During the years Gutzon served on its board of directors, many important questions were discussed by the Parks Association, such as what to do with the old Arsenal building, what about additions to the Metropolitan Museum, what about monuments and statues, what about Riverside Park and the New York Central Railroad tracts. He deplored the usual attitude of the Association which in its zeal to “save the park” objected to almost every new proposal, regardless of merit. He took most of his indignation to the newspapers. In 1922 he fought for the request of the National Sculpture Society to hold an open-air exhibition near the Metropolitan Museum, although he was not a member of the society. The Association opposed him. He declared in the New York _Times_: The charm of Central Park lies in the development of its original, natural contours. The National Sculpture Society should be allowed an area of fifty to one hundred acres and there place their exhibit to suit the natural conditions, precisely as they would place it if it were permanently located. I feel certain if some such plan is inaugurated, it will be successful.... And he took an active part in the city’s big stir about the proposed development of Riverside Park in connection with the New York Central’s right of way along the Hudson River front. It was part of his plan that “The park from the Drive, with its river glimpses, should be the most tempting in Manhattan, and every walk into it should possess a separate individual interest.” And so in February 1917 he wrote to Mayor Mitchell. The First World War put a stop to many of the plans of the park designers. Mayor Mitchell went into a training camp in Florida and was killed in an airplane crash. Gutzon resigned from the Association in 1922, but he listened to the plea of George Gordon Battle, the president, and reconsidered. He remained active for many years. One of Gutzon’s last appearances in New York was in 1939 at a dinner party given by “Missy” Meloney. Present were the new Park Commissioner Robert Moses, and Mayor Fiorello La Guardia. He was surprised to see them and obviously pleased. “I’ve been anxious to see you fellows,” he said as he sat down. “I’ve been wanting to tell you about my new plan for the development of Central Park.... Now what I’ve had in mind is this----” CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX _THE CZECHO-SLOVAK ARMY_ Many people on the Borglum visiting list figured that Gutzon was a Czecho-Slovak merely because he ran a Czecho-Slovak army on his front lawn in Stamford. He wasn’t, of course, but nobody got any evidence of that from the highway.