Neither of these Senators [Norbeck and Nye], nor the Public Lands Committee which reported the bill and resolution, nor the Senate sessions which carelessly passed them, discussed the national aspects of this legislation. They did not consider the plan and standards of the national system which Congress had been building unit by unit, each painstakingly chosen, since 1872. They ignored the half century Congressional custom of awaiting the report of the Interior Department, to which Congress had entrusted the System’s shaping from the beginning. They ignored the American people’s enthusiastic interest in the plan and purpose of this unique world-famous institution, and its insistence in recent years upon park selection by the expert National Park Service.... Thoughtlessness, apparently, but in practice this amounts to localism defying national aspirations. It seriously threatens national park standards.[98] [Illustration: Figure 16 BEN MILLARD (1872-1956)] In a letter to Robert S. Yard, Executive Secretary of the association, Senator Norbeck accused the association of sending out a misleading report: You criticise me for introducing and securing action in the Senate on a bill fifteen days after it was introduced and especially in view of the fact that it had not been investigated by the National Park Service. You could truthfully have said that this legislation has been pending for a great many years—at least five years. You could also have said that I have been trying all these years to get the Park Service to investigate the proposed area. You could also have added that the Government land in this area was withdrawn by Presidential Proclamation many years ago in anticipation of park legislation. Why carry the idea that it was all a fifteen day affair when it is all of five years? It would be a hard rule to apply that the failure of the Park Service to investigate an important project should preclude a member of Congress from taking any action whatever.... You also state that the project has been investigated by the Park Service and reported adversely. It is an astonishing fact that the knowledge of such reports should be withheld from me. Therefore, I doubt very much that any report has been made. I therefore wired the Park Service, asking who made the report and when. I have no response.[99] Acting Director Arthur E. Demaray of the National Park Service, meanwhile, wrote Norbeck advising him that the Service had never prepared an official report on the park proposal and that the statement by the association that the proposed park was “reported below standard by the National Park Service” was without authority.[100]