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>> It's an enormous pleasure to

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introduce tonight's guest, but I

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do want to say some thank you's

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and do some housekeeping.

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I'd like to thank, in

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particular, the organizations

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that have partnered with the

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Nelson Institute to make this

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lecture possible, and that

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includes the Wisconsin Academy

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of Sciences, Arts and Letters,

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Gathering Waters Conservancy,

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1,000 Friends of Wisconsin,

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the UW-Madison Department

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of Urban and Regional Planning,

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of course, and Wisconsin Public

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Television.

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We're really delighted and

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enormously proud to work with

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these organizations.

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Thank you very, very much

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for your support.

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[applause]

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Just to emphasize some of the

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things that were just said,

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we take enormous pride

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at reaching broadly to solve

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problems with communities

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that the universities

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can engage across party lines,

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across interests.

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The Nelson Institute is

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dedicated to the kind of work

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that the Jordahl Lecture Series

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and Bud Jordahl represented,

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as does tonight's speaker.

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Two bits of housekeeping,

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one we have a large number

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of lectures coming up

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all Fall and in the Spring.

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These things are available

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up front, our various lecture

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series.

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I want to point to one

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in particular.

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That's our keynote

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for the Earth Day event

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on April 7,

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is going to be Jane Goodall.

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Go out and tell your friends.

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It should be good.

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That's a big one.

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[applause]

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But do take a look.

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There's a lot of great speakers

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from on and off campus coming,

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through Nelson and it's brothers

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and sisters across the campus.

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Now it's my pleasure to

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introduce tonight's speaker.

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Some of us discovered the

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environment and the state parks

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by fishing, hunting, camping.

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Some of us discovered it

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by sitting in front of

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the television.

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Some of us did a little of both.

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I fall into the third group.

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It was only when I was in

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a graduate ecology class

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that I learned that Walt Disney

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had run those poor lemmings

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off that cliff

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in "White Wilderness."

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The power with which

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documentary film

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can fix and shape in our minds,

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great and weird,

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as well as powerful ideas,

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is undeniable.

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For every "Wild Kingdom,"

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there was always

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the "National Geographic."

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Which, of course, transformed my

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life experience fundamentally,

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and put me right here now.

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It is with the same power

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that I think we can welcome

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and celebrate

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the work of Dayton Duncan.

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He's an award winning writer

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and documentary filmmaker.

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He's the author of dozens

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of books, and is a writer and

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producer for a number of

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documentaries directed by

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renowned filmmaker Ken Burns,

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as I think we all know.

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Those include, and I'll list

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them, just because you may not

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have heard,  Lewis & Clark:

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The Journey

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of the Corps of Discovery,

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The National Park:

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America's Best Idea.

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That, I strongly recommend.

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And  The Dust Bowl,  which

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will air on Wisconsin Public

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Television in November,

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I believe.

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In fact, Mr. Duncan has

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collaborated with Ken Burns on

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most of his award-winning series

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for television,

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The Civil War, Baseball, Jazz,

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and many others.

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Dayton Duncan has also served

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as the Chief of Staff

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to the New Hampshire governor,

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Hugh Gallen.

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He was Deputy National Press

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Secretary for the Walter Mondale

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presidential campaign,

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National Press Secretary

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for the Michael Dukakis

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presidential campaign.

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President Clinton appointed

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Dayton Chair of the American

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Heritage Rivers

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Advisory Committee.

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And Interior Secretary,

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Secretary Bruce Babbitt,

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that was my first vote

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that I ever cast,

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was for Bruce Babbitt,

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appointed him Director for the

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National Park Foundation.

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He currently serves on the board

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of the Student Conservation

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Association and the Conservation

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Lands Foundation.

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He's a native of Iowa.

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Dayton graduated from the

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University of Pennsylvania,

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and was a fellow at Harvard's

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Shorenstein Center for Press,

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Politics and Public Policy.

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He holds honorary doctorates

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from Franklin Pierce College,

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Keene State College,

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Drake University.

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He lives in New Hampshire,

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and came a long way.

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So please, please, give a very

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warm welcome for Dayton Duncan.

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Thank you.

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[applause]

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>> Thank you.

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Thank you very much.

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[applause continues]

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I have to get my cheaters on.

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Thank you very much

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for that kind introduction.

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It's a great honor to be chosen

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to give the inaugural lecture.

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This is a lecture,

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I just want you to know...

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[laughter]

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for the Jordahl Public

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Lands Lecture

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for the Nelson Institute.

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It's an act of faith on your

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part to call it the first

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annual, because depending on how

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it goes tonight, you know.

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We'll see.

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I hope there'll be many more.

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It's good to see.

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I have some old friends out in

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the audience who asked very

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specifically that they not be

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mentioned by name, either out of

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modesty or shame that they once

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were associated with me.

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Back before the Democrats

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begged me to get out of politics

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so that they would have half a

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chance to get the presidency

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back.

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When we did our film on the

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West, the great Kiowa poet,

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Scott Momaday, talked about, for

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the Kiowa people, when they

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wanted to describe the ages long

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past, they would call it, "in

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the days when dogs could talk."

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Among my family and friends,

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the way we express the days long

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past is, "back when Dayton had

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hair."

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These are folks from the days

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long past.

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I've spent much of my adult life

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in pursuit of magazine stories

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and books and documentary films,

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and sometimes just out on the

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the open road, trying to

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understand Americans'

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relationship to the land that

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sustains us.

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I've retraced the Louis & Clark

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trail four times, and followed

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the route of the first

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transcontinental automobile trip

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of 1903 a century later.

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I've visited all 132 counties in

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the United States with fewer

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than two people per square mile,

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the census bureau's former

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definition of the frontier.

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My job required me, one time, to

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visit all 58 of the national

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parks in our country.

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I've do all that, and more, not

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just because I'm a sucker for

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road trips, but because I

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believe that the history of our

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country as a nation and who we

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are as a people is bound up with

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that relationship between us and

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the land.

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I'm not here tonight to

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elaborate on that belief, or

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even to defend it, but I'll

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state it as a given.

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For a little help in supporting

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that belief, I want to begin

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with a part of a poem by Robert

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Frost, from my adopted state of

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New Hampshire.

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A poem he read at the

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inauguration of John F.

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Kennedy, becoming the first poet

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ever invited to speak at such an

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important national event.

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The title of the poem is

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"The Gift Outright."

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The land was ours before

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we were the land's.

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She was our land more than

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a hundred years

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Before we were her people.

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She was ours

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In Massachusetts, in Virginia,

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But we were England's, still

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colonials,

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Possessing what we still were

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unpossessed by,

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Possessed by what we now no

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more possessed.

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Something we were withholding

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made us weak

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Until we found out that it was

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ourselves

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We were withholding from our

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land of living,

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And forthwith found salvation

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in surrender.

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We found ourselves as a nation

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Frost says,

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when instead of withholding

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ourselves from the land, we

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became part of it.

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Such as we were,

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he wrote,

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we gave ourselves outright

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To the land vaguely realizing

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westward.

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We found ourselves and our

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salvation in our surrender to

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the land.

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Now the story of our public

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lands is part of the story of

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that transformation, part of who

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we are.

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The story of our public lands is

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obviously a story of very real

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places.

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Awe inspiring scenery, as well

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as vast and intimidating

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landscapes, fertile lands as

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well as harsh deserts.

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But it is also the story of an

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idea, a very American idea.

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After the Declaration of

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Independence, the idea that

298
00:08:56,000 --> 00:08:58,000
founded our nation.

299
00:08:58,000 --> 00:09:00,000
It is, I think, America's best

300
00:09:00,000 --> 00:09:02,000
idea.

301
00:09:02,000 --> 00:09:05,000
I'm going to begin my story with

302
00:09:05,000 --> 00:09:06,000
the author of that founding

303
00:09:06,000 --> 00:09:08,000
idea.

304
00:09:08,000 --> 00:09:11,000
In 1767, nine years before

305
00:09:11,000 --> 00:09:13,000
drafting the Declaration of

306
00:09:13,000 --> 00:09:15,000
Independence, Thomas Jefferson

307
00:09:15,000 --> 00:09:17,000
came across what he described

308
00:09:17,000 --> 00:09:19,000
as, "the most sublime of

309
00:09:19,000 --> 00:09:21,000
nature's works," Virginia's

310
00:09:21,000 --> 00:09:23,000
natural bridge, a limestone arch

311
00:09:23,000 --> 00:09:26,000
215 feet high spanning a gorge

312
00:09:26,000 --> 00:09:28,000
carved by a tributary of the

313
00:09:28,000 --> 00:09:30,000
James River.

314
00:09:30,000 --> 00:09:32,000
"The rapture of the spectator is

315
00:09:32,000 --> 00:09:34,000
really indescribable," Jefferson

316
00:09:34,000 --> 00:09:36,000
wrote, before attempting,

317
00:09:36,000 --> 00:09:39,000
nonetheless, to describe it.

318
00:09:39,000 --> 00:09:41,000
At the top he said, "you

319
00:09:41,000 --> 00:09:43,000
involuntarily fall on your hands

320
00:09:43,000 --> 00:09:45,000
and feet, creep up to the

321
00:09:45,000 --> 00:09:47,000
parapet and peep over it.

322
00:09:47,000 --> 00:09:49,000
Looking down from this height

323
00:09:49,000 --> 00:09:50,000
about a minute gave me a violent

324
00:09:50,000 --> 00:09:52,000
headache.

325
00:09:52,000 --> 00:09:53,000
But from the bottom," he said,

326
00:09:53,000 --> 00:09:55,000
"it is impossible for the

327
00:09:55,000 --> 00:09:56,000
emotions arising from the

328
00:09:56,000 --> 00:09:58,000
sublime to be felt beyond what

329
00:09:58,000 --> 00:09:59,000
they are here.

330
00:09:59,000 --> 00:10:01,000
So beautiful an arch, so

331
00:10:01,000 --> 00:10:03,000
elevated, so light, and

332
00:10:03,000 --> 00:10:05,000
springing as it were, up to

333
00:10:05,000 --> 00:10:07,000
heaven."

334
00:10:07,000 --> 00:10:10,000
Now 1767, there were no public

335
00:10:10,000 --> 00:10:12,000
lands at the time.

336
00:10:12,000 --> 00:10:16,000
Everything belonged to the king.

337
00:10:16,000 --> 00:10:18,000
So Jefferson paid King George 20

338
00:10:18,000 --> 00:10:20,000
shillings for the natural bridge

339
00:10:20,000 --> 00:10:24,000
and 157 surrounding acres.

340
00:10:24,000 --> 00:10:25,000
"I view it in some degree as a

341
00:10:25,000 --> 00:10:27,000
public trust," he wrote a friend

342
00:10:27,000 --> 00:10:29,000
later, "and would on no

343
00:10:29,000 --> 00:10:30,000
consideration permit the bridge

344
00:10:30,000 --> 00:10:33,000
to be injured, defaced or masked

345
00:10:33,000 --> 00:10:35,000
from public view."

346
00:10:35,000 --> 00:10:38,000
A public trust, he called it,

347
00:10:38,000 --> 00:10:39,000
but it was still private

348
00:10:39,000 --> 00:10:41,000
property, his, not a public

349
00:10:41,000 --> 00:10:45,000
land.

350
00:10:45,000 --> 00:10:46,000
A quarter of a century later

351
00:10:46,000 --> 00:10:48,000
Jefferson was president of the

352
00:10:48,000 --> 00:10:49,000
new nation, which at the time

353
00:10:49,000 --> 00:10:51,000
stretched from the Atlantic

354
00:10:51,000 --> 00:10:53,000
seaboard to the Mississippi

355
00:10:53,000 --> 00:10:55,000
River, when he made the greatest

356
00:10:55,000 --> 00:10:57,000
land deal in world history.

357
00:10:57,000 --> 00:10:59,000
It brought us Iowa, after all.

358
00:10:59,000 --> 00:11:01,000
[laughter]

359
00:11:01,000 --> 00:11:02,000
For three cents an acre he

360
00:11:02,000 --> 00:11:05,000
bought the Louisiana Territory,

361
00:11:05,000 --> 00:11:08,000
8,200 square miles, doubling the

362
00:11:08,000 --> 00:11:11,000
size of the United States.

363
00:11:11,000 --> 00:11:13,000
And while not quite extending

364
00:11:13,000 --> 00:11:15,000
our boundary to the Pacific,

365
00:11:15,000 --> 00:11:17,000
putting us on the trajectory to

366
00:11:17,000 --> 00:11:19,000
becoming a continental nation,

367
00:11:19,000 --> 00:11:21,000
instead of the Brazil of North

368
00:11:21,000 --> 00:11:23,000
America.

369
00:11:23,000 --> 00:11:25,000
Not everyone approved of the

370
00:11:25,000 --> 00:11:28,000
bargain, as good as it was.

371
00:11:28,000 --> 00:11:29,000
"We are to give money, of which

372
00:11:29,000 --> 00:11:31,000
we had too little," a Boston

373
00:11:31,000 --> 00:11:34,000
newspaper complained, "for land

374
00:11:34,000 --> 00:11:35,000
of which we already have

375
00:11:35,000 --> 00:11:37,000
too much."

376
00:11:37,000 --> 00:11:38,000
But Jefferson had a plan for

377
00:11:38,000 --> 00:11:41,000
all that surplus land.

378
00:11:41,000 --> 00:11:42,000
He envisioned an orderly

379
00:11:42,000 --> 00:11:43,000
settlement, an empire of

380
00:11:43,000 --> 00:11:46,000
liberty, stretching westward.

381
00:11:46,000 --> 00:11:48,000
The land surveyed into grids and

382
00:11:48,000 --> 00:11:50,000
parcels, offered at auction by

383
00:11:50,000 --> 00:11:52,000
the General Land Office to

384
00:11:52,000 --> 00:11:54,000
yeoman farmers, with each new

385
00:11:54,000 --> 00:11:56,000
patent signed by the president

386
00:11:56,000 --> 00:11:58,000
himself.

387
00:11:58,000 --> 00:12:00,000
An orderly settlement is what he

388
00:12:00,000 --> 00:12:01,000
envisioned.

389
00:12:01,000 --> 00:12:02,000
Well, it didn't work out that

390
00:12:02,000 --> 00:12:03,000
way.

391
00:12:03,000 --> 00:12:05,000
Orderly settlement, it turns out

392
00:12:05,000 --> 00:12:06,000
was not part of the American

393
00:12:06,000 --> 00:12:07,000
character.

394
00:12:07,000 --> 00:12:10,000
Land hunger, land fever,

395
00:12:10,000 --> 00:12:11,000
described it better.

396
00:12:11,000 --> 00:12:14,000
By 1832 the quickened pace of

397
00:12:14,000 --> 00:12:16,000
claims had created a backlog of

398
00:12:16,000 --> 00:12:19,000
10,500 patents awaiting

399
00:12:19,000 --> 00:12:20,000
President Andrew Jackson's

400
00:12:20,000 --> 00:12:23,000
signature to become legal.

401
00:12:23,000 --> 00:12:25,000
It was such an obstacle to

402
00:12:25,000 --> 00:12:26,000
settlement, that congress

403
00:12:26,000 --> 00:12:28,000
figured a way to solve it.

404
00:12:28,000 --> 00:12:29,000
They passed a law authorizing a

405
00:12:29,000 --> 00:12:30,000
clerk to forge the president's

406
00:12:30,000 --> 00:12:33,000
name.

407
00:12:33,000 --> 00:12:34,000
If your grandparents have a

408
00:12:34,000 --> 00:12:37,000
deed, a patent, signed by the

409
00:12:37,000 --> 00:12:38,000
president of the United States

410
00:12:38,000 --> 00:12:40,000
after Andrew Jackson, it wasn't

411
00:12:40,000 --> 00:12:42,000
the president that signed it.

412
00:12:42,000 --> 00:12:42,000
It was some...

413
00:12:42,000 --> 00:12:44,000
It was before there were

414
00:12:44,000 --> 00:12:45,000
robo-signings, they started

415
00:12:45,000 --> 00:12:47,000
this.

416
00:12:47,000 --> 00:12:48,000
They wanted to do that so that

417
00:12:48,000 --> 00:12:51,000
the disposal of the public land

418
00:12:51,000 --> 00:12:52,000
would not slow down.

419
00:12:52,000 --> 00:12:54,000
The federal government, which

420
00:12:54,000 --> 00:12:57,000
relied in part by the sale of

421
00:12:57,000 --> 00:12:59,000
the domain for revenue, could

422
00:12:59,000 --> 00:13:01,000
continue doing, "a land-office

423
00:13:01,000 --> 00:13:04,000
business."

424
00:13:04,000 --> 00:13:05,000
That's where this phrase comes

425
00:13:05,000 --> 00:13:07,000
from.

426
00:13:07,000 --> 00:13:08,000
The very phrase tell you a lot

427
00:13:08,000 --> 00:13:10,000
about our attitude toward the

428
00:13:10,000 --> 00:13:11,000
public domain.

429
00:13:11,000 --> 00:13:13,000
We intended to get rid of it at

430
00:13:13,000 --> 00:13:15,000
the pace of a land-office

431
00:13:15,000 --> 00:13:17,000
business.

432
00:13:17,000 --> 00:13:20,000
But that same year, of 1832, the

433
00:13:20,000 --> 00:13:21,000
artist George Catlin, traveling

434
00:13:21,000 --> 00:13:23,000
on the vast Great Plains in

435
00:13:23,000 --> 00:13:24,000
search of what he called "the

436
00:13:24,000 --> 00:13:26,000
grace and beauty of nature," had

437
00:13:26,000 --> 00:13:28,000
come across a teeming herd of

438
00:13:28,000 --> 00:13:30,000
buffalo and was suddenly struck

439
00:13:30,000 --> 00:13:33,000
with the premonition that they,

440
00:13:33,000 --> 00:13:35,000
and the Indians who depended

441
00:13:35,000 --> 00:13:37,000
upon them, would someday be gone

442
00:13:37,000 --> 00:13:38,000
forever.

443
00:13:38,000 --> 00:13:41,000
Then he had an epiphany.

444
00:13:41,000 --> 00:13:42,000
Much of nature, he realized was

445
00:13:42,000 --> 00:13:44,000
destined "to fall before the

446
00:13:44,000 --> 00:13:46,000
deadly ax and desolating hands

447
00:13:46,000 --> 00:13:49,000
of cultivating man."

448
00:13:49,000 --> 00:13:51,000
And yet the further mankind

449
00:13:51,000 --> 00:13:53,000
became separated from what he

450
00:13:53,000 --> 00:13:56,000
called "pristine wildness," "the

451
00:13:56,000 --> 00:13:58,000
more pleasure does the mind of

452
00:13:58,000 --> 00:14:00,000
enlightened man feel in

453
00:14:00,000 --> 00:14:02,000
recurring to those scenes."

454
00:14:02,000 --> 00:14:04,000
He went on,  What a splendid

455
00:14:04,000 --> 00:14:06,000
contemplation when one imagines

456
00:14:06,000 --> 00:14:08,000
them, by some great protecting

457
00:14:08,000 --> 00:14:10,000
policy of government preserved

458
00:14:10,000 --> 00:14:13,000
in a magnificent park,

459
00:14:13,000 --> 00:14:14,000
a nations park.

460
00:14:14,000 --> 00:14:16,000
Containing man and beast in all

461
00:14:16,000 --> 00:14:18,000
the wild and freshness of their

462
00:14:18,000 --> 00:14:21,000
nature's beauty.

463
00:14:21,000 --> 00:14:23,000
I would ask no other monument

464
00:14:23,000 --> 00:14:25,000
to my memory, nor any other

465
00:14:25,000 --> 00:14:26,000
enrollment of my name amongst

466
00:14:26,000 --> 00:14:28,000
the famous dead,  he said,  than

467
00:14:28,000 --> 00:14:30,000
the reputation of having been

468
00:14:30,000 --> 00:14:31,000
the founder of such an

469
00:14:31,000 --> 00:14:33,000
institution.

470
00:14:33,000 --> 00:14:35,000
Catlin published his thoughts

471
00:14:35,000 --> 00:14:36,000
in a letter to a New York City

472
00:14:36,000 --> 00:14:38,000
newspaper the next year, but his

473
00:14:38,000 --> 00:14:40,000
idea for a nation's park

474
00:14:40,000 --> 00:14:43,000
attracted little attention.

475
00:14:43,000 --> 00:14:44,000
Quite the contrary, the main

476
00:14:44,000 --> 00:14:46,000
business of congress remained

477
00:14:46,000 --> 00:14:49,000
the same, figuring out ways of

478
00:14:49,000 --> 00:14:51,000
disposing of public lands so it

479
00:14:51,000 --> 00:14:54,000
could be put to private use.

480
00:14:54,000 --> 00:14:56,000
By 1841, so many settlers were

481
00:14:56,000 --> 00:14:59,000
pouring onto lands not yet even

482
00:14:59,000 --> 00:15:01,000
surveyed, that congress passed

483
00:15:01,000 --> 00:15:03,000
the Preemption Act, which

484
00:15:03,000 --> 00:15:05,000
permitted squatters to purchase

485
00:15:05,000 --> 00:15:07,000
up to 160 acres of public land

486
00:15:07,000 --> 00:15:10,000
for as little as a $1.25

487
00:15:10,000 --> 00:15:13,000
an acre before it was surveyed

488
00:15:13,000 --> 00:15:15,000
and offered at auction if they

489
00:15:15,000 --> 00:15:16,000
could show a certain number of

490
00:15:16,000 --> 00:15:18,000
months of residence and a

491
00:15:18,000 --> 00:15:20,000
certain number of improvements

492
00:15:20,000 --> 00:15:22,000
to their claim.

493
00:15:22,000 --> 00:15:24,000
The French journalist, Alexis de

494
00:15:24,000 --> 00:15:26,000
Tocqueville, who traveled the

495
00:15:26,000 --> 00:15:28,000
United States around that time,

496
00:15:28,000 --> 00:15:30,000
summarized the prevailing

497
00:15:30,000 --> 00:15:32,000
American attitude toward their

498
00:15:32,000 --> 00:15:34,000
land, I think, the best.

499
00:15:34,000 --> 00:15:35,000
In Europe,  he wrote,  people

500
00:15:35,000 --> 00:15:38,000
talk a great deal about the

501
00:15:38,000 --> 00:15:39,000
wilds of America, but the

502
00:15:39,000 --> 00:15:41,000
Americans themselves

503
00:15:41,000 --> 00:15:44,000
never think about them.

504
00:15:44,000 --> 00:15:45,000
They are insensible to the

505
00:15:45,000 --> 00:15:47,000
wonders of inanimate nature.

506
00:15:47,000 --> 00:15:49,000
They may be said not to

507
00:15:49,000 --> 00:15:51,000
perceived the mighty forest

508
00:15:51,000 --> 00:15:53,000
that surround them, until the

509
00:15:53,000 --> 00:15:55,000
fall beneath the hatchet.

510
00:15:55,000 --> 00:15:56,000
Their eyes are fixed upon

511
00:15:56,000 --> 00:15:58,000
another sight, the march across

512
00:15:58,000 --> 00:16:01,000
these wilds, draining swamps,

513
00:16:01,000 --> 00:16:02,000
turning the course of the

514
00:16:02,000 --> 00:16:05,000
rivers, peopling solitudes, and

515
00:16:05,000 --> 00:16:07,000
subduing nature.

516
00:16:07,000 --> 00:16:09,000
They will habitually prefer the

517
00:16:09,000 --> 00:16:11,000
useful to the beautiful,  he

518
00:16:11,000 --> 00:16:13,000
said,  and they will require

519
00:16:13,000 --> 00:16:15,000
that the beautiful should be

520
00:16:15,000 --> 00:16:18,000
useful.

521
00:16:18,000 --> 00:16:20,000
Under the banner of Manifest

522
00:16:20,000 --> 00:16:22,000
Destiny, in less then a decade

523
00:16:22,000 --> 00:16:23,000
from then, we fought a war with

524
00:16:23,000 --> 00:16:26,000
Mexico, added California and the

525
00:16:26,000 --> 00:16:28,000
Southwest, negotiated with Great

526
00:16:28,000 --> 00:16:29,000
Britain to give us the Pacific

527
00:16:29,000 --> 00:16:32,000
Northwest, and accepted Texas

528
00:16:32,000 --> 00:16:33,000
into the union.

529
00:16:33,000 --> 00:16:34,000
Well, we make some mistakes

530
00:16:34,000 --> 00:16:36,000
every once in awhile, right?

531
00:16:36,000 --> 00:16:37,000
[laughter]

532
00:16:37,000 --> 00:16:38,000
There you go.

533
00:16:38,000 --> 00:16:40,000
If we could go back in time, the

534
00:16:40,000 --> 00:16:42,000
things we could do.

535
00:16:42,000 --> 00:16:46,000
Rick Perry's dream would have

536
00:16:46,000 --> 00:16:50,000
come true.

537
00:16:50,000 --> 00:16:51,000
But now there was a lot more

538
00:16:51,000 --> 00:16:54,000
space to fill, and more space to

539
00:16:54,000 --> 00:16:57,000
be made "useful."

540
00:16:57,000 --> 00:16:59,000
When the Civil War slowed down

541
00:16:59,000 --> 00:17:00,000
the rate of settlement, congress

542
00:17:00,000 --> 00:17:02,000
nonetheless tried to stimulate

543
00:17:02,000 --> 00:17:04,000
it, by upping the ante.

544
00:17:04,000 --> 00:17:07,000
The Pacific Railroad Act of 1862

545
00:17:07,000 --> 00:17:09,000
promised vast tracts of the

546
00:17:09,000 --> 00:17:11,000
public domain to the companies

547
00:17:11,000 --> 00:17:12,000
building the first

548
00:17:12,000 --> 00:17:13,000
transcontinental railroad from

549
00:17:13,000 --> 00:17:15,000
Omaha to Sacramento.

550
00:17:15,000 --> 00:17:17,000
That same year, the Homestead

551
00:17:17,000 --> 00:17:19,000
Act offered individuals their

552
00:17:19,000 --> 00:17:22,000
own 160 acres for free if they

553
00:17:22,000 --> 00:17:24,000
improved the land and filed for

554
00:17:24,000 --> 00:17:26,000
their deed.

555
00:17:26,000 --> 00:17:29,000
Into this environment, while the

556
00:17:29,000 --> 00:17:30,000
nation was still fighting to see

557
00:17:30,000 --> 00:17:33,000
if it would even survive, and

558
00:17:33,000 --> 00:17:35,000
for reasons history does not

559
00:17:35,000 --> 00:17:38,000
provide clear documentation to

560
00:17:38,000 --> 00:17:42,000
explain, in 1864 Senator John

561
00:17:42,000 --> 00:17:45,000
Conness of California proposed

562
00:17:45,000 --> 00:17:47,000
something totally unprecedented

563
00:17:47,000 --> 00:17:50,000
in human history.

564
00:17:50,000 --> 00:17:52,000
Setting aside, not a landscape

565
00:17:52,000 --> 00:17:54,000
garden or a city park, but a

566
00:17:54,000 --> 00:17:57,000
large tract of natural scenery

567
00:17:57,000 --> 00:18:01,000
for the enjoyment of everyone.

568
00:18:01,000 --> 00:18:03,000
More than 60 square miles of

569
00:18:03,000 --> 00:18:04,000
federal land encompassing the

570
00:18:04,000 --> 00:18:06,000
Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa

571
00:18:06,000 --> 00:18:09,000
Grove of giant Sequoias, were to

572
00:18:09,000 --> 00:18:11,000
be transferred to the care of

573
00:18:11,000 --> 00:18:12,000
the state of California "for

574
00:18:12,000 --> 00:18:14,000
public use, resort and

575
00:18:14,000 --> 00:18:18,000
recreation," and made

576
00:18:18,000 --> 00:18:21,000
"unalienable forever."

577
00:18:21,000 --> 00:18:22,000
That is, reserved from private

578
00:18:22,000 --> 00:18:25,000
ownership for all time.

579
00:18:25,000 --> 00:18:28,000
In other words, he was asking

580
00:18:28,000 --> 00:18:30,000
congress to do the exact

581
00:18:30,000 --> 00:18:33,000
opposite of what it had been

582
00:18:33,000 --> 00:18:34,000
doing for all of it's existence.

583
00:18:34,000 --> 00:18:37,000
To save a piece of public land

584
00:18:37,000 --> 00:18:39,000
for the public, instead of

585
00:18:39,000 --> 00:18:41,000
trying everything possible to

586
00:18:41,000 --> 00:18:43,000
sell it, or even give it away,

587
00:18:43,000 --> 00:18:45,000
so it could become private

588
00:18:45,000 --> 00:18:47,000
property.

589
00:18:47,000 --> 00:18:49,000
Conness obviously understood

590
00:18:49,000 --> 00:18:50,000
this when he introduced his bill

591
00:18:50,000 --> 00:18:52,000
on the senate floor.

592
00:18:52,000 --> 00:18:53,000
"I will state to the senate," he

593
00:18:53,000 --> 00:18:55,000
said, "that this bill proposes

594
00:18:55,000 --> 00:18:57,000
to make a grant of certain

595
00:18:57,000 --> 00:18:58,000
premises located in the Sierra

596
00:18:58,000 --> 00:19:00,000
Nevada Mountains in the state of

597
00:19:00,000 --> 00:19:02,000
California, that are for all

598
00:19:02,000 --> 00:19:05,000
public purposes worthless, but

599
00:19:05,000 --> 00:19:07,000
which constitute perhaps, some

600
00:19:07,000 --> 00:19:09,000
of the greatest wonders of the

601
00:19:09,000 --> 00:19:10,000
world."

602
00:19:10,000 --> 00:19:12,000
For all public purposes

603
00:19:12,000 --> 00:19:14,000
worthless is what he was just

604
00:19:14,000 --> 00:19:17,000
saying about Yosemite and the

605
00:19:17,000 --> 00:19:18,000
Maripose Grove.

606
00:19:18,000 --> 00:19:20,000
How many people have been there?

607
00:19:20,000 --> 00:19:23,000
Pretty worthless, right?

608
00:19:23,000 --> 00:19:24,000
But that was the first point he

609
00:19:24,000 --> 00:19:26,000
made, before tossing in a little

610
00:19:26,000 --> 00:19:28,000
nationalism that Yosemite and

611
00:19:28,000 --> 00:19:29,000
the big trees where also

612
00:19:29,000 --> 00:19:32,000
world-class wonders, something

613
00:19:32,000 --> 00:19:34,000
more spectacular than the Old

614
00:19:34,000 --> 00:19:38,000
World, Europe, could claim.

615
00:19:38,000 --> 00:19:40,000
Then, in case they had forgotten

616
00:19:40,000 --> 00:19:42,000
that initial point, he

617
00:19:42,000 --> 00:19:43,000
reiterated.

618
00:19:43,000 --> 00:19:45,000
"It is a matter involving no

619
00:19:45,000 --> 00:19:47,000
appropriation whatever," he

620
00:19:47,000 --> 00:19:48,000
promised.

621
00:19:48,000 --> 00:19:51,000
"The property is of no value to

622
00:19:51,000 --> 00:19:52,000
the government."

623
00:19:52,000 --> 00:19:54,000
In other words, to those other

624
00:19:54,000 --> 00:19:56,000
congressmen and senators,

625
00:19:56,000 --> 00:19:57,000
something of a freebie.

626
00:19:57,000 --> 00:19:59,000
Congress wouldn't be spending

627
00:19:59,000 --> 00:20:00,000
any money and wouldn't be

628
00:20:00,000 --> 00:20:02,000
depriving it's citizens of

629
00:20:02,000 --> 00:20:06,000
"valuable," "useful" land,

630
00:20:06,000 --> 00:20:07,000
that is, good farmland or

631
00:20:07,000 --> 00:20:09,000
merchantable timber or precious

632
00:20:09,000 --> 00:20:11,000
minerals, by prohibiting private

633
00:20:11,000 --> 00:20:13,000
ownership.

634
00:20:13,000 --> 00:20:15,000
It helped, no doubt, that this

635
00:20:15,000 --> 00:20:17,000
was a place tucked into a remote

636
00:20:17,000 --> 00:20:19,000
recess of the Sierra Nevada.

637
00:20:19,000 --> 00:20:22,000
It helped that Carleton Watkins'

638
00:20:22,000 --> 00:20:24,000
stunning photographs of the

639
00:20:24,000 --> 00:20:26,000
valley, and those huge, ancient

640
00:20:26,000 --> 00:20:28,000
trees, hung in the

641
00:20:28,000 --> 00:20:29,000
Sergeant-at-Arms's office near

642
00:20:29,000 --> 00:20:31,000
the senate chamber.

643
00:20:31,000 --> 00:20:33,000
It certainly helped that at

644
00:20:33,000 --> 00:20:35,000
least one prominent business

645
00:20:35,000 --> 00:20:37,000
interest, a steam-ship company

646
00:20:37,000 --> 00:20:38,000
eager to take tourists to

647
00:20:38,000 --> 00:20:40,000
California to see these wonders,

648
00:20:40,000 --> 00:20:43,000
wanted the law to pass.

649
00:20:43,000 --> 00:20:44,000
It probably helped that many of

650
00:20:44,000 --> 00:20:46,000
the senators knew that some of

651
00:20:46,000 --> 00:20:48,000
California's mammoth trees had

652
00:20:48,000 --> 00:20:50,000
already been cut down,

653
00:20:50,000 --> 00:20:52,000
illiciting the scorn of those

654
00:20:52,000 --> 00:20:53,000
who already rubbed the

655
00:20:53,000 --> 00:20:55,000
commercial degradation of

656
00:20:55,000 --> 00:20:58,000
Niagara Falls in the nation's

657
00:20:58,000 --> 00:20:59,000
face.

658
00:20:59,000 --> 00:21:01,000
Now, at least one of the

659
00:21:01,000 --> 00:21:03,000
celebrated big tree groves would

660
00:21:03,000 --> 00:21:05,000
be preserved, to show off to any

661
00:21:05,000 --> 00:21:08,000
disdainful European, de

662
00:21:08,000 --> 00:21:10,000
Tocqueville might come to mind,

663
00:21:10,000 --> 00:21:12,000
who doubted America's superior

664
00:21:12,000 --> 00:21:14,000
natural wonders or it's capacity

665
00:21:14,000 --> 00:21:17,000
to properly care for them.

666
00:21:17,000 --> 00:21:19,000
It's impossible to look down

667
00:21:19,000 --> 00:21:20,000
your nose when your head is

668
00:21:20,000 --> 00:21:22,000
craned upwards looking at the

669
00:21:22,000 --> 00:21:25,000
top of a live Sequoia tree.

670
00:21:25,000 --> 00:21:27,000
Virtually no real debate arose

671
00:21:27,000 --> 00:21:30,000
over Conness' bill.

672
00:21:30,000 --> 00:21:31,000
The senate passed it and moved

673
00:21:31,000 --> 00:21:33,000
on to other issues.

674
00:21:33,000 --> 00:21:34,000
A month later, the house did the

675
00:21:34,000 --> 00:21:35,000
same thing.

676
00:21:35,000 --> 00:21:39,000
On June 30, 1864, whether he

677
00:21:39,000 --> 00:21:43,000
realized it fully or not,

678
00:21:43,000 --> 00:21:44,000
President Abraham Lincoln took

679
00:21:44,000 --> 00:21:46,000
an historic step.

680
00:21:46,000 --> 00:21:48,000
He signed a law to preserve

681
00:21:48,000 --> 00:21:51,000
forever a beautiful valley and a

682
00:21:51,000 --> 00:21:52,000
grove of trees that neither he

683
00:21:52,000 --> 00:21:56,000
nor the members of congress had

684
00:21:56,000 --> 00:21:58,000
ever seen, thousands of miles

685
00:21:58,000 --> 00:22:01,000
away in California.

686
00:22:01,000 --> 00:22:03,000
The seed of the national park

687
00:22:03,000 --> 00:22:05,000
idea had been planted.

688
00:22:05,000 --> 00:22:08,000
Our attitude toward public lands

689
00:22:08,000 --> 00:22:13,000
had just now begun to evolve.

690
00:22:13,000 --> 00:22:15,000
Now a year later, 1865, a small

691
00:22:15,000 --> 00:22:17,000
group gathered in Yosemite

692
00:22:17,000 --> 00:22:19,000
Valley to hear one of the state

693
00:22:19,000 --> 00:22:22,000
commissioners read a report he

694
00:22:22,000 --> 00:22:23,000
had written about the future of

695
00:22:23,000 --> 00:22:25,000
this new park that had been

696
00:22:25,000 --> 00:22:26,000
entrusted to the state of

697
00:22:26,000 --> 00:22:28,000
California.

698
00:22:28,000 --> 00:22:29,000
His name was Frederick Law

699
00:22:29,000 --> 00:22:31,000
Olmsted, better known as one of

700
00:22:31,000 --> 00:22:33,000
the designers of New York City's

701
00:22:33,000 --> 00:22:35,000
Central Park.

702
00:22:35,000 --> 00:22:36,000
He was living temporarily in

703
00:22:36,000 --> 00:22:38,000
California where he was

704
00:22:38,000 --> 00:22:40,000
overseeing a big mining estate

705
00:22:40,000 --> 00:22:44,000
not far from Yosemite.

706
00:22:44,000 --> 00:22:46,000
Like Senator Conness, Olmsted

707
00:22:46,000 --> 00:22:48,000
was acutely aware of American's

708
00:22:48,000 --> 00:22:50,000
predisposition to commerce.

709
00:22:50,000 --> 00:22:52,000
After describing the new park's

710
00:22:52,000 --> 00:22:54,000
natural beauty, he began his

711
00:22:54,000 --> 00:22:56,000
report by noting what he called

712
00:22:56,000 --> 00:22:58,000
the "obviously pecuniary

713
00:22:58,000 --> 00:23:01,000
advantage" of such scenery.

714
00:23:01,000 --> 00:23:03,000
Switzerland, he noted, prospered

715
00:23:03,000 --> 00:23:05,000
economically from the thousands

716
00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:07,000
of tourists visiting the Alps.

717
00:23:07,000 --> 00:23:09,000
Their money supported inns and

718
00:23:09,000 --> 00:23:11,000
restaurants, provided farmers

719
00:23:11,000 --> 00:23:13,000
with "their best and almost only

720
00:23:13,000 --> 00:23:16,000
market" for surplus products.

721
00:23:16,000 --> 00:23:18,000
It fostered to developments of

722
00:23:18,000 --> 00:23:20,000
railroads and carriage roads,

723
00:23:20,000 --> 00:23:22,000
steamboat lines and telegraphs,

724
00:23:22,000 --> 00:23:24,000
that all contributed substantial

725
00:23:24,000 --> 00:23:26,000
revenue to the nation of

726
00:23:26,000 --> 00:23:28,000
Switzerland.

727
00:23:28,000 --> 00:23:30,000
So too, Olmsted predicted, would

728
00:23:30,000 --> 00:23:31,000
the scenic attraction of

729
00:23:31,000 --> 00:23:33,000
Yosemite and the big trees

730
00:23:33,000 --> 00:23:35,000
become a financial boon to

731
00:23:35,000 --> 00:23:37,000
California, and ultimately, the

732
00:23:37,000 --> 00:23:39,000
United States.

733
00:23:39,000 --> 00:23:41,000
Scenery as magnificent as

734
00:23:41,000 --> 00:23:44,000
Yosemite's, carefully protected,

735
00:23:44,000 --> 00:23:46,000
would be good for business.

736
00:23:46,000 --> 00:23:48,000
And business is the business of

737
00:23:48,000 --> 00:23:50,000
America.

738
00:23:50,000 --> 00:23:53,000
But Olmsted also offered a new

739
00:23:53,000 --> 00:23:55,000
argument for the park.

740
00:23:55,000 --> 00:23:57,000
Economics and international

741
00:23:57,000 --> 00:24:00,000
bragging rights paled as

742
00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:02,000
rational for preserving

743
00:24:02,000 --> 00:24:03,000
Yosemite, he said, compared to

744
00:24:03,000 --> 00:24:05,000
something much more fundamental,

745
00:24:05,000 --> 00:24:07,000
the purposes of democracy and

746
00:24:07,000 --> 00:24:12,000
the enduring promise of America.

747
00:24:12,000 --> 00:24:14,000
Throughout history, he argued,

748
00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:16,000
the world's aristocracies and

749
00:24:16,000 --> 00:24:17,000
richest families had always set

750
00:24:17,000 --> 00:24:19,000
aside the most magnificent

751
00:24:19,000 --> 00:24:22,000
places for their own exclusive

752
00:24:22,000 --> 00:24:24,000
benefit.

753
00:24:24,000 --> 00:24:25,000
Here's what he said.

754
00:24:25,000 --> 00:24:26,000
The enjoyment of the choicest

755
00:24:26,000 --> 00:24:28,000
natural scenes in the country

756
00:24:28,000 --> 00:24:30,000
and the means of recreation

757
00:24:30,000 --> 00:24:32,000
connected with them is thus a

758
00:24:32,000 --> 00:24:35,000
monopoly of a very few, very

759
00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:37,000
rich, people.

760
00:24:37,000 --> 00:24:39,000
The great mass of society,

761
00:24:39,000 --> 00:24:41,000
including those to whom it

762
00:24:41,000 --> 00:24:43,000
would be of the greatest

763
00:24:43,000 --> 00:24:45,000
benefit is excluded from it.

764
00:24:45,000 --> 00:24:46,000
But the United States, he said,

765
00:24:46,000 --> 00:24:47,000
was founded on a different

766
00:24:47,000 --> 00:24:49,000
notion than protecting the

767
00:24:49,000 --> 00:24:51,000
special privileges of birth or

768
00:24:51,000 --> 00:24:53,000
wealth.

769
00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:56,000
He said,  It is the main duty of

770
00:24:56,000 --> 00:24:57,000
government, if it is not the

771
00:24:57,000 --> 00:24:59,000
sole duty of government, to

772
00:24:59,000 --> 00:25:01,000
provide means of protection for

773
00:25:01,000 --> 00:25:03,000
all it's citizen in the pursuit

774
00:25:03,000 --> 00:25:05,000
of happiness against the

775
00:25:05,000 --> 00:25:07,000
obstacles otherwise

776
00:25:07,000 --> 00:25:09,000
insurmountable which the

777
00:25:09,000 --> 00:25:11,000
selfishness of individuals, or

778
00:25:11,000 --> 00:25:13,000
combinations of individuals, is

779
00:25:13,000 --> 00:25:15,000
libel to interpose to that

780
00:25:15,000 --> 00:25:16,000
pursuit.

781
00:25:16,000 --> 00:25:18,000
The establishment by government

782
00:25:18,000 --> 00:25:20,000
of great public grounds for the

783
00:25:20,000 --> 00:25:22,000
free enjoyment of the people

784
00:25:22,000 --> 00:25:24,000
under certain circumstances is

785
00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:28,000
thus justified and enforced

786
00:25:28,000 --> 00:25:30,000
as a political duty.

787
00:25:30,000 --> 00:25:33,000
A political duty, he said.

788
00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:36,000
A government of the people has

789
00:25:36,000 --> 00:25:37,000
the duty to protect it's

790
00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:39,000
citizens' rights, including the

791
00:25:39,000 --> 00:25:42,000
pursuit of happiness, against

792
00:25:42,000 --> 00:25:44,000
the narrow and often powerful

793
00:25:44,000 --> 00:25:46,000
interests that would otherwise

794
00:25:46,000 --> 00:25:50,000
monopolize it for themselves.

795
00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:51,000
Like Lincoln in his Gettysburg

796
00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:53,000
Address, though not nearly as

797
00:25:53,000 --> 00:25:56,000
briefly or poetically, Olmsted,

798
00:25:56,000 --> 00:25:58,000
I think, had deliberately

799
00:25:58,000 --> 00:26:00,000
referred to the nation's most

800
00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:01,000
sacred document, the pursuit of

801
00:26:01,000 --> 00:26:03,000
happiness.

802
00:26:03,000 --> 00:26:05,000
He then linked it to an idea

803
00:26:05,000 --> 00:26:06,000
that summoned it's essence

804
00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:10,000
forward, expanding it in a way

805
00:26:10,000 --> 00:26:11,000
that Jefferson himself would

806
00:26:11,000 --> 00:26:14,000
have understood and approved of.

807
00:26:14,000 --> 00:26:16,000
It was the Declaration of

808
00:26:16,000 --> 00:26:19,000
Independence applied to the

809
00:26:19,000 --> 00:26:21,000
land.

810
00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:22,000
Next, Olmsted got down to his

811
00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:25,000
specific plans for Yosemite.

812
00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:26,000
California needed to invest in

813
00:26:26,000 --> 00:26:28,000
better roads to the Valley and

814
00:26:28,000 --> 00:26:30,000
Mariposa Grove, cutting the time

815
00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:32,000
and expense of travel in half,

816
00:26:32,000 --> 00:26:34,000
so that the grant did not, by

817
00:26:34,000 --> 00:26:36,000
virtue of its inaccessibility

818
00:26:36,000 --> 00:26:37,000
become what he called "a rich

819
00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:39,000
man's park."

820
00:26:39,000 --> 00:26:40,000
He estimated the roadwork

821
00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:43,000
would cost about $25,000 and

822
00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:45,000
suggested the state spend an

823
00:26:45,000 --> 00:26:47,000
addition $12,000 for better

824
00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:49,000
trails, surveys, advertising and

825
00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:51,000
construction of five

826
00:26:51,000 --> 00:26:53,000
strategically placed cabins as

827
00:26:53,000 --> 00:26:54,000
free resting places for

828
00:26:54,000 --> 00:26:56,000
visitors.

829
00:26:56,000 --> 00:26:57,000
But none of this would be

830
00:26:57,000 --> 00:26:59,000
worthwhile, he warned, without

831
00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:03,000
remembering another duty, the

832
00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:05,000
duty to future generations and

833
00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:08,000
the duty to the scenery itself.

834
00:27:08,000 --> 00:27:11,000
Regulations needed to be enacted

835
00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:12,000
and enforced, he said, to

836
00:27:12,000 --> 00:27:15,000
protect "the dignity of the

837
00:27:15,000 --> 00:27:17,000
scenery" against the demands of

838
00:27:17,000 --> 00:27:19,000
what he called, "the

839
00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:21,000
convenience, bad taste,

840
00:27:21,000 --> 00:27:23,000
playfulness, carelessness or

841
00:27:23,000 --> 00:27:25,000
wonton destruction of present

842
00:27:25,000 --> 00:27:28,000
visitors."

843
00:27:28,000 --> 00:27:30,000
In a place as timeless as

844
00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:33,000
Yosemite, Olmsted declared, "the

845
00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:36,000
rights of posterity" outweighed

846
00:27:36,000 --> 00:27:38,000
the immediate desires of the

847
00:27:38,000 --> 00:27:40,000
present.

848
00:27:40,000 --> 00:27:42,000
So he is reading this aloud, for

849
00:27:42,000 --> 00:27:44,000
those of you who have been to

850
00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:46,000
Yosemite, in a meadow along the

851
00:27:46,000 --> 00:27:47,000
beautiful Merced River, with the

852
00:27:47,000 --> 00:27:52,000
waterfalls flowing over those

853
00:27:52,000 --> 00:27:54,000
magnificent cliffs, and

854
00:27:54,000 --> 00:27:57,000
gathering there and flowing past

855
00:27:57,000 --> 00:27:58,000
them.

856
00:27:58,000 --> 00:28:00,000
There was about 30 people

857
00:28:00,000 --> 00:28:01,000
listening to it.

858
00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:03,000
That was the largest tourist

859
00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:07,000
group to date in Yosemite Valley

860
00:28:07,000 --> 00:28:09,000
at that point, which had been

861
00:28:09,000 --> 00:28:11,000
first visited by white people in

862
00:28:11,000 --> 00:28:13,000
1851.

863
00:28:13,000 --> 00:28:15,000
The first tourists were 1855.

864
00:28:15,000 --> 00:28:17,000
Ten years later, a group of

865
00:28:17,000 --> 00:28:20,000
30 was an awful big group.

866
00:28:20,000 --> 00:28:22,000
There, standing before what

867
00:28:22,000 --> 00:28:24,000
constituted a crowd in Yosemite

868
00:28:24,000 --> 00:28:26,000
Valley in 1865, when fewer than

869
00:28:26,000 --> 00:28:29,000
100 tourists normally visited

870
00:28:29,000 --> 00:28:32,000
each year, Olmsted cast his

871
00:28:32,000 --> 00:28:37,000
vision far over the horizon.

872
00:28:37,000 --> 00:28:38,000
He invited his listeners to do

873
00:28:38,000 --> 00:28:41,000
the same.

874
00:28:41,000 --> 00:28:43,000
He said,  before many years, if

875
00:28:43,000 --> 00:28:44,000
proper facilities are offered,

876
00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:46,000
these hundreds will become

877
00:28:46,000 --> 00:28:48,000
thousands, and in a century the

878
00:28:48,000 --> 00:28:50,000
whole number of visitors will

879
00:28:50,000 --> 00:28:53,000
be counted by millions.

880
00:28:53,000 --> 00:28:54,000
An injury to the scenery so

881
00:28:54,000 --> 00:28:57,000
slight that it may be unheeded

882
00:28:57,000 --> 00:28:59,000
by any visitor now,  he said,

883
00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:02,000
will be one multiplied by those

884
00:29:02,000 --> 00:29:03,000
millions.

885
00:29:03,000 --> 00:29:05,000
Therefore, laws to prevent an

886
00:29:05,000 --> 00:29:07,000
unjust use by individuals of

887
00:29:07,000 --> 00:29:09,000
that which is not individual,

888
00:29:09,000 --> 00:29:10,000
but public, property, must be

889
00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:13,000
made and rigidly enforced.

890
00:29:13,000 --> 00:29:15,000
This duty of preservation,  he

891
00:29:15,000 --> 00:29:17,000
said,  is first, because the

892
00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:20,000
millions who are hereafter to

893
00:29:20,000 --> 00:29:21,000
benefit have the largest

894
00:29:21,000 --> 00:29:23,000
interest in it, and the largest

895
00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:25,000
interest should be first and

896
00:29:25,000 --> 00:29:28,000
most strenuously guarded.

897
00:29:28,000 --> 00:29:30,000
Yosemite, he proclaimed, was "a

898
00:29:30,000 --> 00:29:33,000
trust from the whole nation."

899
00:29:33,000 --> 00:29:35,000
An expression of, what he

900
00:29:35,000 --> 00:29:37,000
said, "the will of the nation is

901
00:29:37,000 --> 00:29:38,000
embodied in the act of congress

902
00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:40,000
that this scenery shall never be

903
00:29:40,000 --> 00:29:42,000
private property, but that like

904
00:29:42,000 --> 00:29:44,000
certain defensive points upon

905
00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:46,000
our coasts, it shall be held

906
00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:49,000
solely for public purposes."

907
00:29:49,000 --> 00:29:54,000
This was a stunningly prescient

908
00:29:54,000 --> 00:29:56,000
document.

909
00:29:56,000 --> 00:29:57,000
All the more remarkable because

910
00:29:57,000 --> 00:29:59,000
it was written so early in

911
00:29:59,000 --> 00:30:01,000
America's, and therefore the

912
00:30:01,000 --> 00:30:03,000
world's, first venture into

913
00:30:03,000 --> 00:30:05,000
setting aside large tracts of

914
00:30:05,000 --> 00:30:06,000
public land.

915
00:30:06,000 --> 00:30:08,000
Without any precedent or any

916
00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:11,000
guidance Olmsted had just

917
00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:14,000
presented a closely reasoned yet

918
00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:15,000
farsighted argument about the

919
00:30:15,000 --> 00:30:18,000
future of Yosemite and of all

920
00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:20,000
future parks.

921
00:30:20,000 --> 00:30:22,000
Filled with democratic theory as

922
00:30:22,000 --> 00:30:23,000
well as practical

923
00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:25,000
recommendations, lofty ideals

924
00:30:25,000 --> 00:30:27,000
and the nuts and bolts of

925
00:30:27,000 --> 00:30:28,000
management.

926
00:30:28,000 --> 00:30:29,000
A manifesto combining the

927
00:30:29,000 --> 00:30:32,000
Declaration of Independence and

928
00:30:32,000 --> 00:30:34,000
the Constitution, on behalf of

929
00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:36,000
public parks, binding them to

930
00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:38,000
the principles that had founded

931
00:30:38,000 --> 00:30:42,000
the nation now embarking on yet

932
00:30:42,000 --> 00:30:45,000
another experiment in democracy.

933
00:30:45,000 --> 00:30:47,000
Nothing like it had been written

934
00:30:47,000 --> 00:30:49,000
before.

935
00:30:49,000 --> 00:30:50,000
And I must tell you, nothing

936
00:30:50,000 --> 00:30:55,000
better has been written since.

937
00:30:55,000 --> 00:30:58,000
It would be natural therefore,

938
00:30:58,000 --> 00:30:59,000
to think of Olmsted's report as

939
00:30:59,000 --> 00:31:01,000
the blueprint that guided the

940
00:31:01,000 --> 00:31:03,000
development of the new park at

941
00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:05,000
Yosemite and all national parks

942
00:31:05,000 --> 00:31:07,000
and public lands that would

943
00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:08,000
follow.

944
00:31:08,000 --> 00:31:10,000
That would be natural and nice,

945
00:31:10,000 --> 00:31:13,000
but it would not be close to the

946
00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:14,000
truth.

947
00:31:14,000 --> 00:31:16,000
History, some of you who are

948
00:31:16,000 --> 00:31:18,000
history students here know,

949
00:31:18,000 --> 00:31:21,000
follows it's own winding paths.

950
00:31:21,000 --> 00:31:24,000
No one at Olmsted's reading had

951
00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:26,000
disagreed with his proposal.

952
00:31:26,000 --> 00:31:28,000
But once he was safely out of

953
00:31:28,000 --> 00:31:29,000
California and back at Central

954
00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:32,000
Park in New York City, a small

955
00:31:32,000 --> 00:31:33,000
group of his fellow

956
00:31:33,000 --> 00:31:35,000
commissioners secretly convened

957
00:31:35,000 --> 00:31:37,000
and decided his recommendations

958
00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:39,000
were too expensive and too

959
00:31:39,000 --> 00:31:41,000
controversial to bring before

960
00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:43,000
the legislature.

961
00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:45,000
With the governor's concurrence

962
00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:48,000
the report was quietly shelved.

963
00:31:48,000 --> 00:31:53,000
Nearly a century would elapse

964
00:31:53,000 --> 00:31:56,000
before an Olmsted biographer,

965
00:31:56,000 --> 00:31:57,000
going through the papers of the

966
00:31:57,000 --> 00:31:59,000
Olmsted Brothers' firm in

967
00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:01,000
Brookline, Massachusetts in

968
00:32:01,000 --> 00:32:03,000
1952, unearthed a copy of that

969
00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:06,000
report and published it.

970
00:32:06,000 --> 00:32:08,000
In the mean time, the history of

971
00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:11,000
Yosemite, the national park

972
00:32:11,000 --> 00:32:13,000
idea, and our relationship with

973
00:32:13,000 --> 00:32:15,000
the public lands, would need to

974
00:32:15,000 --> 00:32:17,000
proceed the way so much of

975
00:32:17,000 --> 00:32:21,000
American history has, not from a

976
00:32:21,000 --> 00:32:24,000
blueprint, however brilliant,

977
00:32:24,000 --> 00:32:27,000
but by experimentation, by

978
00:32:27,000 --> 00:32:31,000
improvisation, trial and error.

979
00:32:31,000 --> 00:32:33,000
Not by a straight path, but a

980
00:32:33,000 --> 00:32:36,000
winding road with several turns.

981
00:32:36,000 --> 00:32:38,000
I'm just going to walk you past

982
00:32:38,000 --> 00:32:40,000
a few of those turns.

983
00:32:40,000 --> 00:32:43,000
In 1872, eight years later,

984
00:32:43,000 --> 00:32:45,000
congress was asked to set aside

985
00:32:45,000 --> 00:32:47,000
another remarkable part of the

986
00:32:47,000 --> 00:32:48,000
land, the headwaters of the

987
00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:50,000
Yellowstone, where rivers steam

988
00:32:50,000 --> 00:32:52,000
and mud boil, amidst the

989
00:32:52,000 --> 00:32:54,000
greatest collection of geysers

990
00:32:54,000 --> 00:32:56,000
in the world.

991
00:32:56,000 --> 00:32:58,000
The rational for keeping it

992
00:32:58,000 --> 00:33:01,000
inalienable for all time was

993
00:33:01,000 --> 00:33:02,000
exactly the same as with

994
00:33:02,000 --> 00:33:04,000
Yosemite.

995
00:33:04,000 --> 00:33:05,000
It wasn't good farmland, no

996
00:33:05,000 --> 00:33:07,000
valuable timber of minerals, and

997
00:33:07,000 --> 00:33:09,000
so on.

998
00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:10,000
Once again, a major business

999
00:33:10,000 --> 00:33:12,000
interest, in this case the

1000
00:33:12,000 --> 00:33:14,000
Northern Pacific Railroad,

1001
00:33:14,000 --> 00:33:15,000
seeing the possibility of

1002
00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:17,000
increased profits from a

1003
00:33:17,000 --> 00:33:19,000
spectacular tourist attraction,

1004
00:33:19,000 --> 00:33:21,000
was working behind the scenes in

1005
00:33:21,000 --> 00:33:23,000
congress.

1006
00:33:23,000 --> 00:33:25,000
In the house and senate to quell

1007
00:33:25,000 --> 00:33:27,000
any lingering resistance to

1008
00:33:27,000 --> 00:33:28,000
removing public land from

1009
00:33:28,000 --> 00:33:30,000
development, supporters made

1010
00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:32,000
specific reference to the

1011
00:33:32,000 --> 00:33:34,000
precedent that had already been

1012
00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:37,000
set in Yosemite, except for one

1013
00:33:37,000 --> 00:33:39,000
difference.

1014
00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:40,000
Yellowstone was in Wyoming

1015
00:33:40,000 --> 00:33:42,000
Territory.

1016
00:33:42,000 --> 00:33:45,000
There was no state to take over

1017
00:33:45,000 --> 00:33:47,000
management of it.

1018
00:33:47,000 --> 00:33:49,000
Therefore this proposed park

1019
00:33:49,000 --> 00:33:51,000
would have to be a federal

1020
00:33:51,000 --> 00:33:54,000
responsibility.

1021
00:33:54,000 --> 00:33:55,000
And so, though modeled in every

1022
00:33:55,000 --> 00:33:57,000
respect on the Yosemite grant

1023
00:33:57,000 --> 00:33:59,000
eight years earlier, Yellowstone

1024
00:33:59,000 --> 00:34:01,000
became the world's first

1025
00:34:01,000 --> 00:34:05,000
national park.

1026
00:34:05,000 --> 00:34:07,000
It was a distinction arising

1027
00:34:07,000 --> 00:34:08,000
more out of happenstance than

1028
00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:12,000
intention, but in time it would

1029
00:34:12,000 --> 00:34:14,000
prove to be of the utmost

1030
00:34:14,000 --> 00:34:16,000
significance, a turning point in

1031
00:34:16,000 --> 00:34:19,000
the evolution of the park idea.

1032
00:34:19,000 --> 00:34:22,000
Meanwhile, a fellow from here in

1033
00:34:22,000 --> 00:34:25,000
Wisconsin was wandering around

1034
00:34:25,000 --> 00:34:28,000
the Sierra Nevada, about to add

1035
00:34:28,000 --> 00:34:29,000
another reason why we need

1036
00:34:29,000 --> 00:34:31,000
public lands.

1037
00:34:31,000 --> 00:34:33,000
Not economic opportunity, not

1038
00:34:33,000 --> 00:34:35,000
national pride, not political

1039
00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:40,000
duty, but spiritual necessity.

1040
00:34:40,000 --> 00:34:42,000
If you haven't guessed, his name

1041
00:34:42,000 --> 00:34:44,000
was John Muir.

1042
00:34:44,000 --> 00:34:46,000
He was an immigrant from

1043
00:34:46,000 --> 00:34:47,000
Scotland, a University of

1044
00:34:47,000 --> 00:34:50,000
Wisconsin dropout, a Civil War

1045
00:34:50,000 --> 00:34:52,000
draft evader, an inventive

1046
00:34:52,000 --> 00:34:54,000
genius who could have become a

1047
00:34:54,000 --> 00:34:56,000
titan of industry in the Gilded

1048
00:34:56,000 --> 00:34:57,000
Age.

1049
00:34:57,000 --> 00:35:00,000
A man who had walked from

1050
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:03,000
Indiana to Florida, and later

1051
00:35:03,000 --> 00:35:05,000
walked from San Francisco to

1052
00:35:05,000 --> 00:35:07,000
Yosemite, all the while

1053
00:35:07,000 --> 00:35:09,000
searching for a direction and a

1054
00:35:09,000 --> 00:35:11,000
purpose for his life.

1055
00:35:11,000 --> 00:35:15,000
Luckily for our nation, he found

1056
00:35:15,000 --> 00:35:16,000
it in the mountains he called

1057
00:35:16,000 --> 00:35:18,000
"the range of light,"

1058
00:35:18,000 --> 00:35:20,000
and in the valley he considered

1059
00:35:20,000 --> 00:35:21,000
"the grandest of all the special

1060
00:35:21,000 --> 00:35:24,000
temples of nature I was ever

1061
00:35:24,000 --> 00:35:26,000
permitted to enter, the sanctum

1062
00:35:26,000 --> 00:35:30,000
sanctorum of the Sierra,"

1063
00:35:30,000 --> 00:35:32,000
Yosemite Valley.

1064
00:35:32,000 --> 00:35:34,000
Talk about finding salvation by

1065
00:35:34,000 --> 00:35:36,000
surrendering to the land.

1066
00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:38,000
Muir found himself by losing

1067
00:35:38,000 --> 00:35:41,000
himself in nature.

1068
00:35:41,000 --> 00:35:44,000
Here's how he described it.

1069
00:35:44,000 --> 00:35:46,000
We are now in the mountains.

1070
00:35:46,000 --> 00:35:48,000
They are within us, kindling

1071
00:35:48,000 --> 00:35:51,000
enthusiasm, making every nerve

1072
00:35:51,000 --> 00:35:53,000
quiver, filling every pore and

1073
00:35:53,000 --> 00:35:55,000
cell of us.

1074
00:35:55,000 --> 00:35:57,000
Our flesh and bone tabernacle

1075
00:35:57,000 --> 00:35:59,000
seems transparent as glass to

1076
00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:02,000
the beauty about us.

1077
00:36:02,000 --> 00:36:04,000
As if truly an inseparable

1078
00:36:04,000 --> 00:36:06,000
part of it, thrilling with the

1079
00:36:06,000 --> 00:36:07,000
air and trees, streams and

1080
00:36:07,000 --> 00:36:09,000
rocks, in the waves of the sun.

1081
00:36:09,000 --> 00:36:12,000
A part of all nature, neither

1082
00:36:12,000 --> 00:36:16,000
old nor young, sick nor well,

1083
00:36:16,000 --> 00:36:19,000
but immortal.

1084
00:36:19,000 --> 00:36:21,000
I must drift about these

1085
00:36:21,000 --> 00:36:22,000
love-monument mountains,  he

1086
00:36:22,000 --> 00:36:24,000
said,  glad to be a servant of

1087
00:36:24,000 --> 00:36:26,000
servants in so holy a

1088
00:36:26,000 --> 00:36:28,000
wilderness.

1089
00:36:28,000 --> 00:36:30,000
Now that was more than a

1090
00:36:30,000 --> 00:36:32,000
restless young man finally

1091
00:36:32,000 --> 00:36:35,000
finding a new direction in life.

1092
00:36:35,000 --> 00:36:36,000
This was a profoundly religious

1093
00:36:36,000 --> 00:36:38,000
experience.

1094
00:36:38,000 --> 00:36:41,000
A moment of ecstasy and a

1095
00:36:41,000 --> 00:36:42,000
revelation on the most

1096
00:36:42,000 --> 00:36:44,000
fundamental level.

1097
00:36:44,000 --> 00:36:45,000
He wasn't choosing a future to

1098
00:36:45,000 --> 00:36:47,000
follow, it was calling him to

1099
00:36:47,000 --> 00:36:51,000
it.

1100
00:36:51,000 --> 00:36:52,000
Muir understood it immediately

1101
00:36:52,000 --> 00:36:53,000
in those terms.

1102
00:36:53,000 --> 00:36:55,000
"How glorious a conversion," he

1103
00:36:55,000 --> 00:36:56,000
recorded in his journal that

1104
00:36:56,000 --> 00:36:58,000
same day, "so complete and

1105
00:36:58,000 --> 00:37:00,000
wholesome."

1106
00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:01,000
Muir called it his

1107
00:37:01,000 --> 00:37:04,000
"unconditional surrender" to

1108
00:37:04,000 --> 00:37:05,000
nature.

1109
00:37:05,000 --> 00:37:08,000
"In these mountains," he wrote,

1110
00:37:08,000 --> 00:37:09,000
"everything is perfectly clean

1111
00:37:09,000 --> 00:37:11,000
and pure and full of divine

1112
00:37:11,000 --> 00:37:13,000
lessons, until the hand of God

1113
00:37:13,000 --> 00:37:16,000
becomes visible."

1114
00:37:16,000 --> 00:37:18,000
That hand pointed in one

1115
00:37:18,000 --> 00:37:20,000
direction.

1116
00:37:20,000 --> 00:37:21,000
The realization that all of

1117
00:37:21,000 --> 00:37:23,000
creation is intertwined and on

1118
00:37:23,000 --> 00:37:25,000
an equal standing.

1119
00:37:25,000 --> 00:37:28,000
Mankind is not above nature, but

1120
00:37:28,000 --> 00:37:31,000
one part of a great joyously

1121
00:37:31,000 --> 00:37:34,000
interconnected web of being,

1122
00:37:34,000 --> 00:37:35,000
where rivers chant an exulting

1123
00:37:35,000 --> 00:37:38,000
chorus and what he said "the

1124
00:37:38,000 --> 00:37:40,000
very stones seemed talkative,

1125
00:37:40,000 --> 00:37:44,000
sympathetic, brotherly."

1126
00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:46,000
That realization, in turn,

1127
00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:50,000
pointed him to his destiny.

1128
00:37:50,000 --> 00:37:52,000
I will follow my instincts, be

1129
00:37:52,000 --> 00:37:54,000
myself for good or ill, and see

1130
00:37:54,000 --> 00:37:56,000
what will be the upshot.

1131
00:37:56,000 --> 00:37:58,000
As long as I live I'll hear

1132
00:37:58,000 --> 00:37:59,000
waterfalls and birds and winds

1133
00:37:59,000 --> 00:38:02,000
sing.

1134
00:38:02,000 --> 00:38:04,000
I'll interpret the rocks, learn

1135
00:38:04,000 --> 00:38:06,000
the language of floods, storm

1136
00:38:06,000 --> 00:38:07,000
and the avalanche.

1137
00:38:07,000 --> 00:38:09,000
I'll acquaint myself with the

1138
00:38:09,000 --> 00:38:11,000
glaciers and wild gardens, and

1139
00:38:11,000 --> 00:38:13,000
get as near the heart of the

1140
00:38:13,000 --> 00:38:17,000
world as I can.

1141
00:38:17,000 --> 00:38:19,000
As you all know, Muir would go

1142
00:38:19,000 --> 00:38:21,000
on to become a national voice.

1143
00:38:21,000 --> 00:38:23,000
Not the only one, but the most

1144
00:38:23,000 --> 00:38:25,000
eloquent one, in a growing

1145
00:38:25,000 --> 00:38:27,000
conservation movement as the

1146
00:38:27,000 --> 00:38:29,000
19th century entered its closing

1147
00:38:29,000 --> 00:38:31,000
decade.

1148
00:38:31,000 --> 00:38:33,000
When more and more Americans

1149
00:38:33,000 --> 00:38:34,000
became alarmed at what the

1150
00:38:34,000 --> 00:38:36,000
nation's headlong rush westward

1151
00:38:36,000 --> 00:38:38,000
had done to the land and to the

1152
00:38:38,000 --> 00:38:40,000
natural world.

1153
00:38:40,000 --> 00:38:41,000
Buffalo that had once teemed

1154
00:38:41,000 --> 00:38:43,000
over the Great Plains numbering

1155
00:38:43,000 --> 00:38:45,000
in the tens of millions had been

1156
00:38:45,000 --> 00:38:47,000
annihilated for their hides and

1157
00:38:47,000 --> 00:38:49,000
reduced to a few hundred, or

1158
00:38:49,000 --> 00:38:51,000
even fewer.

1159
00:38:51,000 --> 00:38:53,000
Great flocks of birds that had

1160
00:38:53,000 --> 00:38:54,000
once darkened the skies had been

1161
00:38:54,000 --> 00:38:56,000
devastated on an industrial

1162
00:38:56,000 --> 00:38:58,000
scale by market hunters seeking

1163
00:38:58,000 --> 00:39:01,000
to supply restaurants with meat,

1164
00:39:01,000 --> 00:39:03,000
or women in big cities with

1165
00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:06,000
exotic plumes for their hats.

1166
00:39:06,000 --> 00:39:08,000
Timber syndicates that had laid

1167
00:39:08,000 --> 00:39:09,000
waste to the uplands of the

1168
00:39:09,000 --> 00:39:11,000
upper Midwest were now mounting

1169
00:39:11,000 --> 00:39:14,000
an assault on the public domain

1170
00:39:14,000 --> 00:39:16,000
forest of the mountain west.

1171
00:39:16,000 --> 00:39:18,000
Mining had long since switched

1172
00:39:18,000 --> 00:39:20,000
from being a swarm of individual

1173
00:39:20,000 --> 00:39:22,000
prospectors panning in a stream

1174
00:39:22,000 --> 00:39:25,000
to powerful hydraulic hoses

1175
00:39:25,000 --> 00:39:28,000
dismantling entire hillsides, or

1176
00:39:28,000 --> 00:39:30,000
deep open pits next to smelters

1177
00:39:30,000 --> 00:39:32,000
that belched arsenic-tinged

1178
00:39:32,000 --> 00:39:36,000
smoke day and night.

1179
00:39:36,000 --> 00:39:37,000
Railroads now reached into every

1180
00:39:37,000 --> 00:39:39,000
corner of the country.

1181
00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:41,000
Indians had been conquered and

1182
00:39:41,000 --> 00:39:44,000
forced onto reservations.

1183
00:39:44,000 --> 00:39:46,000
Towns had sprung up in enough

1184
00:39:46,000 --> 00:39:47,000
places that the director of the

1185
00:39:47,000 --> 00:39:50,000
census of 1890 announced, "there

1186
00:39:50,000 --> 00:39:53,000
can hardly be said to be a

1187
00:39:53,000 --> 00:39:56,000
frontier line."

1188
00:39:56,000 --> 00:39:58,000
Seizing on that, another man

1189
00:39:58,000 --> 00:40:00,000
from Wisconsin and the

1190
00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:02,000
university here, the historian

1191
00:40:02,000 --> 00:40:04,000
Frederick Jackson Turner,

1192
00:40:04,000 --> 00:40:06,000
proclaimed, "And now four

1193
00:40:06,000 --> 00:40:08,000
centuries from the discovery of

1194
00:40:08,000 --> 00:40:09,000
America, at the end of a hundred

1195
00:40:09,000 --> 00:40:11,000
years of life under the

1196
00:40:11,000 --> 00:40:13,000
Constitution, the frontier has

1197
00:40:13,000 --> 00:40:15,000
gone, and with it's going has

1198
00:40:15,000 --> 00:40:18,000
closed the first period of

1199
00:40:18,000 --> 00:40:20,000
American history."

1200
00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:23,000
The census bureau, by the way,

1201
00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:25,000
had an interesting turn of

1202
00:40:25,000 --> 00:40:26,000
phrase in discussing the

1203
00:40:26,000 --> 00:40:27,000
nation's westward march.

1204
00:40:27,000 --> 00:40:29,000
Once a place had a population

1205
00:40:29,000 --> 00:40:31,000
density of more than two people

1206
00:40:31,000 --> 00:40:33,000
per square mile it had been

1207
00:40:33,000 --> 00:40:36,000
"redeemed from wilderness and

1208
00:40:36,000 --> 00:40:37,000
brought into the service

1209
00:40:37,000 --> 00:40:38,000
of Man."

1210
00:40:38,000 --> 00:40:39,000
Hear that.

1211
00:40:39,000 --> 00:40:43,000
Redeemed from wilderness.

1212
00:40:43,000 --> 00:40:45,000
Redeemed from wilderness.

1213
00:40:45,000 --> 00:40:47,000
A virgin forest, in other words,

1214
00:40:47,000 --> 00:40:49,000
was redeemed when the trees were

1215
00:40:49,000 --> 00:40:50,000
clear-cut.

1216
00:40:50,000 --> 00:40:52,000
A wild, flowing river was

1217
00:40:52,000 --> 00:40:54,000
redeemed by a dam.

1218
00:40:54,000 --> 00:40:56,000
Miners could redeem

1219
00:40:56,000 --> 00:40:57,000
mountainsides.

1220
00:40:57,000 --> 00:40:59,000
Iron rails and barbed wire could

1221
00:40:59,000 --> 00:41:02,000
redeem the plains.

1222
00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:04,000
Now the great forced-march

1223
00:41:04,000 --> 00:41:05,000
across the continent seemed

1224
00:41:05,000 --> 00:41:08,000
over, and here was Johnny Muir

1225
00:41:08,000 --> 00:41:11,000
insisting on the opposite point

1226
00:41:11,000 --> 00:41:12,000
of view.

1227
00:41:12,000 --> 00:41:14,000
Wilderness wasn't redeemed by

1228
00:41:14,000 --> 00:41:17,000
Man, he was saying.

1229
00:41:17,000 --> 00:41:21,000
Man is redeemed by wilderness.

1230
00:41:21,000 --> 00:41:22,000
With his influential friends in

1231
00:41:22,000 --> 00:41:24,000
the East Muir pushed congress to

1232
00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:27,000
create a few more national parks

1233
00:41:27,000 --> 00:41:29,000
including one in the high

1234
00:41:29,000 --> 00:41:31,000
country surrounding the still

1235
00:41:31,000 --> 00:41:33,000
state-owned and managed Yosemite

1236
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:37,000
Valley and Big Tree Grove.

1237
00:41:37,000 --> 00:41:39,000
In 1891 he pushed for yet

1238
00:41:39,000 --> 00:41:40,000
another park farther south

1239
00:41:40,000 --> 00:41:43,000
around Kings Canyon.

1240
00:41:43,000 --> 00:41:44,000
But this time congress wouldn't

1241
00:41:44,000 --> 00:41:46,000
go along.

1242
00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:48,000
In again, another one of these

1243
00:41:48,000 --> 00:41:49,000
last minute, very little

1244
00:41:49,000 --> 00:41:51,000
understood additions to a piece

1245
00:41:51,000 --> 00:41:55,000
of legislation, it ended up

1246
00:41:55,000 --> 00:41:56,000
handing presidents the

1247
00:41:56,000 --> 00:41:59,000
unilateral power to set aside

1248
00:41:59,000 --> 00:42:02,000
forest reserves in the west.

1249
00:42:02,000 --> 00:42:05,000
No one was entirely sure what

1250
00:42:05,000 --> 00:42:07,000
the purpose of these reserves

1251
00:42:07,000 --> 00:42:09,000
was, water-shed protection?

1252
00:42:09,000 --> 00:42:11,000
Forest preservation?

1253
00:42:11,000 --> 00:42:13,000
A momentary break on the

1254
00:42:13,000 --> 00:42:14,000
pell-mell advances of the timber

1255
00:42:14,000 --> 00:42:16,000
syndicates?

1256
00:42:16,000 --> 00:42:19,000
But President Benjamin Harrison

1257
00:42:19,000 --> 00:42:21,000
soon flexed his new power.

1258
00:42:21,000 --> 00:42:22,000
With strokes of his pen he set

1259
00:42:22,000 --> 00:42:24,000
aside forest preserved covering

1260
00:42:24,000 --> 00:42:27,000
13 million acres,

1261
00:42:27,000 --> 00:42:28,000
including the forest surrounding

1262
00:42:28,000 --> 00:42:30,000
Yellowstone and four million

1263
00:42:30,000 --> 00:42:32,000
acres along the Sierra Divide

1264
00:42:32,000 --> 00:42:34,000
between Yosemite and Sequoia

1265
00:42:34,000 --> 00:42:37,000
National Parks and surrounding

1266
00:42:37,000 --> 00:42:39,000
the Kings Canyon area that Muir

1267
00:42:39,000 --> 00:42:42,000
had described.

1268
00:42:42,000 --> 00:42:44,000
With this, another model for

1269
00:42:44,000 --> 00:42:46,000
protecting large landscapes had

1270
00:42:46,000 --> 00:42:49,000
been born, the National Forest

1271
00:42:49,000 --> 00:42:50,000
System.

1272
00:42:50,000 --> 00:42:51,000
Through a process that was just

1273
00:42:51,000 --> 00:42:54,000
as messy, just as seemingly the

1274
00:42:54,000 --> 00:42:56,000
result of happenstance, just as

1275
00:42:56,000 --> 00:42:59,000
reliant on the earnest and

1276
00:42:59,000 --> 00:43:01,000
sometimes behind-the-scenes

1277
00:43:01,000 --> 00:43:03,000
efforts of individual citizens,

1278
00:43:03,000 --> 00:43:05,000
and just as interconnected with

1279
00:43:05,000 --> 00:43:07,000
Yosemite as the one that had

1280
00:43:07,000 --> 00:43:09,000
created the National Parks.

1281
00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:12,000
Together, the environmental

1282
00:43:12,000 --> 00:43:14,000
historian Donald Worster has

1283
00:43:14,000 --> 00:43:16,000
written, "The two kinds of

1284
00:43:16,000 --> 00:43:18,000
federal conservation would

1285
00:43:18,000 --> 00:43:19,000
eventually protect nearly 300

1286
00:43:19,000 --> 00:43:21,000
million acres, reaching from the

1287
00:43:21,000 --> 00:43:23,000
Everglades of Florida to the

1288
00:43:23,000 --> 00:43:24,000
Brooks Range in northern Alaska.

1289
00:43:24,000 --> 00:43:27,000
The birthing of those ideas," he

1290
00:43:27,000 --> 00:43:28,000
said, "occurred in the

1291
00:43:28,000 --> 00:43:30,000
Yellowstone and Sierra regions

1292
00:43:30,000 --> 00:43:33,000
during the infamous Gilded Age,

1293
00:43:33,000 --> 00:43:35,000
but especially during the

1294
00:43:35,000 --> 00:43:37,000
1890-1893 period when it became

1295
00:43:37,000 --> 00:43:40,000
clear that land conservation had

1296
00:43:40,000 --> 00:43:42,000
become a legitimate and

1297
00:43:42,000 --> 00:43:44,000
necessary part of American

1298
00:43:44,000 --> 00:43:48,000
democracy."

1299
00:43:48,000 --> 00:43:49,000
Let me jump to another

1300
00:43:49,000 --> 00:43:51,000
milestone.

1301
00:43:51,000 --> 00:43:53,000
In the late spring of 1903

1302
00:43:53,000 --> 00:43:55,000
President Theodore Roosevelt

1303
00:43:55,000 --> 00:43:56,000
made an unprecedented,

1304
00:43:56,000 --> 00:43:58,000
cross-country, whistle-stop tour

1305
00:43:58,000 --> 00:44:01,000
of the nation, 14,000 miles by

1306
00:44:01,000 --> 00:44:05,000
train, 25 states, 150 towns and

1307
00:44:05,000 --> 00:44:07,000
cities, and more than 200

1308
00:44:07,000 --> 00:44:09,000
speeches in the space of eight

1309
00:44:09,000 --> 00:44:11,000
weeks.

1310
00:44:11,000 --> 00:44:13,000
In the midst of it he camped for

1311
00:44:13,000 --> 00:44:15,000
a while in Yellowstone National

1312
00:44:15,000 --> 00:44:17,000
Park where he also gave a speech

1313
00:44:17,000 --> 00:44:19,000
that focused on what he called

1314
00:44:19,000 --> 00:44:22,000
the "essential democracy" of the

1315
00:44:22,000 --> 00:44:25,000
national parks.

1316
00:44:25,000 --> 00:44:27,000
He said,  This park was created

1317
00:44:27,000 --> 00:44:28,000
and is now administered for the

1318
00:44:28,000 --> 00:44:30,000
benefit and enjoyment of the

1319
00:44:30,000 --> 00:44:31,000
people.

1320
00:44:31,000 --> 00:44:33,000
It is the property of Uncle Sam

1321
00:44:33,000 --> 00:44:36,000
and therefore of all of us.

1322
00:44:36,000 --> 00:44:38,000
The only way that the people as

1323
00:44:38,000 --> 00:44:41,000
a whole can secure to themselves

1324
00:44:41,000 --> 00:44:42,000
and their children the enjoyment

1325
00:44:42,000 --> 00:44:44,000
and perpetuity of what the

1326
00:44:44,000 --> 00:44:45,000
Yellowstone Park has to give,

1327
00:44:45,000 --> 00:44:48,000
he said,  is by assuming

1328
00:44:48,000 --> 00:44:50,000
ownership in the name of the

1329
00:44:50,000 --> 00:44:52,000
nation, and jealously

1330
00:44:52,000 --> 00:44:53,000
safeguarding and preserving the

1331
00:44:53,000 --> 00:44:55,000
scenery, the forest and the wild

1332
00:44:55,000 --> 00:44:58,000
creatures.

1333
00:44:58,000 --> 00:45:00,000
A little bit later on this

1334
00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:01,000
trip he stopped briefly at the

1335
00:45:01,000 --> 00:45:03,000
Grand Canyon, a sight he had

1336
00:45:03,000 --> 00:45:05,000
never seen before, but

1337
00:45:05,000 --> 00:45:07,000
recognized immediately as a

1338
00:45:07,000 --> 00:45:08,000
place needing greater federal

1339
00:45:08,000 --> 00:45:11,000
protection.

1340
00:45:11,000 --> 00:45:14,000
"Leave it as it is," he advised

1341
00:45:14,000 --> 00:45:16,000
the people of Arizona,

1342
00:45:16,000 --> 00:45:18,000
"The ages have been at work on

1343
00:45:18,000 --> 00:45:22,000
it, and Man can only mar it."

1344
00:45:22,000 --> 00:45:24,000
And then Roosevelt came to

1345
00:45:24,000 --> 00:45:26,000
Yosemite where he spent three

1346
00:45:26,000 --> 00:45:29,000
glorious nights camping with

1347
00:45:29,000 --> 00:45:30,000
John Muir, once in the grove of

1348
00:45:30,000 --> 00:45:33,000
Sequoias, once at Glacier Point

1349
00:45:33,000 --> 00:45:36,000
overlooking the valley, and once

1350
00:45:36,000 --> 00:45:38,000
on the valley floor itself.

1351
00:45:38,000 --> 00:45:40,000
Now, believe me, Roosevelt was

1352
00:45:40,000 --> 00:45:43,000
already a committed outdoors man

1353
00:45:43,000 --> 00:45:44,000
and conservationist, but that

1354
00:45:44,000 --> 00:45:47,000
camping trip, I believe, was the

1355
00:45:47,000 --> 00:45:49,000
most important camping trip in

1356
00:45:49,000 --> 00:45:51,000
American history.

1357
00:45:51,000 --> 00:45:54,000
Around the camp fire-- and this

1358
00:45:54,000 --> 00:45:55,000
is from a Louis & Clark addict,

1359
00:45:55,000 --> 00:45:58,000
okay, so that's a big statement.

1360
00:45:58,000 --> 00:45:59,000
[laughter]

1361
00:45:59,000 --> 00:46:01,000
If I said this at a Louis &

1362
00:46:01,000 --> 00:46:02,000
Clark meeting I'd now be run

1363
00:46:02,000 --> 00:46:05,000
out of town on a rail.

1364
00:46:05,000 --> 00:46:06,000
But it still was the most

1365
00:46:06,000 --> 00:46:07,000
important camping trip in

1366
00:46:07,000 --> 00:46:09,000
American history.

1367
00:46:09,000 --> 00:46:10,000
Around the campfire, Muir said

1368
00:46:10,000 --> 00:46:11,000
later, "I stuffed him pretty

1369
00:46:11,000 --> 00:46:14,000
well regarding the timber

1370
00:46:14,000 --> 00:46:15,000
thieves, the destructive work of

1371
00:46:15,000 --> 00:46:18,000
the lumbermen and other spoilers

1372
00:46:18,000 --> 00:46:19,000
of the forest."

1373
00:46:19,000 --> 00:46:21,000
The camp cook and guide

1374
00:46:21,000 --> 00:46:23,000
reported that the two men talked

1375
00:46:23,000 --> 00:46:24,000
late into the night "about the

1376
00:46:24,000 --> 00:46:26,000
conservation of forests in

1377
00:46:26,000 --> 00:46:27,000
general and Yosemite in

1378
00:46:27,000 --> 00:46:29,000
particular."

1379
00:46:29,000 --> 00:46:30,000
Adding that he "heard them

1380
00:46:30,000 --> 00:46:33,000
discussing the setting aside of

1381
00:46:33,000 --> 00:46:34,000
other areas of the United

1382
00:46:34,000 --> 00:46:38,000
States for park purposes."

1383
00:46:38,000 --> 00:46:39,000
The biggest problem, the cook

1384
00:46:39,000 --> 00:46:40,000
said, was that both men wanted

1385
00:46:40,000 --> 00:46:41,000
to do all the talking

1386
00:46:41,000 --> 00:46:43,000
themselves.

1387
00:46:43,000 --> 00:46:45,000
[laughter]

1388
00:46:45,000 --> 00:46:47,000
Within three years Roosevelt

1389
00:46:47,000 --> 00:46:49,000
would sign the bill that would

1390
00:46:49,000 --> 00:46:51,000
return the Sequoia Grove and

1391
00:46:51,000 --> 00:46:52,000
Yosemite Valley from the state

1392
00:46:52,000 --> 00:46:54,000
of California to the federal

1393
00:46:54,000 --> 00:46:56,000
government as part of a unified

1394
00:46:56,000 --> 00:46:58,000
national park.

1395
00:46:58,000 --> 00:46:59,000
The seed had been planted and

1396
00:46:59,000 --> 00:47:02,000
had been taken root in

1397
00:47:02,000 --> 00:47:03,000
Yellowstone with a different

1398
00:47:03,000 --> 00:47:06,000
mutation, had floated back to

1399
00:47:06,000 --> 00:47:09,000
the Sierra and sprung up as a

1400
00:47:09,000 --> 00:47:12,000
national forest, and finally

1401
00:47:12,000 --> 00:47:14,000
unified itself as one national

1402
00:47:14,000 --> 00:47:19,000
park in all of Yosemite.

1403
00:47:19,000 --> 00:47:22,000
Roosevelt would go on to be the

1404
00:47:22,000 --> 00:47:23,000
greatest conservation president

1405
00:47:23,000 --> 00:47:25,000
in our history, adding five new

1406
00:47:25,000 --> 00:47:27,000
national parks.

1407
00:47:27,000 --> 00:47:28,000
That's doubling the number of

1408
00:47:28,000 --> 00:47:30,000
national parks at that time, by

1409
00:47:30,000 --> 00:47:32,000
the way, 51 bird sanctuaries,

1410
00:47:32,000 --> 00:47:34,000
four national game refuges, and

1411
00:47:34,000 --> 00:47:36,000
often in the face of fierce

1412
00:47:36,000 --> 00:47:39,000
congressional opposition, 100

1413
00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:41,000
million acres worth of national

1414
00:47:41,000 --> 00:47:43,000
forest.

1415
00:47:43,000 --> 00:47:45,000
Under his leadership more than

1416
00:47:45,000 --> 00:47:48,000
280,000 square miles of federal

1417
00:47:48,000 --> 00:47:50,000
land, an area larger than the

1418
00:47:50,000 --> 00:47:52,000
state of Texas--

1419
00:47:52,000 --> 00:47:55,000
[laughter]

1420
00:47:55,000 --> 00:47:56,000
would be placed under one kind

1421
00:47:56,000 --> 00:47:58,000
of conservation protection or

1422
00:47:58,000 --> 00:48:00,000
another.

1423
00:48:00,000 --> 00:48:03,000
Roosevelt would also sign one of

1424
00:48:03,000 --> 00:48:05,000
the most important laws in the

1425
00:48:05,000 --> 00:48:07,000
history of public lands, the

1426
00:48:07,000 --> 00:48:08,000
thing called the Antiquities

1427
00:48:08,000 --> 00:48:10,000
Act.

1428
00:48:10,000 --> 00:48:12,000
It was originally intended to

1429
00:48:12,000 --> 00:48:13,000
protect places like ancient

1430
00:48:13,000 --> 00:48:14,000
cliff dwellings from being

1431
00:48:14,000 --> 00:48:15,000
dispoiled and vandalized.

1432
00:48:15,000 --> 00:48:19,000
It granted a president the

1433
00:48:19,000 --> 00:48:20,000
extraordinary power, the

1434
00:48:20,000 --> 00:48:22,000
exclusive authority, without any

1435
00:48:22,000 --> 00:48:24,000
congressional approval, to

1436
00:48:24,000 --> 00:48:25,000
preserve places that would be

1437
00:48:25,000 --> 00:48:28,000
called, not national parks, nor

1438
00:48:28,000 --> 00:48:31,000
national forests, but national

1439
00:48:31,000 --> 00:48:33,000
monuments.

1440
00:48:33,000 --> 00:48:34,000
Roosevelt not only signed that

1441
00:48:34,000 --> 00:48:36,000
into law, but he used it 18

1442
00:48:36,000 --> 00:48:38,000
times in his presidency.

1443
00:48:38,000 --> 00:48:40,000
Places like the very first one,

1444
00:48:40,000 --> 00:48:42,000
Devil's Tower in Wyoming, and

1445
00:48:42,000 --> 00:48:45,000
then, named for his good friend

1446
00:48:45,000 --> 00:48:48,000
and camping companion, Muir

1447
00:48:48,000 --> 00:48:50,000
Woods in California.

1448
00:48:50,000 --> 00:48:52,000
The Antiquities Act allowed

1449
00:48:52,000 --> 00:48:54,000
protection of places so called

1450
00:48:54,000 --> 00:48:56,000
"scientific interest."

1451
00:48:56,000 --> 00:48:58,000
Although it had been aimed at

1452
00:48:58,000 --> 00:49:01,000
only small-sized parcels, it did

1453
00:49:01,000 --> 00:49:03,000
not absolutely restrict the

1454
00:49:03,000 --> 00:49:04,000
number of acres a president

1455
00:49:04,000 --> 00:49:08,000
could set aside.

1456
00:49:08,000 --> 00:49:09,000
There was Theodore Roosevelt as

1457
00:49:09,000 --> 00:49:11,000
president remembering standing

1458
00:49:11,000 --> 00:49:12,000
there on the rim of the Grand

1459
00:49:12,000 --> 00:49:16,000
Canyon saying, "Leave it alone."

1460
00:49:16,000 --> 00:49:20,000
On January 11, 1908, Roosevelt

1461
00:49:20,000 --> 00:49:22,000
stretched this law as never

1462
00:49:22,000 --> 00:49:24,000
before, declaring the Grand

1463
00:49:24,000 --> 00:49:26,000
Canyon "the object of unusual

1464
00:49:26,000 --> 00:49:28,000
scientific interest, being the

1465
00:49:28,000 --> 00:49:30,000
greatest eroded canyon within

1466
00:49:30,000 --> 00:49:32,000
the United States."

1467
00:49:32,000 --> 00:49:34,000
With a stroke of his pen, he set

1468
00:49:34,000 --> 00:49:38,000
aside 806,400 acres.

1469
00:49:38,000 --> 00:49:40,000
An area larger than, not Texas,

1470
00:49:40,000 --> 00:49:42,000
but the state of Rhode Island,

1471
00:49:42,000 --> 00:49:45,000
as a national monument.

1472
00:49:45,000 --> 00:49:48,000
Now, I'm going to stop there, at

1473
00:49:48,000 --> 00:49:50,000
the rim of the Grand Canyon,

1474
00:49:50,000 --> 00:49:52,000
with Theodore Roosevelt

1475
00:49:52,000 --> 00:49:53,000
deploying the Antiquities Act in

1476
00:49:53,000 --> 00:49:56,000
a way that subsequent presidents

1477
00:49:56,000 --> 00:49:58,000
would do on behalf of protecting

1478
00:49:58,000 --> 00:49:59,000
public lands.

1479
00:49:59,000 --> 00:50:01,000
The lands, I will remind you,

1480
00:50:01,000 --> 00:50:04,000
that belong to all of us.

1481
00:50:04,000 --> 00:50:06,000
Each one of us are owners of

1482
00:50:06,000 --> 00:50:08,000
those lands.

1483
00:50:08,000 --> 00:50:10,000
Franklin Roosevelt saved the

1484
00:50:10,000 --> 00:50:12,000
Grand Tetons with it.

1485
00:50:12,000 --> 00:50:14,000
Jimmy Carter doubled the amount

1486
00:50:14,000 --> 00:50:17,000
of protected land, the Louisiana

1487
00:50:17,000 --> 00:50:20,000
Purchase of conservation, when

1488
00:50:20,000 --> 00:50:22,000
he used it in Alaska.

1489
00:50:22,000 --> 00:50:24,000
Bill Clinton used it at Grand

1490
00:50:24,000 --> 00:50:27,000
Staircase-Escalante in Utah.

1491
00:50:27,000 --> 00:50:28,000
All of them got the same

1492
00:50:28,000 --> 00:50:31,000
response as Roosevelt did when

1493
00:50:31,000 --> 00:50:33,000
he used the Antiquities Act at

1494
00:50:33,000 --> 00:50:35,000
the Grand Canyon.

1495
00:50:35,000 --> 00:50:37,000
The locals reviled him.

1496
00:50:37,000 --> 00:50:39,000
Congress berated him.

1497
00:50:39,000 --> 00:50:42,000
And history, history still

1498
00:50:42,000 --> 00:50:47,000
honors and remembers him for it.

1499
00:50:47,000 --> 00:50:49,000
There would be other types of

1500
00:50:49,000 --> 00:50:50,000
public land protection in the

1501
00:50:50,000 --> 00:50:53,000
years to come.

1502
00:50:53,000 --> 00:50:55,000
The blown out farms of the Dust

1503
00:50:55,000 --> 00:50:56,000
Bowl.

1504
00:50:56,000 --> 00:50:58,000
By the way, November 18 and 19

1505
00:50:58,000 --> 00:51:03,000
on your local station--

1506
00:51:03,000 --> 00:51:05,000
The blown out farms of the Dust

1507
00:51:05,000 --> 00:51:06,000
Bowl of the 1930's that ruined

1508
00:51:06,000 --> 00:51:09,000
farmers, sold back to the

1509
00:51:09,000 --> 00:51:11,000
federal government.

1510
00:51:11,000 --> 00:51:13,000
Homesteading in reverse.

1511
00:51:13,000 --> 00:51:15,000
They were selling their

1512
00:51:15,000 --> 00:51:16,000
homesteads back to the federal

1513
00:51:16,000 --> 00:51:18,000
government.

1514
00:51:18,000 --> 00:51:19,000
They were re-seeded in grass

1515
00:51:19,000 --> 00:51:21,000
instead of cash crops, and

1516
00:51:21,000 --> 00:51:23,000
turned into four million acres

1517
00:51:23,000 --> 00:51:27,000
of national grasslands.

1518
00:51:27,000 --> 00:51:29,000
The 1960's would witness an

1519
00:51:29,000 --> 00:51:31,000
explosion of national seashores

1520
00:51:31,000 --> 00:51:34,000
and lakeshores, national

1521
00:51:34,000 --> 00:51:35,000
recreation areas, national

1522
00:51:35,000 --> 00:51:37,000
trails, and wild and scenic

1523
00:51:37,000 --> 00:51:39,000
rivers, and of course, national

1524
00:51:39,000 --> 00:51:40,000
wilderness.

1525
00:51:40,000 --> 00:51:43,000
It's, you know, incumbent for me

1526
00:51:43,000 --> 00:51:47,000
to say, here in Wisconsin, of

1527
00:51:47,000 --> 00:51:49,000
how many prominent Wisconsin

1528
00:51:49,000 --> 00:51:50,000
people were involved in all

1529
00:51:50,000 --> 00:51:52,000
those things I just mentioned.

1530
00:51:52,000 --> 00:51:53,000
People with names like Gaylord

1531
00:51:53,000 --> 00:51:57,000
Nelson and Bud Jordahl and two

1532
00:51:57,000 --> 00:52:01,000
generations of Leopolds.

1533
00:52:01,000 --> 00:52:02,000
I hope that in your future there

1534
00:52:02,000 --> 00:52:03,000
will be more lectures and those

1535
00:52:03,000 --> 00:52:07,000
could be the topic of one or two

1536
00:52:07,000 --> 00:52:09,000
of them.

1537
00:52:09,000 --> 00:52:11,000
Because that is still the

1538
00:52:11,000 --> 00:52:13,000
evolution and growth of this

1539
00:52:13,000 --> 00:52:16,000
idea.

1540
00:52:16,000 --> 00:52:17,000
But as I said, we're back at the

1541
00:52:17,000 --> 00:52:19,000
Grand Canyon with Theodore

1542
00:52:19,000 --> 00:52:22,000
Roosevelt, looking down on the

1543
00:52:22,000 --> 00:52:25,000
Colorado and pondering the

1544
00:52:25,000 --> 00:52:27,000
weaving course of America's

1545
00:52:27,000 --> 00:52:29,000
public lands from the time

1546
00:52:29,000 --> 00:52:31,000
Thomas Jefferson preserved

1547
00:52:31,000 --> 00:52:33,000
Virginia's Natural Bridge as a

1548
00:52:33,000 --> 00:52:36,000
public trust.

1549
00:52:36,000 --> 00:52:37,000
The Grand Canyon, I would

1550
00:52:37,000 --> 00:52:38,000
submit, is as self-evident a

1551
00:52:38,000 --> 00:52:41,000
national park as any place in

1552
00:52:41,000 --> 00:52:44,000
America.

1553
00:52:44,000 --> 00:52:45,000
In fact, there was a bill

1554
00:52:45,000 --> 00:52:47,000
proposing making it a national

1555
00:52:47,000 --> 00:52:49,000
park, what would have been the

1556
00:52:49,000 --> 00:52:52,000
world's second national park, in

1557
00:52:52,000 --> 00:52:55,000
1882.

1558
00:52:55,000 --> 00:52:56,000
It was defeated easily because

1559
00:52:56,000 --> 00:52:58,000
of the special interests that

1560
00:52:58,000 --> 00:53:01,000
had other ideas for making it,

1561
00:53:01,000 --> 00:53:03,000
as de Tocqueville would have put

1562
00:53:03,000 --> 00:53:05,000
it, useful.

1563
00:53:05,000 --> 00:53:06,000
Or put another way, too many

1564
00:53:06,000 --> 00:53:08,000
people, in terms of the census

1565
00:53:08,000 --> 00:53:13,000
bureau, wanted to redeem it.

1566
00:53:13,000 --> 00:53:15,000
The same thing happened in 1883

1567
00:53:15,000 --> 00:53:16,000
and 1886.

1568
00:53:16,000 --> 00:53:18,000
Bills for a national Grand

1569
00:53:18,000 --> 00:53:21,000
Canyon Park were proposed and

1570
00:53:21,000 --> 00:53:23,000
defeated.

1571
00:53:23,000 --> 00:53:24,000
John Muir called for making it a

1572
00:53:24,000 --> 00:53:26,000
national park in his book

1573
00:53:26,000 --> 00:53:28,000
Our National Parks  in 1902.

1574
00:53:28,000 --> 00:53:31,000
Still no action.

1575
00:53:31,000 --> 00:53:33,000
Theodore Roosevelt had wanted to

1576
00:53:33,000 --> 00:53:35,000
make it a national park too.

1577
00:53:35,000 --> 00:53:37,000
But even he, this most vigorous

1578
00:53:37,000 --> 00:53:40,000
and powerful president, couldn't

1579
00:53:40,000 --> 00:53:42,000
get it done.

1580
00:53:42,000 --> 00:53:43,000
Though he did move the ball

1581
00:53:43,000 --> 00:53:44,000
forward with the Antiquities Act

1582
00:53:44,000 --> 00:53:45,000
and making it a national

1583
00:53:45,000 --> 00:53:47,000
monument.

1584
00:53:47,000 --> 00:53:49,000
Every repeated attempt to place

1585
00:53:49,000 --> 00:53:50,000
it along Yellowstone as a

1586
00:53:50,000 --> 00:53:53,000
protected space was beaten back,

1587
00:53:53,000 --> 00:53:58,000
and beaten back, until 1919 when

1588
00:53:58,000 --> 00:54:00,000
the Grand Canyon became the 16th

1589
00:54:00,000 --> 00:54:03,000
national park.

1590
00:54:03,000 --> 00:54:06,000
37 years of constant struggle to

1591
00:54:06,000 --> 00:54:08,000
decide that the grandest canyon

1592
00:54:08,000 --> 00:54:10,000
on Earth ought to be a national

1593
00:54:10,000 --> 00:54:12,000
park.

1594
00:54:12,000 --> 00:54:16,000
That is what defenders of the

1595
00:54:16,000 --> 00:54:18,000
park idea, and public lands,

1596
00:54:18,000 --> 00:54:21,000
have always been up against, and

1597
00:54:21,000 --> 00:54:24,000
always will be.

1598
00:54:24,000 --> 00:54:27,000
There will always be someone who

1599
00:54:27,000 --> 00:54:28,000
looks at a river flowing though

1600
00:54:28,000 --> 00:54:30,000
a canyon and thinks, "What a

1601
00:54:30,000 --> 00:54:33,000
perfect location for a dam."

1602
00:54:33,000 --> 00:54:34,000
There will always be someone for

1603
00:54:34,000 --> 00:54:36,000
whom a forest of ancient trees

1604
00:54:36,000 --> 00:54:39,000
is a business opportunity.

1605
00:54:39,000 --> 00:54:40,000
There will always be someone,

1606
00:54:40,000 --> 00:54:42,000
who while contemplating a

1607
00:54:42,000 --> 00:54:43,000
magnificent mountainside

1608
00:54:43,000 --> 00:54:45,000
considers whether it could be

1609
00:54:45,000 --> 00:54:47,000
dismantled for the minerals

1610
00:54:47,000 --> 00:54:48,000
underneath.

1611
00:54:48,000 --> 00:54:50,000
Or upon entering an exquisite

1612
00:54:50,000 --> 00:54:52,000
valley, calculates the potential

1613
00:54:52,000 --> 00:54:54,000
for a development of trophy

1614
00:54:54,000 --> 00:54:57,000
homes behind a locked gate.

1615
00:54:57,000 --> 00:54:59,000
There will always be someone

1616
00:54:59,000 --> 00:55:01,000
whose definition of the pursuit

1617
00:55:01,000 --> 00:55:03,000
of happiness is chasing a

1618
00:55:03,000 --> 00:55:05,000
buffalo herd on a snowmobile, or

1619
00:55:05,000 --> 00:55:08,000
careening across a slick rock

1620
00:55:08,000 --> 00:55:11,000
wilderness in a dune buggy.

1621
00:55:11,000 --> 00:55:13,000
Anyone who understands our

1622
00:55:13,000 --> 00:55:15,000
national history, springing as

1623
00:55:15,000 --> 00:55:17,000
it does from our national

1624
00:55:17,000 --> 00:55:20,000
character, knows this.

1625
00:55:20,000 --> 00:55:21,000
Are we the people who

1626
00:55:21,000 --> 00:55:24,000
systematically drove a uniquely

1627
00:55:24,000 --> 00:55:25,000
American animal like the buffalo

1628
00:55:25,000 --> 00:55:29,000
to the brink of extinction?

1629
00:55:29,000 --> 00:55:31,000
Or are we the people who created

1630
00:55:31,000 --> 00:55:33,000
the uniquely American refuge for

1631
00:55:33,000 --> 00:55:35,000
them in the world's first

1632
00:55:35,000 --> 00:55:37,000
national park, where they were

1633
00:55:37,000 --> 00:55:39,000
ultimately spared from

1634
00:55:39,000 --> 00:55:41,000
elimination.

1635
00:55:41,000 --> 00:55:43,000
We have never, and never will,

1636
00:55:43,000 --> 00:55:46,000
resolve that question, this

1637
00:55:46,000 --> 00:55:48,000
tension at our core.

1638
00:55:48,000 --> 00:55:50,000
We take our identity from the

1639
00:55:50,000 --> 00:55:52,000
land in ways people of few other

1640
00:55:52,000 --> 00:55:54,000
nations do.

1641
00:55:54,000 --> 00:55:57,000
Yet, in our predilection to make

1642
00:55:57,000 --> 00:55:59,000
the beautiful useful, we often

1643
00:55:59,000 --> 00:56:01,000
make it ugly, or at least

1644
00:56:01,000 --> 00:56:03,000
sullied and tawdry.

1645
00:56:03,000 --> 00:56:05,000
Nothing and no one is redeemed

1646
00:56:05,000 --> 00:56:09,000
in that process.

1647
00:56:09,000 --> 00:56:11,000
We end up fouling of own nest

1648
00:56:11,000 --> 00:56:13,000
and looking for some other last,

1649
00:56:13,000 --> 00:56:16,000
best place in which to start the

1650
00:56:16,000 --> 00:56:18,000
process all over again.

1651
00:56:18,000 --> 00:56:19,000
With boundless optimism, we set

1652
00:56:19,000 --> 00:56:21,000
out to leave our mark on the

1653
00:56:21,000 --> 00:56:23,000
world around us, but deep down

1654
00:56:23,000 --> 00:56:29,000
there's an uneasiness, a sadness

1655
00:56:29,000 --> 00:56:31,000
at the heart of our exuberant

1656
00:56:31,000 --> 00:56:32,000
energy.

1657
00:56:32,000 --> 00:56:33,000
Perhaps the world would be

1658
00:56:33,000 --> 00:56:36,000
better off without our mark upon

1659
00:56:36,000 --> 00:56:38,000
it.

1660
00:56:38,000 --> 00:56:40,000
"The battle for conservation,

1661
00:56:40,000 --> 00:56:43,000
John Muir observed, "will go on

1662
00:56:43,000 --> 00:56:46,000
endlessly."

1663
00:56:46,000 --> 00:56:47,000
So whether the future will

1664
00:56:47,000 --> 00:56:50,000
generate new threats to the

1665
00:56:50,000 --> 00:56:52,000
public lands, America's best

1666
00:56:52,000 --> 00:56:56,000
idea, is not in question.

1667
00:56:56,000 --> 00:56:58,000
The only question is whether the

1668
00:56:58,000 --> 00:57:02,000
future will supply a fresh

1669
00:57:02,000 --> 00:57:05,000
supply of public land champions

1670
00:57:05,000 --> 00:57:07,000
as the counterbalance.

1671
00:57:07,000 --> 00:57:09,000
Our children and our children's

1672
00:57:09,000 --> 00:57:10,000
children will need those

1673
00:57:10,000 --> 00:57:14,000
champions.

1674
00:57:14,000 --> 00:57:15,000
If they do step forward,

1675
00:57:15,000 --> 00:57:17,000
springing as they must, from

1676
00:57:17,000 --> 00:57:19,000
that other half of our national

1677
00:57:19,000 --> 00:57:20,000
character, and finding their

1678
00:57:20,000 --> 00:57:23,000
salvation through their

1679
00:57:23,000 --> 00:57:28,000
surrender to the land, John Muir

1680
00:57:28,000 --> 00:57:30,000
has already written their

1681
00:57:30,000 --> 00:57:32,000
epitaph.

1682
00:57:32,000 --> 00:57:34,000
It is, "They will not be

1683
00:57:34,000 --> 00:57:35,000
forgotten.

1684
00:57:35,000 --> 00:57:37,000
The trees and their lovers will

1685
00:57:37,000 --> 00:57:40,000
sing their praises, and

1686
00:57:40,000 --> 00:57:43,000
generations yet unborn will rise

1687
00:57:43,000 --> 00:57:47,000
up and call them blessed."

1688
00:57:47,000 --> 00:57:49,000
Thank you very much.

1689
00:57:49,000 --> 00:57:53,000
[applause]