V.

I

All uses of this manuscript are covered by a
legal agreement between the Regents of the University
of California and George B. Hartzog, dated 16 November
1967. The manuscript is thereby made available for
research purposes. All literary rights in the manu
script, including the right to publish, are reserved
to The Bancroft Library of the University of California
at Berkeley. No part of the manuscript may be quoted
for publication without the written permission of the
Director of The Bancroft Library of the University of
California at Berkeley.

Requests for permission to quote for publication
should be addressed to the Regional Oral History Office,
486 Library, and should include identification of the
specific passages to be quoted, anticipated use of the
passages, and identification of the user. The legal
agreement with George B. Hartzog requires that he be
notified of the request and allowed thirty days in which
to respond.

The Bancroft Library University of California/Berkeley

Regional Oral History Office

George B. Hartzog
THE NATIONAL PARKS, 1965

An Interview Conducted by
Amelia R. Fry

Copy No.

1973 The Regents of the University of California

George B. Hartzog
Director, National Park Service
1964-1972

.3.

TABLE OF CONTENTS -- George B. Hartzog

INTERVIEW HISTORY i

I. EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE TO 1965 1

Public Support through Communication 3

Importance of Urban Areas 7

II. DIRECTORSHIP OF NATIONAL PARKS 9

Conrad Wirth s Retirement 9

Relationship to Other Agencies 13

III. PARK PROTECTION AND THE PUBLIC 20

IV. REORGANIZATION OF PROGRAMS 33

V. RESOURCE MANAGEMENT: REORGANIZATION AND POLICY REVISIONS 36

VI. CONGRESSIONAL RELATIONS 45

Procedures 45

Redwood Park Example 49

Committees and Congressmen 51

VII. FINANCING THE PARKS 55

VIII. CONCESSIONS 60

APPENDIX A: S.F. Sunday Examiner and Chronicle clipping,

dated October 15, 1967. 66

APPENDIX B: E. T. Scoyen to United States National Park Service,
Conference of Challenges. An Address, October 18,
1963. 67

APPENDIX C: Statement of George B. Hartzog, made before
Subcommittee on Parks and Recreation of the
House Interior and Insular Affairs Committee,
January 18, 1968. 72

APPENDIX D: Listing of George B. Hartzog in Who s Who in

America. 1967-1968. 87

APPENDIX E: Letter from George B. Hartzog to Amelia Fry,

December 15, 1972. 88

APPENDIX F: Memorandum from Horace M. Albright on the
Directorship of the National Park Service,
December 26, 1972. 89

INDEX 90

INTERVIEW HISTORY

National Park Director George B. Hartzog was interviewed as a
part of the Regional Oral History Office s series on parks and conservation,
After the interviews with former Directors Newton B. Drury and Horace
Albright, an up-dating of the directions of national park policy and
management was needed. Director Hartzog, as one who had most recently
been guiding the parks, was in a unique position to comment.

Interviewer; Amelia R. Fry.

Time and Place; April 4, 1965, during Director Hartzog s visit
to California for the Sierra Club s wilderness conference. The interview
was held in Muir Woods National Monument, where the superintendent made
his office available for the tape recording.

The Interview; Grateful acknowledgement belongs to Newton Drury,
who was still working on parts of his oral history at the time, for
helping arrange Mr. Hartzog s willing consent to record the interview
after a speech in Muir Woods.

Seated in the desk chair in the redwood office with the staccato
palaver of tourists outside punctuating his remarks, Mr. Hartzog answered
the questions with the easy articulation of one who had been over them
many times in his own mind during the past year, his first year as
director.

Although his busy schedule demanded an arbitrary cut-off time for
the interview, the pace of the conversation was unrelenting but unhurried.
His answers are thorough and thoughtful within the time frame available,
and his dedication to park preservation and, simultaneously, the
sometimes conflicting public availability of the lands, is fully evident.
In fact, the theme of the interview can be his statement, "There is
nothing easy about this. I don t think it should ever get real easy;
if it does, I don t think the American public will appreciate their parks.
I think we always have to be on the leading edge of concern . . . ."

After Mr. Hartzog returned to Washington, a proposal was sent to
him from the Regional Oral History Office to continue the taping, once
each year, for as long as he would be in office. The transcript was held
in limbo status while various plans were outlined and negotiations

ii

pursued with Cornelius Heine (then a National Park officer charged with
planning an agency effort to preserve documentation of National Park
Service history), with the Forest History Society, and with Director
Hartzog. The correspondence file shows that in 1967 additional sessions
were still being considered, and in 1969 at the Ladybird Grove
dedication of the National Redwood Park Mr. Heine felt there was still
a chance to allow a year-by-year current record to be recorded.

In the meantime, the transcript was edited in 1967 (very little,
but some) by the interviewer and sent to Mr. Hartzog, who made a few
light emendations, mainly changes in a word here and there, and who
also apparently had one or two close aides read it. He returned it
January of 1968 with an agreement for open use, but further processing
was postponed on the possibility of additional sessions. Also in early
1968, Robert Cahn, a staff correspondent of Christian Science Monitor,
received permission from Mr. Hartzog to use a copy of the transcript as
part of the source material for a series of 15 articles on the national
parks which appeared in that newspaper the spring and summer of 1968.
Copies of three of the series are in the Hartzog file in The Bancroft
Library.

Even though the idea of an annual interview had bogged down,
Mr. Hartzog s interest continued and he had corroborating material sent
for the appendix such as the 1963 speeches of Eivind Scoyen and Conrad
Wirth. More bulky supplemental documents are filed separately with the
interview at The Bancroft Library.

The Regional Oral History Office has also included in the appendix
two letters pertaining to Hartzog s resignation after the re-election
of President Nixon in 1972: one is a letter to the interviewer from
the Director; the other is a letter sent to the interviewer at about the
same time from former Director Horace M. Albright, who consented to its
inclusion in the manuscript. At this time the manuscript was final-typed
and sent through the process of proofing, indexing, and binding. The
National Park Service Regional Office in San Francisco is to be thanked
for furnishing the photograph of its recent Director.

Amelia R. Fry

Interviewer

Regional Oral History Office

20 October 1973
486 The Bancroft Library
University of California
Berkeley, California

INTERVIEWS ON FORESTRY, PARKS, AND CONSERVATION

Regional Oral History Office

The Bancroft Library

University of California, Berkeley

Albright , Horace M. and
Drury, Newton B.

Black, Rexford

Bryant, Harold C. and
Drury, Newton B.

Chaney, Ralph Works
Clepper , Henry

Coffman, John D.

Colby, William E.
Colgan, Richard

Dana, Samuel T.
Drury, Newton B.
Dunshee, Bertram K.

Evison, Herbert and
Drury, Newton B.

Farquhar, Francis P.

Comments on Conservation^ 1900-
1960. 1962. vi, 53 p.

Private and State Forestry in
California. 1917-1960. 1968. 159 p.

Development of the Naturalist Pro
gram in the National Park gervice.

1964. vi, 49 p.

Ralph Works Chaney _t Ph.D^. Paleo-
botanist. Conservationist.
1960. x, 277 p.

The Society of American Foresters.
1968. 36 p. (Bound with Hornaday
and Pomeroy.)

Forest Protection in :the National
Parks. 1973. ix, 126 p.

Reminiscences. 1954. vi, 145 p.

Forestry in the California Pine
Region. 1968. 50 p. (Bound with
Krueger . )

The Development of Forestry in
Government and Education. 1967. 98 p.

Parks and Redwoods. 2 vols. 1972.
xxii, 772 p.

Land Planning in Marin County.

1965. v, 53 p.

The National Park Service^ and Civilian
Conservation Corps. 1963. vii, 143 p.

Francis P. Farquhar on Accountancy,
Mountaineering, and the National Parks.
I960, xv, 376 p.

French, Enoch Percy and
Drury, Newton B.

Cruising and Protecting the Redwoods
of Humboldt. 1963. vi, 86 p.

Fritz, Eraanuel
Gill, Tom

Granger, Christopher
Hall, Ansel F.

Hall, R. Clifford

Hartzog, George B.
Hornaday, Fred E.

Isaac, Leo

Knowland, Joseph R. and
Drury, Newton B.

Krueger, Myron E.

Lowdermilk, Walter C.

Lund, Walter

McCulloch, Walter
Metcalf, Woodbridge
Miller, Loye H.
Muiriana

Emanuel Fritz: Teacher. Editor, and
Forestry Consultant. 1972. xiii, 336 p.

The Summary of the Career of Tom Gill.
International Forester. 1969. vi, 75 p.

Forest Management in the United States
Forest Service. 1965. xiv, 131 p.

A conversation between Ansel F. Hall
and Francis P. Farquhar, appended to
Francis P. Farquhar volume. 1958. 34 p.

Forest Taxation Study 1926-1935. 1967.
vii, 113 p. (Bound with Shepard.)

The National Parks. 1965. 1973. 90 p.

The American Forestry Association;
1928-1964. 1968. 20 p. (Bound
with Clepper and Pomeroy.)

Douglas Fir Research in the Pacific
Northwest. 1967. 152 p.

Conservation and Politics. 1965. ix,
120 p.

Forestry and Technology in Northern
California. 1968. 27 p. (Bound
with Colgan.)

Soil. Forest, and Water Conservation
in China. Israel. Africa, and the
United States. 2 vols. 1969. xxxix,
704 p.

Timber Management in the Pacific
Northwest. 1927-1965. 1967. vi,
83 p.

Forestry and Education in Oregon.
1937-1966. 1968. viii, 216 p.

Extension Forester. 1926-1956.
1969. vii, 138 p.

The Interpretive Naturalist. 1970.
ix , 61 p .

Four interviews on John Muir by
personal acquaintances John Briones,
William Colby, Dr. Herbert Evans,
and Frank Swett. 1971. 106 p.

Hunger, Thornton T.
Packard, Walter E.

Peirce, Earl S.
Pomeroy, Kenneth B.

Ringland, Arthur C.

Schofield, William R.
Shepard, Harold B.

Show, Stuart Bevier
Sieker, John H.

Swift, Lloyd

Forest Research in the Northwest.

1967. x, 245 p.

Land and Power Development in
California. Greece, and Latin
America. 1970. xiv, 603 p.

Salvage Programs Following the
1938 Hurricane. 1968. viii, 52 p.

The American Forestry Association;
Operations. 1968. 21 p. (Bound
with Clepper and Hornaday.)

Conserving Human and Natural
Resources. 1970. xvi, 538 p.

Lobbying in California. 1968. 159 p.

The Forest Insurance Study, a written
memoir. 1967. 6 p. (Bound with R.
Clifford Hall.)

National Forests in California.
1965. xvi, 215 p.

Recreation Policy and Administration
in the United States Forest Service.

1968. xi, 49 p. (Bound with Swift.)

Wildlife .Policy and Administration
in the United States Forest Service.
1968. 29 p. (Bound with Sieker.)

IN PROCESS:

Eddy Tree Breeding Station

Gladys Austin
Jack Carpender
W.C. Gumming
A. R. Liddicoet
Nicholas Mirov
R. I. Righter

Kneipp, Leon F.

Kotok, E.I.

A six-part volume of individual
interviews with men and women
who participated in the estab
lishment and early work of the
Eddy Tree Breeding Station near
Placerville, California.

Assistant Chief of the U.S. Forest
Service in charge of lands and
acquisition.

Assistant Chief of the U.S. Forest
Service in charge of research, of
state and private forestry.

Marsh, Raymond E.

Nelson, DeWitt
Roberts, Paul

Assistant Chief of the U.S. Forest
Service in charge of economic re
search.

State natural resources administrator.
Forest Service administrator.

October 1973

(Interview: April 4, 1965)

EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE TO 1965

Fry: First I d like to ask about your background,

where you were born and what kind of schooling
you had.
Hartzog: Well, I was born in 1920 on a farm in South

Carolina in the lower part of the state in Colleton
County. I went to public school. The school that
I graduated from was a military preparatory school
in the town of Bamberg, South Carolina, Carlisle
Military School. After graduating from there in 1937
I went to Wofford College in Spartenberg, South
Carolina for one semester until I had to stop school
and go to work because of family difficulties.

I went to work as a stenographer, from there
went into a law office as a stenographer and studied
law at night in the law office. I passed the bar
examination and was admitted to practice law in 1942.
In the meantime, I had gone into the Service in 1940
with the National Guard when it was inducted, and I
got out in 1941 just before Pearl Harbor. I went back
into the Service for the second time in 1943.

After the war I went to work for the Department
of Interior as an attorney in the Bureau of Land

Hartzog: Management. After six months there, I left the

bureau and went to work for a law firm in Washington
and was there only a matter of a few weeks when the
National Park Service offered me a job as an attorney
the National Park Service office was then in Chicago.
So I went to Chicago for the National Park Service
as an attorney, and a year later the office was
transferred back to Washington, and I stayed there a
few weeks and was then transferred down to Lake Texoma,
at Denison, Texas.

It was an area which we administered under a
cooperative agreement with the Corps of Engineers.
There I served as regional attorney for the Southwest
Region of National Park Service. I was out there about
ten months , and then I went back to Washington as a
lawyer .

In 1950 I was detailed - and then later trans
ferred - to the concessions management work of the
National Park Service. I stayed in that office until
1955, when I went to Rocky Mountain National Park as
assistant superintendent. In 1957 I went to the Great
Smoky Mountains as assistant superintendent.

In 1959 I went to St. Louis as superintendent of
the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, which was

Hartzog: a big project just then beginning to be developed
on the river front, telling the story of westward
expansion. I stayed there until the bulk of the
money had been obligated and the majority of the
work had been put under contract; and then a private
organization offered me a job as executive director
of Downtown St. Louis Incorporated, which I accepted
in 1962, resigning from the National Park Service in
July. Shortly after I left the Service, Connie
Wirth and Secretary Udall offered me the job of
Associate Director of the Park Service, and I went
back with the Service in February of 1963. And
then I took over as Director in January 1964.

Public Support Through Communication

Fry: Would you like to say anything concerning this path
you have just laid out for us here, of experiences
you ve had which you think have a bearing on your
role now as director of the National Parks? For
instance, I noticed you said your concessions
management work in 1950 took up a lot of your time.
Do you find that this is valuable to you now?
Hartzog: Well, I do. As a matter of fact, during the time
that I was in Washington, the period beginning in

-
Hartzog: 1948 when I went back to Washington from Lake

Texoma - that seven years - I went to night school
at the American University and got a degree in
business administration. And I also came within
three hours of being able to finish the Master s
Degree in business administration. This was a
period during which I was also working in concessions,

I find it to be very beneficial; I think that
more and more big government and big business have
a great deal in common. I found this to be true
when I left the government and went with a private
organization. While it was an association of
business people, I had an opportunity to observe
some of their own operations and procedures. So
I think that all this has been a great help to me.

I think there is another thing that I learned,
in St. Louis particularly: the need for a great deal
of communication with a great many people when you
are involved in a big project. Particularly when
you are involved in a project that has a lot of
controversy, which this particular project did have
in St. Louis. For example, the first contract that
we awarded in St. Louis, we had to have it agreed to

Hartzog: by sixteen different cooperating organizations in
order to get it out. But this we were able to do.
This experience also impressed upon me the need for
waiting until you get all your facts before you make
up your mind. The need to go talk to the other
person and to find out what is on his mind, because
sometimes lack of communications is really at the
root of the problem. Rather than there being a
problem in itself, it s just the fact that people
aren t talking, and what they don t understand they
are generally against.
Fry: So that this also has a bearing on being sure where

your support lies before you make a decision.
Hartzog: Well, not necessarily where your support lies

(but certainly you want to know what your support
is; you want to know where your emphasis should be);
even more important than this, you want to be sure
that when you have finished with a subject, and
are ready to make a decision on it, you ve got a
better case against yourself than the other fellow
has. This is, 1 suppose, not only from my training
with the Park Service and government, but my legal
background as well. When you start doing your brief,

Hartzog: you want to make sure you research the cases for

the opposition as well as for your own, so that you
understand what the issue is.

Fry: 1 think that we should mention here some of your
major projects when you were a solicitor for the
National Parks.

Hartzog: No, I was just an attorney in the Chief Counsel s
office; I was in charge of the regulations and
contracts activity in the Chief Counsel s office.
And it was because of this experience that I got
involved in the concessions work, which involved
at the time the difficulties - which I m sure
Mr. Drury and Mr. Albright have talked with you
about - involving concession policies, contract
language, and negotiation of these contracts.*
Fry: Was this where you crossed over the line from strict
legal work into more general park service work?

Hartzog: Yes, that is right.

Fry: Well, then for our purposes I think I d like to skip
over the Jefferson Expansion Memorial part, and

*cf . Drury, Newton Bishop and Albright, Horace
Marden, "Comments on Conservation, 1900 to 1960," typed
transcript of tape-recorded interview conducted by
Amelia Roberts Fry, University of California General
Library Regional Oral History Office, (Berkeley, 1962).
In Bancroft Library.

Fry: I gather that you ve just distilled out for us the
experience there that you thought was important.

Importance of Urban Areas

Hartzog: I think so. I think that there is another aspect
of this which has made a great impression on me,
and that is the part that parks play for people in
urban environments, the fact that the federal govern
ment has a very important part in this total picture
of dealing with parks and open space in urban environ
ment. This is where our country was born, as a
matter of fact, in towns and communities.

The National Park Service is deeply involved
in city parks. A lot of people are under the mis
apprehension that we don t know too much about city
parks, when as a matter of fact, the National Park
Service probably runs more city parks than any other
particular instrumentality of government in existence.
Starting with St. Augustine and all the way to Boston,
Massachusetts, and following the flow of civilization
westward, we run city parks. There are some 750 odd
of them in the District of Columbia, and that is some
40,000 acres right there alone. There is a 91 acre
park right on the river front in St. Louis, you see.

8

Hartzog: So we have a tremendous city park program, which
I don t think we ve ever really related to the
total broad picture of park administration and
wilderness preservation.

This is one of the things I was trying to say
to the Wilderness Conference here this week, that
all these things are tied together. You can t
protect wilderness by drawing a boundary line
around it and saying this is "wilderness" and we
are going to protect this, without some understand
ing and some relating of these things all the way
back to where people are in the cities, because
this is why you are protecting the lands and this
is why you want to preserve them, so that they can
be of value and benefit to people. If you are going
to do this, then I think you have to relate all of
this. I think you start relating it right where
people are, and that is in town.

DIRECTORSHIP OF NATIONAL PARKS

Conrad Wirth s Retirement
Fry: I ran across an article in the New York Times

when Conrad Wirth first announced his decision to
resign. It said that some in the Park Service had
felt that the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation s activities
should have been handled by the National Park Service,
and in turn administration officials regard the Park
Service as being "inbred and so professional that
it has lost sight of its obligation to the public."*
Can you give us some light on the context in which
this occurred?

Hartzog: Well, as a matter of fact, what I could give you
is probably no different than what you can get by
reading Connie s own statement at the conference
in Yosemite in 1963.** The word resign was used, and
I think that it was an unfortunate word; because,
as a matter of fact, he retired. I think that this
whole thing to be understood, has to be related to
what Eivind Scoyen said at the conference at Yosemite
and also a letter which Eivind Scoyen sent to many
people throughout the United States following this.
When he resigned (There again one uses this word

*New York Times. October 17, 1963, p. 25, column 1.
**cf. appendix.

10

Hartzog: "resign" when one is really talking about retiring.
Nobody could say that Eivind Scoyen resigned; he
served some 50-odd years in the Park Service.) when
Eivind Scoyen was ready to retire, as he relates the
story, he told the Director, who was at that time
Connie Wirth, and Connie Wirth asked him and several
other people to sit as a committee to select a list
of nominees for associate director. One of the
committee was John Preston, the superintendent at
Yosemite; another was Ronnie Lee, who was Regional
Director of the Northeast Region; Tom Vint, who was
at that time the chief of the design and construction
organization; and Kivind Scoyen and himself, Connie
Wirth. They selected five names, and I was one of
the five.

Eivind Scoyen tells the story that I was the
number one nominee of the five; John Preston tells
the same story. I know that there was such a list,
because before I resigned from the Park Service in
1962, I went to Washington and talked to Connie Wirth
and asked him what the future was for me in the
National Park Service. And at that time I told him
I knew that this job was open. I told him that the
people in St. Louis had made me a very attractive

11

Hartzog: proposition, much better than what I then had,

but that my whole life had been in the Park Service.
I said that if there was something in the offing for
me in the Park Service that was different from what
I had then as superintendent I wanted to evaluate
it in that context, rather than in the context of
superintendent of the Memorial. (The grade
structure of the National Park Service at that time
was such that a Civil Service rank of GS 15 was as
high as you could go, unless you became an assistant
director or regional director of the National Capitol
Region, or associate director or director - these
are the only higher grades in the Park Service. So
I was as far as I could go in the context of the
field service.) At that time Connie Wirth told me
that there was a list of people under consideration
for the job of associate director, and that my name
was on that list. He didn t tell me that I was going
to get the job, or that I was going to be offered the
job.

So, therefore, the only thing I had to consider
was my position as superintendent at St. Louis in
relation to what the people in St. Louis were offering

12

Hartzog: me. So I resigned and accepted their offer. It was
only after I did that the nominations for associate
director were finally sent to the Secretary, and on
the basis of these nominations the job was offered
to me. So you see, insofar as the filling of the
associate director s job was concerned, this was
a well-thought-out process.

Now, at the time that I came back into the
Service, Connie Wirth told me, as he had told
a lot of other people (he had made no public announce
ment on this, but he had certainly told us this,
and he said as much at Yosemite when this whole
thing developed) that he was going to retire because
he was going to be sixty-four years old in 1964.
He felt that people should retire in their early
sixties. And I know that he believed this, because
at one time he actually moved in the direction of
trying to encourage the same kind of practice with
respect to retirement from the Park Service that the
Forest Service encourages, and that is, retirement
at sixty-two. Connie was then sixty-four years old,
so for a full year or more in advance of his retire
ment, I knew he was going to retire. Several other

13

Hartzog: people were aware of the fact that he was going

to retire. So that the context of the news publicity
that this was a precipitous act on his part is
certainly not supported by the facts as I know them
to be. All of this is a matter of record in those
talks that were made down at Yosemite. What was
the other part of the question?

Relationship to Other Agencies

Fry: I didn t so much get the idea that his retirement
was precipitous, but that it was a kind of slow
evolutionary result of the change of administration
from Eisenhower to Kennedy, and also in the New
Bureau of Outdoor Recreation, set up in the Depart
ment of the Interior but intended to include
recreation aspects of other departments too.*
Hartzog: Well, now let s talk about that. I know, of course,
and I think a lot of people are aware of the fact
that the National Park Service was not elated
about the prospect of this recommendation of the
commission for a separate bureau, because they felt
they had the authority to do what the Outdoor

* cf . New York Times, re: Departments of Agriculture
and Interior settle disputes over recreation
areas. Freeman and Udall: "We have closed the
books on these disputes." President Kennedy
lauds agreement. February 2, 1963, p. 4, column 6.

14

Hartzog: Recreation and Resources Review Commission was
suggesting be done; they had just never been
financed to do it. And actually the National Park
Service did have much of the authority under the
1936 Park, Parkway and Recreation Area Study Act.
The nation-wide recreation planning that had been
done up to the time of the ORRRC had in fact been
done by the National Park Service. This new pub
lication, Parks for America, is part of this whole
planning program. There has been no secret about
the opposition of the Park Service, either during
the formulation of this recommendation by ORRRC or
after it was made, because they felt they could
do it. And I think an acknowledgment of the fact
that the authority existed, is the fact that when
the Secretary established the Bureau of Outdoor
Recreation, he established it on the basis of the
authority that then existed in the Department of
Interior to carry on these activities.

It s true that the organic act of the Bureau
greatly expanded the authority which had previously
existed, you see; and this is the organic act now
of the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation. But that came
later - oh, a year, a year and a half after the

15

Hartzog: Bureau was in existence. This is something that

I also think careful research can develop and fill
out the details on.

Fry: Well, before you leave this, the question has been
raised in previous interviews about whether ORRRC
was dominated more by the Forest Service, which
was not to the interest of the Park Service.

Hartzog: Well, during this whole time, I was in the field,
and as I mentioned to you walking up here, this
is one of the reasons why for the first year I
have been in Washington I have spent most of my
time in the field trying to get reacquainted with
the broad programs of the Service, because when
you re in these field areas you hear a lot of stuff,
but you don t know what is going on in any precise
factual manner; you get what we in the Park
Service call the grapevine, you know. I ve heard
this same rumor, but I have no basis for forming a
judgment one way or the other. And as a matter of
fact, when I arrived on the scene in Washington, the
whole issue had been resolved. And I spent my time
trying to establish a rapport and working relationship
with the new Bureau, which I felt to be in the interest
of just good government management of the people s

16

Hartzog: business. So I have very frankly never made any
effort to ascertain whether the Forest Service
influence on ORRRC is true or false, because it s
history; it either is a fact or isn t a fact. I
don t think that it is germane to my relationship
with the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation, and therefore,
I had a lot of other things I have been busier trying
to get done.

Fry: You had a job handed to you with that as past
history.

Hartzog: That s right, so I think that within the past two

and one-half years, we ve succeeded in establishing
a very favorable working climate with the Bureau of
Outdoor Recreation and with the Forest Service. It
has contributed to moving the program of the Park
Service; this is my area of responsibility, and this
is what I m primarily interested in, but I
likewise am sensitive to what is good management.
I think that for the good of all of our programs,
in particular for the good of my own, that it s
important that you have a working rapport with
these bureaus; and this is what I ve devoted my
efforts to, rather than trying to verify whether
this or that piece of scuttlebutt is a fact.

17

Fry: Is this a rapport between the top level directors?

Hartzog: It is.

Fry: And what role does Secretary Udall play in this? Or
is he above it all? - - no I don t think he s above
it all.

Hartzog: well ne f course, is actually the creator; I
think he is the moving spirit, really, in the im
provement of the relationship between the Department
of Interior and the Department of Agriculture. It
involves things beyond just my area of programming;
in answering your question I was talking particularly
about our own program in the Park Service . But he
is very sensitive to the need to work with people
in the cooperative context.

It was this initiative between him and
Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman which I
think laid the basis, and was certainly the motivating
factor in my own efforts to try to improve the climate
of our working relationship. For example at one time
I understand that there were very fine working
relationships between the Park Service and the
Forest Service. This involved getting the top level
people in the bureaus together. We have reinstituted
this practice. We have dinner sessions with the top

18

Hartzog: management of the Forest Service; we have joint

regional directors meetings with them, and we have
also had a joint regional directors meeting with the
Urban Renewal Administration, because of my belief
that parks are a catalyst for the enhancement of
people s own daily lives in these metropolitan
areas. The Secretary believes this very deeply as
his own speeches indicate; the President believes
this; this is an administration program. So I
think the rapport not only exists at the top
between BOR Director Ed Crafts and Forest Service
Chief Ed Cliff and myself, I think it exists at
the lower echelons of our organizations.

Certainly you have disappointments, I mean
you have misunderstandings which arise down in the
working levels of the organization. You wonder how
they happen, but they happen. This is working with
people again; that is really what it boils down to.
Fry: You have all the support --maybe I should even use
the word "pressure" that you need from the top,
including the President, to bring the two together
at this point?

Hartzog: Yes, that s right. And the Secretary is thoroughly
committed to this, so this is no fragmentary effort

19

Hartzog: on my part. It is a concerted departmental effort,
I think. And I think, really, it is a movement of
government generally to arrive at improvement in
management. This is a stated objective of our President
right now.

20

PARK PROTECTION AND THE PUBLIC

Fry: Do you think that the parks are more secure in

being the agency for protection of areas than they
have been?

Hartzog: Oh, I definitely think so. I think that every day
that passes, the parks are more secure than they
were the day before; because I think there is an
increasing awareness, an appreciation on the part
of the people today for parks, such that the battles
that the early directors of the Park Service went
through no longer face me. Then it was a question
of wanting to, in effect, raid the parks of their
natural resources. This is not the question now.
The big argument that we are having today is,
"Now, how much of this are you going to let people
use?" You read Steve Mather s works for example;
he was going around trying to get railroads to
advertise parks and taking tours out of his own money
just to get people to go, to know that parks existed,
you see. Today the real crux of the fight is not
people who want to take parks away, but people who
want to use parks more. I think the concept of parks
is more secure today than it has ever been.

21

Fry: What do you see then, as the major threats to parks
now? The population increase, I guess, is one.
Newton Drury has mentioned the hydroelectric
power interests, and the mining interests, and
loggers have always been a part of it. Is this
changing now?

Hartzog: Well, they always have been a part of it, certainly,
and there is mining still authorized in some few
parks. But I think that the dramatic evidence of
what I am saying to you is the fact that while the
Executive Department endorsed the Canyonlands
National Park last year with a phase -out of mining,
the Congress struck it down completely. So that
for the very first time that I can recall offhand,
they just chopped it right off at the pockets.
Fry: Congress had mining stopped immediately, you mean?

Hartzog: Absolutely. And this was done by the Congress
itself. So I think this has laid to rest the
person who wants to raid a park for mining. But
we still have on the books , mining for some of
these parksDeath Valley, Glacier Bay, and Mount
McKinley. We are going to have to face up to those,
and I am sure that when we do, we are going to have
a fight. I mean - don t misunderstand me - the
matter of getting rid of these adverse uses that

22

Hartzog: are now authorized always involves a fight. There
is nothing easy about this. I don t think it
should ever get real easy; if it does, I don t
think the American public will appreciate their
parks. I think we always have to be on the leading
edge of concern, in order to really have a sense
of appreciation. If you re not alert to it and
aware of it, you are not very often appreciative
of it.

Fry: As Congress is constituted in this year, it seems
to me that you might have more luck in getting
legislation like this through now than at any other
time.

Hartzog: There is no question about it.

Fry: So is this a part of your job too?

Hartzog: That s right, and I think that as we study the

parks from the standpoint of the Wilderness Act,
that these will be questions that will be resolved.
Because you see, under the Wilderness Act, we have
to examine these areas in the parks and prepare
reports to the Secretary, and he, in turn, reports
to the President and the Congress on areas that
ousht to be included in the Wilderness Preservation
System. When these things come up, I m sure that

23

Hartzog: these questions of mining are going to be involved,
and they are going to be resolved. Either the
Congress is going to say it s all right to continue,
or they are going to say stop it. I m optimistic
that with the tremendous surge of interest in parks,
Congress is going to say, "Stop it," insofar as
the parks are concerned . I think there is a real
promise and hope for this.
Fry: This brings up the question of how the national

parks operate in relation to the Hill and getting
legislation through. Maybe a good way to describe
this, would be to take one example and tell us
of your efforts, how you operate both in gathering
public support and in working directly with the
Congress. Would the wilderness bill be a good
example?

Hartzog: No, I didn t have too much experience with the
Wilderness Act. I think that it would probably
be more relevant for your purposes to talk about
a piece of park legislation. But I d like to talk
just another moment, if I may, about the import of
of the question you asked earlier as to what is the
impact of the adverse influences so to speak, that
threatens parks today. Is it people, or is it miners
and dams ?

24

Hartzog: You are always going to have this issue of dams,
as long as you have free-flowing streams, you know;
somebody wants to get hydroelectric power or some
other thing out of it. I think the Secretary really
put this in perspective, and the President has too,
from the standpoint that this really involves a
challenge of a balance in all these things , and I
think the balance has been pretty well established
now that they are not going to have these things
in the parks. Now I am aware of the Bridge Canyon
decision of the Secretary, and this may impinge
on the Grand Canyon National Park.

But I think that one of the things that we
really have to think about in terms of park manage
ment, is something which historically the Park
Service and the conservationists have shied away
from, and that is this question of funiculars and
tramways and railroads and other modes of trans
portation for the movement of people in parks.
Historically, we have been bound to roads and
trails. If you want the visiting public to go
someplace, you build a road, if you want them to
drive there; and if you want them to walk there
you build a trail. We find now in many places,
that you ve got to build two trails. You ve

25

Hartzog: got to build one for those that want to ride on a

horse and another for those who want to walk, because
if you get too many horses and too many people,
then it is just like cows and people in picnic areas
they just don t go together.

Well, there are many places it seems to me
that we have gotten confused in our thinking about
what these mechanical devices really do. They can
be used for entertainment that is irrelevant to
the purpose of the park, and for this reason we
have said, "No, we don t want them." You know,
there has been proposal after proposal for a tram
way from the rim to the bottom of Grand Canyon,
"purely a thrill ride." But these also serve a
very utilitarian purpose of moving large quantities
of people. In Europe and in other places they have
done a marvelous job of developing the utilitarian
aspects of these devices and saving their landscapes.
It seems to me that we are going to have to face up
to this question, and I mentioned this at the
Wilderness Conference yesterday. I think it is not
too early that we do some thinking about this tradition
al opposition to mechanical lifts and funiculars and
railroads in the National Parks because I think that

26

Hartzog: these, perhaps, in many instances can be the greatest
conservation devices that we have in national parks.
I do not believe that you are going to be able to
lock the gates on national parks. You can close
the campground when it is full, but just to tell
the American public, who own these parks, that they
can t come in -- I don t think that this is something
that is in the realm of possibility at this time.
Fry: You are a lawyer. Would locking the gates be acting
against the original Antiquities Act, maybe?

Hartzog: Oh, yes. I feel this way about it, I don t think

that we ought to seriously consider any such things
as this.

I think that there are areas which ought to be
developed, and there are areas which ought not to be
developed. I think that there are areas which have
a capacity; and when that capacity is reached, then
you ought not to have any greater capacity there,
because you endanger the very values that merit the
development or the protection of this area in the
first place. But this you can do through mass
movements of people a lot easier, and a lot more
effectively and efficiently, it seems to me, than
you can by horseback or by automobiles or by roads,

27

Hartzog: which has been the historical way of doing it.

Fry: Because it is more highly controlled when the trans
portation is handled by the Park.

Hartzog: That s right; I mean, for example, you ve got high
mountain chalets, let s assume. You know what the
capacity is; you know what the trail heads accommodate;
you know how many campgrounds you ve got up there.
So if you have a tramway, and that is the way that
you get people up there, you ve got a funicular and
that is the way you get people up there; then when
you have got the limit in the capacity up there,
you cut off the power and go home, and that is all
that you ve got up there. But if you are going to
build a road up there, you haven t got as much
control. They are going to get there; and when they
get there, they are going to spend the night. We have
this happen at place after place in the parks. People
will be using it to two or three or four times its
capacity; it s because they got there and they are
just not going to leave, that s all. I ve been out
in the field, and I know what these boys are up against.
You get a person who has driven five or six hundred
miles to get there, his wife is tired, his children
are hungry, and you tell him to pull out. You are

28

Hartzog; going to get a lot of conversation.

Fry: This could come up in Congressional hearings.

Hartzog: Yes, it sure could.

Fry: Do you think that this might be used in a place

like Yosemite to move campers to higher campgrounds,
so that you can put your campgrounds in less
scenic places?

Hartzog: Well, I think this is something that we have to
study very carefully; this is the kind of thing
that it seems to me that we have to talk about.
One of the places that I do know, because I was
stationed there, is the Smokies. In several places
in the Great Smoky Mountains, for example, there
are old log beds where the railroad trains you
know, logging trains used to go up to haul their
timber out. You could lay down tracks on those
today without any serious damage to the landscape
and move quantities of people. Now, we ve got
to move people around in the Great Smoky Mountains
National Park because the visitation there has
reached the point where you are going to have to
face up to this issue. We have had a master plan
team in there, and they have been studying it, and
they have made some recommendations that we have got

29

Hartzog: to face up to how we are going to move people
in the Great Smokies, because traffic backs up
seven miles on that one road through the park.
You just can t continue to protect the park with
that kind of a situation.
Fry: Apparently the population from all the Eastern

seaboard cities funnels into that park on that one
road on weekends.

Hartzog: Why sure it does. I don t think that this is a lot
different than what the President has been talking
about, that is, that he wants a 100-mile-per-hour
railroad train between Washington and Boston. This
is where you have got great concentrations of people,
and you are going to have to move them.

Highway engineers are projecting statistics
today, that if they really told you how wide they
would have to build that road to accommodate the
expected numbers of automobiles, it would literally
shock people out of their chairs. I mean, there are
some of these statistics and projections which in
dicate that roads which we are building right now
that are eight lanes, on the very day that they are
finished they will be inadequate. Well, now how much
wider are you going to build these, and how many more

30

Hartzog: of these are you going to build? You can t build

these up to a National Park and all the way around
it, and then say, "We are just going to have one road
through the park." Still everybody has to come in
an automobile.

So this is why I think that all of us have to
do some constructive thinking about how we are going
to cope with this problem of taking care of people
in a park because everybody isn t going to walk in.
Particularly in an area the size of Yellowstone, for
example, two million acres.

Fry: The parks at present are not used by an across-
the-board sampling of the public I understand.
They are used by people usually in the higher in
comes and in the higher education levels too, I
think. I wondered if you knew of any change in the
park-use profile.

Hartzog: Well, I was very much interested in the observation
that was made at the Wilderness Conference yesterday
on this point. But again, I think that we get con
fused about parks and about what are parks , and
what kind of areas does the National Park Service
manage? The natural parks of the West are largely
used by people who can afford an automobile to drive
there. And there are lots of people in this country

31

Hartzog: who still don t have automobiles who can drive there.
If you are talking about the parks we manage in
metropolitan Washington and Philadelphia, they are
used by people who don t have automobiles to drive
to Yellowstone. So if you count all of them and
compare them with those in Yellowstone, I am not
sure that we don t have a pretty well-rounded profile
now of people using the parks, you see?

But this is how people look at the Park Service
as being in the business of managing the large areas
of western parks , and then they overlook the eastern
parks and particularly the metropolitan parks which
do get very heavy use from a large and wide range of
economical and educational levels. It is a different
kind of use; it is purely and simply a desire to get
outside and get on some green grass and relax and
play ball and that kind of thing -- as opposed to
taking a hike through the mountains .

Fry: Well, another change that I was thinking about in park
use was that there has been a rise in the problem of
vandalism, so that perhaps the duties of the ranger
on the ground are changing somewhat.* Do you find
that this is true?

*c-f. New York Times , William M. IJiair series on national
parks; Rise in crime and park ranger s policing
task, March 26, 1964, p. 24, col. 3.

32

Hartzog: Yes, I think that this is true. I think that our

rangers are facing more and more the responsibilities
of a law enforcement officer. And for the first time,
this summer we are going to employ seasonally some
actual policemen. Of course all of our rangers in
uniform are policemen, and they have law enforcement
authority. I mean people who are trained in police
work--to put in some of the larger parks.

An interesting thing happens, I think, when we
think of Yosemite, for example, as a great wilderness
park, which it is, but Yosemite Valley is a great
metropolitan area in the summertime. So you have got
all of the problems that you have in a metropolitan
environment anywhere else in the United States in
Yosemite Valley in the summertime. This then
involves someone who understands and knows the
profession of police. We don t train our rangers
in this kind of depth in law enforcement, So we
are going to get professionally trained police officers
in some of these situations.

33

REORGANIZATION OF PROGRAMS

Fry: You mentioned that you have your planning staff working
on the Great Smoky Mountains problem, and I wanted to
ask you if there has been any difference in your re
search arm since you took over?*

Hartzog: Yes, we are reorganized. Well, following the Yosemite
Conference of 1963 Connie Wirth was still there, but
we were reorganizing it on the basis of the plan that
had been agreed to. The research activity was pulled
out of the operating divisions of history, natural
history, and ranger activities, and it was centered
in an assistant director for resource studies.

It has not gotten off to as good a start as I
had hoped it would. There have been some organizational
problems. But I think this is the preferable solution
to handling research. This does not mean that we re
not going to have some of our operating people doing
research, but if they do it, from now on they are going
to do it under a coordinated, organized plan of re
search where you know you are getting your money s
worth. You get a report, you get some recommendations,

*cf. New York Times, re: charges by National
Academy of Sciences that the National Park Service has
not developed a research program to meet its operational
needs, October 19, 1963, p. 6.

34

Hartzog: and you can apply it to a problem. Furthermore, we are
going to have the problems identified as to which we are
going to select for research, rather than just letting some
person research because he likes to do it.
Fry: You ll arrive at this from a definition of problems?

Hartzog: Right.

Fry: What about reorganization of the whole service?

Hartzog: Well, there were several things that we tried to do in the

reorganization, and it is still under-going adjustment. This
was one of them, getting this research out. Secondly, was to
strengthen the whole interpretive program. I think our inter
pretation had slipped in many places; we had kind of gotten
stereotyped in our presentation of visuals and this kind of
thing. So we have reoriented and reorganized our interpre
tative staff at the Washington level, including our museum
laboratories.

Fry: I wanted to ask you if in your reorganization you have a
special department to look at this problem of parks and
recreation in urban environments.

Hartzog: No, we don t, and this is one thing that we have been talk
ing about very seriously, as to whether or not we shouldn t
have some strong executive leadership at the Washington
level for our urban park program. So far we have felt that
so much has been done in the last year and a half, that maybe
we ought to let the organization set awhile, you know. It s

35

Hartzog: getting to be a big outfit, and communications are getting
difficult because from the time you make a decision and the
people start hearing about it, until they are finally able
to read about it, is a long lag in a big organization. The
result is, you are always confronted with rumors, and these
are disquieting things to the morale of an organization. So
we have decided that we are just going to leave this one alone
for awhile. But this is something that we ve got to face up
to, in my judgment, and strengthen very definitely.

36

RESOURCE MANAGEMENT: REORGANIZATION AND POLICY REVISIONS

Hartzog: The other thing is that the Secretary s Advisory Board on

Wildlife Management,* which was chaired by Starker Leopold,
made some very keen insights into the wildlife management
problems of the Service; and then over and above this, made
some suggestions with respect to the broader aspects of
management, pointing out, for example, that many of the prob
lems that we have in a park cannot be solved in the park. In
other words, parks are not in a vacuum. Everything that
happens outside affects what happens inside, and what happens
inside has a relationship to what goes on outside. So we
have reorganized the resources management program of the Park
Service to try to recognize this and develop some real manage
ment programs for resources that are in the system.

This involves also a recognition of the fact that all
areas in the park system are not alike. Historically, we
have just had one set of policies for everything, whether
it was a park or recreation area or historical area. I think
one of the classic examples is a policy which said that in
the National Parks there will be no grazing, and yet in his
torical areas, we encourage pasturage.

This kind of dichotomy left a lot of confusion about

*cf. New York Times, re: Secretary Udall presenting
award to National Park Advisory Board on Wildlife Management
for its study of controversial wildlife policies, April 16,
1964, p. 61, col. 4.

37

Hartzog: just where we were and what our policies were. When you

review the legislative history of the National Park System,
it is very clear and the Secretary recognized this in his
memorandum of July 10, 1964 on the management of the National
Park System that the Congress has very clearly placed in this
system three kinds of areas: there are natural areas, which
are preserves for the natural values that are there, scenic,
scientific, whatever; and there are historical areas, areas
which are devoted primarily to the preservation of some
great moment or event of history; and then there are areas
which are set aside for recreation, for pursuits of the
people this is what it says they are for. These things
require that they be managed differently, if you are going
to protect the resources that are there and if you are
really going to do a creative management job. This is what
we are now trying to do in our resources management . We
have a revised statement of policies now for each of these
catagories, which is undergoing review. We are revising
the regulations, and we are going to have three sets of
regulations for each of these catagories or areas.
Fry: Can you define what change has taken place in wildlife
management?

Hartzog: Yes. I m very happy you brought me back to that, because
there is some very significant thinking here. In the con
text of the natural areas, it is the clear intent of the

38

Hartzog: Congress that the wildlife should be protected as much as
the trees or the vegetation that s there. Therefore, it s
not available for public sport hunting. Such control of
wildlife population as is necessary we are working out
through special hunting seasons with the states outside
park boundaries; and where this doesn t work, we allow
trapping inside the parks; and shipping; and where this
doesn t work, we have direct reduction by ranger personnel.
But these are not the same guide lines that need to be
followed in recreation areas, where hunting is a completely
compatible recreational pursuit. Public hunting is recrea
tion. It s recreation to those who engage in it. It may
not be for you or me, or somebody else who may be a non-
hunter; but for a hunter, hunting is recreation. And
recreation is what the area was set aside for, and there
fore that s one of the activities that we are going to permit
as compatible with all the others, you see.

We are also working with the states in the context that
the state will establish the bag limits and the seasons and
cooperate with us in the encouragement of habitat and so
forth to propagate the species.

Fry: Now it is not clear to me whether you are talking about the
new national recreation areas.

Hartzog: Right, the national recreation areas. These are the lake
shores, the riverways, the reservoir areas. . . .

39

Fry: Not the Yosemite Valley. [laughter]

Hartzog: Not Yosemite Valley; that is a natural area. One thing

that is going to clear up a lot of things for a lot of people,
is that we are getting a publication out now in which all of
the areas of the system are going to be rearranged in the
three categories. The policies are going to be rearranged
in three categories; the regulations are going to be rear
ranged. So that when you say, "What is your policy?" we are
going to have to ask you, "Our policy for what?" you see.
It is just not going to be, "This is our policy, and we have
three or four exceptions to it down here because these are
different kinds of areas." There is going to be our policy
for natural areas, and our policy for historical areas, and
our policy for recreational areas.

Fry: Who else will be administering recreation areas? [laughter]
I ve heard horrendous references to as many as twenty govern
ment agencies .

Hartzog: Well, I ve heard this; I ve never counted them. I don t

really know precisely, but I know there are a great many of
them. The Corps of Engineers manages recreation areas; the
Forest Service manages them; the Fish and Wildlife Service
manages them; the Park Service manages them. So far, we are
managing the recreation for the Bureau of Reclamation on their
projects. We are working with the Bureau of Land Management
now on trying to develop a program of cooperation by which

40

Hartzog: we will manage the recreation on the public domain lands

which they manage. They in turn, will assist us in various
aspects of our program, such as forestry and game management
in which they are proficient. This is still evolving. It
hasn t evolved yet.

Fry: Are you able to comment on any difference in acquisition
policy?

Hartzog: The acquisition policy is different too. In national re
creation areas, we have recognized that it is an accepted
practice that you do not have to own all the land in an area
in order to provide optimum recreation, providing that the
private land that is left there is utilized compatibly with
the recreation objectives of the area. This is to say that
it is perfectly all right for a person to have a summer home
in a recreation area and own it, so long as he keeps it a
summer home. But we don t want it turned into a honky tonk,
you see. So that, where the local municipality or county
will zone the land compatible with the recreation objectives,
our policy in recreation areas is that we don t have to own
all the land in fee. We will buy scenic easements; we will
accept zoning. For those lands which we have to develop, of
course, legally we have to own the fee, so we have to ac
quire the fee.

Our objective in national parks that is, national
parks now still remains trying to acquire all of the land

41

Hartzog: in the park, because this is for the preservation of an

ecological environment. When you have unplanned interference
with this ecological environment, you jeopardize the main
tenance of the environment throughout the whole area. There
fore, we have not changed the policy with respect to trying
to acquire all the in-holdings in the national parks. In
the historical areas, we are now evaluating this policy, and
I think that we are going to propose to the Secretary a
change in the policy in the historical areas, to the end that
we are not going to have to buy all the land in historical
areas, on the same premises that I outlined for recreation
areas.

Fry: I guess there has been more acceptance, too, of private
preservation agencies sometimes handling part of your
historical monuments.

Hartzog: Well, this has always been a part of the program. We

haven t done too much in pushing it, but the Historic Sites
Act of 1935 has always authorized the Secretary to cooperate
with private and quasi-public organizations in historic
preservation.
Fry: Has there been much change in the responsibility delegated

to the field as opposed to that held in the Washington office?

Hartzog: That is another thing we tried to do: clarify our own think
ing about the kind of organization we have. We have a field
superintendent; we have a regional office, and we have a

42

Hartzog: Washington office. Frequently, we get mixed up as to where
policy is made and what procedures are applied, and a matter
goes all the way from the field to Washington that could have
just as easily been answered in the field, if Washington had
established a policy to guide the field. So we have tried
to clarify the roles of these three echelons of management.
In doing so, we say that the Washington office is the
policy-making arm of the Service, which it is. It s respon
sible for procedures, responsible for leadership and pro
gramming and budgeting, which get to the essence of how
this program is going to operate; it s responsible for
legislation and for the relationships with the Department
and its other bureaus at a policy level in Washington.

The regional office is the core of our management,
and it is the regional director and his staff to whom we
look for improvement in the quality of management and the
quality of improvement of public service to the visitors
who come to these areas.

Fry: Is this an increase in the delegation of duties to the
regional office?

Hartzog: Not actually. They had the duties; it s a clarification
of them, this is really what it boils down to. They have
always had this responsibility. This is what they re
supposed to have been doing, but there has been confusion
about whether they have been doing it or not.

43

Fry: Before this, then, there was more centralization than was

necessary?

Hartzog: I think so. The superintendent on the grounds is responsible
for running the program. We want to give him as much flexi
bility as we can, so that he can be as creative as possible,
rather than putting him in a straight jacket, though we have
to establish some broad guide lines out here, so that he
knows when he is getting out of the ball park. And as long
as he stays in the ball park, then we can recognize the
individual ability of a person to improve in the quality
of his performance through his own creativity and that of
his staff. This makes for a harder job and it makes for a
greater challenge for the person, because nobody is holding
his hand and telling him every day what he has to do. It
is giving him an opportunity to use his head. I think that
it is going to work; we are encouraged by the response that
we have had so far. Now we have a study underway in the
regional offices to determine what kind of regional organi
zation we should have in the Park Service. This study has
not been finished yet.

Fry: I was talking about this with Mr. Charles Stoddard, head

of the Bureau of Land Management yesterday, and he said that
they were reorganizing with more emphasis on program; he
thought this was rather typical of a lot of reorganization
going on these days. Would you say that some of your

44

Fry: reorganization also puts more emphasis on programs up and

down the administrative line so that the horizontal echelon
becomes a little less important? Is that accurate?
Hartzog: Yes. Right.

45

CONGRESSIONAL RELATIONS

Procedures

Fry: Well, now I would like to take you back to what we started
to talk about in relation to Congress.

Hartzog: O.K. Well, normally what happens is that we have a National
Park System planning organization, whose job is to think
about what the National Park System should be in the future.
Fry: This is within your office?

Hartzog: This is within our office and in the regional offices. They
go out now and take a look at "X" area, and their preliminary
reconnaisance indicates that it is of park quality and worthy
of acquisition. So they put it on a study list. This
study list comes to me, and if I agree I approve it. This
constitutes a study project. They then go out and make what
we call a professional study report.

Now heretofore it has been our practice that when this
professional study report was made, it went to the Secretary s
Advisory Board on National Parks, Historic Sites and Buildings.
If they agreed with it, it went to the Secretary with a recom
mendation. He issued that as a departmental report, and that
became the report, you see.

We ve changed that; we now issue that professional
study report as a professional study report. We analyze the
resource, what its potentialities are, what the alternatives

46

Hartzog: might be for its preservation. Then we make that public

and invite the public to comment on it. If the interest is
sufficient, we go into the community and meet with the
people and talk with them about it.

On the basis of all these comments, we then prepare a
final report, which goes to the Advisory Board, and from the
Advisory Board, with its recommendation, to the Secretary.
If he agrees, he approves it. This then becomes the final
study report.

Usually at this point, or maybe a little before depend
ing on how much public acceptance there may be for it a bill
or several bills are introduced into Congress. If you ve
got an area with wide public acceptance, you are just that
much ahead, because then the local Congressman and the local
delegation are usually pushing it.

If you have a bill for which there is a lot of local
opposition, then the people who are interested have to take
the burden of trying to work out these problems with the
local people to the point where you do get the local Con
gressman interested. Seldom, if ever, do you succeed in any
legislation which the local Congressman opposes. If he is
opposed, you are not going very far with a piece of legis
lation as a general rule. So the beginning of the legislative
process is to try to get the local Congressman a proposition
which he can support. And also your two Senators if your

47

Hartzog: two Senators are opposed, conversely, you are not going
anywhere.

Of course, you can understand and this is inherent
in our system of government, it was intended to be this
way the local Congressman has a smaller constituency than
the two Senators, so that people from all over the state
are writing to the Senators. You may have intense opposition
in a little pocket down here in this district, but in their
total picture, it may not be too meaningful. However, to the
Congressman it may be quite sensitive, and therefore you
sometimes have a bill move for you in the Senate when it
doesn t move for you in the House because you still have a
local problem in this district that you have to work out.

We find that it is very helpful if the people who are
interested in the proposal form a local organization and use
this as a forum for providing information and working with
the people informing them of what is in it. Now a great
deal has been accomplished, 1 think, in this change of
procedure alone.

This grew out of my own experience when I was in
Missouri, because when I was there in addition to my job
in St. Louis I was the coordinator for all Park Service
activities in the state of Missouri. One of my jobs was
the proposed Ozark National Scenic Riverways, and we had
issued a report which said, "This is going to be it, and
it is going to be a National Monument." Well, we ran

48

Hartzog: into a real storm of opposition. It took a couple of years
to get this thing smoothed out, cleared away, and the local
Congressman really interested. One of the Congressmen we
never did persuade, and therefore, when the area was finally
established, we had to leave out the counties that were in
his district in order to get it established.

1 was convinced from that experience that many people
could have been persuaded to have gone along with this pro
posal, had they understood what it was about in the first
place and had had an opportunity to participate in the
making of the proposal. So this is why we have changed this
procedure with the approval of the Secretary to issue a
preliminary report, and it is working very well.
Fry: Quite frankly, there is one resource agency that has

developed a very complicated and effective system, through
its regional offices, of developing a great deal of public
support when it needs it for a measure going through Con
gress. Is this what the parks can do under the new system?

Hartzog: Well, one of the advantages, I think, of this preliminary
report is that before a hard position is taken by the op
position, as well as by the proponents, they have an oppor
tunity to sit down and explore what the values are and what
the alternatives are for dealing with it.

49

Redwood Park Example

Hartzog: I think that the redwoods, for example, are a perfect

illustration of what 1 am talking about. This was the first
professional report that we issued on this basis, and when
we issued it, as you know, there was an immediate storm of
reaction. There were an awful lot of people, including some
of the major groups, who said no national park was needed.
Fry: You mean the major lumber groups?

Hartzog: Yes. And, well, not only that, but some of the Chambers

of Commerce and others were against it.

Fry: You had the Save the Redwoods League as an example of one
of these local groups to work through, in the community?

Hartzog: No, there was no local group up there in that country at
that particular time that I was aware of. The Redwoods
League had somebody up there, but he was an individual and
not a group.

I think the Sierra Club had some people up there or an
individual up there; at least, that is what I have heard.
I don t know it for a fact. But, so far as I know, there
was no park support organization up there. In addition to
which, as I understand, there were several of the Chambers
of Commerce who were opposed to a national park.

The point is that there was no consensus that there
was a need for a national park when that report came out.
Now, we gave them I think ninety days to make comments,

50

Hartzog: and that time has long since expired. But in the meantime,
we have been continuing to receive comments and evaluate
them. So far as I know now, the industry has finally said
a national park is a desirable thing. The American Forestry
Association has said a national park is a desirable thing.
Every responsible organization that I am aware of maybe I ve
left out some that I don t know about but all of them that
I know of that reacted violently contrary to it at the outset
have now accepted the fact that a national park is a desirable
thing. So this is what I am talking about as the benefit of
this professional report being out, and giving the people
an opportunity to talk about it, and to contribute to the
thought process in making a final report.

Now, I will admit that there are an awful lot of dif
ferences over the details of what this national park ought
to be, but the interesting thing is that the central issue
is whether there should be a national park, and on this now,
as far as I know, now there is unanimity. Now you can pro
ceed to fill out the details, and I am sure that you are
going to fight over the details. You are never going to have
anything that goes through with everybody in support of it.
I don t believe that you can achieve this, but I do think
that this professional report has achieved remarkable success,
that is, that all of the organizations are now in agreement
that there should be a national park.

51

Committees and Congressmen

Fry: Yes.

In your work with Congress, do you work primarily
just with the House Interior and Insular Committee, and the
Senate Interior and Insular Committee and subcommittees?

Hartzog: Right. And then of course, two appropriation committees for
the implementation of the program. This involves briefing,
of course, talking with the local delegations. It involves
visiting with the members of the subcommittee; it involves
testifying and having your maps there.

I think the central thing that I learned and believe
me, I am still a novice in this business of legislative
process is the fact that if you do your homework, when
you get to the hearing you re usually in pretty good shape.
If you haven t done your homework, you are oftentimes in
trouble.
Fry: How do you have your staff organized for this?

Hartzog: Well, this is one of the activities that we have totally

reorganized in the Park Service, our legislative organization.
So today when a legislative proposal goes to the Hill, and we
go up to testify, we generally have the homework done. We
have the professional man who made the study; we have the land
man who set the values, and either I am there, or I have an
assistant director who is there, who can resolve and answer
the policy questions that are involved on it.

52

Fry: Would you like to mention now some of the main Congressmen

who are receptive in helping park legislation?

Hartzog: Well, I think we have a wide range of Congressmen and Sena
tors who are interested and effective in park legislation.
I don t think it was any I think that it was an absolute fact
when the President remarked that the 88th Congress would go
down in history as the "conservation Congress." As we talked
about it earlier, the question of parks has become highly
popular. I was very much amused yesterday at the Wilderness
Conference of the Sierra Club I don t know whether you heard
it or not when one of these speakers said that he thought
that the pork barrel was going to become now the park barrel.
That is, everybody wants a park in his district. I think that
this has a lot more truth to it than we are really aware of at
the moment, because there is a tremendous amount of support
for parks in the Congress.

Of course, the people who are most directly involved are
the Congressmen and the two Senators who have a particular
park under consideration at the moment, and then also your
subcommittee. And our subcommittee is chaired by Ralph Rivers
of Alaska, and the ranking majority member on it is Wayne
Aspinall, ex-officio member of the subcommittee and the chair
man of the full committee. The ranking minority member is
John Saylor of Pennsylvania. You can just go right down the
aisle on both sides, Republicans and Democrats, and every one

53

Hartzog: of them are for parks.
Fry: They are.

Hartzog: Yes, they really are. I don t know any of them that you

can t say is a real friend of the parks on that subcommittee.

Now in our subcommittee in the Senate, the chairman is
Senator A. H. Bible. The chairman of the full committee is
Senator H. M. Jackson. We have tremendous support out of
this committee. There are times of course, when Senator
M. L. Simpson raises some questions about some of our poli
cies. Senator B. E. Jordan of Idaho has raised some ques
tions about some of them. I think the questions that they

have raised have considerable merit, and I think that we
have met some of the questions that have been in their minds.
I know that Senator Simpson has had a long history of op
position to the program in the Grand Teton National Park and
to some of the practices and policies in Yellowstone Na
tional Park. But I have found him to be extremely helpful
in our park program, extremely helpful. And deeply inter
ested. I have indeed, and he has taken some very strong
positions on some of our areas, particularly in the East,
in pushing and supporting them.

Fry: Are you saying that this is a change in him?
Hartzog: I don t know whether it is a change in him, because I

never knew him before; I am just telling you what the facts
are as I find them. As a matter of fact, the Great Falls

54

Hartzog: area there in Washington is an area in which any number of
times he has told me he is deeply interested in. I think
that he is becoming convinced, as are a great many people,
of the tremendous need for parks in the East. I think this
is really about where you may find the cleavage. The only
experience that I had with him that was different than this
was involving the hearing on the Oregon Dunes. You see, this
is a Western area, and he was a little bit sharp in his com
ments about us there, so this could be maybe an explanation
for it. 1 don t know what the explanation is, but this is
the way we find him.
Fry: Tell us about Senator Clinton Anderson of New Mexico.

Hartzog: Well, he is the great statesman, and the great stalwart of
all of this conservation, a great man in the Congress on
our committee. Sure, you can t overlook him. This is the
hazard of naming names in any of this business. You can t
name them all, and you overlook somebody and then the ques
tion arises, "Well, why did you overlook him?" Well, you
overlooked him because you forgot him at the moment. "But
Senator H. M. Jackson, Senator C. P. Anderson, Lee Metcalf,
Senator F. F. Church, Ted Moss of Utah, you name any of
them, they are there.
Fry: Am I keeping you past your deadline? It s twenty til five.

Hartzog: No.

55

FINANCING THE PARKS

Fry: I want to ask you about the financial picture of the parks.
You have just started the automobile admissions sticker for
the Land and Water Fund.* Perhaps you can start right at the
beginning of your career in Washington and bring us up to date
on appropriations.

Hartzog: Well, I think parks are, of course, better financed now than
they have ever been. I think this, that a great deal of the
credit for this is due to Connie Wirth and the Mission 66
Program, the long range plan of the National Parks in which
he dramatized the lack of maintenance and so forth. But I
think with the tremendous increase in visitation too, that
we are faced with the continuing problem that you are always
going to have, the gap between what would be ideally avail
able and what we have. For instance, right here in Muir
Woods this trail ought to be paved all the way down, parti
cularly through those wet soggy portions as we were walking
down there, you see? I can imagine that, they are wet and
soggy right now and that they re a dust pile in the summer
time. So you are always going to have that gap.

On the other hand, I think that the land acquisition
facet of our program is now in much better shape, with the

*cf. New York Times , re: Senate passage of $2 billion,
10-year Land and Water Conservation Fund, September 4, 1964,
p. 31, col. 1. Also re: Presidential order expected to set
fees, auto stickers, January 24, 1965, p. 64, col. 1.

56

Hartzog: Land and Water Conservation Fund, than it has ever been.

This has been the hardest money that we have ever tried to
get from the Congress: funds for land acquisition. Now with
the Land and Water Conservation Fund there is a regular sys-
temized funding for the purchase of land, and the Congress at
its will can appropriate from it. So I think our land ac
quisition picture looks much better than it has in years.

I think that our physical development program is still
going to be in good shape. I don t think it s ever going to
reach the Utopian state that I d like to see it, in order to
provide everything that I would like to have when I want it.
But I am encouraged by what s happening. Our budget that was
passed by the House this year was about $140,000,000, which
represents a rather significant increase over last year.
Fry: Do you think that maintenance is the most difficult area to
get appropriations for now?

Hartzog: I think maintenance and management are the most difficult.
You can dramatize a construction need for a camp ground,
but it is awfully hard to dramatize the fact that you need
somebody to pick up the trash that is in the campground,
until it gets real dirty. But when it gets real dirty, then
you have other kinds of problems besides just the problem of
trying to get the money to pick up the trash. Then you have
all the public relations implications of the dissatisfied
camper because his wife went in the bathhouse and it was

57

Hartzog: dirty or he went in and it was dirty or the children got
dirty and this kind of stuff. So the maintenance side of
it and the management side, the funding of these seasonal
people, is tough money to get. Yes, it is.
Fry: The parks really have a very broad constituency.

Hartzog: Yes, they do.

Fry: This shows up in some of the Congressional hearings, and

I wonder if you could just evaluate for me the feedback that
you get in congressional hearings on park management and
so forth.

Hartzog: Well, the interesting thing to me is that you have great

constituency and you have a great deal of interesting sup
port, but it usually reflects itself in getting the new area.
It generally doesn t reflect itself in spilling over to the
Appropriations Committee to follow through in getting the
money for the management of the area, unless you have a real
problem, such as you had there at Point Reyes with no en
trance road. When these people descended all over the private
land owners, then we really got some support, you see? But
until you get a dramatic situation like that, they just kind
of forget it after they get the park.

But that is just when the real hard work actually begins.
That was what the Undersecretary of Interior was talking
about yesterday with the Wilderness Act: the getting of the
legislation is the main tent; the implementing of it is the

58

Hartzog: kitchen tent, and this is where the real hot and dirty work

is. And the getting of this money to run these programs from
the Appropriations Committee is real tough work.
Fry: How do you use the conservation organizations in this or in
any kind of legislation? Is it easy to send out a call for
help?

Hartzog: No, it isn t, because you see by law we are prohibited from

lobbying for money, for programs and this kind of thing. But
the conservationists are certainly not prohibited from support
ing us. And I think that a great deal could be done by them
which they are not now doing in this area of improving the
quality of the management and maintenance of these parks.
They are dissatisfied with some of the trails; well, the best
way that I know to remedy that is in the emphasis in their
own organization and their own support of our budget requests.
Fry: I have the mental picture of ex-park officials and people
who have been very close to parks being in high positions
within these organizations, so that communication shouldn t
be too difficult.

Hartzog: No. It s not. It is not too difficult getting it out; the
problem that you have is in getting them to go personally
and testify before the congressional committee. A lot of
them are content to write a letter, and writing a letter is
fine it makes a record but I still believe that there is
nothing that beats personal contact, because as you sit there

59

Hartzog: in front of that committee and they have an opportunity to
ask you questions and evaluate what you are saying to them,
they can get a feel for whether this is really something or
whether you are just writing a letter because some person
said for you to write a letter. Therefore, I don t think
that just pounding out a letter is any substitute for asking
the committee for an opportunity to go sit down and talk
with them about it.

Fry: I guess there are problems with finances there too that come
up, transportation from the West to Washington, for instance.

Hartzog: Yes, I think this is part of it. Conservationists normally

don t have the same kind of money to keep people in Washington
for this purpose as trade organizations do.

Fry: Because this is going to be deposited as a manuscript in
Bancroft Library, I would like to ask you if you have any
observations to make particularly relevant to the manage
ment of California national parks.

Hartzog: No, I don t. I am going to try and spend some time out

here in these parks this summer just for that same purpose.
I haven t spent any time in them yet. I just went to Sequoia
National Park and stayed two days, and I was a week in
Yosemite. We have a master plan coming up on Sequoia, and
this is what I want to get into.

60

CONCESSIONS

Fry: My question on concessions is my last--because I don t want
to detain you and talk about this all night. What have you
seen in changes in the relation between the concessioners
and the federal government, and what changes in their role
in park management?

Hartzog: Well, of course, the changes have been dramatic. The con
cessions started off primarily catering to a clientele that
was very small, that arrived by railroad and wanted a very
deluxe type of service, and stayed many days and then left.

Today it s a highly mobile population, it wants one
night s lodging and it wants a very inexpensive meal; it
probably will be satisfied with a soda fountain, with
sandwiches youngsters want hamburgers. It s a wholly
different kind of travel. Some of the concessioners
have not responded to this change as rapidly as I believe
the need for it exists. As a result, some of them have
sold their properties, such as the Great Northern in
Glacier.

Congress is very much concerned about the way we
are managing concessions. As you know, they ve had hear
ings on this. We have now put the concessions on a per
centage of gross receipts. I think there s a keener appre
ciation of the necessity of good management on the side of
both the concessioners and us the government, I mean--

61

Hartzog: so that our management is being scrutinized more closely
and therefore it s got to be better management.

The concessioners are an extremely vital part of a
successful park operation. I ve said to them that they re
dynamic and creative partners in providing the proper
service for the visitors to the visitors parks because
these are the taxpayers parks. I believe that we have a
very good relationship with the concessioners. I think
the informal relationships that have existed in the past
have tended to become more formalized. I think there s
a greater emphasis on what the contract says and what the
contract requires. This can be good and it can be bad.
If it s allowed to become petty and acrimonious, it can
be bad. It s good if it helps both us and the concession
to have a better understanding of what is needed and who s
going to do it, in terms of what service and what quality
of service.
Fry: What s happened in the dilemma of the concessioner who

can operate only part of the year, and yet has to make his
margin of profit?

Hartzog: This is very difficult. It s unlike a public utility in
which you can say to the public, "You ve got to use this
one because this is the only one." In the national parks,
you may still say, "This is the only concession." But
they don t have to go there. And furthermore if the
weather s bad they usually won t go there.

62

Hartzog: So it puts him in a highly speculative kind of business,
so he has some very special kinds of problems. I think
that we re getting some better understanding of what these
problems are. And I think that when the Interior Committee
starts hearings on this concession bill that this picture
is going to become a great deal clearer than it is right
now. Because right now, it s been confused by the General
Accounting Office and by the Appropriations Committee and
by the Government Operations Committee. We just really are
in a confused policy state right now. This is why the bill
has been introduced: to put into statutory form the
existing concession policies.

Fry: I m not current on this. Has there been more of a trend
toward participation by the federal government? This
could take the form of more instances of federal ownership
of the physical plant of a concession, or outright. . . .

Hartzog: No, no, I wouldn t say there s been any trend. We ve had
to go in in some places, such as Isle Royale, and build
the buildings because there s just no way for private
enterprise to do it. But we remain very firmly fixed to
the policy that these facilities should be provided and
operated by private capital. I think this is the most
effective way of getting it done.
Fry: What about subsidies then, when there are difficulties?

Hartzog: One of the things that s going to be involved, it seems to

63

Hartzog: me (and this is one of the bills that s pending in the

Congress) is we re going to have to provide some kind of
financial guarantee of the concession loans, just as FHA
had to finally step in and do this in house financing because
it just got to the point where a property owner couldn t buy
a house. So FHA moved in and said, "We ll guarantee X per
cent of this loan." This therefore gave the prospective
homeowner a greater equity, down-payment, so to speak. Be
cause he not only had his own money, but in addition the
government is guaranteeing that much more. So then the lender
could lend him that much more. I think that we re headed in
this direction in concessions. We ve got to, it seems to me,
if you re going to insure the concessioner an adequate supply
of risk capital as well as a reasonable rate of interest at
which he can get this risk capital. Because it j a specula
tive business there just isn t that much profit in it. It s
profitable; I m not saying they are not profitable some of
these concessions make very good money. But it also has a
highly risky factor involved too. And operating under the
restrictions of a national park, not being able to go to the
extremes that they could go to if they were outside in order
to maximize the profit within the short range, I think we ve
got to move in some other directions to ease this financial
strain.
Fry: Has there been any change in length of contract?

64

Hartzog: Yes. The Congress recently authorized up to thirty years

instead of the traditional twenty years. But we only have,
I think, two of these thirty-year contracts. The term is not
the important thing. The thing the banker wants back is his
money, you see. He isn t interested in how long you keep
it; he s interested in whether he gets it back. So if he
isn t satisfied that he s going to get his money back, it
doesn t make any difference if he s got a fifty-year con
tract. What he wants is his money back with interest. He s
in the banking business.
Fry: I was thinking a longer-term contract might allow them to

invest their own capital with a little more feeling of security.

Hartzog: My gosh, it does. But if they don t have it in the first

place and I don t know any of them that have enough capital
to take it right out of their pockets and invest it they
usually have to borrow it.
Fry: When you were working on concessions way back in 1950, were

you involved in that study that went on under Secretary Krug?

Hartzog: Yes.

Fry: But then you didn t have anything to do with the instituting
of any results of that study.

Hartzog: No. I was just working there.

Fry: Could you just off-the-cuff give me some of the major dif
ferences of problems about concessions then and now?

Hartzog: Then of course, the question was whether the concessioner
actually even had a possessionary interest or any right to

65

Hartzog: be compensated for the improvements which he d made on

government property. This is really the thing that precipi
tated the whole dialogue. Then we got involved in the question
of how much return should a concessioner get, should he be on a
percentage of net profit? Should there be some limitation on
the amount of profits that he should make? Well, this is a
whole other day. [laughter]

Fry: It is getting late for you, and while I d like to talk to
you about the Secretaries of Interior, I guess we really
couldn t do them justice. Thank you for giving your after
noon for an interview.

Hartzog: This has been a pleasure, and I appreciate the opportunity
to sit down and discuss these things with you. Thank you.

APPENDIX A

This Land

By Harold CUIiam

TTHE MAN with the most
A powerful grip In Wash
ington, D.C., is muscular,
cigar-chomping George B.
Hartzog Jr., seventh direc
tor of the National Park
Service and proponent of a
controversial new national
park policy.

His hearty handclasp,
steely enough to make a
professional wrestler
wince, is a natural concom
itant of a personality that
radiates energy as a Yel
lowstone geyser gives off
steam.

Hartzog bears not the
slightest resemblance to
the stereotype of the uni
formed park ranger whose
chief interest is rocks and
wildlife. This is no John
Muir of the mountains but
a gregarious extrovert who
is more often to be found in
offices and committee
rooms than in the wilder
ness although he knows
his way around in the
woods and is an inveterate
fisherman.

If Hartzog s park philoso
phy is different from that
of some of his predeces
sors, right or wrong, the
reasons are understand
able. These are different
times with different park
problems, and he is a dif
ferent breed of man.

Late Camper

Hartzog still speaks with
a trace of the inflections of
South Carolina, where he
was born. He never saw a
national park until he was
in the Army in World War
II, stationed at Fort Lewis.
Washington, and visited
Mount Rainier on a week
end pass.

There he enjoyed watch
ing and joining families
playing in the snow.

"I felt then and I feel
now," he said on a recent
visit to San Francisco.
"that this is what parks
are for people having
themselves a lot of fun in
the outdoors.

"I m not afi.-iid that peo
ple will ruin the parks, if
we make proper provision
for them. We have to dis
perse the facilities and en
courage visitors to spread
out. We re trying to pro
vide more campgrounds
and minimum facilities,
like youth hostels, where
young people can throw a
sleeping bag on the flo-ir "

Krvn Miti MH

It pu>l>M> ltl Iv ii.vr*
vu v. tic aiklrJ. 1 1 Imut at
tendance in many areas

Tarks Are for People
To Have Fun In

66

and require reservations
not only for housing but for
admittance through the
park gates.

"The real enemies of the
national parks arc nor peo
ple but automobiles." Hart
zog said. Cars foul up the
environment in the parks
just like they do anywhere
else. They take over too
many acres of natural
areas for parking, and
they re even creating a
smog problem in Yoscmite.

"That s why we re look
ing for ways of limiting the
impact of cars. There s a
lot of pressure to widen
roads in the parks and
build more of them, but in
stead we re thinking about
having one-way roads, get
ting people on through
while they re having a re
creational driving experi
ence."

The road in the Great
Smokies might be one such
route, he suggested, or pos-
s i b 1 y the Tioga road
through Yosemite.

"And we re looking into
other ways of getting peo
ple in and out of the parks
monorail, funiculars,
other kinds of trains."

Land Costs

Hartzog is an attorney by
prolession and began his
park career in the National
Park Service solicitor s of
fice. Secretary of the Inte
rior Stewart Udall appoint
ed him to the top job in
1963. on the retirement of
Director Conrad L. Wirth.

One of Hartzog s major
headaches is the escalation
of land costs in areas

.1

A

AJx

GEORGE HARTZOG JR.

where parks are proposed.
At Point Reyes National
Seashore, for example,
prices have skyrocketed to
incredible heights. The $19
million authorized to pur
chase the land has bought
less than half of the desig
nated area, and prices for
the rest have gone up so
far that another $40 million
or so would be required to
complete the purchase
an amount that a
hiidEcf-T "^"-! Congress
has so far been unwilling to
appropriate.

As an alternative. Hart
zog proposed that the re
maining acreage be pur
chased and part of the pur
chase price be recovered
by leasing some of the
lands to private owners
who would contract to put
in controlled developments
golf courses, recreation
facilities, and limited resi
dential buildings.

The proposal raised the
hackles of conservationists
who oppose such drastic
departure from traditional
national park principles,
but so far no working alter
native has emerged.

If Hartzog sometimes
seems to place less empha
sis on preservation of sce
nery and more emphasis
on recreation and develop
ment than some conserva-
tionists would wish, he
may claim ample prece
dent.

Of the six previous Na
tional Park Service Direc
tors, Hartzog in some re
spects most closely resem
bles the first the legend
ary Steven T. Mather, a
native Californian and en
ergetic businessman who
inaugurated the job in 1917
and led his associates a
gruelling pace day and
night. Mather was full of
ideas for recreation facili
ties in the parks, including
swimming pools and golf
courses. However, he was
too busy establishing the
park service and acquiring
major park lands to put
most of these idea* to
work.

Like his illustrious prede
cessor, Hartzog is on the
move continually, full of
nervous energy, and by
shortly after five o clock on
most mornings is out hik
ing around a golf course
near his home in Arlington,
Virginia, mulling over the
ideas that may become
part of his over-all pro
gram, entitled, ambitious
ly, "Parkscape USA."

^^ : ^^^r ^^m

-ft ^""""""\W --rf-" 5 *-

. v^ VJ-TW^.

. . -

SNOW-CAPPID MOUNT RAINIER DOMINATES ITS NATIONAL PARK

S.F. Sunday Examiner and Chronicle

15 October 1967

67
APPENDIX B

REMARKS 1.Y

E. T. SCOYE1I, Af.SCCIATE DIRECTOR. RETIFD
U. S. NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
COMFEEEfCE OF CHALLENGES
YOSEMITE IJATT.CIIAL PARK
October 1C, 1963

Mr. Secretary, Mr. Director, Mr. Mew Director, Mr. llev Associate
Director and friends.

I didn t expect to toake a speech, so I only have some notes. I think
I had a little part in getting Ceorpe [llartzog] where he is and I would like
to tell you .a story about a "Shangri-La" that was held after I pave Director
Wirth a year s notice of ny retirement plans.

These changes are of greatest importance to conservationists and no
doubt many wonder about the process of selection which fills such critical
positions and the conditions surrounding the Job, In viev of the very
unfortunate circumstances which developed the day prior tc t..<; annoimcrr uv.
of Director Wirth s retirement, I think that these facts shcuiJ be made
known.

The highest Civil Service job classification is Grade 15. Above this
are what are known as Superprades 16, 17 and 18. These arc also Known .--?
Excepted Positions - in other words, appointments to them can be ma<?e "iui!-
out Civil Service status and tenure is subject to the will p.ril perha : -;. ;...:
the Whim of the appointing officer. By nnd larp,e the jobs ere considered ;..i
Just rewards for the politically faithful. Even when lonf-ti.ie career
employees are selected for these super.^rades, it can be assured that their
political attitudes have been checked :>nt! found at least not objectionable.

In my own case when I had been told, in 1955, that I had been selected
for promotion to Associate Director (Trade 17), and warned tc keep the
matter completely secret, I var, start! ;d a few days later to -et a call

68

from the Republican County Chairman notifying me that he had been informed
of the proposed appointment and instructed to send in a report. of nay political
affiliations. As I had been in Civil Service for some UO years and had always
registered as in Independent, I do not know what the report contained, but at
least the c.ppolntment indicated I was acceptable.

In these circumstances, it should be kept in mind that there are some
things to which the Secretary of the Interior must give consideration when
he makes his appointments to these top positions in the Park Service. I
doubt if he could afford to Ignorv entirely the political aspects of the
situation, no matter how devoted he was to keeping career personnel in con
trol of the Bureau. In this case, we can all be deeply thankful that he
gave the jobs to two National Park Service employees Judged by a Jury of
their peers to be capable of handling the Jobs.

Let me explain this last sentence. In January 1961, I informed
Mr. Wirth that it was my intention to retire the following January. This
left him with the problem of finding a qualified successor in whom he could
have complete confidence, and who would be acceptable to the Secretary. A
short time later he conferred on the matter with people in the Secretary s
Office. He was told that the Secretary was fully inclined to go along with
a career appointment. However, it was emphasized that the new Associate
Director should be selected with the end in view that he would most likely
be the next Director and should be young enough to have up to 20 years of
active service ahead of him.

In order to get a list of names which could be sent to the Secretary, *
the Director selected a Committee of Park Service veterans to meet with him
and study the situation. The members of the Committee were Thomas C. Vint,

69

Chief Design and Construction, and whose retirement had already been approved
after kO years of service; R. P. Lee, Regional Director in Philadelphia;
John Preston, Superintendent of Yosemite National Park and myself. In order
to enable us to work undisturbed and awuy from telephones, we held a two-day
session with Mr. Wirth in Annapolis, Maryland. If I remember correctly,
this was in May 1961.

Keeping in mind the specification set by the Secretary and other guide
lines we felt were necessary and appropriate, and after checking personnel
records again and again, we agreed on a list of 7 names. A number of highly
qualified people in the Service were passed over because they had reached an
age where they could not succeed the present Director and still have a number
of active years ahead of them.

The consensus of the Committee was that Mr. Hartzog should be #1 on the
list. Mr. Stratton was also well up near the top. Of course, we did not
consider the names of anyone outside the Service. I feel very strongly that
this should never be done.

Shortly before I retired, Dr. Wirth asked me to go over the list again
and let him have my latest thoughts on the subject. I reported that I still
thought the recommendations were sound; that J was firmly convinced that
Mr. qartzog should be number one.

There would be no particular point to this story were it not for the
announcement in the New York Times of October 17th of Director Wirth s retire
ment and the appointment of Mr. George Hartzog to the resulting vacancy. The
official announcement of these changes vac to have been made by Secretary Udall
at .the National Park Service Conference in Yosemite National Park on Friday,
the 18th.

The story, quoted in considerable cetail from a supposedly within the
family speech given by Assistant Secretary John Carver at toe opening session

70

of the Conference, .led the reader to believe Dri Wlrth was being precipitously
forced out and that Mr. Hartzog was being given the Job because he would be
more cooperative with the Secretary s Office. This was the most demoralizing
thing that has happened to the National Park Service since it was established
in 1916. Only.. a very few of the conferees knew of the retirement and

suddenly they were confronted with a tale which indicated their beloved and
highly respected Director was being forced out under rather discreditable
circumstances. Further, that his successor, Judged by conditions as stated
in the report, could be suspected of being a conniving party to a deal behind
the Director s back to get the job for himself.

Mr. Udall has emphatically denied all the Implications of the story
and confirmed that Dr.. Wlrth had given him 9 months advance notice of his
retirement. I hope that all will realize that Mr. George Hartzog fully
earned his try at the Directorship and that, as I said before, he was judged
by a Jury of experienced and informed associates in the Service and found
worthy and qualified for that position. That both he and Mr. Stratton, the
new Associate Director, are, I have reasons to believe, good Democrats, is
beside the point. Personally, I am sure that both will demonstrate they are
fully capable to meet the crushing responsibilities of leading the National
Park Service, but they can use a lot of help and cooperation.

So George and Clark- -I m going to watch your careers with great
Interest, because I think you have what it takes.

I think the Secretary has done a wonderful thing in making these
appointments and I believe what has happened here today is a tremendous
compliment to the National Park Service. I don t think any Secretary
ever will have too much trouble with such appointments if the Park Service
continues to produce men of the quality necessary to the duty.

71

That i<5 the responsibility of all of you fellows I m over the hump now
but you be sure that you do your vork so that when vacancies occur the
Secretary will have career employees that he can put into these positions.

Wow, Rr, Secretary, after I retired after U6 years, 7 months with the
Department of the Interior, something of which I am exceedingly proud, I want
to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the appointments you have made

here today. I certainly congratulate you in overriding perhaps some pressures

that have been upon you otherwise to make these appointments.

As I leave this stand let s get up and let the Secretary know really
know how we feel! Thank you.

72

APPENDIX C

STATEMENT OF GEORGE B. HARTZOG, JR. , DIRECTOR, NATIONAL PARK
SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON
PARKS AND RECREATION OF THE HOUSE INTERIOR AND INSULAR AFFAIRS
COM1ITTEE. JANUARY 18, 1968

Thank you very much for this opportunity to report to you today
on the management of the National Park Service. It is always an
honor and a privilege to appear before you. He in the National
Park Service know how tirelessly this Committee has worked to
advance the conservation of our natural and cultural heritage
and to meet the increasing and perplexing challenges of this
Nation s park and recreation needs. We know how dedicated you
are as individual members, and we are deeply grateful to you,
Mr. Chairman, and to each member of the Committee, for your
interest, counsel, and assistance.

We all look forward with pleasure to working with each of you
in this second session of the 90th Congress. We stand ready to
serve you in every way we can.

For the past four years, it has been a great personal satisfaction
to report on the progress we have made in carrying out the growing
responsibilities you have given to us. It has also been a great
source of strength to me, and to all of my colleagues, to know
that we could share with you the burden of our problems and to
know that when we did so we would have your careful attention
and thoughtful understanding.

It Is my belief that the National Park Service has reached a time
in its history which requires thoughtful decisions on enormously
complex park problems, and bold innovation in the implementation
of these decisions.

PARKS CAPE

In my statement to this Committee last year, Mr. Chairman, I
presented our program designed to take a long and searching look
at the quality of the environment of our National Park System and
to develop feasible objectives for the National Park Service to
contribute to a new conservation ethic in this country.

We call this program PARKSCAPE U.S.A., because it identifies our
concern with the landscapes, seascapes, and cityscapes which make
up our natural and cultural inheritance.

73

All of us are acutely aware of the unrelenting pressures of
civilization whose all-pervasive influence seems likely to render
all of our resources into "useful" objects for a Materialistic
world.

The National Parks are increasingly popular as places of escape,
which provide an inspirational alternative to the urban sprawl.
The astounding mobility of our citizens has brought the most
remote corners of this continent within reach of millions.

The major destination points for this migration usually in the
summerare the well-known National Parks, which are now asked
to serve a volume of visitors beyond our comprehension as
recently as the years immediately following World War II, and
to withstand modern recreational activities of many kinds.

It may well be that the general public has lost sight of, or
perhaps never fully understood, that a significant difference
exists between National Parks and other public lands offering
outdoor recreational opportunities.

With explosive increases in visitation, it is imperative that
park use be tempered by genuine understanding and appreciation
of park resources, if their real values are to be conserved.
And more important still, that sense of values that ecological
conscience that is at the heart of what we call PABKSCAPE is
essential to the achievement and maintenance of a truly livable
environment for mankind Itself.

We feel that we must play a significant role in developing in
the public a sense of oneness with the environment, if the
PARKSCAPE program is to be of genuine service to the nation
and its parklands. We have expanded and intensified our efforts
in that direction in several key ways.

One of our most important actions last year was the appointment
of Dr. A. Starker Leopold as Chief Scientist of the National Park
Service. Dr. Leopold, who will continue in his position as
Assistant to the Chancellor and Director of the Museum of
Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, is a world famous
ecologist who has recently served as Chairman of Secretary Udall s
Advisory Committee on Wildlife Management in the National Parks.

74

Under Dr. Leopold s leadership, our Office of Natural Science
Studies will provide much of the basic knowledge necessary to
maintain or restore the ecological integrity of our National
Parks .

A national understanding of the values of our natural and
historic heritage is essential to the successful conservation
of the National Park System,. We have pledged to communicate
these values, and to this end, during 1967, we consolidated
our interpretive and information programs under an Assistant
Director for Interpretation.

Within the parks, an improved Interpretive program will be
accomplished by a reorientation in our approach to interpretation.
The temptation is to Interpret to communicate with the visitor-
only in terms of the colorful and exciting parts of each park s
story; or, at best, in terms of the park story alone. In doing
so, we sometimes fail to bring to the visitor a sense of the
broader picture the complex and vulnerable world of living and
inanimate things of which man is so influential a part.

Through training and through publications, exhibits, and audio*
visual productions that constitute an integral part of park
interpretation, the new office will play a key role in presenting
the message of environmental unity.

By allied efforts with schools, conservation organizations and
others we will help make available to school children across the
Nation, through the existing educational structure, a fully
integrated program to foster environmental perception. The
initial force of these efforts will be directed at the Nation s
congested urban areas; and this is just one of many ways in
which we hope to enlarge the horizons of the millions of city
dwellers who now have so pitifully few opportunities to savor
the expansion of the mind tnd spirit that comes, not from LSD,
but from the fresh breath of woodlands and tangible reminders
of the people and events that shaped America.

JOINT PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENTS

Millions of Americans who never have and perhaps never will-
set foot In wilderness, nor thrill at the sight of true vildness,
take genuine pleasure and receive a spiritual lift from knowledge

75

of the existence of unspoiled wlldlands. More millions can
and shallknow that pleasure. And their children, and their
children s children, deserve the assurance that the National
Parks remain the gold standard on which the currency of such
pleasures is based.

There is a very real danger, however, that we may destroy the
wildness by trying to take every visitor to its heart. But if
parks are for people and, indeed, they arewhat are the
alternatives to the steady extension of visitor use facilities
in the parks?

Last fall, I appointed a blue-ribbon cossiittee, composed of
conservation leaders, as well as key National Park Service staff
members, to define the purposes, the standards, and the alterna
tives to park roads. In these times, the matter of roads of
crausportatlon through the parks is very much at the heart of
nearly every aspect of park management. The committee soon will
have ready its recommendations on these matters. The committee s
preliminary report reaffirms the necessity for restraint in road
building; the principle that park roads are for leisurely travel;
and the urgency of the need for functional alternatives to auto
mobile travel in the parks. In this regard, recent technology is
our ally in providing us with the prospect of less intrusive and
more effective forms of transportation.

Ihe Service is assessing the capabilities, cost, location,
criteria, and ecological effects of a number of methods of
transporting visitors buses, monorails, funiculars and rail
conveyors. These forms of access might well prove adaptable to
our use, with considerably less environmental intrusion which
inevitably accompanies road construction and automobile traffic.

In my judgment , we must noon impose more stringent controls over
vehicles. It has been demonstrated beyond any question that
transportation systems other than privately-operated automobiles
can be highly successful, and we intend to vigorously continue
our investigation of such systems for use in National Parks.

National parklands exert increasingly salutary influences on
the environment of our Nation. Through cooperative planning with
local, State and Federal organizationsand the private sector
we are acting on our legitimate concern for the environment in
which the National Parks-- and their owners, the people of
Americaexist .

76

We Intend to continue to encourage development of alternate
facilities outside parks, and to promote, where feasible, some
more equitable distribution of present use patterns.

While every reasonable indirect way will be sought to ease the
burden, increasing use, ultimately, will force us to Impose
some form of direct control over the volume and duration of
park visits, especially in the older, more fragile areas.

We have become increasingly concerned with our responsibilities
in urban matters as they relate to historic preservation, city
parks and recreation, sites and structures, visitor contact,
transportation, beaut if icat ion, planning, zoning, and other
activities requiring close cooperation with many Interests at
many levels.

A number of newly authorized areas, as well as some of the
proposed areas, are in or near urban complexes. We have for
many years been Intimately associated with urban affairs, not
only here in Washington, D. C. , but also in such major cities
as New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Boston. Most of
America s population resides in metropolitan areas, and here
the National Park concepts and philosophies can be employed to
help cities achieve more handsome, more livable environments,
and the values of conservation can be more effectively
communicated.

For this reason, last year I reorganized my Immediate staff to
establish an Office of Urban Affairs, headed by a Deputy Associate
Director to coordinate our urban programs. Although this office
has been in operation only a few months, it has been extremely
effective in carrying out and coordinating a large number of
highly complex activities.

NATIONAL PARK SYSTEM PLAN AND NATURAL LANDMARKS

The Bureau of Outdoor Recreation is at work on the Nationwide
Recreation Plan as prescribed by the Congress. A part of this
plan is the National Park System Plan. During 1967, a special
effort was made to move ahead on the National Park System Plan
to provide information to the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation for
the Nationwide Recreation Plan.

77

In addition to studies of areas proposed for addition to the
National Park System as Federal properties, the National Park
System Plan involves the Natural Landmarks Program.

During calendar 1967, 203 sites were studied by the Service for
eligibility as Natural Landmarks. One hundred and twenty-five
site evaluations were completed and, of these, 45 were approved
as eligible. Twenty-three eligible sites were Included in the
register at the request of their owners, and seven presentation
ceremonies were held.

In 1968, the Service plans to study ISO additional sites to
determine their qualification for Natural Landmark status.

To clarify the objectives and status of Service programs involving
natural areas, publication of a brochure is planned for 1968 cover
ing natural areas parks, monuments and landmarks --as a companion
volume to the National Register of Historic Places.

Through the Service s National Registries of Natural and Historic
Landmarks, our endorsement and counsel is offered to those outside
the Service who are preserving outstanding i..f ural and historical
resources without the expenditure of any Federal funds for acqui
sition. In many cases, this recognition of excellence can spell
the difference between continued protection or irredeemable loss
of significant resources.

PRESERVATION OF HISTORIC PROPERTIES

In October 1966, the Congress enacted the National Historic
Preservation Act (P.L. 89-665), a legislative milestone that
vastly broadens and strengthens the national preservation policy
laid down by the Congress in the Historic Sites Act of 1935. To
carry out the new responsibilities charged to the National Park
Service, we have regrouped our existing professional units in
this field and added two new ones to form the Office of Archeology
and Historic Preservation.

In addition to conducting previously existing programs of
archeological salvage, Historic Sites Survey, Historic American
Buildings Survey, and others, the new office has made considerable
progress in launching the Nationwide Historic Preservation Program
authorized by P.L. 89-665.

78

For this fiscal year Che Congress appropriated $300,000 for matching
grants -in-aid to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. These
funds are now being granted to the Trust on a regular schedule for
acquisition and development of Trust properties and for educational
and technical programs throughout the Nation. Although no funds
were appropriated for grants -in-aid to the States, we have developed
detailed guidelines for the State programs once funds are made
available. We are now holding a series of regional meetings with
the State Liaison Officers appointed by the Governors to carry out
the State programs.

The first published edition of the National Register of Historic
Places is now nearing completion. Federal agencies have predicted
a need to make 10,000 consultations of the Register per year. We
are intensively studying the application of computer technology
to the storage and retrieval of National Register data so as to
make this use of the Register more efficient.

The ten citizen members of the Advisory Council on Historic
Preservation, appointed by the President in March 1967, have held
two working meetings. The Council has shown an enthusiasm and
dedication that promises to make it an immensely effective body.

The national historic preservation program united the resources
of Federal, State, and local government, private societies, and
individuals throughout the Nation in a major new effort to save
the best of the past as an element around which to build for the
future .

CRIME IN RURAL NATIONAL PARKS

I am sorry to have to report that the growing national crime problem
is now an increasingly serious matter in some of our great National
Parks. There is a marked increase in almost every category of
offense, according to our preliminary data, but principally in
"car clouting" (stripping automobiles of their valuable contents
or parts), narcotics, vandalism, poaching, and traffic violations.

Law enforcement has always been part of our responsibility, but
with limited funds and manpower shortages , we have been hard
pressed in some areas to cope with these increasing problems.
I am proud to say that our park personnel very keenly feel their
obligation for the protection of visitors and property. They have
contributed much uncompensated time and effort, beyond their normal
duty, to help meet this need.

79

We have, of course, stepped up our law enforcement training
effort. Some 75 men who have day-to-day law enforcement duties
will benefit from practical and technical training sessions now
under way. We are working with a number of other Federal agencies
to provide our personnel with specialized training in narcotics
control. Our personnel have also received training in law
enforcement courses conducted by official agencies in several
states. We are extremely grateful for this cooperation.

From present indications, law enforcement and crowd control will
be an increasing problem, for which there are no short range
solutions. This is a matter we must meet head on with adequate
numbers of well-trained personnel.

WILDERNESS STUDIES

The Wilderness Act, Public Law 88-577, approved September 3, 1964,
established mandatory requirements for the study of all roadless
areas of 5,000 contiguous acres, or more, in units of the National
Park System to determine their suitability or nonsuit ability for
inclusion in the National Wilderness Preservation System, and
set time limits for its implementation.

One -third of the wilderness study areas of the National Park
System (19) were scheduled for study during 1964-67. It should
be noted that the Wilderness Act allocated only three years
(1964-67) for the completion of reviews on the first one-third
of the study areas as compared with four years allocated for
completion of the second review period which ends September 3,
1971.

Because of the great amount of detailed staff work required to
develop instructions, procedures and guidelines, as well as train
personnel, prepare maps and master plans, schedule and hold hear
ings, and evaluate the hearing testimony in order to comply with
the legislation, we have not been able to meet the scheduled
completion date for the first one-third of our areas.

Through 1967, however, reviews of 15 of the 19 areas scheduled
for study in the first three-year period have been completed
through the stages of study and public hearings. The remaining
four areas needed to complete the quota of 19 are scheduled for
public hearings between now and May 1968. We are confident that
this program will be on schedule before the end of this year.

80

Wilderness studies by the Service are carried out as a part of
the master plan program. For the information of the Committee,
there is attached to my report a copy of the administrative
policies (guidelines and procedures) of the Service for the
conduct of this program. We would be pleased to supplement
this information in any way the Committee wishes.

The crucial far-reaching effects of this act upon the future
management, visitor use, and development of the units of the
National Park System are yet to be fully realized. For example,
since enactment of the wilderness legislation in 1964, there
appears to be a belief on the part of some that the providing
of facilities within National Parks for the accommodation of
visitors is now contrary to the purpose of National Parks and
the Congressional policies laid down for their management and
use. In our opinion, the wilderness act provides no support
for such a view, since Section 4 of the Act provides that:

"The purposes of this Act are hereby declared to
be * * * supplemental to the purposes for which
* * * units of the national park system are
established and administered * * *." (Emphasis
supplied) .

Thus, we have proceeded in our wilderness studies on the basis
that the Congress by enacting the wilderness legislation has not
changed its long established policy for the management and use
of the National Parks.

We have also proceeded in our studies on the basis that the
Congress could only have intended by making the Wilderness Act
applicable to the National Park System that lands within National
Parks designated by the Congress as wilderness should, if anything,
result in a higher, rather than a lower, standard of unimpaired
preservation. Accordingly, in our studies we have excluded from
wilderness proposals lands within the National Parks which are
subject to stock driveways, grazing, mineral and other reserva
tions which constitute adverse uses of park lands. Additional
details involving our wilderness use and management criteria
are set forth in the statement attached to my report.

81

LAND ACQUISITION

Substantial progress has been made in our land acquisition
program. Emphasis for the last several years has been on pur
chasing lands in the newly authorized areas of the National Park
System which will serve primarily the crowded metropolitan areas
nearby.

For fiscal year 1968, Congress appropriated $32,269,000 for
acquisitions in various areas of the National Park System. The
bulk of this money is earmarked for new areas. Of this appro
priation, $3,326,800 is for inholdings in the older National
Parks and Monuments. Total acreage acquired during the first
half of fiscal year 1968 is 47,967 acres at a cost of
$16,136,947.

Although it was not concluded in 1967, one of the most significant
achievements of our 1968 fiscal year land acquisition program has
been the acquisition of sufficient lands, and interests therein,
to insure the establishment of Piscataway Park, first authorized
by the Congress on October 4, 1961. This park, which insures
the protection of the overview from Mount Vernon, is a conserva
tion milestone in cooperative effort by private individuals,
organizations and their government.

As encouraging as our progress has been, there remains an
especially difficult problem to which I invite your attention.

Privately owned lands within our older National Parks and
Monuments (usually those established prior to 1960) constitute
a serious and growing threat to the integrity of our National
Park System.

The problem is particularly acute in the Natural Areas of the
System where nearly one-third of a million acres remains in
private ownership. Ranging in size from 0.2 of an acre in
Mount McKinley National Park to more than 69,000 acres of land
and semi -submerged land in the Everglades, these pockets of
private property are found in 44 of the 66 National Parks and
Monuments designated as Natural Areas.

Compared with the total size of the Natural Areas more than
22,000,000 acres the amount of privately owned land may seem
statistically insignificant. But like the worm in the apple,
these "inholdings" as we call them, often have a devastating
effect upon the natural integrity of a park.

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This li due, In pare, to their strategic location. Private
inholdings tend to cluster around the prime scenic attractions
of the parks, or along natural access routes, where they are seen
by millions of visitors.

Another factor is that the harmful uses to which these pockets of
private property are put have impact far beyond their immediate
locale.

As the Izaak Walton League once described them, they often are
"festering sores in an otherwise unspoiled area belonging to the
whole public."

There are, I believe, three overriding reasons why private
inholdings are incompatible with the basic purpose and function
of a National Park and should, therefore, be eliminated.

Pirst, the wide variety of adverse uses that take place on these
private parcels of property are destructive of park values-
scenery, wildlife, forest and flowers in short, the very features
that made the area worthy of being a National Park in the first
place.

Por example, the owner of an ocean front property in Virgin Islands
National Park brought in a bulldozer and began to strip the sand
from his beautiful beach to sell it commercially. Another landowner
on scenic Lake McDonald in Glacier National Park chopped down the
stately pines on his lakeside lot to clear the way for a mobile
hot -dog stand.

On other inholdings in National Parks and Monuments you will find
sawmills and lumber yards; shoddy trailer courts and garish souvenir
shops; gravel pits and logging operations.

You also will find power plants and mining operations; gas stations
and auto junkyards; garbage dumps and private airports, and last,
b