The Beginnings of the Park

0nce the Shrines Commission's report had been delivered, congressional action was swift. Rep. Hardie Scott introduced H.R. 5053, authorizing creation of a national park in Philadelphia, on January 20, 1948. Scott, no relation to Lewis's nephew, Hugh Scott, was then the congressman for the district in which Independence Hall is located. Hardie Scott's version of the bill was copied verbatim from the legislation proposed in the report. It authorized the secretary of the interior to accept by donation, or acquire by purchase or condemnation, certain areas to become "Philadelphia National Historical Park."

Although the National Park Service heartily endorsed the creation of the park, the legislation proposed by the Shrines Commission was unsatisfactory in many respects. The park service prepared to submit its own bill in the guise of amendments to the Scott bill. In February Oscar L. Chapman, acting secretary of the interior, commented on the bill to Richard J. Welch, chairman of the House Committee on Public Lands, in a letter drafted by Ronald Lee. It strongly recommended passage of the bill as amended, and enclosed the amendments. So extensive were they that only the first two lines of the original bill remained intact. Even the name was new. In place of the pedestrian Philadelphia National Historical Park, it had become Independence National Historical Park, to express the project's national rather than merely local significance.

Perhaps the most important amendment was a deletion. The National Park Service's draft did not mention developing the proposed park according to the Shrines Commission's plan, or indeed any preconceived plan. On the other hand, the amendments added some requirements. Full establishment of the park would depend on execution of agreements with the city of Philadelphia and the Carpenters' Company for the preservation and interpretation of their buildings. The agreements must ensure that the National Park Service would have access, at all reasonable times, to all public portions of the properties in order to conduct visitors through them. The park service would also have control over interpreting them to the public. The agreements would also provide that no major alterations could be made without mutual consent. Obviously, if such key buildings as Independence Hall and Carpenters' Hall could not be included, there would be little point in establishing a park. The bill did not require that all the land in the recommended areas be acquired before establishment; two-thirds would be adequate. However, this partial acquisition would have to include certain designated buildings: the First Bank of the United States, the Merchants' Exchange, the Bishop White House, the Todd House, and the site of Benjamin Franklin's house. At the same time that it clearly specified those buildings essential to the National Park Service's concept of the park, the amended bill omitted two areas recommended by the Shrines Commission: Project B, the southern extension between Walnut and Pine Streets, and Project E, the lands around Christ Church. Undoubtedly this decision reflected, in part, the park service's long-established reluctance to acquire properties associated with religious buildings, although precedent for a lesser form of involvement with sectarian structures existed in cooperative agreements with Gloria Dei Church in Philadelphia and Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island. The reason cited for the omission was that the areas were not sufficiently related to the essential nationally significant properties and that it would be more appropriate for the city to include them in its redevelopment plans.