The Piute Indians have a legend which says that just at the close of
creation the woman was consulted. She at once called into existence
the birds, the flowers, and the trees. That is the kind of a woman
with whom to start a world. We still need park places full of hope and
beauty, with birds, flowers, and trees, that with their help we may
live long and happily and harmoniously upon a beautiful world.
Scenic parts of this poetic and primeval world--parts rich in
loveliness and grandeur--are saved for us in our National Parks. The
National Parks and Monuments are filled with Nature's masterpieces,
and contain splendid scenic and scientific features not elsewhere to
be seen. The traveler might spend a lifetime in them without
exhausting even their best attractions.
A National Park is an island of safety in this riotous world. Splendid
forests, the waterfalls that leap in glory, the wild flowers that
charm and illuminate the earth, the wild sheep of the sky-line crags,
and the beauty of the birds, all have places of refuge which parks
provide.
A National Park is a fountain of life. It is a matchless potential
factor for good in national life. It holds within its magic realm
benefits that are health-giving, educational, economic; that further
efficiency and ethical relations, and are inspirational. Every one
needs to play, and to play out of doors. Without parks and outdoor
life all that is best in civilization will be smothered. To save
ourselves, to prevent our perishing, to enable us to live at our best
and happiest, parks are necessary. Within National Parks is
room--glorious room--room in which to find ourselves, in which to
think and hope, to dream and plan, to rest and resolve.
Nature, like our best friends, will have us do our best. King Lear
led the typical purposeless indoor life. He was surrounded with pomp
and senseless ceremony. He was in the midst of enemies of sincerity
and individuality. He decayed. He was turned outdoors. Across the
stormy moor he wandered, followed by his faithful Fool. At the door of
the hovel he hesitated. Urged by the Fool, he agreed to take shelter
inside. In a brief time with Nature on the moor he had become
acquainted with himself and had developed universal sympathy. Standing
in the storm at the entrance to the hovel, he uttered this noble cry
of compassion:--
"Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these?"
National Parks provide climate for everybody and scenery for all. If
we play in the scenes where fairies live, for us all will be right
with the world. Parks give purpose, noble purpose, to life. They are
the "Never-Never-Land" in which we shall ever be growing, but never
grow up.
The great peaks with age-old ice and snow, the mountain-high
waterfalls that rush and roar, the waveless lakes that show the cloud
and the blue, the waves of wind that shake the steadfast trees, the
songs of birds that ring through the wilderness, the many-colored
flowers and glorious sunsets--these waken and inspire us. We are glad
to be living, and life's duties are done with happiest hands. We need
these enchanted places. I am thankful to the pioneers who saw the
wilderness scenes and were thoughtful enough to save the National
Parks for us.
Robert Louis Stevenson says, "A man's most serious business is his
amusements"; and some one else has said:--
We need more plain pleasures, for recreation rightly used is a
resource for the common purposes of daily life that is entitled to
rank with education, with art, with friendship. It is one of the
means ordained for the promotion of health and cheerfulness and
morality. Vice must be fought by welfare, not restraint; and
society is not safe until to-day's pleasures are stronger than its
temptations. Amusement is stronger than vice and can strangle the
lust of it. Not only does morality thus rest back on recreation,
but so does efficiency. One half of efficiency and happiness
depends upon vitality, and vitality depends largely upon
recreation, especially the simple recreation of the open air.
How and where people play determines the character of individuals and
the destiny of their country. Success in life-work depends upon play
and relaxation. Blue Monday did not originate outdoors. It is doubtful
if any other influence produces so many good habits as a park. Parks
keep a nation hopeful and young.
The better and stronger nation of the future will be a park-using
nation. Many wrecked nations have tried to get along without outdoor
parks and recreation-places. It is but little less than folly to spend
millions on forts and warships, on prisons and hospitals, instead of
giving people the opportunity to develop and rest in the sane
outdoors.
The population of the United States now numbers a hundred millions and
is growing with amazing rapidity. The harassing, exacting life of
to-day makes outdoor life more important than ever before. Even in the
country, more play places are needed. Most of the parklike places in
the country have fallen into private hands to the exclusion of the
public, but in every State in the Union a number of scenic places are
available. These might well be secured by the public and made into
city and county, state and national parks.
The intensity of love for native land depends chiefly upon the
loveliness of its landscapes--upon its scenery. The great scenic
places of a land should be owned by the public and often seen by the
public. We cannot love an ugly country. Beauty satisfies the world's
great longing. Hatred and prejudice may be taught, but the love of
land must be inspired--and inspired by the scenic loveliness of that
land. "The beautiful is as useful as the useful." Some time a
Secretary of Parks and Recreation may be the most honored member of
the President's Cabinet.
Develop National Parks, and there is no danger that the people will
fail to use them. They will help us to build a vast travel industry.
In each of the years immediately preceding the European war, more than
half a million Americans went to Europe. Each individual spent not
less than a thousand dollars, a total of five hundred million
dollars--this exclusive of large sums spent for works of art, jewelry,
and clothing. Why should not such vast expenditures be made in our own
country instead of in foreign lands? Scenery is an asset, and parks,
multiplied and properly managed, would greatly help to keep our money
at home as well as to educate and refine our people.
The existing National Parks--and there will be others--are a vast
undeveloped resource of enormous potential value. They are a golden
field that will grow the more with reaping! The Parks have the power
to change and better the habits of a nation. They may arouse in us the
desire to spend most of our spare time, and lead to the fashion of
holding most of our social gatherings, outdoors.
Lack of national unity is perilous. A nation divided against itself is
not strong. Internal strife sometimes is worse than foreign war. The
people of the United States are united in name, but are they doing
good team-work? The mingling of people from all quarters in their own
great National Parks means friendly union. The Westerner ought to know
the Easterner; the Easterner should be acquainted with the Westerner,
and he ought also to see the magnificent distances in the West. Travel
to National Parks will promote such acquaintance in the happiest
circumstances. Greatly it would help the general welfare of the nation
if the citizens of the United States were better acquainted with
their own country, its resources, its people, and its problems. The
debates on various public measures in Congress show a lack of national
unity that arises from a lack of national information. A people united
is a nation well prepared.
I sometimes think that getting really acquainted with some person, or
with some fact, is a great event. There is nothing like acquaintance
for promoting friendship, sympathy, and coöperation. To bring the
capitalist and the laborer--all classes--together in the Park's august
scenes, is bound to encourage acquaintance and to prevent
misunderstandings. All this means unity, friendship, and will keep war
drums in the background.
He who feels the spell of the wild, the rhythmic melody of falling
water, the echoes among the crags, the bird-songs, the wind in the
pines, and the endless beat of wave upon the shore, is in tune with
the universe. And he will know what human brotherhood means; will
understand the heart of the democratic poet who declares, "A man's a
man for a' that."
In Nature's ennobling and boundless scenes, the hateful boundary-lines
and the forts and flags and prejudices of nations are forgotten.
Nature is universal. She hoists no flags of hatred. Wood-notes wild
contain no barbaric strains of war. The supreme triumph of parks is
humanity. And as I have said elsewhere, some time it may be that an
immortal pine will be the flag of a united and peaceful world.
John Muir felt that National Parks were the glory of the country and
should make this country the glory of the earth. I feel certain that
if Nature were to speak she would say, "Make National and State Parks
of your best wild gardens, and with these I will develop greater men
and women."