Walsh's Bower

"The most marvelous combination of mountains and barren peaks, of glaciers, of rushing rivers, of wonderful cataracts ... the most lovely forests ... a beautiful group of cedar trees . . . wild flowers in the utmost profusion and startling beauty."

In a setting thus described by him to the Senate, grim-visaged Senator Thomas J. Walsh has a bower, a summer-home on the northeastern end of Lake McDonald in Glacier National Park, Montana. He owns two-thirds of an acre with a 150-foot lake frontage, purchased from the holder of the original land patent before the park was created in 1910. Last week the grey Walsh mustache bristled more ferociously than ever as he did legislative battle in defense of his summer hearthstone and of a governmental principle.

The House, passing the Interior Department's appropriation bill, had tagged it with an amendment giving the Secretary of the Interior $250,000 to acquire by condemnation private lands in national parks, and authorizing him to incur additional obligations up to $2,750,000 to match public donations for park improvements. Behind this proposal were two purposes: 1) To save Yosemite National Park from logging on 11,000 acres of private land within its confines; 2) To banish forever unsightly "hot dog" stands from Federal expanses of nature's bosom.

The U. S. parks contain a total of 92,000 acres of private land, valued at $5,810,261. Senator Walsh and his colleague, Senator Wheeler, persuaded the Senate to amend the appropriation bill so as to prevent wholesale condemnation of these lands without discrimination between commercial projects and private dwellings. The House resented the change, declined to accept it in conference.