rience of the particular man who has that park in charge has not been so great as has been that of some other man.

The result of all these reflections was that the conference to which I have referred was, so far as we were able to ascertain, unanimous upon the proposition that there should be established as promptly as possible a bureau of national parks, under the direction of the Secretary of Interior, so that that bureau might coordinate these parks and their administration and vastly improve their condition and their advantage to the public. In this conference, this was not merely the expression of foresters, of those interested in the parks from the theoretical point of view, but the conviction of men who attended there representing the large railroad systems which lead up to those parks and which are directly interested in them. And it was a very significant thing to me, as I think it will be to you, to find that the Northern Pacific Railroad Co., whose road leads to one of our principal parks, was, and is, much in favor, though through its representative, of having a national park bureau established, embracing other parks as well, purely from the scenic point of view. In other words, each particular road which leads to a particular park was not interested solely in working for that park, but these men have reached that degree of enlightenment in their selfishnessin their self-interest-that they have come to the conclusion that it was for their own best interest to have a national park bureau established.

I have talked this matter over with the President, and I know that he is favorably interested in it, and that he gladly accepted the suggestion that he come over here this evening to meet this audience and express his own views in favor of this movement, in which the American Civic Association is taking so prominent and leading a part. But you do not expect me to fill the stage this evening to the exclusion of those who have been regularly selected as speakers, and particularly not to take the place of or infringe upon the time allowed to Mr. McFarland, president of the American Civic Association. Recognizing, as I do, the practical and vigorous manner in which he has gone into this, as he has into most of the other problems in which the American Civic Association is interested, I feel that we have gained an ally--I should not put it that way that we are allies with him, and that we are willing to help him and this association in carrying on this work and see that we get from this coming Congress, if possible, a bill along the lines of that which Senator Smoot has advocated, which will permit of the establishment of a bureau of the sort I have described.

Mr. RAKER. Mr. Miller is here from the department, and we would like to have him heard upon the subject now, Mr. Chairman. The CHAIRMAN. You may proceed, Mr. Miller.

STATEMENT OF MR. ADOLPH C. MILLER, ASSISTANT TO THE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR.

Mr. MILLER. Do you want a statement from me, or do you wish to ask me some questions?

The CHAIRMAN. This is Judge Raker's program, however he cares to have you proceed.·

Mr. RAKER. I would like to have you make a statement generally as to the facts of the situation, and then the committee can propound questions to you.

Mr. MILLER. I have been connected with the administration of the parks now for almost a year, and I have almost come to the conclusion that unless there is some more efficient agency for administering these parks than exists at the present time the Government had almost better go out of the business of attempting to handle these reservations. At every point I have been embarrassed and handicapped by the lack of necessary machinery. I think it is very difficult to find anything analogous that exists in the administration of any private business. We have about as ineffective and clumsy and awkward a method as could be devised.

Mr. TAYLOR. Chaotic, is it not?

Mr. MILLER. Yes. They are administering from Washington reservations that are for the most part distant 2,000 to 3,000 miles.

The gist of the whole matter, I think, is very well set forth in the excerpt that was read by the chairman of the committee from the report of the Secretary.

There are 12 of these national parks, and in addition there are some 30 national monuments, partly under the jurisdiction of the Department of Agriculture and partly under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Interior, and for these latter there is absolutely no administrative provision whatever. From time to time requests come to the department to do this and to do that, but we have no machinery and no money-we have not a single cent to protect from depredations the Lewis and Clark National Monument. We have not any provision by which we can send anyone there to view with his own eyes what the conditions are and what best needs to be done.

Now, with respect to these 12 parks the situation is not so serious, but it is very bad, and we are proceeding in the most uneconomic and inefficient manner. For the most part the needs of all these parks are similar. They present essentially identical engineering problems, identical problems in road engineering, sanitary engineering, and landscape engineering, and we ought to have the services of a competent road engineer and a landscape engineer that we could draw upon whether he was required during any season at Glacier Park, Rainier Park, Yosemite Park, or some other park. I have become very keenly sensitive of the needs of these parks, but there is no machinery through which you can operate. Suppose we want to have some advice, some judgment on the best method of handling the road problem in Yosemite Park, for instance. We have nobody with whom we can work. We have a resident engineer, but he is not a man of large experience. We ought to have some man who is competent to give us the best advice that we need in these matters. From day to day something comes up in the Department of the Interior upon which we want advice or we want to do something, but we have not the instruments--the tools with which we can work:

Take, for instance, the situation that is presented by reason of the condition along the frontier. The War Department has served notice upon him that it wants to remove at the earliest possible moment the troops that are now in charge of the park in the Yosemite Valley. Our superintendent there is an officer detailed from the Army in charge of a troop of cavalry. The troop is now marching through the park, but their march has been interrupted and they have been sent down to the Imperial Valley, and Maj. Litterburn, acting superintendent there, is likely to be taken away at a moment's notice. We ought to have somebody right here in Washington that we could send out there to cope with this emergency situation. We should have immediate charge of the reservation in a way that would be satisfactory to the Secretary's office. The work is being as well done as could reasonably be expected under the circumstances, but we absolutely have nothing.

Take another case that came up about two weeks ago. The power and electric company is operating under a permit in the Sequoia National Park, and they want to make certain changes in the location of their conduits and intakes. In brief, they want to come from 125 feet nearer the falls in Wolverton Creek. They ought to have it if it is not going to be a detriment to the enjoyment of the scenery of the park at that point. If it is, they ought not to have it. Now,

we ought to have some one of competent judgment to pass upon that thing, but we have not. We have got to depend upon our chief ranger, who is an excellent man so far as his experience goes and who is acting as superintendent of the park, for advice in this matter. From one point of view that is a very simple matter; rom another point of view it is a matter of a great deal of importance. If the decision is wrong the injury may be almost irremediable, and we ought to have a competent agent or expert in the department here, such as would exist if we had a park service or bureau, to send out there to view this matter. Another thing has come up within the last few days. We have a situation of strained relations between a concessionaire in the Rainier Park and the superintendent. They both seem to be excellent and competent men, but they do not get along together. I am satisfied that in the interests of the good administration of that park they ought to be made to get along together, and that they could be made to get along together if we had somebody that could go out there and reconcile their differences. As it is, we can simply write letters at long distance or send telegrams or perhaps some one of our land agents is in that part of the country to lend his friendly services, and do the best we can.

There

is a situation there at this moment which is of vital concern to the welfare of that park. The park service in Rainier Park may be crippled and delay for many weeks the opening of the park, and the hotel accommodations there may be seriously delayed; so that, in the absence of any bureau, we are really in the very worst condition. About all the administration we can do is with the pen. We have no fingers; we have no arms; we have none of the essential elements that suit the service. We want eyes to lock with and ears to hear with, but they do not exist.

Then we have road problems-problems in road engineering. We have problems in the scenic treatment of important points in the park, but we have no one upon whose judgment and skill and experience in the matter we can rely.

So we are in this peculiar position, that practically the initiative with respect to these parks rests with the superintendents, who for the most part are a body of untrained and unexpert men with little knowledge or experience gained from the point of view of experience or observation elsewhere. Their experience is largely local; sometimes excellent within the limits of their experience and training, but that training is very limited. They are constantly suggesting to us what they think ought to be done, and I have found that wherever I have had any personal acquaintance with the park in question-for instance, Sequoia or Yosemite Parks-they are suggesting things that we can very well afford to dispense with until other more urgent needs have been attended to.

With respect to a few of the parks that I know personally, I am able to take the initiative because I know them; and with respect to other parks that I have investigated or visited each very hastily I won't miss it very much, but in the general conditions there is an undesirable dependency upon the initiative and suggestion of the superintendent on the job. So you will find, for instance, among the 12 parks, that each one has its separate history and each one has its own peculiar form of organization. There is no uniformity in the methods of procedure, though practically the problems that arise in

one park are essentially the same identical problems that arise in other parks, but we have no common machinery for getting in touch with them.

Mr. SINNOTT. Are the questions similar or dissimilar in these parks? Mr. MILLER. Very similar. For instance, take this condition. We are expending for the parks in the Interior Department about $300,000 a year, and through the War Department almost the same amount; $500,000 or $600,000 is spent on these reservations every year. From one point of view that is not a large sum; from another point of view it is a very considerable sum.

Mr. TAYLOR of Colorado. Tell the committee briefly how that money is consumed.

Mr. MILLER. The large appropriation for parks, for the Yellowstone, for Glacier National Park, and for Yosemite Park, is made through the War Department.

Mr. TAYLOR of Colorado. I mean what do they use it for? How much goes into roads, how much into salaries who gets it?

Mr. MILLER. Well, it is hard to make a general statement there, because the funds vary in the different parks. In the Glacier National Park I should say, roughly, in average years, about four-tenths goes for administration. By that I mean maintenance of the ranger force. There is no protection given the parks except through the rangers in the employ of the park service. The balance of it goes to the maintenance and construction of roads and trails. In the matter of roads, for instance, we would have been unable to do anything in Glacier National Park had it not been for the happy accident that the Reclamation Service was engaged in some work nearby in which it wanted to use the park waters and joined with us in the construction of a road, and we utilized their engineering force for this purpose.

In the case of the Yosemite Park, it gets one of the largest appropriations the largest part of the money goes into the maintenance and construction of roads. There we operate through what seems to me a very clumsy and uneconomical and wasteful form of organization, and I have been trying within the narrow limits that exist to overcome it and do the best I can by giving the cooperation of the Bureau of Roads and the Department of Agriculture. They have just sent out there one of the best road engineers to give us a survey and give us a plan for the develpoment, extension, improvement, and maintenance of roads and trails in the Yosemite Valley and Park, so that we shall have something that this office in Washington can rely on; by which we make intelligent estimates and formulate a program that we can follow from year to year as these appropriations go on.

There does not exist, for instance, at the present time any plan under which we can advise ourselves here in Washington-any plan that has been passed upon by competent engineers-which will form a program for the future. The situation would be very analogous to that of attempting to go ahead and build a house or a considerable structure without plans, or leaving the plan to the man who was the foreman of the work, planning and changing his plans from time to time, as seemed best to him. The policy has been a hand-to-mouth policy, and there has not been very much done, except that when the sundry civil act has been passed, the superintendent, who is usually a new man, makes such recommendations as he can, to be sure that

the money will all be spent within the fiscal year before the appropriation lapses.

Now, I am satisfied that if this thing could be handled in a businesslike manner, without perhaps a single cent of additional cost to the Government, if we could get hold of some of the park revenues and utilize them for general administration, we could not only do the work that is being done at the present time, but could do very much better and do some work that has not been undertaken at all. Mr. RAKER. Are you through with your general statement? Mr. MILLER. Yes; that is the substance of it.

Mr. RAKER. Now, in regard to the plan to deal with the roads and the plan for the development of the parks, when a man that is experienced in park management would go from park to park, the work could be done much more economically than it is being done now, could it not?

Mr. MILLER. I think so, distinctly. We ought to have a competent road engineer and a competent landscape engineer who would survey all of these tracts, who would evolve a plan for each one of these tracts from year to year as they are developed.

Mr. RAKER. Taking the question of general administration, comparing the cost of the parks as they exist under the present system with the plan in contemplation, under which they would be handled by one supervision, what is your view as to the relative cost of conducting them now and under the plan by which they could be under a general park service?

Mr. MILLER. If I get your question aright, it is the relative cost of doing the thing as it ought to be done, as compared with the present methods?

Mr. RAKER. Yes.

Mr. MILLER. As near as I can make out, the amount chargeable to the general administration of the Interior Department for parks is about $15,000 a year. That represents the proportionate part of the service of the men concerned with the parks. In addition to that there are some considerable expenses for printing and publicity. Those ought to be very considerably enlarged in order thoroughly to acquaint the people of this country and other countries with what we possess in the way of park resources and facilities. I should say— I am speaking here from a rather limited experience that with a very moderate addition to the expense that is being actually incurred for park administration at the present time-but which does not appear as such, being a part of the general expense of the Secretary's office-these parks could be well administered.

Mr. RAKER. Now, as to the amount of benefits to be derived by the Government from proper management and proper handling of the parks as well as the receipts from concessionaires, etc., from the parks, what is your view as to the relative benefits to the Government financially, and to the public, of the system as described by you, as compared with the present sort of inchoate system that we have at the present time.

Mr. MILLER. I think a great deal could be done, and I am sure it ought to be done, to reimburse the Government for this expense. I have satisfied myself that a great many of the concessions that are given in the park are of very considerable commercial value, and I