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.
John Nolen says:—
The minor purposes of forests may correspond somewhat with the major purposes of parks, and vice versa; but the main and essential purposes of each are altogether different from the main and essential purposes of the other and any confusion of them is sure to lead to waste and disappointment.
Scenery is our most valuable and our noblest resource.
It is of utmost importance that each of these reservations be managed separately. Those who have distinguished themselves by appreciating the importance of National Parks and by helping them in every way, have been clear and emphatic in urging that National Park management be utterly separate from the management of National Forests. Among those who have taken this stand are John Muir, J. Horace McFarland, John Nolen, Mrs. John D. Sherman, and in fact every one that I know of who is an authority on parks. The National Academy of Science also made a similar recommendation in 1897.
A Park should stand alone, and stand high. If we think of the Parks separately, keep them free from the dominion of commercialism, of interests, and of organizations, we may hope in a short time to receive the best use of them.
The courts have recently made a number of excellent decisions concerning the conservation of scenery, and have gone definitely on record recognizing its higher values. In a decision concerning a waterfall, 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 tent-fly, 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. It emphasizes the importance to the Parks of having a management that is in no way tied up with any other work.