204 RECREATIVE CENTERS OF LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA....... 210 Copyright, 1910, by the American Academy of Political and Social Science All rights reserved. THE PARKS AND RECREATION FACILITIES IN THE UNITED STATES BY JOHN NOLEN, Landscape Architect, Cambridge, Mass. Herbert Spencer, in an address in New York City, said, "Exclusive devotion to work has the result that amusements cease to please; and when recreation becomes imperative life becomes dreary from lack of its sole interest,-the interest in business. Life is not for learning, nor is life for working, but learning and working are for life. In brief, I may say that we have had somewhat too much of the gospel of work. It is time to preach the gospel of relaxation." Something like this is the observation of nearly every thoughtful visitor to the United States. No characteristics of the American people are more striking than the habit of excessive work, "a whole lifetime of horrid industry," as Bagehot says, and our ignorance of the place of recreation and relaxation in a long, well-ordered and efficient life. It may seem to readers of this number of THE ANNALS that we have made in recent years, and are now making, great progress in our public provision for recreation. We are, and yet, compared with the countries of Europe, the United States is still far behind both in the facilities that it possesses and in the way in which it utilizes them. It may be questioned whether the present increase of facilities for recreation greatly exceeds the increase in demand. Especially is this true with regard to children. The restoration of their rights to play is proceeding, but proceeding too slowly. It needs to be more widely recognized that play as a form of recreation is indispensable. There is still too much anxiety, too much greed. We need more plain pleasures, for recreation rightly used is a resource for the common purposes of daily life that is entitled to rank with education, with art, with friendship. It is one of the means ordained for the promotion of health and cheerfulness and morality. As one of our modern philosophers has said, "Vice must be fought by welfare, not by restraint; and society is not safe until to-day's pleasures are stronger than its temptations," adding with true optimism and sound insight, "Amusement is stronger than vice and can strangle the lust of it." Not only does morality thus rest back on recreation, but so does efficiency in every direction. Onehalf of efficiency and happiness depends upon vitality, and vitality depends largely upon recreation, especially the simple recreations of the open air. The purpose of this introductory article is briefly to describe the nature and character of the parks and recreation facilities in the United States, to define roughly the place and function of national, state, and city parks, and to refer to a few of the general principles. that do not fall so naturally to any one of the more specific articles which constitute this volume. I. National Parks Our national parks comprise great tracts in the far West which have been set aside by the federal government because of their altogether uncommon interest or great beauty. From the comparatively small area in the Yellowstone, proclaimed by President Harrison in 1891, we now have five great national parks, the Yellowstone, Yosemite, General Grant, Sequoia, and Mt. Rainier. These include within their boundaries more than 40,000,000 acres. The Yellowstone is a broad, wholesome wilderness on the summit of the Rocky Mountains, with its territory lying mostly in Wyoming, though encroaching upon the borders of Montana and Idaho. It has a total area of more than 8,000,000 acres; the broad central plateau is surrounded by high mountains, and in its very midst is the Yellowstone Lake, with its shore line of a hundred miles. The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone is twenty miles in length and a thousand feet deep, and there are thousands of hot springs and hundreds of wild geysers. From the foot-hills and up the lower slopes of the mountains are extensive forests, interrupted only by lakes, meadows, or small burned-over places; in fact, this tree mantle covers nearly eighty-five per cent of the entire park. "The Grand Canyon of the Colorado River was named by President Roosevelt in 1908, as a National Monument, and may, I presume, be looked upon now as a park reservation. In his proclamation, the President stated that "The Grand Canyon of the Colorado River is an object of unusual scenic interest, being the greatest eroded canyon within the United States, and it appears that the public interests would be promoted by reserving it as a National Monument with such other land as is necessary for its proper protection." The Yosemite, only one hundred and forty miles distant from San Francisco, is in the Sierra Nevada Range of California, and is thirty-six miles in length and forty-eight in breadth. It includes generous samples of the wondrous treasures of the Sierras, and in its very heart is the famous Yosemite Valley. Here also is the Hetch-Hetchy Valley, which is again in danger of being destroyed. Year after year attacks have been made on this park under the guise of the development of natural resources, and at the last session of Congress the most determined attack of all was made by the city of San Francisco in its attempt to get possession of this valley as a reservoir site, thus destroying its scenic integrity merely for the sake of saving money to the people of San Francisco. Congress should refuse this request; furthermore, it should adopt laws that would put an end to such assaults on our national parks. In the lower section of the Yosemite are the coniferous forests which surpass all forests of the kind in the world, not only in the size and beauty of the trees, but in the number of assembled species. The Sequoia is a relatively small park in the Sierras of California, which lies to the south of the Yosemite. As it stands, it includes by far the largest and most important section of big trees. Yet this area should be increased to conform with the boundaries established by nature, for then it would be not only better in itself, but would comprise nine-tenths of all the big trees in existence. The General Grant is the smallest of the national parks and is located in California a little to the north of the Sequoia. Like the latter, it is essentially a preserve of big trees. The Mt. Rainier Park is a portion of the region immediately surrounding the mountain, which has been set aside from the forest reserve. It is situated in the State of Washington. Of all the mountains along the Pacific Coast, Mt. Rainier is the noblest in form, has the most interesting forest cover and, with the exception of Mt. Shasta, is the tallest. Its forests reach to a height of a little over 6,000 feet and above this is a wealth of Alpine flora. As in the case of the Sequoia, this park is too small, and should include a more generous share of the surrounding forest reserve. The purposes of forests and parks should not be confused. Forest lands are selected and afterwards maintained primarily with regard to the growth of timber and the protection and regulation of the water supply,-purposes of immense importance to permanent prosperity. Other purposes than these are incidental and, if considered at all, are subordinate. In the case of parks, however, the main purposes are the preservation and enhancement of natural beauty and the provision for recreation. Park purposes other than these may, it is true, be taken into account, but they must be quite incidental. Thus the minor purposes of forests may correspond somewhat with the major purposes of parks, and vice versa; but the main and essential purposes of one are altogether different from the main and essential purposes of the other, and any confusion of them is sure to lead to waste, misunderstanding and disappointment. These national parks are unequaled in wonder, beauty and extent by all the other recreation facilities in the United States, but if they are to serve their great purposes, they must have a more stable, more consistent, more scientific, and more artistic policy of development. The present division of authority and the lack of permanency of control cannot be expected to yield the best results. William E. Curtis, who contributes a special article on "Our National Parks" in this number of THE ANNALS, pointed out some time ago on the occasion of a visit to "the Yellowstone" the necessity for action in this direction when he said that "There ought to be a commission of broad-minded men with a thorough knowledge of parks and public resorts in Europe and other countries, with experience in handling large affairs and with artistic tastes, who shall be authorized by Congress to investigate the conditions of the park and lay out a permanent plan for its protection and improvement, for the location of hotels and other buildings, for the construction of roads, etc., and they should revise the regulations so that the greatest public playground in the world may be enjoyed to its full extent by the people of the United States for whom it is intended." It is surprising, in looking at the map of the United States, to find that all the parks of the nation are in the far West. If one were unfamiliar with the physiography and beauty of the country, the natural inference would be that there is nothing worth preserving in the other sections. That view, however, would be far from the truth. In several other sections, and especially in the great Appalachian Mountain system of the East, there is a unique opportunity. to add to the attractiveness and the geographical range of the nation's park possessions; and to do it at reasonable cost. If the parks in the West are justified-and who questions it-parks in the |