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Fee Reduction Pressures and Practice As noted, the Service cut auto fees a year before it would lose direct control over the money collected. This apparent enigma may he explained by the phenomenal growth in the income from this source. In 1914 auto revenues totaled $14,993, with other sources-mostly concessions--yielding some $86,000. In 1916, $65,834 was realized from auto permits. Notwithstanding the 1917 fee reduction, income that year jumped to $90,969. In 1921 auto revenues soared to $210,489, outstripping the $182,000 received that year from concessions and other sources. [6] With their overriding goals of promoting tourism and enlarging the public and political constituency for the parks, Mather and Albright were not out to charge all that the traffic would bear, regardless of whether their bureau got to keep the money. "[T]he development of the revenues of the parks should not impose a burden upon the visitor," declared the key policy letter signed by Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane (but prepared by the Service) in 1918. "Automobile fees in the parks should be reduced as the volume of motor travel increases." In addition to variously priced concession accommodations, each park was also to have "a system of free camp sites...with adequate water and sanitation facilities." This policy was generally followed, with another auto fee reduction coming in 1926 after the preceding year's revenues reached $470,940. [7] Testifying before the Interior subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee on November 19, 1926, Director Mather reviewed the evolution of the automobile fee structure and the free park campgrounds:
Mather's testimony was prompted by the desire of the incumbent subcommittee chairman, Representative Louis C. Cramton of Michigan, to reduce the burden of auto fees. The fee reduction that year had not gone far enough, he felt, particularly for the growing number of tourists visiting several parks a year:
Cramton suggested a seasonal pass that would admit a car to all national parks "for one or two dollars," its purpose being visitor control only rather than revenue. [9] In response, Mather indicated that the Bureau of the Budget had resisted the degree of revenue reduction that Cramton's idea would cause, and that even the lesser fee cut implemented that year (which unlike the 1917 cut led to reduced income for several years) had made the Budget Bureau press for offsetting campground charges. Nor was Mather himself enthusiastic about the all-park permit concept:
Cramton called Mather's argument "quite fanciful," seeing no reason why a single permit would cause people to slight the parks any more than they did already. "That is one of the greatest difficulties that you have, but I would like this to go ahead," he said. "The American idea is not that there is going to be somebody with a collection box every time you turn around in a publicly owned enterprise." [10] On the subject of the proposed campground charges, Mather and Cramton were united in opposition. "[I]f you are making a charge in your automobile camp and no charge up in the woods, you are making a real encouragement to them to avoid automobile camps that you have gone to a great deal of expense to erect," said Cramton. Mather concurred: "You drive a man out who otherwise would prefer to stay there." [11] Undeterred by Mather's resistance to the all-park permit proposal, Cramton attached an amendment to the fiscal 1928 Interior appropriations bill with the purpose of mandating such an arrangement:
When the bill was brought to the House floor for discussion on December 14, 1926, Representative Joseph W. Byrns of Tennessee took exception to the amendment on a point of order, contending that it constituted substantive legislation and was therefore improper in an appropriations bill. Byrns readily admitted that his point of order was based on his disagreement with the content of the provision; he would not have raised it, he said, had the charge been set at $7.50 (the pre-1926 Yellowstone auto fee). The debate that followed remains an excellent presentation of the opposing philosophies on park fees. Byrns recalled that support for the concept of self-sufficiency had been prevalent a decade earlier: "[I]t was always the policy and intention of the Appropriations committee at that time and in the House that, while it was not expected that these parks would fully pay their way, there would come a time when they would more nearly bring in a revenue approaching what they cost the people." He cited the 1926 shortfall of $2.4 million in park receipts under expenditures and expressed displeasure that the Park Service had elected to reduce auto fees in the face of it. Cramton's amendment would only make matters worse:
Cramton's response indicated the extent to which the House Appropriations Committee's thinking had changed under his leadership of the Interior subcommittee:
The chair ruled for Byrns' point of order, killing the Cramton amendment. Representative Tom D. McKeown of Oklahoma then offered an even more limiting amendment to preclude "the collection of any fees for entering any park." Cramton observed that this language would not affect auto permit charges, which were technically not entrance fees but license fees; the only areas with entrance fees per se were Wind Cave National Park and Carlsbad Caverns National Monument. McKeown's amendment was ruled in order but was voted down by the members present. Byrns and Cramton continued their debate, with the Tennessean warning of unpleasant consequences from the recent trend:
Cramton sharpened the difference between them:
"I do not question the propriety of providing camps and all the sanitary facilities," Byrns replied, "but I do insist that when the people of the United States are called upon to provide them that those who do enjoy them should pay a reasonable fee for enjoying them." [14] NEXT> The Prohibition of Campground Charges 6Annual Reports of the Director of the National Park Service, in Interior Reports, 1914-1921. 7Letter, Lane to Mather, May 13, 1918, in Interior Reports, 1918, I, 112; Interior Reports, 1926. 8Interior Appropriation Hearing, 1928, p. 833. 1268 Congressional Record 464. (Byrns was the father of Fort Donelson National Military Park.) |
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