Expansion of the National Park Service in the 1930s:
Administrative History
Chapter One: "They have grown up like Topsy"
Administration of American Parks Before 1933
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B. National Park Service
Administration, 1916-1933
The decade-long effort to secure passage of a bill
creating a parks bureau in the Department of the Interior had become
bogged down by congressional indifference and a bitter conflict within
the ranks of the conservationists. By the summer of 1916, however, those
who championed the creation of a park bureau emerged victorious, and on
August 25, President Woodrow Wilson signed "An Act to establish a
National Park Service, and for other purposes." [57]
The act provided for the creation of a National Park
Service that would
promote and regulate the use of the Federal areas
known as national parks, monuments, and reservations hereinafter
specified by such means and measures as conform to the fundamental
purpose of the said parks, monuments, and reservations, which purpose is
to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the
wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such
manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment
of future generations.
As is so often the case, however, the act did not
address a number of questions raised in the debates over it. Of
particular importance here, it did not, as many of its supporters hoped
it would, bring administration of all federal parks and monuments
together in a single agency. That step would not be taken for nearly
seventeen years.
The act provided for appointment of a director, whose
annual salary would be $4,500, an assistant director, chief clerk,
draftsman, messenger, and "such other employees as the Secretary of the
Interior shall deem necessary . . . ." Because no money for the new
bureau was provided until April 17, 1917, the new organization could not
be formed until that time, and the interim organization under Robert
Marshall continued to function. [58]
Mather had originally intended that Marshall would be
the first director of the new service. He had begun to lose confidence
in Marshall's administrative ability, however, and at the end of the
year, Marshall returned to his old position at Geologic Survey. [59]
Instead, Secretary Lane appointed Mather as first
director and Albright as assistant director. Frank W. Griffith became
chief clerk. Others in the office included Arthur E. Demaray and
Isabelle Story from Marshall's staff, Nobel J. Wilt, a messenger, and
five clerks. [60]
The year 1917 was not the most propitious time for
launching a new federal bureau. On April 6 of that year the nation
entered World War I, and money and attention were naturally diverted to
the war effort. To make matters worse, Stephen Mather suffered a nervous
collapse in January, and was hospitalized. It would be more than a year
before he could return to work. [61] That the
agency took form, and was able to function as well as it did was a
tribute to the ability of the twenty-seven-year-old acting
director--Horace M. Albright. [62]
A wide range of policy and administrative issues,
beyond the immediate organizational and funding questions, faced
Albright and Mather when the latter returned to Washington.
Relationships between the new central office and parks that
traditionally had been independent had to be established. Both men
wanted to put park administration on a "business-like" basis, using the
expertise found in other governmental agencies to avoid unnecessary
growth. [63] Relationships with these
organizations had to be worked out. The military still occupied
Yellowstone National Park; as long as they were there, the National Park
Service would not have full responsibility for the areas in its charge.
In a wartime atmosphere, the very existence of parks was threatened. A
clear policy regarding development had to be formulated. The national
monuments suffered from years of neglect. These units had to be
incorporated fully into the park system, and an effective method of
administering them was necessary. Finally, it was clear that some
additional parks to round out the system were needed. Yet no clear
standards for national parks had heretofore been enunciated.
These issues could not be dealt with in a vacuum.
What was needed, despite Mark Daniels' efforts to do so in 1915, [64] was the articulation of a general policy
that would provide a sound basis for administration of the National Park
System. On May 13, 1918, a letter from Secretary of the Interior
Franklin K. Lane to Mather did just that:
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Washington, May 13, 1918.
Dear Mr. Mather: The National Park Service has been
established as a bureau of this department just one year. During this
period our efforts have been chiefly directed toward the building of an
effective organization while engaged in the performance of duties
relating to the administration, protection, and improvement of the
national parks and monuments, as required by law. This constructive work
is now completed. The new Service is fully organized; its personnel has
been carefully chosen; it has been conveniently and comfortably situated
in the new Interior Department Building; and it has been splendidly
equipped for the quick and effective transaction of its business.
For the information of the public an outline of the
administrative policy to which the new Service will adhere may now be
announced. This policy is based on three broad principles: "First, that
the national parks must be maintained in absolutely unimpaired form for
the use of future generations as well as those of our own time; second,
that they are set apart for the use, observation, health, and pleasure
of the people; and third, that the national interest must dictate all
decisions affecting public or private enterprise in the parks."
Every activity of the Service is subordinate to the
duties imposed upon it to faithfully preserve the parks for posterity in
essentially their natural state. The commercial use of these
reservations, except as specially authorized by law, or such as may be
incidental to the accommodation and entertainment of visitors, will not
be permitted under any circumstances.
In all of the national parks except Yellowstone you
may permit the grazing of cattle in isolated regions not frequented by
visitors, and where no injury to the natural features of the parks may
result from such use. The grazing of sheep, however, must not be
permitted in any national park.
In leasing lands for the operation of hotels, camps,
transportation facilities, or other public service under strict
Government control, concessioners should be confined to tracts no larger
than absolutely necessary for the purposes of their business
enterprises.
You should not permit the leasing of park lands for
summer homes. It is conceivable, and even exceedingly probable, that
within a few years under a policy of permitting the establishment of
summer homes in national parks, these reservations might become so
generally settled as to exclude the public from convenient access to
their streams, lakes, and other natural features, and thus destroy the
very basis upon which this national playground system is being
constructed.
You should not permit the cutting of trees except
where timber is needed in the construction of buildings or other
improvements within the park and can be removed without injury to the
forests or disfigurement of the landscape, where the thinning of forests
or cutting of vistas will improve the scenic features of the parks, or
where their destruction is necessary to eliminate insect infestations or
diseases common to forests and shrubs.
In the construction of roads, trails, buildings, and
other improvements, particular attention must be devoted always to the
harmonizing of these improvements with the landscape. This is a most
important item in our program of development and requires the employment
of trained engineers who either possess a knowledge of landscape
architecture or have a proper appreciation of the esthetic value of park
lands. All improvements will be carried out in accordance with a
preconceived plan developed with special reference to the preservation
of the landscape, and comprehensive plans for future development of the
national parks on an adequate scale will be prepared as funds are
available for this purpose.
Wherever the Federal Government has exclusive
jurisdiction over national parks it is clear that more effective
measures for the protection of the parks can be taken. The Federal
Government has exclusive jurisdiction over the national parks in the
States of Arkansas, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Montana, Washington, and Oregon,
and also in the Territories of Hawaii and Alaska. We should urge the
cession of exclusive jurisdiction over the parks in the other States,
and particularly in California and Colorado.
There are many private holdings in the national
parks, and many of these seriously hamper the administration of these
reservations. All of them should be eliminated as far as it is
practicable to accomplish this purpose in the course of time, either
through congressional appropriation or by acceptance of donations of
these lands. Isolated tracts in important scenic areas should be given
first consideration, of course, in the purchase of private property.
Every opportunity should be afforded the public,
wherever possible, to enjoy the national parks in the manner that best
satisfies the individual taste. Automobiles and motorcycles will be
permitted in all of the national parks; in fact, the parks will be kept
accessible by any means practicable.
All outdoor sports which may be maintained
consistently with the observation of the safeguards thrown around the
national parks by law will be heartily indorsed and aided wherever
possible. Mountain climbing, horseback riding, walking, motoring,
swimming, boating, and fishing will ever be the favorite sports. Winter
sports will be developed in the parks that are accessible throughout the
year. Hunting will not be permitted in any national park.
The educational, as well as the recreational, use of
the national parks should be encouraged in every practicable way.
University and high-school classes in science will find special
facilities for their vacation-period studies. Museums containing
specimens of wild flowers, shrubs, and trees, and mounted animals,
birds, and fish native to the parks and other exhibits of this character
will be established as authorized.
Low-priced camps operated by concessioners should be
maintained, as well as comfortable and even luxurious hotels wherever
the volume of travel warrants the establishment of these classes of
accommodations. In each reservation, as funds are available, a system of
free camp sites will be cleared, and these grounds will be equipped with
adequate water and sanitation facilities.
As concessions in the national parks represent in
most instances a large investment, and as the obligation to render
service satisfactory to the department at carefully regulated rates is
imposed, these enterprises must be given a large measure of protection,
and generally speaking, competitive business should not be authorized
where a concession is meeting our requirements, which, of course, will
as nearly as possible coincide with the needs of the traveling
public.
All concessions should yield revenue to the Federal
Government, but the development of the revenues of the parks should not
impose a burden upon the visitor.
Automobile fees in the parks should be reduced as the
volume of motor travel increases.
For assistance in the solution of administrative
problems in the parks relating both to their protection and use the
scientific bureaus of the Government offer facilities of the highest
worth and authority. In the protection of the public health, for
instance, the destruction of insect pests in the forests, the care of
wild animals, and the propagation and distribution of fish, you should
utilize their hearty cooperation to the utmost.
You should utilize to the fullest extent the
opportunity afforded by the Railroad Administration in appointing a
committee of western railroads to inform the traveling public how to
comfortably reach the national parks; you should diligently extend and
use the splendid cooperation developed during the last three years among
chambers of commerce, tourist bureaus, and automobile highway
associations for the purpose of spreading information about our national
parks and facilitating their use and enjoyment; you should keep informed
of park movements and park progress, municipal, county, and State, both
at home and abroad, for the purpose of adapting whenever practicable,
the world's best thought to the needs of the national parks. You should
encourage all movements looking to outdoor living. In particular, you
should maintain close working relationship with the Dominion parks
branch of the Canadian department of the interior and assist in the
solution of park problems of an international character.
The department is often required for reports on
pending legislation proposing the establishment of new national parks or
the addition of lands to existing parks. Complete data on such park
projects should be obtained by the National Park Service and submitted
to the department in tentative form of report to Congress.
In studying new park projects you should seek to find
''scenery of supreme and distinctive quality or some natural feature so
extraordinary or unique as to be of national interest and importance."
You should seek "distinguished examples of typical forms of world
architecture," such, for instance, as the Grand Canyon, as exemplifying
the highest accomplishment of stream erosion, and the high, rugged
portion of Mount Desert Island as exemplifying the oldest rock forms in
America and the luxuriance of deciduous forests.
The national park system as now constituted should
not be lowered in standard, dignity, and prestige by the inclusion of
areas which express in less than the highest terms the particular class
or kind of exhibit which they represent.
It is not necessary that a national park should have
a large area. The element of size is of no importance as long as the
park is susceptible of effective administration and control.
You should study existing national parks with the
idea of improving them by the addition of adjacent areas which will
complete their scenic purposes or facilitate administration. The
addition of the Teton Mountains to the Yellowstone National Park, for
instance, will supply Yellowstone's greatest need, which is an uplift of
glacier-bearing peaks; and the addition to the Sequoia National Park of
the Sierra summits and slopes to the north and east, as contemplated by
pending legislation, will create a reservation unique in the world,
because of its combination of gigantic trees, extraordinary canyons, and
mountain masses.
In considering projects involving the establishment
of new national parks or the extension of existing park areas by
delimination of national forests, you should observe what effect such
delimination would have on the administration of adjacent forest lands,
and wherever practicable, you should engage in an investigation of such
park projects jointly with officers of the Forest Service, in order that
questions of national park and national forest policy as they affect the
lands involved may be thoroughly understood.
Cordially, yours,
MR. STEPHEN T. MATHER,
Director, National Park Service. |
FRANKLIN K. LANE, [65]
Secretary. |
The principles enunciated were substantially
reaffirmed by Secretary of the Interior Hubert Work seven years later,
[66] and again in 1932. [67] They remain the foundation of National Park
Service administration today.
Stephen Mather served as director of the National
Park Service for twelve years, retiring January 12, 1929. [68] His replacement as director was Horace
Albright, who for the previous ten years, had served as both
superintendent of Yellowstone National Park and Assistant Director of
the National Park Service (field). [69]
Few people have left a greater imprint on any
organization than Stephen Mather left on the National Park Service. The
record of his administration was remarkable. When he became director,
the system consisted of fourteen national parks and twenty national
monuments, with a total of 10,850 square miles. [70] When he resigned, the system encompassed
twenty national parks and thirty-two national monuments with a total
area of 15,696 square miles. [71] Just as
important, Mather had managed to stave off a series of efforts to
establish national parks that he believed to be inferior, and he
defeated repeated efforts to exploit those that existed. [72]
He carried on the publicity campaign he had begun as
Assistant Secretary of Interior, and in the process stamped the national
parks indelibly into the American consciousness. Recognizing that
"scenery is a hollow enjoyment to a tourist who sets out in the morning
after an indigestible breakfast and fitful sleep on an impossible bed,"
Mather had made development of park facilities a high priority, and had
developed a coherent concessions policy to insure visitor comfort. [73] In 1918, after no little difficulty, Mather
managed to secure removal of the troops from Yellowstone. After that
date, the National Park Service was solely responsible for the areas
under its charge. [74]
The impact of Mather's administration of the National
Park Service is greater than the sum total of these accomplishments.
With the help of Horace Albright, he built a small, overworked
organization into one that came to enjoy a reputation for efficiency,
responsiveness, and devotion to its charge unparalleled in the federal
government. The men who guided the service until the end of the 1930s,
moreover, had served under Stephen Mather. They did not deviate far from
the course he had set. Even today, some fifty-three years after he left
the service, the ideals and policies enunciated by Stephen Mather serve
as a guide for the National Park Service.
No person was better qualified to succeed Mather as
director than Horace Albright. He had been deeply involved in the
administration of the park system at all levels since 1913, and had, it
will be recalled, served as acting director of the service in the first,
difficult months after passage of the NPS enabling act. His four years
as director during the early days of the Great Depression would confirm
his stature as a skillful and far-seeing administrator.
In December 1928, after it had become clear that he
would be the new director, Albright wrote to Robert Sterling Yard,
stating his conception of his role as director:
My job as I see it, will be to consolidate our gains,
finish up the rounding out of the Park system, go rather heavily into
the historical park field, and get such legislation as is necessary to
guarantee the future of the system on a sound permanent basis where the
power and the personality of the Director may no longer have to be the
controlling factors in operating the Service. [75]
Albright's administration did not, as he indicated,
represent a break with Mather's but was, rather, an extension of it. He
fought to maintain the high standards for parks established by Mather,
managing to bring in Carlsbad Caverns (May 14, 1930), Isle Royale (March
31, 1931), and Morristown (March 1, 1933), as well as eleven national
monuments. [76] As had Mather, Albright
successfully opposed inclusion of substandard areas and went a step
further when he secured elimination of Sullys Hill, a clearly inferior
park. [77]
Mather previously had obtained civil service coverage
for park rangers; Albright continued the drive for professionalization
of the Service by securing the same for superintendents and national
monument custodians in 1931. [78] In the
early 1920s, Mather had instituted an education (interpretation) program
with offices in Berkeley, California. [79]
Albright reorganized and coordinated the work by creating a Branch of
Education in the Washington office, headed by Dr. Harold C. Bryant,
whose title was Assistant Director in charge of Branch of Education. [80]
Mather was a brilliant, but sometimes erratic
administrator, whose administrative style was a highly personal one.
Albright took steps, as he said he would, to create a more orderly
administration that depended less on personal relationships. Of
particular importance in the 1930 reorganization of the service was the
delegation of authority among staff officers, something Mather had been
unable, or unwilling to do. [81]
None of this is to say that Albright was a mere
shadow of his former boss. He was too forceful a man for that. Moreover,
if anything, his view of the mission of the National Park Service was
broader than Mather's. This was most vividly expressed in Albright's
approach to historical areas.
Mather increased appropriations for the national
monuments while he was director. [82] In
1923, moreover, he attempted to create a more effective administration
of the national monuments in the Southwest by appointing Frank "Boss"
Pinkley as Superintendent of the Southwest Monuments. [83]
Yet, his overriding concern was with the scenic areas
of the system--he paid scant attention to the historical and
prehistorical areas. Albright was a long-time history buff who believed
that the National Park Service had a responsibility to preserve
significant aspects of the nation s past along with the great scenic
areas. [84] With the able help of U.S.
Representative Louis Cramton of Michigan, Albright brought the National
Park Service much more deeply into the field of historic preservation.
[85]
In 1930 Albright proudly reported that the
establishment of George Washington Birthplace National Monument marked
"the entrance of this service into the field of preservation on a more
comprehensive scale." [86] Establishment of
George Washington Birthplace National Monument was followed closely by
Colonial National Monument on July 3, 1930, and passage of a bill on
March 2, 1933, establishing the first national historical
park--Morristown. [87] In 1931 Albright gave
institutional status to a history program in the Park Service when he
hired Dr. Verne E. Chatelain as chief of the division of history in Dr.
Harold Bryant's branch of research and education. [88]
Perhaps Albright's greatest contribution to historic
preservation in the National Park Service was in his efforts to secure
administrative responsibility of the battlefields and other historical
areas administered until 1933 by the War Department. Even before the
Park Service existed, Albright believed they should be administered as
part of the national park system. [89]
Beginning in 1917 he attempted to secure passage of a bill that would
transfer administration of the areas to the Park Service. [90] Effective August 10, 1933, just one day
after Albright retired, Executive Order 6166 transferred all the
historical battlefields and monuments administered by the War
Department, sixteen national monuments under the jurisdiction of the
Agriculture Department, and the parks of the national capital to the
Department of the Interior.
Chapter One continues with...
Department of Agriculture Monuments, 1906-1933
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