Your memorialists respectfully represent that—
Railroad lines have been surveyed and after the establishment of a national park would soon be built to its boundaries. The concessions for a hotel, stopping places, and stage routes could be leased and the proceeds devoted to the maintenance of the park. The policing of the park could be performed from the barracks at Vancouver by details of soldiers, who would thus be given useful and healthful employment from May to October.
The establishment of a hotel would afford opportunity for a weather station, which, in view of the controlling influence exerted by Mount Rainier on the moisture-laden winds from the Pacific, would be important in relation to local weather predictions.
Your memorialists further represent that this region of marvelous beauty is even now being seriously marred by careless camping parties. Its valuable forests and rare animals are being injured and will certainly be destroyed unless the forest reserve be policed during the camping seasons. But efficient protection of the undeveloped wilderness is extraordinarily difficult and in this case practically impossible.
Therefore, for the preservation of the property of the United States, for the protection from floods of the people of Washington in the Yakima, Cowlitz, Nisqually, Puyallup, and White River valleys, and for the pleasure and education of the nation, your memorialists pray that the area above described be declared a national park forever.
For the National Geographic Society:
Gardiner G. Hubbard,
President.
For the American Association for the Advancement of Science:
J. W. Powell.
For the Geological Society of America: