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.
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.