Cover Page MENU     Contents     Preface      1908-1940     1947-1967     1968-1972     1973-1974     1975-1980     1981-1982     Conclusion     Research Note     Appendix		Visitor Fees in the National Park System: A Legislative and Administrative History I. THE PATTERN IS SET, 1908-1940 Fee Opposition, 1932 At the same hearing Representative Edward T. Taylor of Colorado, Cramton's successor as subcommittee chairman, asked Albright about the all-park permit that Cramton had championed. Replied the director: I have not done anything about that for this reason: Several of the parks do not have any automobile license fees. I do not see how in some cases you can ever impose them. Another reason is that in Yosemite we charge $2, and if we sold a permit for three or four dollars entitling a man to go to all the parks, a person who only intended to go to Yosemite or Sequoia would feel penalized. Characterizing the automobile fee as "our principal source of revenue," Albright described it as "very unpopular." As an illustration he cited the case of the Zion-Mount Carmel Road, built by the state of Utah with Federal aid and destined to be added to Zion National Park. Utah considered the dollar fee charged by the Service to be a toll on through traffic and refused to cede the road to the park until the charge was discontinued. The Service was then appealing to the Budget Bureau, the main force behind the auto fees, to excuse the charge in this instance. [19] Undoubtedly influenced by the Mount Carmel Road imbroglio, Senator Reed Smoot of Utah, chairman of the Interior subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee, introduced a bill two days after the House hearing to prohibit any charge for admission to national parks and monuments. [20] Introduction of the bill evidently served Smoot's purpose, for it was not pressed or acted upon. Defeated in a 1930 primary election, Louis C. Cramton was appointed special attorney to the Secretary of the Interior for the remainder of the Hoover administration. Cramton put his imprint on the Park Service Director's 1932 annual report to the Secretary, which contained a policy statement reflecting his anti-fee bias: "National park administration should seek primarily the benefit and enjoyment of the people rather than financial gain and such enjoyment should be free to the people without vexatious admission charges and other fees." [21] NEXT> Broadening the Base, 1935-1940 19Ibid., p. 904. 20S. 2762, 72d Congress. 21Annual Report of the Director of the National Park Service to the Secretary of the Interior, 1932 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1932), p. 8.
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