Millions of Dollars to Purchase Property
Although the National Park Service was firm about retaining control, it approached Independence with caution. This was an enormous undertaking on many levels, not least of them financial. Most previous parks had been established on land already belonging to the federal government or acquired through donation. For the first time the National Park Service was asking Congress to authorize millions of dollars to purchase property. The provisions in the Department of the Interior's version of the bill establishing priorities for cooperative agreements and certain acquisitions recognized that there would be no point in making these expenditures if key sites could not be included within the park. The proposed omission of Projects B and E probably reflected concerns about costs, not only of acquisition, but of maintenance of discontinuous parcels of property, as well as about the separation of church and state.
The final amendment, the change of name, was the product of a longstanding concern. As early as December 1945, when the bill creating the Shrines Commission had just passed the House and Senate, Herbert E. Kahler, assistant chief historian of the National Park Service, noted that the "name for the proposed area needs careful consideration." Changing the name could thus scarcely be considered an impulse, but it was certainly an inspiration.
The Subcommittee on Public Lands held hearings on the bill as amended by the Interior Department on March 1, 1948. A large contingent from Philadelphia traveled to Washington to testify or to lend support by their presence. Lewis, of course, led the delegation, accompanied by two fellow members of the Shrines Commission and by McCosker. Hopkinson and Mitchell were there for the City Planning Commission, and representatives from several cultural institutions and the business community also attended. Director Newton Drury of the National Park Service was there to testify, accompanied by Assistant Director Hillory Tolson, Lee, Peterson, and Chief Counsel Jackson Price.
