On behalf of-our Board of Directors, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to speak to the Committee this afternoon. My name is Walter Powell, and I am President of the Gettysburg Battlefield Preservation Association. By profession I am an historian who has lectured and written widely on the subject of Gettysburg, and I live with my wife and two children in a house just a short distance from Barlow's Knoll, scene of heavy fighting on July 1ST, 1863. Since moving to Gettysburg nearly 20 years ago, I have closely watched and commented on developments at Gettysburg National Park, first as a Licensed Battlefield Guide, then, since 1983, as a member of the Gettysburg Battlefield Preservation Association. The "GBPA" is an all volunteer non-profit corporation established in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in 1959, the first organization created for the expressed purpose of assisting the National Park Service with the acquisition of threatened battlefield land, and in educating the public of the ongoing threats to the preservation of the battlefield. Since the founding of the "GBPA," we have purchased over 200 acres of land and conveyed it to the National Park Service, and have supported a variety of other projects on the Park and the larger Gettysburg Battlefield National Register Historic District. Our efforts were endorsed by former President Dwight D. Eisenhower, an active member who stated "I am emphatic in my approval of what the GBPA is doing . . . The battlefield should be preserved as a remembrance of the sacrifices made by men who fought for the things which they believe."

I mention this background because our organization and its members are deeply committed to the preservation of the Battlefield, and share the concern stated by the National Park about the state of the collections and problems of deferred maintenance. We are strongly opposed, however, to the current proposal put forward by the National Park Service to permit a commercial developer to construct a new visitor center in exchange for a long term lease on several commercial enterprises within the same facility--all to be located in the heart of the Battlefield. While we are not opposed to commercial ventures outside the Park, nor to the concept of public-private partnerships, this commercial venture, if allowed to go forward, will reverse more than a century of historic precedent in removing commercial activity from the Battlefield. Indeed, in just the past thirty years, the NPS has pursued a clearly stated policy of acquiring and removing tourist attractions from the battlefield in order to restore the 1863 landscape, including the former "Fort Defiance" and "Fantasyland Storybook Park" along the Taneytown Road, a short distance from the proposed current facility. To reverse this policy with the current visitor center complex would diminish these previous efforts and run directly contrary to, the views of those veterans who sacrificed on this field and the millions of their descendants who share the feeling that this is sacred ground. While those veterans cannot be here today, they are here in spirit, and I believe we have ample evidence to know what they would say if they could be summoned to testify from what the poet Theodore O'Hara called "Fame's Eternal Camping Ground." We need only look to their spoken opposition to another major commercial scheme for the Gettysburg Battlefield put forward just over a century ago. In July 1892, the Gettysburg Electric Railway Company was incorporated by a group of investors who sought to profit by building a trolley line across some of the most hallowed ground on the battlefield. The reaction of many veterans organizations was reflected in the continents of several newspapers, including the Gettysburg Star and Sentinel, which reported that "the vandalism of the trolley company and the stupidity and greed of [those involved] is the subject of discussion wherever a group of survivors of that battle meet." The Harrisburg Telegraph reported that "Gettysburg will be made a show, a circus, simply to put money into the purse of a petty, private corporation." While the trolley line was ultimately built, the public outrage generated by this enterprise led to legal proceedings that ended in the United States Supreme Court. In that case, United States vs. Gettysburg Electric Railway Company, the Court rendered a landmark decision in January 1896 asserting the right of the federal government to condemn land in the public interest.

Our organization's concern about this proposal, however, goes much further than the issue of commercialization of the Battlefield. It extends to the broader and more troubling issue of whether we can really trust the actions and pronouncements of the current administration of Gettysburg National Park to be in the best interests of the American public and the resource. Ever since the Park announced the release of the "Request For Proposals" for the current project, -we have seen a disturbing trend developing of withholding particulars from the public, starting first with the identities of the selection committee (until revealed by the press), then with the nature of the review process itself, and finally, to claims of confidentiality in releasing the financial pro forma and other specifics of the Kinsley Group proposal. Instead of full disclosure, the public is forced to resort to Freedom of Information Act requests, and the Park responds instead with a series of well orchestrated public tours of the Visitor Center, Cyclorama, and Park Archives to dramatize the need for improved facilities.

Our organization has good reason to be suspicious when the NPS refuses to disclose information. In January 199 1, a few months after the tragic Seminary Ridge Land Exchange between Gettysburg National Military Park and Gettysburg College, we were assured by the NPS that the massive felling of trees and bulldozing of several acres of Seminary Ridge had all been subject to proper public and agency review and comment. When we claimed otherwise, and demanded full disclosure of the details of the exchange, we were met with public denials and a press campaign of misinformation. Over the next few months the Park then found it expedient to request a review of our "Memorandum of Agreement" for the collection of donations to our "Bottle Wagons" which were then located in the Visitor Center and Cyclorama buildings. When the Park demanded as a condition of a renewed "MOA" the right to review and approve "any materials prepared for public consumption, such as individual promotional activities, brochures, or any other form of publicity," we refused, and our Bottle Wagons were subsequently removed. The funds collected in those wagons, placed in a dedicated account and used solely for land acquisition, constituted a major portion of our public fundraising at that time. We believed then that it was no coincidence that the Park chose this action at the very time we questioned the truth of their public statements. Not until May 9, 1994, during the Hearing before the Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations of the House of Representatives was the substance of our claims validated by testimony and by the admission of then NPS Director Roger Kennedy that the land exchange was a mistake, and that "the procedures and processes then in place were inadequate."

Despite this hearing, and a request by the late Subcommittee Chairman Mike Synar that every effort be made to address the damage done by what we have come to call "The Great Terrain Robbery," little more has been accomplished then to construct gabion walls along Seminary Ridge to attempt to prevent ongoing erosion of the Railroad Cut, and to "paint the rocks earth tones" inside the gabion so that they "blend in." Current Superintendent Dr. John Latschar made it very clear to us from the onset of his tenure that he could not see spending monies to restore the "Railroad Cut," and from our perspective did (and has done) very little to restore public confidence in Gettysburg National Military Park--so badly shaken by this national preservation disgrace.

In summary, then, we have many reasons to be concerned about the specifics of the proposed visitor center, and about the refusal of the NPS to make a complete public disclosure. We believe that the public should not be asked to comment on a proposal before all information has been released, and that ultimately the facts will show that the commercial tail is wagging the dog with this facility. The American public will not donate funds for a facility that will clearly benefit a few investors, and such a scheme would sorely detract from the worthy efforts of many Civil War preservation organizations to raise funds for the more critical issue of preserving battlefield land. We concur with the NPS assertion that current storage facilities are inadequate, and that deferred maintenance issues need to be addressed. The current proposal is deeply flawed, however, and we urge this Committee to call it to a halt.