Figure 16 BEN MILLARD (1872-1956)
In a letter to Robert S. Yard, Executive Secretary of the association, Senator Norbeck accused the association of sending out a misleading report:
You criticise me for introducing and securing action in the Senate on a bill fifteen days after it was introduced and especially in view of the fact that it had not been investigated by the National Park Service.
You could truthfully have said that this legislation has been pending for a great many years—at least five years.
You could also have said that I have been trying all these years to get the Park Service to investigate the proposed area.
You could also have added that the Government land in this area was withdrawn by Presidential Proclamation many years ago in anticipation of park legislation. Why carry the idea that it was all a fifteen day affair when it is all of five years? It would be a hard rule to apply that the failure of the Park Service to investigate an important project should preclude a member of Congress from taking any action whatever....
You also state that the project has been investigated by the Park Service and reported adversely. It is an astonishing fact that the knowledge of such reports should be withheld from me. Therefore, I doubt very much that any report has been made. I therefore wired the Park Service, asking who made the report and when. I have no response.[99]
Acting Director Arthur E. Demaray of the National Park Service, meanwhile, wrote Norbeck advising him that the Service had never prepared an official report on the park proposal and that the statement by the association that the proposed park was “reported below standard by the National Park Service” was without authority.[100]
In the House of Representatives where the proposal was considered in the second session, the bill (S. 4385) underwent substantial revision. After being considered by the Committee on the Public Lands, it was reported out with amendments on February 19, 1929.[101] The revised bill changed the boundary of the proposed area, reducing it from 69,120 acres to about 50,760 acres[102] (50,830 acres according to another source[103]). The name was changed from Teton National Park to Badlands National Monument. It modified the requirements for the road which the state had to construct from 40 miles to 30 miles of total length. The requirement that 90 percent of the privately owned lands had to be acquired before the park could be established was dropped. Instead, it was now at the discretion of the Secretary of the Interior to decide when enough privately owned lands within the proposed boundary had been purchased so that the area could be proclaimed a national monument by the President. As before, the bill stipulated that the lands would have to be acquired without cost to the federal treasury. The amended bill had a new provision that the Department of the Interior could grant hotel and lodge franchises in advance of the fulfillment of the conditions.[104]
The amended bill was considered by the Committee of the Whole House on February 25, six days after the Committee on the Public Lands had acted on it. Two additional amendments were offered on the floor of the House and were accepted. The idea that the Secretary of the Interior could decide when enough privately owned land had been purchased so that the area could be proclaimed as a national monument was dropped in favor of requiring all privately owned land within the proposed boundary be purchased before the area could be established. The provision giving the Department of the Interior authority to grant franchises in advance of the establishment of the national monument was also deleted. This amended form passed the House of Representatives on the same day, February 25.[105]
When the House act was referred to the Senate on the next day, Norbeck asked his colleagues not to concur with the amended proposal. He asked instead that the modified bill be considered in a conference committee of the House and Senate.[106] On March 2, the conference committee recommended that the two amendments that were attached to the bill on the floor of the House on February 25 be dropped, returning the bill to the form it had when it was originally reported out on February 19.[107]
On the same day, March 2, the final bill was passed by both houses.[108] Known as Public Law No. 1021, the act authorizing Badlands National Monument was approved by President Calvin Coolidge on March 4, 1929. The signing of the act took place on the last day of Coolidge’s term as President of the United States.[109]
The area authorized under this act (45 Stat. 1553) included 50,830.40 acres; of this amount, 39,893.85 acres were in the public domain. The remainder was state land or privately owned land.[110]