CHAPTER III ORGANIZATION The organization of the National Park Service comprises five principal sections as follows: (a) Administration (b) The Field Service (c) The Editorial Section (e) The Publications Section With the exception of the Field Service the above sections of the central organization are located in Washington, in the Interior Department Building, on the block bounded by E and F, 18th and 19th Streets, N.W. Administration. The Director is responsible under the National Park Service act for the supervision, management, and control of the parks and monuments, subject to the general direction of the Secretary of the Interior. The office of the Director, therefore, is the apex of the Service's administration, exercising a general supervision over it and deciding all questions of policy arising which cannot be delegated and which are not of sufficient importance to be submitted to the Secretary of the Interior. Two other offices are connected with the work of the administration, the office of the Assistant Director and the office of the Chief Clerk. The functions of the Assistant Director in matters of administration are twofold: to relieve the Director of matters of general administrative detail; and to act in the Director's stead during his absences in the field. Direct responsibility for routine matters of administration is centered in the office of the Chief Clerk. This office contains the followng units: Accounts, Stenographic, Personnel, Files, Messenger Service. The Accounts Unit has charge of bookkeeping, property accountability, etc.; primarily with respect to the Service as a whole; secondarily as regards supervision of the accounts of the several parks and monuments. The Personnel Unit deals with appointments, records of employees, etc. The duties of the other units are sufficiently described by their titles. Field Service. The Field Service includes all of the National Park Service not permanently employed in the national capital. From this has developed the frequently employed arrangement of classifying the Park Service into two principal branches-the Service in the District of Columbia, and the Field Service. The latter comprises all those park superintendents, monument custodians, engineers, rangers and subordinate employees whose work lies away from Washington and directly in and with the parks and monuments themselves. In other words, they constitute the line of the National Park Service; the Washington organization, the staff. The organization of the Field Service in general is gone into in some detail in the paragraph below entitled "Individual Park Organization," and additional comment upon it is unnecessary, save in one particular. This has to do with the Civil Engineering and Landscape Engineering Sections, commonly referred to collectively as the Field Service At Large. This most important part of the Field Service is referred to as "At Large" partly because its work lies everywhere throughout the system, not being confined to any park or section of the country; partly, and primarily, because of the method of its creation. No direct appropriations have ever· been made for its personnel, and the fund for salaries is obtained by deducting a percentage from the various park appro 1 priations for improvement and maintenance. This system was adopted in 1914 by the late Secretary Lane after securing a favorable opinion as to its legality from the Comptroller of the Treasury.1 Under the general supervision of the Director and Assistant Director the Field Service At Large is engaged in the various engineering activities carried on in the parks and monuments, which activities have been sufficiently described in the preceding chapter. As a general rule both the Civil and the Landscape Engineers make their headquarters in the parks wherein, for the time being, they are actively engaged. It sometimes happens, however, that one of them may be supervising projects in several parks at the same time; in which case a temporary headquarters may be established at some central point, equally convenient to all the places where work is going on. Thus, when one of them has work going on simultaneously in the California Parks, Crater Lake, Rainier and Yellowstone, he establishes an office in Portland, Oregon, and from there directs the work, going out to the several operations from time to time. Editorial Section. The preparation of all Service publications, such as the annual reports, books of rules and regulations of the various parks and monuments, special bulletins, etc., is entrusted to the Editorial Section, subject to the general direction of the Director and Assistant Director. In addition to preparing the text of all publications, this section also prepares, through its drafting force, all maps, graphic charts, etc., to accompany publications and all blue prints, charts, etc., required by the Director for the general use of the Service. The section also edits all park publications, such as scientific monographs, etc., prepared elsewhere. Law Section. The work of the Law Section of the Service covers a wide range. All legal questions arising within the organization are referred to it, as are similar questions pro1 H. doc. 515 64 Cong., I sess., pp. 18-19. pounded to the Service by the park superintendents and field men. It prepares leases and contracts in connection with the working of the concessionaire system in the parks and passes upon similar documents submitted to the department. All of the title work in connection with lands presented to or purchased by the Government for park uses is likewise done by the Law Section. Besides the work mentioned above there are contracts for the construction of buildings and bridges to be drawn and let, all legal correspondence of a general nature to be handled, and advice to be given concessionaires as to what they can legally do in varying situations and states of fact. In addition this section keeps informed regarding all legislation affecting the parks and advises the Director in regard thereto. Publications Section. As soon as a Service publication has been prepared for the printer the responsibility of the Editorial Section in connection with it ceases, and it passes into the jurisdiction of the Publications Section. This section has full charge of the distribution of the Service publications, answering all inquiries in regard thereto, keeping the mailing lists of the Service up to date, and, in general, performing all work pertaining to the Service's publications not of a preparatory or editorial nature. Individual Park Organization-the Yellowstone. No standardized system of internal organization for the individual parks has as yet been adopted. In general features, however, park organization is similar to the general service organization. This is especially true of the larger parks, the most important of which, the Yellowstone, is organized under a superintendent and an assistant superintendent into ten sections which may be described as the sections of Administration, Information, Protection, Transportation, Light and Power, Communication, Sanitation, Painting, Machinery, and Engineering. This characterization is necessarily rough and does not in every case fully describe the work of the unit. Administration. The general office management detail is about evenly divided between the Assistant Superintendent, who is in general charge, and the Chief Clerk. The former handles monthly and special reports, the collecting and recording of revenue, appointments, leaves of absence, and employees' compensation; he also has general supervision of the officers' mess and the headquarters labor mess, the telephone and telegraph office, the park files and records, the upkeep of offices and grounds, and the force of night watchmen and janitors. The Chief Clerk has direct charge of the disbursement of funds, the recording of allotments, the purchase of supplies, the preparation of vouchers, cost accounting, and the preparation of inventories, pay rolls, and financial statements for the Superintendent. He also has charge of the collection and distribution of all park mail and receives all time reports and reports regarding material or supplies used and applied to specific work. Information. The Park Naturalist is in charge of this section, and his duties, in addition to supervising the information service and museum, include the gathering of park specimens and data, the editing of park publications, the scientific inspection of forests for tree parasites and diseases, the supervision of wood cutting, the designation of trees to be cut for building purposes, the care of the park library and photographic files, and the handling of special assignments. Protection. The Chief Ranger is the protector in chief of the park, and is charged with its general policing, all fire prevention and control, the protection of wild life, the destruction of predatory animals, the winter feeding of animals, the operation of buffalo and hay ranches, the control of grazing of milch cows and horses of concessionaires, the planting of fish, the keeping of records for the Weather Bureau, and the gaging of streams for the Geological Survey. He also has full control of all automobile traffic, including the registration of cars and the collection of fees. |