APPRECIATION

It is with deep regret that we remove from its accustomed place on page one of The Regional Review the name of Samuel O. Smart, our gifted art editor. Readers within and without the Service long have been familiar with the excellent cover designs and other pictorial contributions that he has made, most of them the fruit of personal labors carried out on so-called "private time." The high quality of his efforts has brought many well deserved compliments which it has been my pleasure to convey to him.

I can do no less now than to join with others who are associated in producing The Review in expressing anew our appreciation of his fine talents and of the gracious manner in which he has shared them with us. Mr. Smart's resignation from his duties as Assistant Landscape Architect was accepted with reluctance. I now want above all to assure him of our best wishes for his success and happiness in the private enterprise to which he has taken his versatile pen and brush.

Regional Director.

Vol. IV

The Review became aware with some surprise this month that it was about to complete a fourth volume. The four books cannot be expanded to the awesome dimensions of Dr. Eliot's famous five-foot shelf, but they do contain some 800 pages of widely varying materials reproduced over a two-year period.

Recognizing that those pages represent a sizable total of topics and wordage, this journal hopes fervently that it may not be accused of elegant pretentions by appending a cumulative index of its entire 24 numbers. The first three volumes were indexed with apparent success. It now seems to be serviceable to libraries and to readers who have preserved complete files to provide an assembled guide which will spare the inconvenience of consulting four separate indices in search of an author or article.

THE INVASION OF AMERICA

The Review has sought steadfastly to sidestep a yawning pitfall which appears somehow to act as a magnetic attraction to ensnare unwary editors. It is the temptation to indulge in trite homilies and labored statements of the obvious with respect to the conduct of life. It seems to be an unnecessary affectation now, however, to ignore an occasion to give earnest thanks for the great good fortune which makes us citizens of a land whose kindly soil is about to undergo an invasion of a special American type. The first half of 1940 provides good evidence that "Travel America year" will set unprecedented records in park visitation. Reports from the field indicate a banner season for the 159 units of the national park system.

While nearly a score of nations suffer the fearsome agonies of war, the United States is faced at home with the prospect of a gigantic pincer movement executed by our own recreational travelers. The most hardened ingrate surely must count such a blessing.

H.R.A.