The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1921-01-06
THE NATIONAL CAPITAL
BY j. Z. Jones

ing the controversies relating to the
development of certain water powers
in the national forests. Owing to its
singular beauty it is here given:
AT every waterfall two angels stay,
One clothed in rainbows, the other
yelled in spray.
The first the beauty of the scene re-
veals,
Then last revolves the mighty water
wheels,
And there those white-robed sisters
ever stand,
Utility and beauty, hand in hand"
Civic associations do well to court
the angel Of the rainbows, but beauty
that plays the dog in the manger to
prevent utility from performing the
useful work she has TO do, is certainly
a selfish maiden.
Recent maps of the Yellowstone and
other principal national parks nova
days are accompanied with perspec-
tive diagrams showing how it is pro-
posed to enlarge them, and the
schemes are so magnificent in some
cases that one wonders why the civic
states and be done with it. They pro-
pose to tie up vast areas in park
enclosures to an extent that will de-
prive the surrounding country of all
benefits of their water-powers. In
California, the state is dependent up
on the w~ater-powers of the mountains
for electric power, and the enlarge
ment of national parks according to
schemes hat have been brought out,
would seriously handicap existing in
dustrial relations. Then in Idaho land
capable of bringing forth annually
$4,000, 900 worth of food and giving
means of livelihood for 10, 00 people
is to be bottled up in the southeastern
portion of Yellowstone park, instead
Of permitting the use of 5000 acres of
unsightly mosQuitO-ridden swamp to
be ~transposed into a beautiful lake,
to serve as the reservoir and power
creator for a great and fertile region
that it would serve.
One hundred and thirty applications
for water-power development have
been received by the federal power
commission. These projects call for
an industrial development exceeding
a billion dollars, and the development
of nearly a billion horsepower. 1t
means employment for hundreds of
thousands Of men in the next few
years, at a period when unemploy-
ment may be too general. 1t means
that the eternal struggle for coal will
cease, because w~ater-power and the
electric energy. it will supply will sup
plant in thousands of cases the roar
ing fires that consume the inexhausti-
BILE coal of the country.
Professional civic improvement
propaganda apparently thrives on tell
ing the public that industrial enter
prises that seek to use our natural
are greedy" and the preju-
dices against the bogey-man of child
hood days are restored in the minds
Of grown-ups until we are gullible
enough to believe the kind of stuff
that was popularized with reference
to Niagara, to the effect that for every
tub of water used for industrial pur-
poses that the scenic wonders were
"despoiled,' because the waterwheels
were reported to have drunk up the
Niagara river, instead Of having
broken into "veiled spray" as it was
borrowed for a few moments to pro-
duce power for industry. Today the
great power houses are among the
spots admired by the visitors to the
great Niagara. 1t is likely that there
would have been nor of them if the
professionals in "civic improvements"
had been permitted their u%ndisputed
say in matters.
The flaring declarations being
mailed in profusion to all parts of the
country saying that "the national
parks are in imminent peril" are
about as true as it would be to de-
clare that a beautiful horse would
cease to be pleasant to look at if
placed in a harness, or a beautiful city
street d~espoiled OF its civic magnid-
cence if bordered by handsome and
useful habitations, past whose doors
automobiles and trucks piled, in carry
ing on the affairs Of a practical world.
OF course no n wants the national
parks to lose one whit of their natural
magniicence; but the sentimental
tommies who were responsible for
tieing up the waterpower resources of
had preferably better drown clinging
the United States for half a century
to their last straw than be tolerated
in their efforts to spread national
parks out over wide desolate spaces
where they will serve no useful pur-
pose, or even afford interesting seen