Wallace Stegner, wrote that national parks were “the best idea we ever had. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best rather than our worst.” America’s only other comparable idea, perhaps, was philanthropy—another great invention that was unknown to wealthy Europeans (reluctant alms-givers at best, and their only “parks” were private hunting estates, where the entry fee for commoners was, oh, death). Europe had the Quakers to protest slavery, and the suffragettes to demand the vote for women, but the United States led the way in every cause you can think of where rich people helped poor people, willingly and generously. The roots of the word philanthropy are “love” and “mankind,” and the concept also reflected a “morality of wealth,” as expressed by maybe the first and greatest of philanthropists, Andrew Carnegie: “To die rich is to die disgraced.”
I think back, and many of my best memories and sights have been in Americas National Parks.
whatiyathink?
I think back, and many of my best memories and sights have been in Americas National Parks.
whatiyathink?
