ices had they knowledge that such facilities were in existence. With the constant shifting of directing personnel that takes place in the administrative branch of the national government, the existence of means by which incoming officials may thus readily secure information regarding their own and other services is a matter of great importance. To members of Congress the monographs should prove of no less value. At present these officials are called upon to legislate and appropriate money for services concerning whose needs and real problems they can secure but imperfect information. That the possession by each member of a set of monographs, such as is here projected, prepared according to a uniform plan, will be a great aid to intelligent legislation and appropriation of funds can hardly be questioned. To the public, finally, these monographs will give that knowledge of the organization and operations of their government which must be had if an enlightened public opinion is to be brought to bear upon the conduct of governmental affairs. These studies are wholly descriptive in character. No attempt is made in them to subject the conditions described to criticism, nor to indicate features in respect to which changes might with advantage be made. Upon administrators themselves falls responsibility for making or proposing changes which will result in the improvement of methods of administration. The primary aim of outside agencies should be to emphasize this responsibility and facilitate its fulfillment. While the monographs thus make no direct recommendations for improvement, they cannot fail greatly to stimulate efforts in that direction. Prepared as they are according to a uniform plan, and setting forth as they do the activities, plant, organization, personnel and laws governing the several services of the government, they will automatically, as it were, reveal, for example, the extent to which work in the same field is being performed by different services, and thus furnish the information that is essential to a consideration of the great question of the better distribution and coördination of activities among the several departments, establishments, and bureaus, and the elimination of duplications of plant, organization and work. Through them it will also be possible to subject any particular feature of the administrative work of the government to exhaustive study, to determine, for example, what facilities, in the way of laboratories and other plant and equipment, exist for the prosecution of any line of work and where those facilities are located; or what work is being done in any field of administration or research, such as the promotion, protection and regulation of the maritime interests of the country, the planning and execution of works of an engineering character, or the collection, compilation and publication of statistical data, or what differences of practice prevail in respect to organization, classification, appointment, and promotion of personnel. To recapitulate, the monographs will serve the double purpose of furnishing an essential tool for efficient legislation, administration and popular control, and of laying the basis for critical and constructive work on the part of those upon whom responsibility for such work primarily rests. Whenever possible the language of official statements or reports has been employed, and it has not been practicable in all cases to make specific indication of the language so quoted. CONTENTS CHAPTER FOREWORD The National Park System a Development of the "National Distinction Between Parks and Monuments The Parks and Monuments Prior to 1916 . PAGE THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE: ORGANIZATION CHAPTER I HISTORY The National Park Service is a bureau of the Department of the Interior, being the ninth bureau to be established in that department. It is engaged in the supervision, management, and control of those national parks and monuments which are under that department's jurisdiction. It was created by the act of August 25, 1916 (39 Stat. L., 535), but did not begin to function until after the approval of the deficiency appropriation act of April 17, 1917 (40 Stat. L., 20) which provided funds for its establishment. The National Park System a Development of the "National Park Idea." Though the National Park Service is of recent origin the system of national parks of which it is an outgrowth dates back half a century to the creation, in 1872, of the Yellowstone National Park, the first true national park established in the United States. Inasmuch as the creation of the Yellowstone was the result of a conception of the conservation of natural wonders which has come to be known as the "National Park Idea," it will be proper at this point to discuss briefly, first the events leading up to the inception of the idea; and, second, its subsequent development. The existence of the natural wonders which occur in such profusion in the upper Yellowstone country had been known I |