere with the economic efficiency of the forest management. The National _Parks_ are set apart primarily in order to preserve to the people for all time the opportunity of a peculiar kind of enjoyment and recreation, not measurable in economic terms and to be obtained only from the remarkable scenery which they contain--scenery of these primeval types which are in most parts of the world rapidly vanishing for all eternity before the increased thoroughness of the economic use of land. In the National Parks direct economic returns, if any, are properly the by-products; and even rapidity and efficiency in making them accessible to the people, although of great importance, are wholly secondary to the one dominant purpose of preserving essential esthetic qualities of their scenery unimpaired as a heritage to the infinite numbers of the generations to come.
Because of the very fact that in the Parks, as well as in the Forest, considerations of economics and of direct human enjoyment must both be carefully weighed in reaching decisions, and because the physical problems are much the same in both, the fundamental difference in the points of view which should control the management of the National Parks and that of the National Forests can be safely maintained only by keeping them under separate administration.
John Nolen says:--
The minor purposes of forests may correspond somewhat with the major purposes of parks, and _vice versa_; but the main and essential purposes of each are altogether different from the main and essential purposes of the other and any confusion of them is sure to lead to waste and disappointment.
Scenery is our most valuable and our noblest resource.
It is of utmost importance that each of these reservations be managed separately. Those who have distinguished themselves by appreciating the importance of National Parks and by helping them in every way, have been clear and emphatic in urging that National Park management be utterly separate from the management of National Forests. Among those who have taken this stand are John Muir, J. Horace McFarland, John Nolen, Mrs. John D. Sherman, and in fact every one that I know of who is an authority on parks. The National Academy of Science also made a similar recommendation in 1897.
A Park should stand alone, and stand high. If we think of the Parks separately, keep them free from the dominion of commercialism, of interests, and of organizations, we may hope in a short time to receive the best use of them.
The courts have recently made a number of excellent decisions concerning the conservation of scenery, and have gone definitely on record recognizing its higher values. In a decision concerning a waterfall, Judge Robert E. Lewis said in part:--
It is a beneficial use to the weary that they, ailing and feeble, can have the wild beauties of Nature placed at their convenient disposal. Is a piece of canvas valuable only for a tent-fly, but worthless as a painting? Is a block of stone beneficially used when put into the walls of a dam, and not beneficially used when carved into a piece of statuary? Is the test dollars, or has beauty of scenery, rest, recreation, health and enjoyment something to do with it? Is there no beneficial use except that which is purely commercial?
This decision is epoch-marking. It emphasizes the importance to the Parks of having a management that is in no way tied up with any other work.
From the time of the creation of the Yellowstone Park till 1914 there was no official head to the National Parks, but that year Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane used his right and appointed the first Superintendent, Mark Daniels.
The year 1915 was memorable in National Park history. In that year Secretary Lane appointed Stephen T. Mather Assistant to the Secretary of the Interior, with authority to do all that he could for Parks. Mr. Mather, a business man, sympathetic, well acquainted with the Parks, saw their extraordinary possibilities. Having the administrative charge of these National Parks, he at once set to work upon the extremely difficult task of bringing them out of chaos into order. In the short time that he has had charge of them, he has made a remarkable advance in securing for them a working plan of development, and a simplified and businesslike management.
In 1915 Superintendent Daniels was superseded by Robert B. Marshall, former Chief Geographer of the United States Geological Survey. Mr. Marshall worked enthusiastically but resigned in December, 1916. Mr. Mather became Director of the National Park Service in March, 1917.
Automobiles were first admitted to all National Parks in 1915, and that year, too, a number of educative publications concerning them were issued.
In September, 1911, what may be called the first National Park Conference was held in the Yellowstone Park. This was called by Secretary of the Interior Walter L. Fisher. In his opening remarks at this conference Mr. Fisher said that the purpose of the conference was to "discuss the matter of the present condition of the National Parks and what can best be done to promote the welfare of the Parks and make them better for the purpose for which they were created." This brought together a large gathering of men of affairs and distinctly furthered the creation of the National Park Service.
The National Park Service is one of the subdivisions of the Department of the Interior. The Service was created by an act of Congress in 1916, after a campaign that lasted for seven years. At its head is a Director. It gives the Parks an official standing and the care and development and administration needed.
All National Parks and twenty-one of the National Monuments are in charge of the National Park Service. As Monuments are scenic and educational reservations, it is plain that all these Monuments might well be in charge of the National Park Service. Then, too, the name "Monument" might well be changed to "Park."
Considering the far-reaching influence of the Parks on the general welfare, in a few years they might be placed under a cabinet officer who could appropriately be called the Secretary of National Parks.
XVI
THE SPIRIT OF THE FOREST
The supreme forest of the world is in the Sequoia National Park. The Big Trees have attained here their greatest size and their grandest development. Here is the forest's most impressive assemblage. In these groves at the southern end of the splendid Sierra is all the eloquence of wooded wilds--the silence of centuries and the eternal spirit of the forest. This forest is to be guarded and saved forever.
[Illustration: ON THE ROAD TO SHERMAN TREE GIANT FOREST, SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK]
How happily trees have mingled with our lives! Ever since our lowly ancestors crawled from gloomy caves, stood erect in the sunlight, wondered at this calm, mysterious world, and at last made homes beneath the hemlock and the pine--ever since then, down through the ages, through the dim, sad centuries, all the way from cave to cottage, the forest has been a mother to our good race. How different our history had this wooded and beautiful world been treeless and lonely! Groves stand peaceful and prominent on every hill, in every dale of history that encourages or inspires. If we should lose the hospitality of the trees and the friendship of the forest, our race too would be lost, and the desert's pale, sad sky would come to hover above a rounded, lifeless world. The trees are friends of mankind.
The forest that you see on the heights across the valley, that stands so steadfast upon the billowed and broken slopes, that drapes the dales and distances with peaceful, purple folds, and makes complete with grace and grandeur a hanging garden of the hills--this is the forest that sheltered our ancestors through the past's slow-changing years.
The trees have wandered over the earth and prepared it for our race. Their low green ranks encircle the cold white realm of Farthest North; they grow in luxuriance beneath the equatorial sun; they have climbed and held the heights though beaten and crushed with storm and snow; they have dared the desert's hot and deadly sand; they stand ankle-deep in bayous wrapped in tangled vines; they have breasted the surf and pushed out into the surges of the ocean; they have conquered and reclaimed the rocks on continents and islands; they have plumed with palms the white reefs of the blue and billowed sea; their triumphant masses stand where the Ice King rules; and in volcanoes' throats they have given beauty for ashes. Their banners wave under every sun and sky. Wherever our race has gone to live, the trees have given welcome and shelter.
The picturesque woodsman with his axe has helped to build nations and to improve and sustain them after they were built. He will play his
## part in the future. An axeman at work in the woods makes even a more
stirring and romantic picture than does the reaper in his harvest home on autumn's golden fields. It is good to hear the sounds of the axe as they echo and reëcho among wooded wilds and then fade away, a melody amid the forested hills. The echoes of the axe suggest the old, old story--tell of a love-touched dream come true, of another home to be. When under the axe an old tree falls, it is the end of a life well lived, the end of a work well done. But this tree may rise, helped and shaped by happy hands, and become the most sacred place in all this world of ours--a home where lovers live--a cottage with hollyhocks and roses by the door.
But we are leaving the low-vaulted past. These trees are not to fall. They are to stand. In parks, we have provided for trees a refuge with ourselves. They are to live on, and with them we shall build more stately mansions for the soul.
Trees have trials. They know what it is to struggle and grow strong. With hardship they build history, adventure, pathos, and poetry. Every tree has a life full of incident. Aged trees are stored with the lore of generations, carry the character of centuries, have biographies, stirring life-stories. A sequoia is an impressive wonder. As the oldest settler upon the earth--the pioneer of pioneers--it knows the stories of centuries. At the dead lips of the Sphinx you listen in vain, but beneath a Big Tree the ages speak and the centuries shift their scenes. The Big Trees carry within their untranslated scrolls that which may enrich the literature of the world. Within a Big Tree's brave breast are more materials of fact and fancy than in the ocean's coral cove, or in the murmuring sea-shell on the shore.
In the forest, around the foot of a tree, rages an endless and ever-changing struggle for existence. Here from season unto season a thousand forms of life feed and frolic, live and love, fight and die. Here Nature's stirring drama is playing on and always on. Here are trials and triumphs, activity and repose, and all the woodland scenes upon the wild world's stage amid the splendors and the shadows of the pines. At this place Nature smiles and sings, and here, at times, the lonely echo seems to search and seek in vain.
I never see a little tree bursting from the earth, peeping confidingly up among the withered leaves, without wondering how long it will live, what trials or triumphs it will have. I always hope that it will be a home for the birds. I always hope that it will find life worth living, and that it will live long to better and to beautify the earth.
In spring, summer, autumn, and winter, the broadleaf forest is a picture gallery, a fine-arts hall. In winter, abloom with snow flowers or in penciled tracery against the sky, how trustfully it sleeps! Confidently and in perfect faith, it awaits the supreme day of spring, when, amid the buzzing of bees, the songs of mating birds, and the unfolding of green and crumpled leaves, comes the glory-burst of bloom. In leaf-filled summer the woodlands are a realm of rich content. But in reflective autumn, when the plaintive note of the bluebird has Southland in its tones, when the hills are golden, then the work of the leaves is done and they come out in garments of glory to die--to die like the sunset of a splendid day. Color is triumphant when autumn, the artist, touches the trees, for then the entire temperate zone encircling this rounded world is a wreath of glory. This wreath fades or falls away; and the little golden leaf that casts its lot upon the breeze and floats off in the midst of mysteries is upon a journey just as dear as when, amid the mists of sun and spring, it did appear.
The woodland world of the mountains in National Parks is a grand commingling of groves and grass-plots, crags and cañons, and rounded lakes with forest frames and shadow-matted shores that rest in peace within the purple forest. Here, in Nature's mirrors, pond-lilies, all green and gold, rise and fall on gentle swells, or repose with reflected clouds and stars. Here, too, are drifts of fringed gentians, blue flakes from summer's bluest sky. Here young and eager streams leap in white cascades between crowding crags and pines. In these pictured scenes the birds sing, the useful beaver builds his picturesque home; here the cheerful chipmunk frolics and never grows up; and here the world stays young. Forests give poetry to the prose of life and enable us to have and to hold high ideals.
In almost every forest is the quaking aspen, the most widely distributed tree in the world. In autumn its golden banners encircle the globe and adorn nearly one half the earth. Though this tree has a constitution so tender that it is easily killed by fire or injury, it is one of the greatest pioneer trees in the forest world. Through the ages the restless aspen leaves appear to have attracted the attention of mankind. Unfortunately the old myths and legends concerning this merry, childlike tree told of fear or sorrow, but now every one catches the hopeful spirit of the aspen. Aspens are youth, eternal youth. Endlessly their dancing leaves proclaim youth. They are romping children. Their bare legs, their mud- and water-wading habits, their dancing out of one thing into another, are charmingly, faithfully childlike.
Every tree has the ways of its race. The willow in its appointed place is ever leaning over watching the endless procession of waters. Does it wonder whence and whither? The birches are maidens, slender, white, and fair. The maple has its own excuse for being. The elms arch the woodland world with cathedral art. Beautiful is the lone silver spruce lingering among the grand golden lichened crags. The sturdy pines stand in ever green contentment. The straight spruces and stately firs point ever upward and never cease to call "Excelsior!" nor to climb toward their ideal. The oak, full of character, welcomes all seasons and all weathers. Within the forest, up toward the heights, stands a tree that wins and holds the heart like a hollyhock. This tree, the hemlock, is a poem all alone. It is the heroine, the mother spirit of the woodland world, handsome, richly robed, symmetrical, graceful, sensitive, and steadfast. She, more than any other tree, appeals to the eye and the heart. In her upcurving arms and entire expression there is a yearning. When the world was young she may have been the first tree to shelter our homeless, wandering race. To-day, when the wild folk of the outdoors are most beset with cold or storm, they go trustingly and confidingly to nestle in the hemlock's arms. And rightly the sequoia is the nobleman of all the forest world.
That sweet singer, the solitaire, is the chorister of the forest. He puts the woods in song. Hear his woodnotes wild and the Spirit of the Forest will thrill you! Meditations and memories will throng you. His matchless melody carries echoes of Orpheus and good tidings from distant lands where dreams come true. Far away, soft and low, the wood itself seems to be singing a hopeful song, a rhythm of ages, that you have heard before. Pictured fairyland unfolds as you listen. In it is the peace, the poetry, the majesty, and the mystery of the forest.