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The Continuing Search for Direction The Ever-Resilient National Conference on State Parks Even without a federal financial aid program, the course of America’s state park movement during and in the years immediately following the World War II was still influenced to a significant degree by its close involvement with the National Park Service. Near at hand on a parallel track, however, trying to keep up with the times and provide useful service, was the venerable National Conference on State Parks. In 1941, the NCSP marked its twentieth year of existence, yet the organization now bore scant resemblance to itself during the dynamic Mather years. The fact that it still survived at all as a considerable player in the state parks arena was due almost entirely to the strong, capable leadership it had somehow been fortunate enough to attract. That was indeed the case in the early 1940s, with the redoubtable Richard Lieber at the helm as chairman and the ever-dependable Harlean James still minding the store as executive secretary. Together, they made a formidable team. The NCSP did not always follow a consistent path, however, and at times it was difficult to know exactly what its agenda was. This confusion prompted Newton Drury, still somewhat new in his position as National Parks director, to submit his resignation from the NCSP board in October 1941. His apparent concern was that certain policy issues at the time might put the NCSP and the NPS on opposite sides and prove “mutually embarrassing.” Following Drury’s lead, two of his subordinates—Conrad Wirth and Herbert Evison—also offered to resign.1 This potential abandonment by the NPS brain trust, which had been 169 11 1. National Conference on State Parks, minutes of board of directors meeting, October 31, 1941, in Minutes of Policy Making Bodies, series 1, box 1, NRPA Library. 170 The State Park Movement in America a dominant factor in the success of NCSP since the very beginning, left the board in a temporary state of shock. The matter was amicably resolved, however, by an agreement for Wirth, who was a “life” member of the board, to stay on and represent the NPS. Although this action signaled a definite, though gradual, withdrawal by the NPS from NCSP affairs, Wirth himself would continue his deep personal involvement, eventually serving as chairman of the board from 1964 until the position was abolished in 1971. Despite an array of problems, the NCSP managed to accomplish many worthwhile projects during the 1940s and 1950s. When wartime budget restrictions forced the NPS to suspend publication of the Park and Recreation Progress Yearbook , which it had initiated in 1937, the NCSP picked up the project with the 1942 edition and continued to publish it randomly for a number of years. In a related venture, the NCSP and the NPS cooperated on a technical publication called Park Practice, although it was sometimes a strained partnership due to the difficulties in producing such a demanding, labor-intensive document. The idea for the publication reportedly originated at the 1950 NCSP conference, and a committee was subsequently appointed to oversee the project. After several years of struggling largely by itself, however, the NCSP happily accepted a formal offer of assistance from the NPS in 1955 and eventually withdrew almost totally from any practical participation in the collaborative effort. Since its beginning in 1921, the annual conference had continued to be the highlight of the NCSP program. During World War II, though, the organization decided that transportation problems, if nothing else, would severely limit attendance and called off its 1942 meeting. Instead, it sponsored what it called a “Round Table on Wartime Uses of State Parks” (discussed in the previous chapter ) in September of that year. As no one knew how long the hostilities might continue, the decision on subsequent meetings was left on a case-by-case basis. No general meeting was held in 1943 or 1944 either, although the board of directors continued to meet once or twice a year. There was some talk about resuming the annual conferences in 1945, but instead the board elected to sit in with the Association of Southeastern State Park Directors at the latter’s regular meeting that year in Tennessee. The theme chosen for the joint session was “Postwar State Park Policies.” The annual NCSP meetings were resumed on a regular basis the following year, 1946, with an eleven-day “Pacific Coast Pilgrimage,” starting in Los Angeles and proceeding northward into...

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