The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1923-09-05

6HONN1 80 NI
people forever. That official declaration of adj
ministratiOn policy was nothing less than absolute
protection of the national park system against
commercial invasion and exploitation.
DIR. John Wesley Hill, chancellor of Lincoln
Memorial university, made the declaration. He
officially represented President Harding and Sec
rotary of the Interior Work at the Yellowstone
opening. His statement was prepared, careful
and emphatic. It contained the following:
"And we are here today to celebrate the
annual opening of Yellowstone park, the largest
and most far-famed of our national parks, a wooded
wilderness of three thousand three hundred square
miles, containing incompatible waterfalls, more
geysers than are found in the rest of the world all
put together, irrigated by rivers like miniature
lakes, and %beautifed by lakes like inland seas,
carved by canyons of sublimity, decorated with
colors defying the painters art, p%unctured with
innumerable boiling springs whose steam mingles
with feecy clouds, succeed with vast areas of
petrifed forests. a sanctuary of safe retreat for
feathered songsters and wild beasts, a wonder
land, playground, sanitarium and university all
in one, where the eye feasts upon the riotous
eolors of flowers, ferns and rocks; the ear is
surged with the symphony of melodious sounds;
the mind is stated with a thousand revelations Of
truth and beauty, and the jaded body, weary With
the trudge of thought and toll and travel, ungirds
for song and dance beneath the shadows Of the
everlasting hills.
yellowstone history is replete with crises
where the friends of the park and the park idea
have had to fight with a heroisn worthy its ex-
plorers and discoveries to retain it intact against
the bold and -presumptuous claims of the advo-
Gates of special privilege, determined to CONNER
cialize this land of wonder, to build railroads
through it, tunnel It's mountains, dam its lakes
and streams, and secure stranglehold monopolies
with small compensation to the government and
total loss to the people.
land regardless of all facts and figures, appeals
and threats, therefore, any plan, however meri-
torious on its face, for the commercial exploita-
tion of parks must by the very nature of its
aims and purposes be Immediately doomed to
failure.
Good projects, bad projects, Indifferent prof.
ects, all must face the same fate, for it is at last
established policy of the government that our
national parks must and shall forever be main
tanned in absolute, unimpaired form, not only for
the present, but for all time to come, a policy
which has the unqualified support of President
Harding.
This is the fixed policy of the administration
md l can assure you it will not be modified. 1t
will not be swerved a hairs breadth by any irflu-
ence, financial, political or Otherwise.
IF rights are granted to one claimant, others
must follow, so a precedent must not be estab-
lished. 1t would inevitably ruin the entire national
park system"
Doctor Hill might have been more definite in
the matter of the attacks by commercial interests
unon Yellowstone. Since early in 1920 it has
reouired increasing vigilance and aggressive Or
ganized effort on the part of the vast army of
national park enthusiasts to defeat these attacks.
During the winter and spring of 1920 the Sixty
sixth congress nearly passed the Smith bill Gre
ating a commercial irrigation reservoir in the
southwest corner of Yellowstone for the benefit of
Idaho. And 1t did pass the water power bill
granting to a commission power to lease public
waters. including those of the national parks and
monuments, for water power.