National Monuments to National Parks:
The Use of the Antiquities Act of 1906
ROBERT W. RIGHTER
In the heat of the 1932 battle to enlarge Grand Teton
National Park, conservationist Dick Winger mused that "it would he nice
if President Hoover would decide to make the territory embraced in the
Jackson Hole Plan into a National Monument." [1] Winger, as well
as other advocates, was frustrated by a slow, fickle Congress, which
was reluctant to pass a park bill. Exhausting discussion, debate, letter
writing, and congressional investigations had netted nothing. Quick
presidential action could accomplish what park proponents desired.
Eleven years later, in 1943, Winger obtained his wishPresident
Franklin Roosevelt established Jackson Hole National Monument. An
expanded park, which could not be accomplished through the congressional
process, came into being through executive fiat.
The case of Grand Teton National Park was not unique.
National parks such as Grand Canyon, Bryce, Zion, Acadia (Maine),
Olympic, and many others, were first created as national monuments. The
reasons that these parks began as monuments varied, but surely a primary
cause was politicalone sympathetic president was easier to deal
with than a hesitant Congress. Why not seek rapid presidential action
rather than dilly dally with a tortoise-paced Congress?
The realization that the creation of national parks
had more to do with presidential rather than congressional action calls
into question the democratic origins of the national parks. Although
there is no question that parks, properly understood, were established
for the people, whether they were established by the people is another
matter altogether. Pork-barrel politics created some; philanthropists
intent on doing good work created others. And, of course, Congress
created many. The objective of this essay, however, is to review the
president's power in park-making through use of the
Antiquities Act. By law, of course, Congress creates
national parks. However, when Congress was tight-fisted, belligerent,
or, more likely, lethargic, park proponents pulled the rabbit of the
Antiquities Act out of the hat. Quite simply, under this 1906 act the
president could set aside, by executive decree, areas as national
monuments. Throughout the twentieth century zealous park proponents, as
well as the National Park Service itself, were quite willing to
circumvent the powers of Congress by appealing directly to the chief
executive. Later, when the time became more propitious, the monument
would be "upgraded" to a national park. [2]
The origins of the Antiquities Act of 1906 provide an
understanding of this "back door" method of establishing national parks.
Professional archeologists were the prime movers. Government officials
assisted. The problem was vandalism on Southwest Indian archeological
sites and the helplessness of federal officials to prevent it. The
concern, however, was also with Congress. By the turn of the century the
General Land Office, headed by Commissioner William A. Richards,
recognized the urgent need to give protection to such important sites as
the Petrified Forest and the Cliff Dwellers' region of Frijoles Canyon
in New Mexico. Congress did not seem to share this concern. Specific
legislation for specific sites failed, leaving Richards and the
archeological community with the impression that hope for congressional
action was futile. In 1904 Richards wrote the secretary of the
interior: "What is needed is a general enactment, empowering the
President to set apart, as national parks, all tracts of public land
which . . . it is desirable to protect and utilize in the interest of
the public." [3]
Commissioner Richards understood what needed to be
done, and he also recognized how it could be done. As an ex-governor of
Wyoming, he understood the power of the executive branch. Disappointed
by Congress, he was anxious to invest power in the presidency. He
was not alone; a growing circle of archeologists were also committed to
action: Furthermore, Progressive conservationists such as Gifford
Pinchot and Frederick Newell looked to a vigorous president to carry out
their goals. Such professional men did not believe that debates over
resource use should be carried on in Congress, a body prone to
partisanship and political logrolling. Resource policies should be
shaped by scientists and engineers, not politicians. Conservation
historian Samuel Hays has argued forcefully that the conflict between
Theodore Roosevelt and Congress over resource policy caused much
discord. Eventually Roosevelt came to the opinion that the executive was
the 'steward' of the public interest. Feeling that he, rather than
Congress, voiced most accurately the popular will, he advocated direct
as opposed to representative government." [4]
Such a political ideology was most evident in
Roosevelt's vigorous use of the Forest Reserve Act of 1891. When
Roosevelt came to power some forty-one forest reserves encompassed some
forty-six million acres. In 1907, caught in political cross fire,
Roosevelt signed away his executive privilege. But by then the system
contained 159 forest reserves totaling over 150 million acres. [5]
Certainly the vigorous leadership of Gifford Pinchot partially explains
this avalanche of national forests, but there was no denying that
executive decree could accomplish conservation objectives quickly and
without devisive debate. National park advocates were envious. While
Presidents Harrison, Cleveland, McKinley, and Roosevelt had created 159
national forests, during the same period Congress had authorized eleven
national parks, and then only after years of promotion
effort. [6] Given such evidence, it is not surprising that when
the Antiquities Act was drafted it contained the privilege of executive
decree to set aside "historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric
structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest" as
national monuments. [7]
Congress, of course, did not relinquish its powers
without debate. In the hearings over various versions of the Antiquities
Act, legislators voiced considerable concern over the president's power.
The majority of lawmakers agreed with the need for protection of
Southwest prehistoric sites, but the idea of extending carte blanche
to the executive branch worried some, particularly western
congressmen. One way to reduce the chance for misuse
was to limit the size of national monuments.
Congressman John Shaforth of Colorado argued for a maximum of 320 acres,
while his influential state colleague, Senator Henry M. Teller, was
willing to extend monument size to a section, or 640 acres. Both
Colorado congressmen were sympathetic to livestock interests and had
experienced the "excesses" of the Forest Reserve Act in their
state. [8] Although Teller's request received consideration when
the final Antiquities Act emerged it read that national monuments
"shall be confined to the smallest area compatible with proper care and
management of the objects to be protected." [9]
Of course, such loose language left loopholes which
even the portly William Howard Taft could slip through. Perhaps the
broadest interpretation of this size limitation was President Jimmy
Carter's declaration of seventeen Alaskan national monuments in 1978,
totaling some 56,000,000 acrescertainly not what the critics or
the framers of the Antiquities Act had in mind. [10]
What did the sponsors of the Antiquities Act
envision? They agreed that national monuments would be small in area and
geographically confined to the American Southwest. In fact, when
Representative John Hall Stephens of Texas expressed his fear that the
president might use the proposed act as Roosevelt had used the Forest
Reserve Act, sponsor John Lacey assured his colleague that the two acts
were entirely different, and that the act would simply be used to
preserve "Indian remains on the pueblos in the Southwest. . . ." [11]
After the bill become law (8 June 1906) its limited scope was
emphasized by Edgar Hewett and Charles Lummis, both prominent in the
Archaeological Institute of America, when they wrote President
Roosevelt that "the purpose of this act is absolutely plain. It is an
Act for the Preservation of American Antiquities. It provides for the
preservation of conspicuous ruins, as national monuments, and for the
preservation of material buried in the soil by excavation and
installation in public museums. The law is perfectly simple and
satisfactory to every body." [12]
If Congress had effectively limited the size and the
location of monuments, there would be no story to tell. However, the
president's hands were not tied in either category. The Antiquities Act
of 1906 proved to be loosely written, and instead of the narrow
archeological application envisioned by Hewett and Lummis, it was
applied by enterprising presidents and park proponents at a broad range
of sites and in such situations which might well have amazed sponsor
John Lacey. In the constant tug-of-war between president and Congress,
the act became a significant executive tool to shape sometimes
controversial conservation policies.
From the beginning, it was evident that use of the
act would not be geographically limited. Devil's Tower in eastern
Wyoming was the first monument which Roosevelt established, disregarding
the Southwest orientation of the act. The next fourPetrified
Forest and Montezuma Castle in Arizona, and El Morro and Chaco Canyon in
New Mexicowere certainly expected and within the intent of the
act. Lassen Peak and Cinder Cone National Monuments, both established on
6 May 1907, represented a departure in that they were the first
monuments which would be incorporated soon into a national park (Lassen
Volcanic National Park, 16 August 1916). [13]
However, the establishment of Grand Canyon National
Monument on 11 January 1908, was the first example of creating a
monument in lieu of a park. Certainly the Grand Canyon possessed the
quality and grandeur of a national park. It was first considered for
national park status in 1882, when Benjamin Harrison, then a senator
from Indiana, introduced a bill which failed. Twice more in the 1880s
the Congress rejected park bills. Just why these bills died is not
clear. Perhaps congressional leaders did not wish to expand a park
system which was then limited to Yellowstone. More to the point, some
opposition existed. Local businessmen failed to realize the value of a
park, and mining interests wanted no barriers to mineral exploration of
the canyon. Consequently, jurisdiction of the Grand Canyon underwent a
strange bureaucratic metamorphosis which can only be explained in
political terms.
Some protection was needed, and President Benjamin
Harrison provided it. On 20 February 1893 he proclaimed Grand Canyon
Forest Reserve, withdrawing the area from homestead entry. That much of
the forest reserve was barren of trees did not disturb him. The irony
did not escape local residents, however. They submitted a protest
petition, which argued that the Grand Canyon was "strictly mineral
country." [14] Clearly, the Harrison reserve proclamation was a
holding action, and throughout the 1890s proponents attempted to achieve
national park status. However, the opposition remained. Perhaps the
Arizona newspaper Williams Sun represented a radical fringe, but
surely it titillated many of its readers when it editorialized that the
national park idea represented a "fiendish and diabolical scheme,"
and that whoever fathered such an idea must have been "suckled by a
sow and raised by an idiot." "The fate of Arizona depends exclusively
upon the development of her mineral resources," proclaimed the
tabloid. [15]
Local opposition paralyzed congressional action.
Protection from exploitation would have to come from the presidency. In
June 1906, Theodore Roosevelt created Grand Canyon National Game
Preserve. The preserve prevented hunting, trapping, killing, or
capturing of game animals. Otherwise, it accomplished little. The
Antiquities Act armed Roosevelt with a more potent protectionist weapon,
and in January 1908, Executive Order 794 proclaimed Grand Canyon
National Monument as "an object of unusual scientific interest, being
the greatest eroded canyon within the United States." The monument,
located within Grand Canyon National Forest, would continue to be
administered by the United States Forest Service. [16]
Although President Roosevelt had done his best to
protect Grand Canyon, conservationists were not pleased with either the
monument status or Forest Service control. The agency itself recognized
that it was more adept at managing trees than tourists. By 1914
"people problems" caused Chief Forester Henry Graves to admit that his
bureau was not prepared to impose "the close supervision over the
movements and actions of individuals which is the practice in the
National Parks." [17]
Many in the private sector agreed with Graves.
Perhaps the editor of the Saturday Evening Post was among the
most strident when he wrote that the monument designation was really
"a monument to our national ignorance and apathy, our national
dilatoriness and shiftlessness." In his view, the Forest Service stood
for "utility only," while the favored Park Service had "to do with
beauty only." [18] Although more reserved, Secretary of the
Interior Franklin Lane contended that Grand Canyon could
"not, as a section of two national forests, a game
refuge, or a national monument, be properly developed . . . effectively
administered or adequately protected." [19] Congress could no
longer resist, and in 1919 a bill establishing Grand Canyon National
Park passed, thus ending the monument phase as well as Forest Service
jurisdiction.
However, the curious liaison between Grand Canyon and
the Antiquities Act was not over. On 22 December 1932, President
Herbert Hoover established a new Grand Canyon National Monument.
From 1927 on, the Park Service wished to expand the park with what it
called the "Toroweap Addition to Grand Canyon National Park."
However, when it came time for action, park service officials pushed for
a national monument rather than a national park addition. [20]
The officials reasoned that executive action would be more secret and
thus prevent land inflation. They also hoped to avoid congressional
debate and roadblocks. Hoover's proclamation presented the opponents
with a fait accompli, and the best local ranchersconcerned
about the loss of grazing landscould do was sign a petition
questioning the circumvention of representative democracy. "We the tax
payers feel that a law to make this land a National Park," the petition
read, "would never have passed Congress, that President Hoover knew
this and so took unfair advantage of his position and made this a
National Monument." [21]
The final use of the Antiquities Act in Grand Canyon
came some thirty-seven years later when President Lyndon Baines Johnson
proclaimed the Marble Canyon National Monument, adjacent and upriver
from the Grand Canyon. True to course, the new monument was incorporated
into Grand Canyon National Park in 1975. Some sixty-five years of
Antiquities Act manipulation resulted in the park as it exists
today.
One hundred miles north of the Grand Canyon, as the
crow flies, lies another remarkable canyon through which flows the
Virgin River. Zion National Park provides not only a parallel in the
nature of its scenery, but in the method of its establishment. Like
Grand Canyon National Park, all of the land within Zion was set aside
under authority of the Antiquities Act. The first step was taken by
William Howard Taft, when he proclaimed Mukuntuweap National Monument in
1909. At that time the sculpted valley was as obscure as the name, isolated and unknown. The
second step occurred in 1918 when Woodrow Wilson enlarged the monument
acreage five-fold (15,840 to 76,800 acres) and changed the name to
Zion.
Assistant Director of the National Park Service
Horace Albright, Utah Senator Reed Smoot, local people, and
representatives of the Union Pacific Railroad all wanted a national
park. The reasons most often cited were protection and development for
tourism. A park was necessary, argued one government report, to give
"protection, improvement and control that can only be obtained with a
resident force of park employees." [22] Why such a force was unavailable
under monument status went unexplained. The reason was money. Horace
Albright made this clear in writing to Senator Smoot on the subject of
Zion Canyon in 1917, noting that the appropriation bill asked for
$5,000 for twenty-one monuments, thus "the amount that will be
available for any one monument will be very small indeed." [23] If
Senator Smoot had been wavering on the need for park status, Albright's
news that the monument would receive probably about $238 for fiscal year
1918 surely convinced him! To a wider audience, Secretary of the
Interior Franklin Lane reiterated the same message when he stated that
Zion "is proposed as a national park, and as soon as this is
accomplished certain extensive improvements should be made." [24] No
explanation was given as to why monuments received meager appropriations
and were ineligible for development.
Zion became a national park in 1919, but additions to
the park would again involve the Antiquities Act. In 1930 Zion National
Park Superintendent E. T. Scoyen became enamored with Kolob Canyon,
adjacent to Zion and quite magnificent in scale and beautiful in
coloring. He wrote Director Horace Albright proposing that Kolob be
proclaimed a national monument. Scoyen rejected the idea of an addition
to Zion National Park, stating that he could "see no reason why we
should wait for opposition to develop before this bill is sent to
Congress. A clever agitator can stir the people on these lands to open
warfare on the subject, and do harm to both the Park and the people
themselves in the end." Albright's response was to send Roger Toll, his
trusted representative in the West, to report on the proposed Kolob
Canyon National Monument. After a three-day horse pack trip in October
1932, Toll wrote his report extolling the beauty of the canyon and emphasizing that it was of "park
quality." Toll recommended that Kolob should "be an addition to Zion
and not as a separately administered area." However, the alert envoy did
not suggest a national park addition. "For practical considerations
it might be that the area would be first established as a national
monument, with the expectation of eventually adding it to Zion by act
of Congress." [25] Specifically, Toll and others wished to avoid
a fight in Congress with the grazing interests. Often, the
anticipation of opposition was enough reason to press for a
national monument.
One question that Toll failed to address was whether
Kolob Canyon qualified for monument status under the Antiquities Act.
His report stressed scenic beauty and wilderness quality, with not one
sentence devoted to scientific or historic importance. Clearly, for
Toll the Antiquities Act was not a consideration when he submitted his
report. Monument status was a convenient stepping stone, a "halfway
house" on the road to what National Park Service Director Stephen Mather
often called "parkhood."
In 1937 President Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed Kolob
Canyon as the second Zion National Monument. This one had a longer life
span than the first, existing until 1956, when it was made part of the
park through an act of Congress. [26]
Not all monuments were the result of a desire to
bypass Congress. Some resulted from the political manipulations of the
Forest Service and the National Park Service: two federal agencies in
competition to parcel out the unspoken-for mountain terrain of America.
As Forest Service Chief Henry Graves confided to his diary in 1916:
"There seems to be continuous trouble over the national
parks." [27] The newly-established Park Service aggressively
sought to carve new national parks from Forest Service lands, and
sometimes the Antiquities Act was interjected into their departmental
quarrels. There are other examples, but the case of Bryce Canyon
National Park illustrates the point. President Theodore Roosevelt
incorporated the spectacular U-shaped canyon of hundreds of eroded sandstone
spires and minerals into Powell National Forest in 1908. In the years
to follow, Forest Supervisor J. W. Humphrey publicized
the beauty of the canyon, but when Park Service Director Stephen Mather
viewed the "jewel-like little amphitheater" in 1919 there was no doubt
that the Forest Service faced a formidable jurisdictional
foe. [28]
With a certain air of innocence the Park Service
recommended national monument status for the canyon, and Utah Senator
Reed Smoot embraced the idea. In a 1922 meeting in Smoot's office, the
senator, Utah Representative Donald Colton, the commissioner of the
General Land Office, and representatives of the National Park Service
and the Forest Service hammered out an understanding. They agreed to
add 2,320 acres of land to Powell National Forest while simultaneously
creating this acreage as Bryce Canyon National Monument, under the
jurisdiction of the Forest Service. Secretary of the Interior Albert
Fall supported this plan, writing Agricultural Secretary Henry Wallace
that he would "cheerfully join in recommending such a
course." [29] President Calvin Coolidge declared Bryce Canyon
National Monument in June 1923. Nonetheless, Forest Service control was
short-lived. The following year a bill creating Utah National Park
passed (to be changed to Bryce Canyon National Park in 1928), and Forest
Service control ended. [30] Impermanent national monuments well
served the desires of Stephen Mather and Horace Albright to showcase
southwest Utah's scenic beauty as part of the national park system.
Use of the Antiquities Act was not limited to the
American West. The first national park in the East, Acadia National Park
on the coast of Maine, underwent a familiar metamorphosis when park
benefactor George B. Dorr took the idea to Washington. Dorr was advised
that the legislators were unresponsive to park proposals and that he
ought to "forget Congress and address himself instead to the President.
. . ." [31] Woodrow Wilson did not
disappoint him. Sieur de Monts National
Monument was proclaimed in July 1916. By 1918 Director Stephen Mather
reported that the monument "seems now well started on its way to
national parkhood . . . where it rightfully belongs." [32] It was
"elevated," to use Mather's verb, to Lafayette National Park in 1919,
and the name designated Acadia in 1929.
In the Pacific Northwest, a similar bureaucratic
evolution took place. Conservation interest in the Olympic Peninsula
first resulted in President Grover Cleveland setting aside the 2,188,800
acre Olympic Forest Reserve in 1897. Protests from the logging industry
prompted President William McKinley to withdraw some 721,860 acres from
the reserve in 1901. With Roosevelt as president, conservationists
pushed for a national park. Of particular concern was the survival of
the Olympic or Roosevelt Elk herd, named in 1897 by the naturalist C.
Hart Merriam for Theodore Roosevelt. [33] Whether Merriam's
stratagem influenced Roosevelt is not certain, but we do know that
Roosevelt was determined to increase federal protection. His 1909
proclamation, signed some forty-eight hours before Roosevelt left
office, established the 610,560 acre Mount Olympus National Monument. This
action represents the first "lame duck" monument. It would not be the
last.
Again, Roosevelt surely stretched the meaning of the
Antiquities Act to the limit. The Olympic monument was a place of
natural beauty. Scientific, archeological, or historical values were
either secondary or nonexistent. The primary purpose cited by the
executive decree was to provide a refuge for Roosevelt elk but, as
historian John Ise points out, "the monument was not closed to
hunting or trapping until October 5, 1927, by President
Coolidge." [34] One can only agree that "under any other
interpretation of the Antiquities Act other than Roosevelt's own, the
Mount Olympus National Monument would have remained a part of Olympic
National Forest." [35]
The administrative history of the Olympic Mountains
between the establishment of the monument and the creation of Olympic
National Park in 1938 is complex, centered on mining hopes and lumbering
realities, state concerns, political manipulations, and the conflicting
conservation ideologies of the Park Service and the Forest
Service. [36] From its establishment until 1933 the Forest
Service administered the monument. With pressure from logging interests
and Forest Service agreement, the monument was
halved in acreage by a proclamation signed by
President Woodrow Wilson. When the Park Service assumed jurisdiction of
all the national monuments in 1933 the Washington office was besieged
with inquiries as to what would be done with Mount Olympus National
Monument. Replying to conservationist Irving Clark, Director Arno
Cammerer discussed the Park Service's approach to the park versus
monument question:
One of the main problems before us relating to the
Mount Olympus area is whether or not it should be made a national park
rather than retained as a national monument. If the area is superlative
in every respect, is sufficiently significant, and is particularly
usable as a place to visit, its status should be changed to that of a
national park. If, on the other hand, it is an area that should be given
special protection and carefully preserved from wide use, then its
status should remain as at present. [37]
Clearly Cammerer's interpretation rested on his
agency's recent treatment of monuments rather than the Antiquities Act.
If Olympic was worthy of development, then park status was in order.
However, if it was to be "carefully preserved from wide use" and
essentially managed as a wilderness area, then monument status should
continue.
As the Olympic debate developed it was evident that
none of the interest groups favored continuation of the monument. Those
who stood for development wished the land returned to the Forest
Service, whereas those who fought for preservation demanded that the
monument be replaced by a national park. A few mavericks, such as C.
Parker Paul of the Dartmouth Outing Club, favored retention of the
monument to guarantee preservation of "this wilderness sanctuary . .
. just as nature left it." [38]
Although Paul expressed the views of a miniscule
minority, his misunderstanding of the nature of national monuments
certainly represented the majority. Few persons understood the
connection of monuments with the Antiquities Act. Monuments, as often
defined by the National Park Service, were undeveloped parks. Monuments
were consistently subject to starvation budgets which precluded
development. Needless to say, park advocates won out, and in 1938
Olympic National Park replaced the old monument: a monument that had
never been much more than a holding action until a satisfactory
settlement could be reached.
The term "holding action" is most appropriate in
describing national monuments in the 1920s and 1930s. The duration of
national monuments was often short, and their definition was hazy at
best, and nondescript at worst. Official National Park Service policy
called for the "upgrading" of national monuments to national park
status. One might legitimately ask, "What was the difference?" The
question could be answered in a variety of waysnone
satisfactorybut certainly national parks were well funded, and
national monuments were not. This had nothing to do with congressional
law, but rather with bureaucratic preference and public popularity.
Under the leadership of Stephen Mather and Horace Albright the national
parks were considered the "crown jewels" of the system, thus entitling
them to generous appropriations. National monuments, on the other hand,
were expected to survive with little, and often no, appropriation. Many
were simply a convenient way to accomplish immediate conservation
goals.
Such a disparity was not lost on Frank Pinkley, the
supervisor of fourteen southwestern national monuments in the 1920s and
1930s. Continually he railed against the second-class status of the
monuments, complaining that the monuments were nothing more than a
"kindergarten for baby or immature national parks," and that the
Antiquities Act was being used improperly as a "back door entry" to
park status. [39] However, this outspoken iconoclast was
ignored, for his views simply did not square with the policy as outlined
by Jenks Cameron in a semiofficial history of the National Park Service
written in 1922. Cameron, struggling to explain the difference between
parks and monuments, ventured that "the object of a park is the
development of the area . . .," while "it might be said that a monument
is park raw material, because many of the existing monuments, in all
probability, will receive park status when their development as parks is
practicable." [40] The National Park Service was dedicated to expansion
by whatever means possible. The "back door" method of park
establishment had become a valuable tool, and one which the Park Service
would not willingly relinquish.
Surprisingly, what was so disturbing to Pinkley
raised little protest from a United States Congress focused on the
deepening economic depression. When Herbert Hoover proclaimed five
"lame duck" monuments (Grand Canyon, White Sands, Death Valley, Saguaro,
and Black Canyon of the Gunnison) there was hardly a murmur of
congressional concern. One rather partisan political pundit, however,
did not miss an opportunity with the proclamation of Death Valley
National Monument in writing that "those who delight in symbolism may
regard such a monument as very fitting and one of the concrete
achievements of an outgoing depression President." [41]
The incoming president experienced greater popular
and congressional support of his actions. Yet Franklin Delano
Roosevelt's use of the Antiquities Act created great controversy and
brought the matter before a critical Congress. The issue was the
expansion of Grand Teton National Park in northwestern Wyoming. Within
the limitations of this essay, there is not space to review entirely
this complicated issue. [42] One need only say that the first
park, established in 1929, included only the mountain range, leaving the
broad flat lands of northern Jackson Hole ripe for development. To
forestall such a situation John D. Rockefeller, Jr., with National Park
Service cooperation, undertook a land purchase program with the
intention of adding the undeveloped land to the national park. When this
secret plan was made public it faced strong, determined local and state
opposition. Throughout the 1930s various attempts to incorporate Forest
Service and Rockefeller-owned land into Grand Teton National Park
failed.
It was evident to park expansionists that
accomplishing their purpose through congressional action was impossible.
Perhaps in their minds was Arizona Senator Henry Ashurst's statement
that in regard to the park, "the other States are not going to put over
on Wyoming something that her two Senators do not want." [43] Frustrated,
National Park Service Director Arthur Demaray informed Secretary of the
Interior Harold Ickes in 1940 that in regard to Jackson Hole "the
establishment of the area as a national monument at the appropriate time
appears to be the only course available." [44]
The fact that Ickes chose not to take action for some
three years gives evidence that such a course would be controversial.
Finally, a letter in late 1942 from Rockefeller to Ickes, in which the
millionaire hinted at selling his Jackson Hole land holdings, spurred
Ickes to approach President Roosevelt. In his meeting with Roosevelt, the feisty
interior secretary suggested it was time to use the Antiquities Act,
but warned the president that proclamation of a monument could yield
vigorous protest. Undaunted, Roosevelt signed Executive Order 2578 on 15
March 1943, establishing Jackson Hole National
Monument. [45]
As anticipated, strong opposition was voiced to such
a furtive use of the act. Wyoming's senators and congressman generally
had favored state and local control of Jackson Hole, opposing the
expansionist plans of the National Park Service. Now state protest could
be framed in the broader question of the proper separation of executive
and congressional power. Senator Edward Robinson called the monument
proclamation a circumvention of the democratic process, and "a foul,
sneaking Pearl Harbor blow." Representative Frank Barrett, an
indefatigable foe of the National Park Service, condemned the action as
"contrary to every principle of freedom and democracy." "Let them
bring the matter before Congress and let the people be heard on it,"
exclaimed Barrett. "Are they the masters of the people? Are they above
the law?" For Barrett, as well as many others both in and out of
Congress, Roosevelt's use of the Antiquities Act was "a usurpation of
the power and prerogatives of Congress." [46]
Although the National Park Service was able to
marshal some evidence that Jackson Hole National Monument was both
historically and scientifically unique within the loose wording of the
Antiquities Act, few could disagree with Congressman Barrett's
contention that the "monument is nothing more than an addition to
Teton National Park," and that Congress never "intended that the law
should be used for such a purpose as this." [47]
Barrett's comments were made in support of his bill
(H.R. 2241) to abolish the monument. In spite of Roosevelt's appeal to
Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn to kill the bill, it passed the House
by 178 to 107, with 142 not voting. [48] The Senate passed the
bill by voice vote. Roosevelt vetoed the billallowing the monument
to standbut nevertheless the legislators had sent the president a
message: the arbitrary use of the Antiquities Act to accomplish ends
unattainable through Congress must stop.
Although Congress could not kill Jackson Hole
National Monument, it could cripple it through lack of appropriations.
From 1943 through 1946, Wyoming Senator Joseph O'Mahoney successfully
attached amendments to the Interior Department Appropriation Acts
forbidding any expenditure for the new monument. [49] This was
limiting, certainly forestalling any planning or development. Perhaps
more threatening was litigation by the state of Wyoming challenging the
constitutionality of Roosevelt's proclamation. The case of State of
Wyoming v. Franke sought to test whether Roosevelt had
exceeded his powers granted under the Antiquities Act. This litigation
ended rather indecisively when Judge T. Blake Kennedy dismissed the
case, stating that redress for the state of Wyoming could be found in
congressional, rather than judicial action.
Congressional action continued until 1947. It was
augmented by a publicity campaign that included an illegal cattle drive
across the monument led by the aging actor, Wallace Beery (who, it was
rumored, had to have the assistance of a stepladder to mount his horse).
In spite of such varied efforts to abolish the monument, it survived,
finally to be incorporated into an enlarged Grand Teton National Park in
1950. The aim of Rockefeller, the National Park Service, and
conservation groups had been accomplished, but clearly in defiance of
the normal democratic process. In the 1950 act, however, significant
concessions were made to park opponents, one being an article forbidding
the use of the Antiquities Act in Wyoming to create national
monumentswithout the consent of Congress. [50]
Although the Antiquities Act remained on the books,
since 1950 presidents have been more cautious in creating national
monuments. Generally, the chief executive has consulted the House
Interior and Insular Affairs Committee prior to issuing the
proclamation. Unsanctioned monuments could go unfunded by Congress.
Thus, the need for cooperation in achieving conservation goals combined
with the "power of the purse" has meant a general reluctance to use the
full power of the Antiquities Act in the manner of either
Roosevelt. [51]
One is quick to add, however, that the Antiquities
Act was not discarded. It remained (and remains) the law, and
Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Carter have all proclaimed
monuments, usually with the prior approval of Congress, but sometimes in
defiance of it.
The establishment of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal
National Historic Park provides us the latter case, in a confrontation
second only to Jackson Hole. The canal was surely historic, having been
proposed by George Washington in the 1780s. President John Quincy Adams
turned the first spadeful of dirt in 1828, and by 1854 the 185 mile
canal had reached Cumberland, Maryland. Although the canal operated
until 1924, almost from the beginning the railroad rendered the canal
obsolete and profitless. Abandoned, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
relinquished the right-of-way to the federal government in 1939, using
the proceeds to repay a federal loan. [52]
Just what to do with the canal was debated, but the
most attractive proposal was a scenic highway utilizing the old canal
route. In the early 1950s the National Park Service consented to that
use, and the Washington Post published an editorial praising the
plan. All parties seemed in agreement, but they had not foreseen the
eloquent opposition of Justice of the Supreme Court William O. Douglas,
a man who was, as one author put it, "never noticeably restrained by
judicial decorum when expressing himself on conservation matters. . . ."
Douglas argued that the canal offered "a refuge, a place of retreat,
a long stretch of quiet and peace at the Capitol's back door." Then he
challenged Post reporters to a 185 mile canal walk to prove it.
The strategy paid off; the hike was widely publicized and an estimated
fifty thousand supporters greeted the Justice and his hiking colleagues
at their triumphant arrival in Washington. In the face of such public
pressure the agencies retreated and the highway proposal
died. [53]
What replaced the highway proposal was a bill to
preserve and restore the canal as a historic park. It moved smoothly
through the Senate but ran afoul of the House Committee on Interior and
Insular Affairs, where it was continually lost in the committee deck,
adroitly shuffled by canal opponent Representative Gracie Pfost of
Idaho. As Assistant Secretary of the Interior Fred Seaton watched the
continual floundering of the bill. He sought a remedy. With Eisenhower's
presidency drawing to a close, Seaton suggested the use of the
Antiquities Act. Eisenhower obliged, and on 20 January 1961, at
10:36 A.M., literally within hours of Kennedy's inauguration, Ike signed
the proclamation creating the C & 0 Canal National Historic
Monument. [54]
Breaching the impasse through executive fiat incensed
members of the House, particularly Chairman of the Interior and Insular
Affairs Committee Wayne Aspinall. The Colorado congressman made his
displeasure known through the power of the purse, denying funding for
the C & O Canal for nine years. Furthermore, Aspinall refused
hearings on a canal park bill, pressing home the point that the executive branch
must not make land use policy alone. Agreement was finally reached with
Interior Secretary Stuart Udall that the Antiquities Act would only be
used in clear emergencies. [55]
Udall, however, could not resist temptation. When the
Canyonlands National Park bill bogged down with rather petty objections,
the secretary of the interior advised Senator Clinton Anderson of New
Mexico that President Kennedy ought to simply proclaim the entire area
a national monument, thereby settling what Udall considered "an
essentially stupid argument over boundaries" [56] Kennedy did not follow
his secretary's suggestion. However, Udall's romance with the
Antiquities Act did not end with Kennedy. His most controversial use of
the act began some six months before Lyndon Johnson would leave office.
At that time, Johnson requested his cabinet to prepare "wish lists"
that could be accomplished through executive action. Secretary Udall saw
a rare opportunity to add substantially to the National Park System
through use of the Antiquities Act. Marshalling his staff, the secretary
put together seventeen national monument proposals; areas which he
believed would be difficult, if not impossible, to push through
Congress. When presented to Johnson in December 1968, the president and
his staff were quick to recognize the political ramifications. Johnson
ordered Udall to sound out congressional leaders and "touch all bases
on the hill." Udall did as ordered, but failed to touch a crucial base,
that of Wayne Aspinall. Aspinall, a defender of economic development but
even more sensitive to circumvention of the authority of Congress, soon
heard of the plan, and vehemently voiced his objection. What followed
was a confrontation which almost resulted in the dismissal of Udall two
days before Johnson left office. [57] When the dust settled, the
outgoing president signed four executive orders, enlarging three
existing monuments and creating Marble Canyon National Monument.
The dilemma of Johnson during those last days in
office sheds light on the particular appeal of the Antiquities Act.
Although Johnson had a certain respect, perhaps reverence, for Congress
(having spent most of his political career on the "Hill"), he had great
difficulty denying himself use of the Antiquities Act. Frustrated by a
reluctant legislative body and dismayed by an unpopular war, Johnson
was eager to leave a legacy of some tangible accomplishments. The
Antiquities Act offered the power to accomplish significant
conservation measures; measures which he knew would
not likely be rescinded by Congress after he left
office. Johnson was proud of his conservation record, and his use of the
Antiquities Act was the final capstone in a record which he hoped would
be recognized:
On the elevator, as we descended to the ground floor
of the Executive Mansion, I signed the statement to accompany the
Executive actions enlarging the national parks system to 28.5 million
acres. I noted with a certain amount of satisfaction that it had totaled
24.5 million acres when I took office. We had added four million acres
in just five years. [58]
Some of the monument proclamations which Johnson
refused to sign concerned Alaska, perhaps the focal point of land use
debates in the past twenty-five years. It was in Alaska that a more
recent presidentJimmy Carterresorted to an expansive use of
the Antiquities Act. In 1978, when Congress failed to pass an Alaskan
lands bill, Carter was determined not to leave land unprotected. Thus,
he signed executive orders creating some fifty-six million acres of
national monuments. As mentioned earlier, it was a bold stroke, and one
which revealed that the Antiquities Act could still be used in a
meaningful way. Living Wilderness called the move "the strongest
and most daring conservation action by any president in American
history." [59] Such a statement was unwarranted, but nevertheless, Carter
did signal a reticent Congress that the government would not, as Secretary
of the Interior Cecil Andrus put it, allow Alaska to "become a
private preserve for a handful of rape, ruin, and run developers." In
December 1980, Carter signed the Alaska Lands Act, terminating the
monuments and ending a nine year struggle. [60]
The Alaska story simply highlights a certain
reluctance, if not down right stubbornness, on the part of Congress to
establish national parks. William C. Everhart put it directly when he
stated that: "National parks can be created only by an act of Congress,
and they have been intermittently set aside, one by one, most after
interminable deliberation." [61] The Antiquities Act offered a way to
both avoid and resolve such deliberation. In explaining the frequent
delays in establishing parks, historian H. Duane Hampton noted that
Congress has historically lacked interest and exhibited
"a considerable measure of apathy." Two examples
illustrate his point. "No substantial opposition surfaced when
proponents introduced the first bill for Crater Lake National Park,"
explained Hampton, "but fourteen subsequent bills spread over sixteen
years were required before approval of legislation in 1902." Again, with
regard to Mesa Verde National Park, no one opposed the idea yet
proponents petitioned Congress from 1891 through 1906 before they were
successful. [62] One is tempted to speculate that had the
Antiquities Act existed during these two efforts, both Crater Lake and
Mesa Verde would have gone through the "monuments-to-parks" process,
thus bypassing a disinterested Congress.
Certainly American national parks are egalitarian in
purpose. From the beginning of Park Service administration Stephen
Mather and Horace Albright embarked on an ambitious and aggressive
campaign to popularize the parks. One objective was to win a
constituency eager to support the continuance and expansion of the
system. Statistically the goal was realized, particularly with the
remarkable rise in visitation since World War II. However, it is
questionable whether the people were as eager to support setting aside
scenic land as new national parks as they were to visit the
already-established parks. Historian Alfred Runte has argued that the
American public was less than enthusiastic in establishing national
parks. In a much-discussed thesis, Runte argues that before Congress
would act favorably, potential parks had to be proven "worthless" in the
sense of economic gain through mining, farming, grazing, and
logging. [63] Given such a criteria, it is not surprising that
the National Park Service and conservationists found the Antiquities
Act a useful, if not crucial, tool, for it conveniently circumvented
such a debate.
Between 1906 and 1978, twelve presidents used their
authority under the act to establish ninety-nine monuments. The
justification of thirty-eight of the monuments was primarily historic or
prehistoric, while sixty-one were identified as "objects of . . .
scientific interest." [64] Surely almost all of these
ninety-nine monuments could claim to be objects of historic,
prehistoric, or scientific interest. After all, a creative person or
agency could make a case for almost any patch of land in America. The
more central question is whether the monument was actually valued for
these qualities, or whether its founders simply saw monument status as a
transient phase, not unlike the nineteenth-century land boomer's view of
Indian reservations. How many Park Service officials and ardent
conservationists have viewed the Antiquities Act with the simplicity and
directness of Edgar Hewett and Charles Lummis? The answer is very few. A
twentieth-century scenario emerges in which those agencies committed to
planning, conservation, and preservation used the Antiquities Act to
skirt the normal steps of the legislative process.
One should temper such judgments with the observation
that Congress did not always fail when it came to park-making. It would
be easy enough to marshal a sizable list of parks which resulted from
congressional action. However, the idea that the democratic process
moved with perfect purpose toward the creation of national parks and
nature sanctuaries simply was not the case. National parks, although
admittedly an outgrowth of the national interest, often were not
established as a result of an outpouring of popular sentiment. Rather,
they were the offspring of relatively small pockets of private
individuals and public officials intent on manipulating, and
occasionally avoiding, the congressional process. Surely national parks
have become the pride of the American people, and indeed, as Wallace
Stegner put it, "the best thing we ever did. . . ." Congress can take some
of the credit, but when it faltered the Antiquities Act provided the
means to expand the system and preserve valuable scientific, historic,
and scenic resources. It was, as former National Park Service Director
George B. Hartzog, Jr. recently wrote, "an old and reliable
authority." [65]
Robert W. Righter is associate professor of history
at the University of Texas, El Paso.
This article
originally appeared in The Western Historical Quarterly, August 1989.
Footnotes
1Richard Winger to Harold Fabian, 7 January 1932,
"Grand Teton" folder, Box 289 Grand Teton, National Park Service [Hereafter
NPS], Record Group [Hereafter RG] 79, National Archives, Washington, D. C. [Hereafter
NA].
2Among the most useful books and manuscripts which
discuss the passage and function of the Antiquities Act of 1906 are:
John Ise, Our National Park Policy: A Critical History
(Baltimore, 1962), Ronald Foresta, America's National Parks and
Their Keepers (Washington, D. C., 1984); Ronald Lee, "The
Antiquities Act of 1906," (unpublished material) NPS, 1970; Ronald Lee
and Barry Mackintosh, "Evolution of the National Park System,"
(unpublished material) NPS, 1983; Barry Mackintosh, The National Parks:
Shaping the System (NPS, 1985); Ronald F. Lee, Family Tree of the
National Park System (Philadelphia, 1972).
Historian Hal Rothman has recently completed his
doctoral dissertation on the national monuments. It is entitled
"Protected By a Gold Fence With Diamond Teeth: A Cultural History of
the American National Monuments" (doctoral dissertation, University of
Texas at Austin, 1985). There is much of value in this manuscript, and I
acknowledge my indebtedness to his work. It will soon be released as a
book by the University of Illinois Press. Rothman has also published
"Conflict on the Pajarito: Frank Pinkley, the Forest Service, and the
Bandelier Controversy, 1925-32," Journal of Forest History, 29
(April 1985), 68-77; and "Second-Class Sites: National Monuments and the
Growth of the National Park System," Environmental Review, 10
(Spring 1986), 45-56.
3W.A. Richards, Commissioner, General Land Office
[Hereafter GLO] to Secretary of the Interior, 5 October 1904, Tray 165,
National Monuments, NPS, RG 79, NA.
4Samuel P. Hays, Conservation and the Gospel of
Efficiency (Cambridge, MA, 1959), 3, 12, 133-34, 269.
5Ibid., 47. For the strategy and complexities of
Roosevelt's signing the bill stripping his power to create forest
reserves, see Gifford Pinchot, Breaking New Ground, 2d ed.
(Seattle, 1972), 300.
6Lee and Mackintosh, "Evolution of the National Park
System," 3.
7Lee, "The Antiquities Act of 1906," Appendix A,
117.
8Michael McCarthy, Hour of Trial: The
Conservation Conflict In Colorado, 1891-1907 (Norman, 1977), 51-55,
92-93.
9Ise, Our National Park Policy, 149-54;
Rothman, "American National Monuments," 20-21.
10For the Story of President Carter's Alaska lands
movements, see G. Frank Williss, "Do It Right the First Time: The
National Park Service and the Alaska Interest Lands Conservation Act of
1980," (unpublished material) NPS, 1985, 203-13. Also see Robert Cahn,
"The Fight to Save Wild Alaska" (pamphlet published by The Alaska
Coalition, n. p., n. d.).
11See Rothman, "American National Monuments,"
1-61.
12"Memorandum For the President," by Edgar L.
Hewett, Director of American Archaeology for the Archaeological
Institute of America, and Charles Lummis, founder of the Southwest
Society of the Archaeological Institute of America, 1 July 1907, File
12-1, Pt. 1, Parks, Reservations & Antiquities, Central Classified
File, Box 1979, Department of Interior [Hereafter DI], RG 48, NA.
13Dates are provided from Index: National Park
System and Related Areas, (NPS, 1982). More recently Petrified
Forest has become a national park, and Chaco Canyon is presently
designated as a historical park.
14"Petition from citizens of the County of Coconino,
Territory of Arizona, protesting the establishment of Grand Canyon
Forest Reserve," n. d. , Records of the GLO, Land Office, Div. R,
National Forests, Grand Canyon [Hereafter GC], Box 59, RG 49, NA. See J.
Donald Hughes, In the House of Stone and Light (Arizona, 1978)
for a well-researched history of Grand Canyon.
15Williams (Arizona) Sun, 1 January 1897.
16U. S. Congress, House, Report No. 832, 65th
Cong., 2d Sess., 18 October 1918, 5.
17H. S. Graves, Chief Forester, to Mark Daniels,
Interior Department, 17 December 1914, Tray 279, GC, NPS, RG 79, NA.
18"The Grand Canyon Park," Saturday Evening
Post, 191 (16 November 1918), 101-102.
19Franklin K. Lane, Secretary of the Interior, to H.
L. Myers, Chairman, Committee on Public Lands, U. S. Senate, 5 February
1918, in U. S. Congress, House, Report No. 832, 65th Cong., 2d
Sess., 18 October 1918, 8-9.
20See General File, Pt. 1, Box 589, Monuments, GC,
NPS, RG 79, NA.
21Petition from Robert A. Jackson to Senator Henry
Ashurst, March 1933, presenting 40 signatures protesting Grand Canyon
National Monument, General File, Pt. 1, Box 589, Monuments, GC, NPS, RG
79, NA.
22"Report In Regard to Possible Change in the
Mukuntuweap National Monument," by William O. Tufts, Topographical
Engineer, GLO, 4 January 1917, File 0.35, pts. 1, Cent. Classified
Files, Box 549, Zion [Hereafter Z], NPS, RG 79, NA.
23Horace Albright to Senator Reed Smoot, 4 May 1917,
File 0.35, Pt. 1, Cent. Classified Files, Box 549, Z, NPS, RG 79,
NA.
24U. S. Department of the Interior, Annual
Report, 1919, I, 148, 1030.
25E. T. Scoyen, Supt. of Zion National Park, to
Horace Albright, Director, 30 April 1930; "Proposed Kolob Canyons National Monument,
Utah," A Report to Horace Albright, Director NPS, by Roger W. Toll, 26
October 1932, both in General File, pt. 1, Cent. Classified Files, Box
605, "Monuments", NPS, RG 79, NA.
26Ise, Our National Park Policy, 243.
27Graves Diary, 5 April 1916, as quoted in Harold K.
Steen, The U. S. Forest Service: A History (Seattle, 1976), 119; Robert Shankland,
Steve Mather of the National Parks (New York, 1951), 136-38.
28Ise, Our National Park Policy, 245-46. See
Nicolas Scattish, "The Modern Discovery, Popularization, and Early
Development of Bryce Canyon, Utah," Utah Historical Quarterly,
49 (Fall 1981), 348-62. Also see Hal K. Rothman, "'A Regular Ding-Dong
Fight': Agency Culture and Evolution in the NPS-USFS Dispute,
1916-1937," Western Historical Quarterly, 20 (May 1989).
29Henry Wallace, secretary of agriculture, to Albert
Fall, secretary of the interior, 9 January 1923; Albert Fall to Henry Wallace, 13
January 1923, File 12-1, Pt. 1, Cent. Classified Files, Box 1977,
National Monuments, Bryce Canyon, DI, RG 48, NA. Bryce Canyon National
Monument fell under the jurisdiction of the Forest Service because from
1906 to 1933 national monuments were administered by the federal agency
in charge of the land from which the monument was declared. In 1933 all
national monuments were transferred to the National Park Service.
However, there are exceptions, such as the Gila Cliff Dwelling National
Monument, which was returned in Forest Service jurisdiction in 1975.
Index, 1982, 41.
30The evolution of monuments, parks, and national
forests may be found in Richard C. Davis, ed., Encyclopedia of
American Forest and Conservation History, 2 vols. (New York, 1983),
2: Appendix I-II, 743-95.
31 Shankland, Steve Mather, 169-70.
32U. S. Dept. of the Interior, Annual
Report, 1918, I, 886.
33See Michael G. Schene, "Only the Squeal Is Left:
Conflict Over Establishing Olympic National Park," The Pacific
Historian, 27 (Fall 1983), 53-61.
34Ise, Our National Park Policy, 384.
35Rothman, "American National Monuments," 115.
36See Ben W. Twight, Organizational Values and
Political Power: The Forest Service Versus Olympic National Park
(University Park, PA, 1983); Schene, "Only the Squeal Is Left," 53-61.
37Arno B. Cammerer, National Park Service, to Irving
Clark, 16 April 1934, in File 000 General, Pt. 3, Cent. Classified Files, Olympic
National Park [Hereafter ONP], Box 1464, NPS, RG 79, NA.
38 See C. Parker Paul, Dartmouth Outing Club, to
Harold M. Ickes, 4 December 1937; Arthur Demaray to C. Parker Paul, 13 December
1937; C. Parker Paul to Arthur Demaray, 7 January 1938, File 000, Pt.
14, Cent. Classified Files, Box 1468, ONP, NPS, RG 79, NA.
39Frank Pinkley to F. R. Oastler, 6 November 1929;
Edna Pinkley to Horace Albright, 4 October 1929, in File No. 0, Pt. 9,
Box 559, "Monuments", NPS, RG 79, NA. Hal Rothman has described at
length Pinkley's role in "American National Monuments," 209-72; also
see Rothman, "Conflict on the Pajarito," 68-77.
40 Jenks Cameron, The National Park Service: Its
History, Activities, and Organization (New York, 1922), 8. This book
was published by the Brookings Institute as Service Monograph #11 for
the U. S. Government.
41Newspaper clipping, n. n., n. d., in Cent.
Classified File, 1907-36, Box 1978, DI, RG 48, NA.
42For accounts of the Jackson Hole controversy see
Robert W. Righter, Crucible For Conservation: The Creation of Grand
Teton National Park (Boulder, 1982), or David J. Saylor, Jackson
Hole, Wyoming (Norman 1970).
43U. S. Congress, Senate, Hearings Before a
Subcommittee of the Committee on Public Lands and Surveys . . .
Pursuant to S. Res. 226, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., 7-10 August
1934.
44Memorandum from Arthur E. Demaray to Harold Ickes,
1 August 1940, in File 610-01, Pt. 36, Box 1059, GT, NPS, RG 79, NA.
45See Righter, Crucible for Conservation,
103-10.
46U. S. Congress, House, Hearings Before the
Committee on the Public Lands . . . on H. R. 2241, 78th
Cong., 1st Sess., 14 May-9 June 1943, 58.
47Ibid., 6, 48.
48Franklin D. Roosevelt to Speaker of the House of
Representatives Sam Rayburn, 2 June 1944, Doe. 1124, in Franklin D. Roosevelt
& Conservation, 1911-1945, 2 vols., ed. by Edgar B. Nixon (Hyde
Park, NY, 1957), 2:590-91.
49Righter, Crucible for Conservation,
123.
50Ibid., 138-41.
51Rothman, "American National Monuments," 400-401,
414-15.
52April L. Young, "Saving the C and O Canal: Citizen
Participation In Historic Preservation," master's thesis in Urban and
Regional Planning, George Washington University, 1973, 1-6. Also see
William O. Douglas, Go East, Young Man: The Early Years; the
Autobiography of William 0. Douglas (New York, 1974), 341.
53Washington Post, 3 January 1954; William C.
Everhart, The National Park Service (New York, 1972), 197-98;
Time, 1 February 1954, 15.
54Young, "Saving the C and O Canal," 45-59.
55Douglas, Go East Young Man, 60, 212.
56As quoted in Richard Allan Barker, Conservation
Politics: The Senate Career of Clinton P. Anderson (Albuquerque,
1985), 173-74.
57See Everhart, The National Park Service,
175-79.
58Lyndon Baines Johnson, The Vantage Point:
Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963-1969 (New York, 1971), 563.
59As quoted in Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the
American Mind, 3d ed. (New Haven, 1982), 298.
60See Williss, "Do It Right the First Time," 203-19;
Cahn, "The Fight To Save Wild Alaska," 23. Older monuments, such as
Katmai and Glacier Bay, were "upgraded" to national parks by the Alaskan
Lands Act, signed 2 December 1980.
61Everhart, The National Park Service, 2d ed.
(Boulder, 1983), 128-29.
62H. Duane Hampton, "Opposition to National Parks,"
Journal of Forest History, 25 (January 1981), 41. For the Mesa
Verde story, see Duane A. Smith, Mesa Verde National Park
(Lawrence, 1988), 40-66.
63Alfred Runte, National Parks: The American
Experience (Lincoln, 1979), 48-64.
64Lee and Mackintosh, "Evolution of the NPS,"
6.
65George B. Hartzog, Jr., Battling for the
National Parks (Mt. Kisco, NY, 1988), 220.
|