outdoor associations all pulling together under the inspiration of a
recognized common motive.

Of course this triumph of organization, for it is no less, could not
have been accomplished nearly so quickly without the assistance of the
closing of Europe by the great war. Previous to 1915, Americans had been
spending $300,000,000 a year in European travel. Nor could it have been
accomplished at all if investigation and comparison had not shown that
our national parks excel in supreme scenic quality and variety the
combined scenery which is comfortably accessible in all the rest of the
world together.

To get the situation at the beginning of our book into full perspective,
it must be recognized that, previous to the beginning of our propaganda
in 1915, the national parks, as such, scarcely existed in the public
consciousness. Few Americans could name more than two or three of the
fourteen existing parks. The Yosemite Valley and the Yellowstone alone
were generally known, but scarcely as national parks; most of the
school geographies which mentioned them at all ignored their national
character. The advertising folders of competing railroads were the
principal sources of public knowledge, for few indeed asked for the
compilation of rates and charges which the Government then sent in
response to inquiries for information. The parks had practically no
administration. The business necessarily connected with their upkeep and
development was done by clerks as minor and troublesome details which
distracted attention from more important duties; there was no one clerk
whose entire concern was with the national parks. The American public
still looked confidently upon the Alps as the supreme scenic area in the
world, and hoped some day to see the Canadian Rockies.

IV

Originally the motive in park-making had been unalloyed conservation. It
is as if Congress had said: "Let us lock this up where no one can run
away with it; we don't need it now, but some day it may be valuable."
That was the instinct that led to the reservation of the Hot Springs of
Arkansas in 1832, the first national park. Forty years later, when
official investigation proved the truth of the amazing tales of
Yellowstone's natural wonders, it was the instinct which led to the
reservation of that largely unexplored area as the second national park.
Seventeen years after Yellowstone, when newspapers and scientific
magazines recounted the ethnological importan