We can predict in almost total confidence that, upon the completion of these roads, the number of jobs that the tourist industry will support in West Virginia in the next 10 years will double the number which is supported today.

It is mandatory that we recognize the certainty of this growth, and that we plan now for the inevitable demand upon our natural areas. While there is still time, while land prices are within reason, we must plan for proper development of those areas of outstanding beauty, uniqueness, and recreational opportunity, which so logically serve so many of our citizens from so many States and nations. In support of this information, the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation has said, and I quote, "because of its natural recreation resources and its strategic location, West Virginia needs and should encourage outdoor recreation planning to promote its economic development by serving its own recreation needs and those of its neighboring states.

"The future development of recreation in West Virginia must be primarily focused on tourism and the vacation market. Some areas have resident needs, but the major emphasis in recreation planning and development is oriented toward the nonresident.

"The wild land resources of West Virginia afford an excellent opportunity for building a tourist industry attractive to the surrounding industrial areas including Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Pennsylvania to the north, but also the eastern seaboard and the developing South."

Gov. Hulett Smith, when he was Commissioner for the Department of Commerce from 1961 to 1963, was instrumental in the establishment of a State recreation advisory council. This council consists of public and private officials who advise the Department in recreation matters and coordinate the recreation programs of the State, the region, the county, and local governments.

This council has been highly successful in focusing attention upon the elements of outdoor recreation which can contribute substantially to the State's economic growth.

West Virginia can participate in any Federal program which will promote and encourage a proper and orderly development of recreational facilities in West Virginia. State legislation designates the West Virginia Department of Commerce as the organization to promote, undertake, participate in and otherwise assist efforts and programs designed to develop recreational facilities throughout the State.

Currently, the West Virginia Department of Commerce is working hard on a statewide comprehensive recreational plan. This plan is being developed in cooperation with the department of natural resources, the State road commission, and other State agencies, and is scheduled for completion July 1, 1965.

This plan will enable the State to participate actively in the land and water conservation fund program. The establishment of the recreation advisory council represents a major development and a farsightedness in the State's political and recreational leadership.

I make these statements only to emphasize that West Virginia looks forward with the Federal Government in an effort to assist and implement a recreational plan which is well underway in West Virginia.

We have recognized our destiny as the recreational playground of the Eastern United States for these many years. Now we are at the stage in professional planning where we fully recognize and properly classify our natural assets and attractions.

We are now prepared to implement a policy of the greatest good for the greatest number of people over the longest period of time. Based upon this policy, we visualize definite roles for private enterprise, State government, and, by all means, the Federal Government.

Neither private enterprise nor State government alone, or together, can provide the land and undertake the development necessary to meet the needs and the demands of a growing eastern seaboard. The Federal Government must assume a great share of this responsibility, not for West Virginia's sake, but for the sake of our natural heritage, which can offer recreational excitement or solitude to 70 million people who live within a day's drive of West Virginia's eastern counties.

If the Spruce Knob-Seneca Rocks National Recreation area is authorized by Congress, the State of West Virginia will strive to encourage the development of private and State travel-oriented facilities. These will be developed in a planned and complementing fashion in order that the region may realize its full potential as a job producer, a recreational opportunity and vacationland.

West Virginia's eastern counties are a vast, underdeveloped reservoir of opportunity, that could well result in recreation and tourism becoming a dominant State industry within the foreseeable future.

We look to the Interstate System of Highways, the Appalachian system of highways and the sheer mushrooming of human populations to make West Virginia a wilderness haven for the frayed nerves of congested urbanized populations. Dr. Edward Crafts, Director of Bureau of Recreation, says our population will be double in America in 47 years. That, gentlemen, is within the lifetime of most of us and within the lifetime of all of our children.

Without proper planning of the type described here, this last vestige of elbow room and esthetic recreational opportunity could be absorbed in the flood of an ever-expanding, overcrowded humanity.

Our goal in West Virginia is to provide jobs for our people, and there is no better way to do it than by providing rest, relaxation and recreation for a versatile, recreation-minded people from throughout the Nation and the world. West Virginia has sent movies of her travel attractions and her people have visited the travel agencies of Europe. We have poured literature into all the continents of the world, in the hope that these people will be enticed to the versatile offerings of West Virginia. We have strived through the designing of tours and personal contact, and through the hosting of travel agencies and dignitaries from other lands, to make the attraction of West Virginia a more glowing portion of the American scene.

The 150 miles that our Nation's capital is from Seneca Rocks and Spruce Knob is also that far from the embassies of the world in Washington, D.C. The 350 miles that this area is from the United Nations Building in New York, extend its importance from an American playground to an area of international concern. To this international traveler, West Virginia becomes a showcase for a broad cross section of America. Many of the impressions that foreign visitors take home will come from West Virginia.

We shall do all in our power to encourage increased foreign visitation to our State. We must make certain these people return home with a truer picture of the beauty, courtesy, recreation, and hospitality of America. In this view, we also seek authorization for this national recreational area in order that all the people of the world may be better served.

Senator MCCARTHY. Mr. William McCoy.

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM MCCOY, JR., FRANKLIN, W. Va.

Mr. McCoy. Mr. Chairman, I am William McCoy, Jr., of Franklin. I am appearing in support of Senate bill 7 in my own personal capacity, although I am confident that I can speak for the great majority of the people in Pendleton County when I say that they are very enthusiastically in support of the establishment of this national recreational area.

I am a member of the Pendleton County Rural Areas Development Committee and the Pendleton Industry Corp., which is a local nonprofit corporation for the development of the economy of the area, and the local Lions Club. And I am confident that all these organizations are very much interested in this bill.

I support the bill for two principal reasons. One is all enthusiastic and the other is selfish. First, I believe that this area is ideally suited for a national recreation area. The beauty of the rugged mountain scenery in this area has no peer in my opinion. In this area is Spruce Knob, which is the highest point in the State, with sweeping panoramic views of distant mountains and valleys and pastoral scenes of great beauty.

I will not try to list the features of the area which other speakers have mentioned. But I would say that just this weekend in the Smoke Hole is being conducted the national downriver boating competition which utilizes white water sometimes.

Also on Labor Day weekend of each year hundreds of the members of the National Speleological Society come to Pendleton County to meet and explore its 55 caves in this area.

So I think that the area is ideally suited for a national recreation

area.

Secondly, I support this bill because I believe that it would help. the economy of our area. Our area is historically an agricultural area. And with the mechanization of our farms the number of jobs has decreased very much. And it would seem that the resources of the area are more suitable for the development of recreation than for any other single purpose. And for that reason I believe that with some organized supervision and development that recreation and tourism could become a very substantial factor in the economy of the

area.

For these two reasons, I support this bill. And I feel that the great majority of the people of our county support it.

Thank you, sir.

Senator MCCARTHY. Thank you very much.

May I ask this question? How many months out of the year would this area be well used?

Mr. McCoy. It would seem to me that it could be used to advantage 12 months out of the year. Spruce Knob, which is the highest point in the State, could be utilized for skiing. About 2 or 3 years ago, they had from 4 to 6 feet of snow there that lasted all winter long. And I think that it would be ideally adaptable for winter recreation purposes. And other areas would be more adaptable for summer and fall and spring uses.

Senator MCCARTHY. Thank you very much.

Mr. Sponaugle?

STATEMENT OF GEORGE I. SPONAUGLE, FRANKLIN, W. VA.

Mr. SPONAUGLE. Mr. Chairman, my name is George I. Sponaugle. I am a lifelong resident of Franklin, Pendleton County, W. Va. I am prosecuting attorney of Pendleton County, and have been since 1949. And I am also president of Pendleton Industries, Inc., which Mr. McCoy spoke of.

And I want to tell you that I am very grateful and thankful to you, Mr. Chairman, and especially to Senator Byrd, for the privilege of the invitation to appear before this committee in support of Senate bill 7.

Basically, Pendleton County is an agricultural and lumbering area. The lumbering in the county has been worked extensively. There aren't too many large virgin tracts of timber left except what has been preserved by the national forest. The agricultural part of the county has been mostly by small farmers. And the small farmer, as we all know, is becoming nonexistent, more so each day. And in looking at the map which Mr. Nelson has here showing particularly the Spruce Knob unit, and then also the other unit, most of the farms in those two areas which I believe might be affected by this bill are mountain farms. And they have been used mostly for the grazing of livestock. The younger people on those farms are no longer there. And if you visit those farms and you will find as a rule two elderly

people, because there is nothing left for the young people to do, and they have departed, moved into urban areas.

So in that respect I feel that this bill is important not only to our area, but is important, I think, to the whole eastern part of the United States, because there is some of the most magnificent scenery and beauty in this Spruce Knob and Seneca Rocks and Smoke Hole area which I think exists anywhere.

But the sad feature of the whole thing is that no one individual or even the State of West Virginia itself, I don't think, could ever properly develop and utilize the potentials that are there.

Now, it has only been within the past couple of years that you could drive to the top of Spruce Knob, the highest point in the State of West Virginia. But now the Forest Service has erected and built a dirt drive up there so that you can drive to it.

So I feel that we should have this as a recreational area not only for that reason but because of the importance of this area to Washington, D.C. The headwaters of the Potomac River is just outside this area, although the water that flows by it comes from there. So the water resources could be utilized and developed and conserved.

Speaking of the boat races, which Mr. McCoy mentioned a while ago, this is the first time in their history, or so I am advised, that the national champion boat races have been held east of the Rocky Mountains. I don't know, but I am so advised. And I think that is true. And they held their boat races there last year in this same north fork of the south branch of the Potomac River, and they were so impressed with the white water, and so forth, that they wanted to come back and hold their national championship.

I don't feel, Mr. Chairman, that there is too much more that I can say or add to what has already been said here in describing the topography and the country in general. But I know that Pendleton County is in the depressed-area region. And I feel that this bill, if it passes, if this area is developed as the thinking is now, that it will be a big boost in the economy to the people of our area, and it will also serve as an outlet to millions of people in this eastern part of the United States that live in the cities and do not get out into the beautiful countryside too often.

So, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for the privilege of appearing here. And I certainly recommend passage of this bill.

Thank you.

Senator MCCARTHY. Thank you very much.

Mr. Robert Dennis, of the Izaak Walton League. Mr. Dennis?

STATEMENT OF ROBERT T. DENNIS, ASSISTANT CONSERVATION DIRECTOR, IZAAK WALTON LEAGUE OF AMERICA

Mr. DENNIS. Mr. Chairman, I am Robert T. Dennis, assistant conservation director of the Izaak Walton League of America. I have a prepared statement and would like to request that it be placed in the record in its entirety.

We have today from West Virginia a representative of the West Virginia division of the Izaak Walton League and a man whose property is within the proposed national recreation area. And I would like to request that most of the time of the league be used by him.

I would like to make a couple of comments, however. First of all, the Izaak Walton League of America does support this bill, and we hope that it will be enacted shortly. We see this bill as a precedent setter. It is the first time so far as we know that the Congress has considered establishing a national recreation area under the jurisdiction of the Forest Service. We know that there is another bill over on the House side which would establish a national recreation area under Forest Service jurisdiction in southwest Virginia, and we hope that that will be considered, too. Because this bill will set a precedent we hope that its language will be carefully considered. And we have a couple of comments in that regard which are in the statement.

You will note that we do suggest one amendment. I don't believe that it is technically necessary, because of the administrative authorities of the Department of Agriculture, and because of the record which the Forest Service has already made in cooperating with the States in managing fish and wildlife reserves. But we did feel that it might be desirable to amend the bill somewhat along the lines that we suggest just to make those things very clear, and to bring the bills pertaining to national recreation areas managed by the Forest Service into conformity insofar as possible with the national recreation areas managed by the Park Service.

That is all I have to say, Mr. Chairman.

(The prepared statement of Mr. Dennis is as follows:)

Mr. Chairman, I am Robert T. Dennis, assistant conservation director of the Izaak Walton League of America. The league is a nationwide organization of citizens dedicated to wise and proper management and use of America's natural resources. Since its establishment in 1922, the league has had a priority interest in assuring adequate outdoor recreation opportunity for the people of the United States and has worked continuously toward that goal at all levels of government. We, therefore, especially appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today. The Izaak Walton League supports enactment of S. 7, providing for the establishment of the Spruce Knob-Seneca Rocks National Recreation Area in the State of West Virginia.

We believe that this scenic area possesses outdoor values and recreational potential of national significance, and that it should therefore be given national designation. We recognize that the Secretary of Agriculture already possesses general authority to classify and manage this area for outdoor recreation, but believe that enactment of S. 7 would provide a desirable and necessary congressional directive that these things be done. Furthermore, by designating the Spruce Knob-Seneca Rocks region as a national recreation area, Congress would make it clear that land and water conservation fund money shall be available for land acquisition.

Mr. Chairman, the league recognizes S. 7 as a precedent-setting bill. So far as we know, this is the first time Congress has considered establishing a national recreation area under sole jurisdiction of the Department of Agriculture. We expect this proposal will be followed by others similar to it; indeed, Congressman Jennings has introduced legislation to establish the Mount Rogers-Whitetop region of Virginia as a national recreation area administered by the Department of Agriculture, and we hope his bill (H.R. 316) will soon receive consideration. Because S. 7 would set precedent, we have a few specific comments. We understand that the Department of Agriculture suggests that section 2 be amended to establish the Spruce Knob-Seneca Rocks National Recreation Area in accordance with a boundary map already prepared by the Department. We believe it desirable that national recreation area boundaries be clearly defined by law, and therefore, support such amendment.

In connection with section 3, we would hope-in order both to realize the full public potential of the Spruce Knob-Seneca Rocks area, and to protect it from incompatible development-that the Department will acquire most of the private inholdings within its boundaries. We realize, however, that it may not be necessary or even desirable to acquire full title to all such properties, and therefore, endorse the provision permitting acquisition of partial interests.