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.