The comparative merits of the Alps and the Rocky Mountains for
recreation purposes are frequently discussed. Roosevelt and others
have spoken of the Colorado Rockies as "The Nation's Playground." This
Colorado region really is one vast natural park. The area of it is
three times that of the Alps. The scenery of these Colorado Rocky
Mountains, though unlike that of the Alps, is equally attractive and
more varied. Being almost free from snow, the entire region is easily
enjoyed; a novice may scale the peaks without the ice and snow that
hamper and endanger even the expert climbers in the icy Alps. The Alps
wear a perpetual ice-cap down to nine thousand feet. The inhabited
zone in Colorado is seven thousand feet higher than that zone in
Switzerland. At ten thousand feet and even higher, in Colorado, one
finds railroads, wagon-roads, and hotels. In Switzerland there are
but few hotels above five thousand feet, and most people live below
the three-thousand-foot mark. Timber-line in Colorado is five thousand
feet farther up the heights than in Switzerland. The Centennial State
offers a more numerous and attractive array of wild flowers, birds,
animals, and mineral springs than the land of William Tell. The Rocky
Mountain sheep is as interesting and audacious as the chamois; the
fair phlox dares greater heights than the famed edelweiss. The climate
of the Rocky Mountains is more cheerful than that of the Alps; there
are more sunny days, and while the skies are as blue as in
Switzerland, the air is drier and more energizing.
[Illustration: THE CONTINENTAL DIVIDE NEAR ESTES PARK]
But the attractions in the Alps are being preserved, while the Rocky
Mountains are being stripped of their scenery. Yet in the Rocky
Mountains there are many areas rich in perishable attractions which
might well be reserved as parks so that their natural beauties could
be kept unmarred. It is to be hoped that the growing interest in
American scenery will bring this about before these wild mountain
gardens are shorn of their loveliness.[1]
[1] Since this was put into type, the Rocky Mountain National Park,
after a campaign of six years, has been established, and
campaigns have started to make National Parks of Mount Evans
and Pike's Peak. And the Secretary of the Interior has appointed
a Superintendent of National Parks and called attention to the
great need of legislation for these Parks.
The United States is behind most nations in making profitable use of
scenery. Alpine scenery annually produces upward of ten thousand
dollars to the square mile, while the Rocky Mountains are being
despoiled by cattle and sawmills for a few dollars a square mile.
Though Switzerland has already accomplished much along scenic
conservation lines, it is working for still better results. It is
constructing modern hotels throughout the Alps and is exploiting the
winter as well as the summer use of these. The Canadian Government has
done and is doing extensive development work in its national parks. It
is preparing a welcome for multitudes of travelers; travelers are
responding in numbers.
The unfortunate fact is that our scenery has never had a standing. To
date, it has been an outcast. Often lauded as akin to the fine arts,
or something sacred, commonly it is destroyed or put to base uses.
Parks should no longer be used as pigpens and pastures. These base
uses prevent the parks from paying dividends in humanity.
There is in this country a splendid array of Nature's masterpieces to
lure and reward the traveler. In mountain-peaks there are Grand Teton,
Long's Peak, Mt. Whitney, and Mt. Rainier; in cañons, the vast Grand
Cañon and the brilliantly colored Yellowstone; in trees, the unrivaled
sequoias and many matchless primeval forests; in rivers, few on earth
are enriched with scenes equal to those between which rolls the
Columbia; in petrified forests, those in Arizona and the Yellowstone
are unsurpassed; in natural bridges, those in Utah easily arch above
the other great ones of the earth; in desert attractions, Death Valley
offers a rare display of colors, strangeness, silences, and mirages;
in waterfalls, we have Niagara, Yellowstone, and Yosemite; in
glaciers, there are those of the Glacier and Mount Rainier National
Parks and of Alaska; in medicinal springs, there is an array of
flowing, life-extending fountains; in wild flowers, the mountain wild
flowers in the West are lovely with the loveliest anywhere; in wild
animals of interest and influence, we have the grizzly bear, the
beaver, and the mountain sheep; in bird music, that which is sung by
the thrushes, the cañon wren, and the solitaire silences with
melodious sweetness the other best bird-songs of the earth. In these
varied attractions of our many natural parks we have ample playgrounds
for all the world and the opportunity for a travel industry many times
as productive as our gold and silver mines--and more lasting, too,
than they. When these scenes are ready for the traveler we shall not
need to nag Americans to see America first; and Europeans, too, might
start a continuous procession to these wonderlands.
In the nature of things, the United States should have a travel
industry of vast economic importance. The people of the United States
are great travelers, and we have numerous and extensive scenic areas
of unexcelled attractiveness, together with many of the world's
greatest natural wonders and wonderlands which every one wants to see.
All these scenes, too, repose in a climate that is hospitable and
refreshing. They should attract travelers from abroad as well as our
own people. The traveler brings ideas as well as gold. He comes with
the ideals of other lands and helps promote international friendship.
Then, too, he is an excellent counter-irritant to prevent that
self-satisfied attitude, that deadening provincialism, which always
seems to afflict successful people. Develop our parks by making them
ready for the traveler, and they will become continuously productive,
both commercially and spiritually.
Our established scenic reservations, or those which may be hereafter
set aside, are destined to become the basis of our large scenic
industry. The present reservations embrace fourteen National Parks and
twenty-eight National Monuments. Each Park and Monument was reserved
because of its scenic wonders, to be a recreation place for the
people. The name Monument might well be changed to Park. The
Monuments were set aside by executive orders of the President; the
Parks were created by acts of Congress. Each Park or Monument is a
wonderland in itself. All these together contain some of the
strangest, sublimest scenes on the globe. Each reservation is
different from every other, and in all of them a traveler could spend
a lifetime without exhausting their wonders.
I suppose that in order to lead Americans to see America first, or to
see it at all, and also to win travel from Europe, it is absolutely
necessary to get America ready for the traveler. Only a small part of
American scenery is ready for the traveler. The traveler's ultimatum
contains four main propositions. These are grand scenery, excellent
climate, good entertainment, and swift, comfortable transportation.
When all of these demands are supplied with a generous horn of plenty,
then, but not until then, will multitudes travel in America.
Parks now have a large and important place in the general welfare, and
the nation that neglects its parks will suffer a general decline. The
people of the United States greatly need more parks, and these are
needed at once. I do not know of any city that has park room extensive
enough to refresh its own inhabitants. Is there a State in the Union
that has developed park areas that are large enough for the people of
the State? With present development, our National Parks cannot
entertain one fifth of the number of Americans who annually go abroad.
As a matter of fact, the entertainment facilities in our National
Parks are already doing a capacity business. How, then, can our Parks
be seen by additional travelers?
For a travel industry, the present needs in America are for cities at
once to acquire and develop into parks all near-by scenery; for each
State to develop its best scenic places as State Parks; and for the
nation to make a number of new National Parks and at once make these
scenic reservations ready for the traveler. Systems of good roads and
trails are necessary. In addition to these, the Parks, Monuments, and
Reservations need the whole and special attention of a department of
their own.
A park requires eternal vigilance. The better half of our scenic
attractions are the perishable ones. The forests and the flowers, the
birds and the animals, the luxuriant growths in the primeval wild
gardens, are the poetry, the inspiration, of outdoors. Without these,
how dead and desolate the mountain, the meadow, and the lake! If a
park is to be kept permanently productive, its alluring features must
be maintained. If the beaver ceases to build his picturesque home, if
the deer vanishes, if the mountain sheep no longer poses on the crags,
if the columbine no longer opens its "bannered" bosom to the sun, if
the solitaire no longer sings,--without these poetic and primeval
charms, marred nature will not attract nor refresh. People often feel
the call of the wild, and they want the wild world beautiful. They
need the temples of the gods, the forest primeval, and the pure and
flower-fringed brooks.
It would be well to save at once in parks and reservations the better
of all remaining unspoiled scenic sections of the country,--the
lake-shores and the seashore, the stream-side, the forests primeval,
and the Rocky Mountains. There is a great and ragged scenic border of
varying width that extends entirely around the United States. This
includes the Great Lake region and the splendid Olympic Mountains at
the northwest corner of the country. Inside of this border are other
localities richly dowered with natural beauty and dowered, too, with
hospitable climate. The Rocky Mountain region is one splendid
recreation-ground. There are many beauty-spots in the Ozark Mountains
of Missouri and Arkansas, and there are scenic regions in New York,
Pennsylvania, and western North Carolina, and the State of Idaho
embraces many scenic empires. These contain scores of park areas that
will early be needed.
[Illustration: LONG'S PEAK FROM LOCH VALE]
Every park is a place of refuge, a place wherein wild life thrives and
multiplies. As hunters are perpetually excluded from all parks, these
places will thus become sanctuaries for our vanishing wild life. All
wild life quickly loses its fear and allows itself to be readily seen
in protected localities. Wild life in parks thus affords enjoyment
by being readily seen, and from now on this life will become a
factor in education. Children who go into parks will be pleasantly
compelled to observe, delightfully incited to think, and will thus
become alert and interested,--will have the very foundation of
education. Perhaps it is safe to predict that from now on the tendency
will be to multiply the number of parks and decrease the number of
zoölogical gardens.
Scenic places, if used for parks, will pay larger returns than by any
other use that can be made of their territory. Parks, then, are not a
luxury but a profitable investment. Switzerland is supporting about
half of her population through the use of her mountain scenery for
recreation purposes. Although parks pay large dividends, they also
have a higher, nobler use. They help make better men and women.
Outdoor life is educational. It develops the seeing eye, supplies
information, gives material for reflection, and compels thinking,
which is one of the greatest of accomplishments. Exercise in the pure
air of parks means health, which is the greatest of personal
resources, and this in turn makes for efficiency, kindness,
hopefulness, and high ideals. Recreation in parks tends to prevent
wasted life by preventing disease and wrong-doing. The conservation of
scenery, the use of scenic places for public recreation parks, is
conservation in the highest sense, for parks make the best economic
use of the territory and they also pay large dividends in humanity.
The travel industry is a large and direct contributor to
many industries and their laborers. It helps the railroads,
automobile-makers, hotels, guides, and the manufacturers of the
clothing, books, souvenirs, and other articles purchased by travelers.
Perhaps the farmer is the one most benefited; he furnishes the beef,
fruit, butter, chickens, and in fact all the food consumed by the
traveling multitude. A large travel industry means enlarging the home
market to gigantic proportions.
The courts have recently expressed definite and advanced views
concerning scenic beauty. In Colorado, where water has a high economic
value, a United States Circuit Court recently decided that the
beneficial use of a stream was not necessarily an agricultural,
industrial, or commercial use, and that, as a part of the scenery, it
was being beneficially used for the general welfare. The question was
whether the waters of a stream, which in the way of a lakelet and a
waterfall were among the attractions of a summer resort, could be
diverted to the detriment of the falls and used for power. The judge
said "No," because the waters as used, were contributing toward the
promotion of the public health, rest, and recreation; and that as an
object of beauty--"just to be looked at"--they were not running to
waste but were in beneficial use. He held that objects of beauty have
an important place in our lives and that these objects should not be
destroyed because they are without assessable value. The 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 tentfly, 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.
Taken as a whole, our National Parks and Monuments and our unreserved
scenic places may be described as an undeveloped scenic resource of
enormous potential value. These places should be developed as parks
and their resources used exclusively for recreation purposes. Thus
used, they would help all interests and reach all people. South
America, Switzerland, Canada, and other countries are making
intensified and splendid use of their parks by reserving that wild
scenic beauty which appeals to all the world.
Parks are dedicated to the highest uses. They are worthy of our
greatest attentions. It is of utmost importance that the management of
Forest Reserves and the National Parks be separate. In 1897 the
National Academy of Sciences in submitting a plan for the management
of the Forest Reserves recommended that places specially scenic be
separated from the Forest Reserves and set aside as Parks and given
the separate and special administration which parks need. If scenery
is to be saved, it must be saved for its own sake, on its own merits;
it cannot be saved as something incidental.
Multitudes will annually visit these places, provided they be
developed as parks and used for people and for nothing else. Grazing,
lumbering, shooting, and other commercial, conflicting, and
disfiguring uses should be rigidly prohibited. Scenery, like beauty,
has superior merit, and its supreme use is by people for rest and
recreation purposes.
Switzerland after long experience is establishing National Parks and
giving these a separate and distinct management from her forest
reserves. For a time Canadian National Parks were managed by the
Forest Service. Recently, however, the parks were withdrawn from the
Forest Service and placed in a Park Department. This was a most
beneficial change. Forestry is commercial, radically utilitarian. The
forester is a man with an axe. Trees to the forester mean what cattle
do to the butcher. Lumber is his product and to recite "Woodman, Spare
that Tree!" to a forester would be like asking the butcher to spare
the ox. The forester is a scientific slaughterer of the forest; he
must keep trees falling in order to supply lumber. A forester is not
concerned with the conservation of scenery. Then, too, a forester
builds his roads to facilitate logging and lumbering. The Park man
builds roads that are scenic highways, places for people.
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 thinks ever
of lumber, the park man always of landscapes. 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. A
National Park service is greatly needed.
Apparently William Penn was the first to honor our scenery, and
Bryant, with poetry, won a literary standing for it. Official
recognition came later, but the establishment of the Yellowstone
National Park was a great incident in the scenic history of
America--and in that of the world. For the first time, a scenic
wonderland was dedicated as "a public park or pleasure ground for the
benefit and enjoyment of all the people." The Yellowstone stands a
high tribute to the statesmanship, the public spirit, and the energy
of F. V. Hayden and the few men who won it for us.
During the last few years the nation, as well as the courts, has put
itself on record concerning the higher worth of scenery. The White
House conference of governors recommended that "the beauty ... of our
country should be preserved and increased"; and the first National
Conservation Commission thought that "public lands more valuable for
conserving ... natural beauties and wonders than for agriculture
should be held for the use of the people."
The travel industry benefits both parties,--the entertained as well as
the entertainer. Investments in outdoor vacations give large returns;
from an outing one returns with life lengthened, in livelier spirits,
more efficient, with new ideas and a broader outlook, and more hopeful
and kind. Hence parks and outdoor recreation places are mighty factors
for the general welfare; they assist in making better men and women. A
park offers the first aid and often the only cure for the sick and
the overworked. Looking upon our sublime scenes arouses a love for our
native land and promotes a fellow feeling. Nature is more democratic
even than death; and when people mingle amid primeval scenes they
become fraternal. Saving our best scenes is the saving of manhood.
These places encourage every one to do his best and help all to live
comfortably in a beautiful world. Scenery is our noblest resource. No
nation has ever fallen from having too much scenery.