Evening star., 1940-03-27
|AII Memorials
PUT Under One
Park Official
RondIe B. Truett
Heads New Section
In Capital Setup

Acting Superintendent Of Ma
tional Capital Parks Edmund B.
Rogers announced today that all
memorials and historic sites in the
National Capital park system" have
been placed under a single me-
MORALS section, with Randle B.
Truett, formerly superintendent Of
the Arlington House and the Lincoln
Museum. as chief.
The change, which has been con-
templated for some time by the
parks Office, is one of the few made
since H. S. Wagner and Charles G.
Sauers, collaborators called in by
Secretary of the Interior Ickes to
study the park setup here, made
their report last fall.
While the creation of a memorials
section was not proposed by the two
men, setting it up is in line with
their recommendations to improve
the administration of the only park
system in the country which is both
the national and local and therefore
complicated by conflicting interests
and sources Of revenue.
Only other, changes in the park
setup since the Wagner-Sauers re-
port have been the creation Of a
division Of engineering directly re-
sponSible to the superintendent Of
the local parks Office instead of the
National Park Service, and permit
ting Of the local Office to deal more
directly with the Civil Service Com
mission in hiring employees. Both
the latter moves were recommended
in the Wagner -Sauera report.
No Other Changes Expected.
A. E. Demaray, associate director
of the National Park Service, has
said no other changes will be made
until new superintendent is found
to occupy the post left vacant last
August by the transfer of c. Mar
shall Finnan to the superintendency
of Zion and Bryce Canyon National
Parks in Utah.
The Civil Service Commission has
not as yet announced the examina-
ton to fill the post.
Mr.. Truett has been superintendent
of the Lee Mansion and Lincoln
Museum for about a year. He en-
tered the National Park Service in
1884 as historian for the southern
end of the Natchez-T Trace National
Parkway project. which, with the
Blue Ridge National Parkway and
Skyline Drive, are innovations as
national park types-long ribbons Of
scenic land served by broad road
ways. The Blue Ridge Parkway, for
instance, will some day stretch 800
miles from Front Royal, Va. to
Great Smoky Mountains National
Park on the North Carolina Ten
nessee border.
Was Kentucky Educator.
An expert on ante bellum trade
and travel routes of the Southern
Appalachians, Mr. Truett came to
the Park Service from a professor
ship at the University of Louisville.
For two years before that he was
president of Lincoln Institute in
Kentucky. He holds degrees from
the University of California, the
University of Southern California
and Vanderbilt University.
Included under his new charge will
be the Washington Monument, the
Lincoln Memorial and all the Civil
War forts which surrounded WASH
ington as we'll as statues, memorials
and historic sites of every kind.
Recently Mr.. Truett has been
striving to improve conditions in
the Lincoln Museum, to catalogue
exhibits housed there and to prepare
a photography on Lincoln. He hopes
to see facilities improved materially
and the old Ford Theater restored
to its original condition.