WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:01.000 cc 00:01.000 --> 00:02.000 >> It's an enormous pleasure to 00:02.000 --> 00:03.000 introduce tonight's guest, but I 00:03.000 --> 00:05.000 do want to say some thank you's 00:05.000 --> 00:06.000 and do some housekeeping. 00:06.000 --> 00:07.000 I'd like to thank, in 00:07.000 --> 00:09.000 particular, the organizations 00:09.000 --> 00:09.000 that have partnered with the 00:09.000 --> 00:11.000 Nelson Institute to make this 00:11.000 --> 00:12.000 lecture possible, and that 00:12.000 --> 00:14.000 includes the Wisconsin Academy 00:14.000 --> 00:16.000 of Sciences, Arts and Letters, 00:16.000 --> 00:18.000 Gathering Waters Conservancy, 00:18.000 --> 00:21.000 1,000 Friends of Wisconsin, 00:21.000 --> 00:22.000 the UW-Madison Department 00:22.000 --> 00:24.000 of Urban and Regional Planning, 00:24.000 --> 00:25.000 of course, and Wisconsin Public 00:25.000 --> 00:26.000 Television. 00:26.000 --> 00:27.000 We're really delighted and 00:27.000 --> 00:28.000 enormously proud to work with 00:28.000 --> 00:29.000 these organizations. 00:29.000 --> 00:30.000 Thank you very, very much 00:30.000 --> 00:31.000 for your support. 00:31.000 --> 00:34.000 [applause] 00:37.000 --> 00:39.000 Just to emphasize some of the 00:39.000 --> 00:40.000 things that were just said, 00:40.000 --> 00:42.000 we take enormous pride 00:42.000 --> 00:43.000 at reaching broadly to solve 00:43.000 --> 00:45.000 problems with communities 00:45.000 --> 00:46.000 that the universities 00:46.000 --> 00:47.000 can engage across party lines, 00:47.000 --> 00:48.000 across interests. 00:48.000 --> 00:49.000 The Nelson Institute is 00:49.000 --> 00:51.000 dedicated to the kind of work 00:51.000 --> 00:53.000 that the Jordahl Lecture Series 00:53.000 --> 00:55.000 and Bud Jordahl represented, 00:55.000 --> 00:59.000 as does tonight's speaker. 00:59.000 --> 01:00.000 Two bits of housekeeping, 01:00.000 --> 01:02.000 one we have a large number 01:02.000 --> 01:03.000 of lectures coming up 01:03.000 --> 01:05.000 all Fall and in the Spring. 01:05.000 --> 01:06.000 These things are available 01:06.000 --> 01:08.000 up front, our various lecture 01:08.000 --> 01:09.000 series. 01:09.000 --> 01:10.000 I want to point to one 01:10.000 --> 01:12.000 in particular. 01:12.000 --> 01:13.000 That's our keynote 01:13.000 --> 01:14.000 for the Earth Day event 01:14.000 --> 01:16.000 on April 7, 01:16.000 --> 01:18.000 is going to be Jane Goodall. 01:18.000 --> 01:20.000 Go out and tell your friends. 01:20.000 --> 01:21.000 It should be good. 01:21.000 --> 01:23.000 That's a big one. 01:23.000 --> 01:24.000 [applause] 01:24.000 --> 01:26.000 But do take a look. 01:26.000 --> 01:27.000 There's a lot of great speakers 01:27.000 --> 01:28.000 from on and off campus coming, 01:28.000 --> 01:30.000 through Nelson and it's brothers 01:30.000 --> 01:32.000 and sisters across the campus. 01:32.000 --> 01:33.000 Now it's my pleasure to 01:33.000 --> 01:34.000 introduce tonight's speaker. 01:34.000 --> 01:37.000 Some of us discovered the 01:37.000 --> 01:39.000 environment and the state parks 01:39.000 --> 01:41.000 by fishing, hunting, camping. 01:41.000 --> 01:43.000 Some of us discovered it 01:43.000 --> 01:45.000 by sitting in front of 01:45.000 --> 01:47.000 the television. 01:47.000 --> 01:48.000 Some of us did a little of both. 01:48.000 --> 01:51.000 I fall into the third group. 01:51.000 --> 01:53.000 It was only when I was in 01:53.000 --> 01:54.000 a graduate ecology class 01:54.000 --> 01:56.000 that I learned that Walt Disney 01:56.000 --> 01:57.000 had run those poor lemmings 01:57.000 --> 01:59.000 off that cliff 01:59.000 --> 02:00.000 in "White Wilderness." 02:00.000 --> 02:03.000 The power with which 02:03.000 --> 02:04.000 documentary film 02:04.000 --> 02:06.000 can fix and shape in our minds, 02:06.000 --> 02:08.000 great and weird, 02:08.000 --> 02:09.000 as well as powerful ideas, 02:09.000 --> 02:11.000 is undeniable. 02:11.000 --> 02:12.000 For every "Wild Kingdom," 02:12.000 --> 02:14.000 there was always 02:14.000 --> 02:16.000 the "National Geographic." 02:16.000 --> 02:17.000 Which, of course, transformed my 02:17.000 --> 02:18.000 life experience fundamentally, 02:18.000 --> 02:21.000 and put me right here now. 02:21.000 --> 02:24.000 It is with the same power 02:24.000 --> 02:25.000 that I think we can welcome 02:25.000 --> 02:26.000 and celebrate 02:26.000 --> 02:28.000 the work of Dayton Duncan. 02:28.000 --> 02:29.000 He's an award winning writer 02:29.000 --> 02:31.000 and documentary filmmaker. 02:31.000 --> 02:32.000 He's the author of dozens 02:32.000 --> 02:34.000 of books, and is a writer and 02:34.000 --> 02:35.000 producer for a number of 02:35.000 --> 02:37.000 documentaries directed by 02:37.000 --> 02:38.000 renowned filmmaker Ken Burns, 02:38.000 --> 02:40.000 as I think we all know. 02:40.000 --> 02:41.000 Those include, and I'll list 02:41.000 --> 02:42.000 them, just because you may not 02:42.000 --> 02:44.000 have heard, Lewis & Clark: 02:44.000 --> 02:45.000 The Journey 02:45.000 --> 02:46.000 of the Corps of Discovery, 02:46.000 --> 02:47.000 The National Park: 02:47.000 --> 02:49.000 America's Best Idea. 02:49.000 --> 02:51.000 That, I strongly recommend. 02:51.000 --> 02:52.000 And The Dust Bowl, which 02:52.000 --> 02:53.000 will air on Wisconsin Public 02:53.000 --> 02:54.000 Television in November, 02:54.000 --> 02:56.000 I believe. 02:56.000 --> 02:57.000 In fact, Mr. Duncan has 02:57.000 --> 02:59.000 collaborated with Ken Burns on 02:59.000 --> 03:01.000 most of his award-winning series 03:01.000 --> 03:02.000 for television, 03:02.000 --> 03:04.000 The Civil War, Baseball, Jazz, 03:04.000 --> 03:06.000 and many others. 03:06.000 --> 03:07.000 Dayton Duncan has also served 03:07.000 --> 03:08.000 as the Chief of Staff 03:08.000 --> 03:09.000 to the New Hampshire governor, 03:09.000 --> 03:11.000 Hugh Gallen. 03:11.000 --> 03:12.000 He was Deputy National Press 03:12.000 --> 03:14.000 Secretary for the Walter Mondale 03:14.000 --> 03:16.000 presidential campaign, 03:16.000 --> 03:17.000 National Press Secretary 03:17.000 --> 03:18.000 for the Michael Dukakis 03:18.000 --> 03:19.000 presidential campaign. 03:19.000 --> 03:21.000 President Clinton appointed 03:21.000 --> 03:23.000 Dayton Chair of the American 03:23.000 --> 03:24.000 Heritage Rivers 03:24.000 --> 03:26.000 Advisory Committee. 03:26.000 --> 03:27.000 And Interior Secretary, 03:27.000 --> 03:29.000 Secretary Bruce Babbitt, 03:29.000 --> 03:31.000 that was my first vote 03:31.000 --> 03:32.000 that I ever cast, 03:32.000 --> 03:34.000 was for Bruce Babbitt, 03:34.000 --> 03:35.000 appointed him Director for the 03:35.000 --> 03:37.000 National Park Foundation. 03:37.000 --> 03:38.000 He currently serves on the board 03:38.000 --> 03:39.000 of the Student Conservation 03:39.000 --> 03:40.000 Association and the Conservation 03:40.000 --> 03:42.000 Lands Foundation. 03:42.000 --> 03:43.000 He's a native of Iowa. 03:43.000 --> 03:44.000 Dayton graduated from the 03:44.000 --> 03:46.000 University of Pennsylvania, 03:46.000 --> 03:47.000 and was a fellow at Harvard's 03:47.000 --> 03:49.000 Shorenstein Center for Press, 03:49.000 --> 03:51.000 Politics and Public Policy. 03:51.000 --> 03:52.000 He holds honorary doctorates 03:52.000 --> 03:53.000 from Franklin Pierce College, 03:53.000 --> 03:55.000 Keene State College, 03:55.000 --> 03:56.000 Drake University. 03:56.000 --> 03:57.000 He lives in New Hampshire, 03:57.000 --> 03:59.000 and came a long way. 03:59.000 --> 04:01.000 So please, please, give a very 04:01.000 --> 04:03.000 warm welcome for Dayton Duncan. 04:03.000 --> 04:04.000 Thank you. 04:04.000 --> 04:06.000 [applause] 04:14.000 --> 04:16.000 >> Thank you. 04:16.000 --> 04:17.000 Thank you very much. 04:17.000 --> 04:20.000 [applause continues] 04:20.000 --> 04:23.000 I have to get my cheaters on. 04:23.000 --> 04:24.000 Thank you very much 04:24.000 --> 04:26.000 for that kind introduction. 04:26.000 --> 04:28.000 It's a great honor to be chosen 04:28.000 --> 04:31.000 to give the inaugural lecture. 04:31.000 --> 04:33.000 This is a lecture, 04:33.000 --> 04:35.000 I just want you to know... 04:35.000 --> 04:38.000 [laughter] 04:38.000 --> 04:40.000 for the Jordahl Public 04:40.000 --> 04:42.000 Lands Lecture 04:42.000 --> 04:46.000 for the Nelson Institute. 04:46.000 --> 04:47.000 It's an act of faith on your 04:47.000 --> 04:48.000 part to call it the first 04:48.000 --> 04:51.000 annual, because depending on how 04:51.000 --> 04:54.000 it goes tonight, you know. 04:54.000 --> 04:56.000 We'll see. 04:56.000 --> 04:57.000 I hope there'll be many more. 04:57.000 --> 04:59.000 It's good to see. 04:59.000 --> 05:00.000 I have some old friends out in 05:00.000 --> 05:01.000 the audience who asked very 05:01.000 --> 05:02.000 specifically that they not be 05:02.000 --> 05:04.000 mentioned by name, either out of 05:04.000 --> 05:05.000 modesty or shame that they once 05:05.000 --> 05:08.000 were associated with me. 05:08.000 --> 05:10.000 Back before the Democrats 05:10.000 --> 05:12.000 begged me to get out of politics 05:12.000 --> 05:13.000 so that they would have half a 05:13.000 --> 05:14.000 chance to get the presidency 05:14.000 --> 05:16.000 back. 05:16.000 --> 05:19.000 When we did our film on the 05:19.000 --> 05:22.000 West, the great Kiowa poet, 05:22.000 --> 05:25.000 Scott Momaday, talked about, for 05:25.000 --> 05:27.000 the Kiowa people, when they 05:27.000 --> 05:29.000 wanted to describe the ages long 05:29.000 --> 05:31.000 past, they would call it, "in 05:31.000 --> 05:36.000 the days when dogs could talk." 05:36.000 --> 05:38.000 Among my family and friends, 05:38.000 --> 05:40.000 the way we express the days long 05:40.000 --> 05:42.000 past is, "back when Dayton had 05:42.000 --> 05:44.000 hair." 05:44.000 --> 05:46.000 These are folks from the days 05:46.000 --> 05:49.000 long past. 05:49.000 --> 05:51.000 I've spent much of my adult life 05:51.000 --> 05:54.000 in pursuit of magazine stories 05:54.000 --> 05:56.000 and books and documentary films, 05:56.000 --> 05:59.000 and sometimes just out on the 05:59.000 --> 06:01.000 the open road, trying to 06:01.000 --> 06:03.000 understand Americans' 06:03.000 --> 06:05.000 relationship to the land that 06:05.000 --> 06:07.000 sustains us. 06:07.000 --> 06:09.000 I've retraced the Louis & Clark 06:09.000 --> 06:11.000 trail four times, and followed 06:11.000 --> 06:13.000 the route of the first 06:13.000 --> 06:15.000 transcontinental automobile trip 06:15.000 --> 06:18.000 of 1903 a century later. 06:18.000 --> 06:21.000 I've visited all 132 counties in 06:21.000 --> 06:23.000 the United States with fewer 06:23.000 --> 06:24.000 than two people per square mile, 06:24.000 --> 06:26.000 the census bureau's former 06:26.000 --> 06:29.000 definition of the frontier. 06:29.000 --> 06:31.000 My job required me, one time, to 06:31.000 --> 06:33.000 visit all 58 of the national 06:33.000 --> 06:36.000 parks in our country. 06:36.000 --> 06:37.000 I've do all that, and more, not 06:37.000 --> 06:39.000 just because I'm a sucker for 06:39.000 --> 06:41.000 road trips, but because I 06:41.000 --> 06:44.000 believe that the history of our 06:44.000 --> 06:45.000 country as a nation and who we 06:45.000 --> 06:48.000 are as a people is bound up with 06:48.000 --> 06:50.000 that relationship between us and 06:50.000 --> 06:53.000 the land. 06:53.000 --> 06:55.000 I'm not here tonight to 06:55.000 --> 06:56.000 elaborate on that belief, or 06:56.000 --> 06:58.000 even to defend it, but I'll 06:58.000 --> 07:01.000 state it as a given. 07:01.000 --> 07:02.000 For a little help in supporting 07:02.000 --> 07:04.000 that belief, I want to begin 07:04.000 --> 07:06.000 with a part of a poem by Robert 07:06.000 --> 07:08.000 Frost, from my adopted state of 07:08.000 --> 07:10.000 New Hampshire. 07:10.000 --> 07:12.000 A poem he read at the 07:12.000 --> 07:14.000 inauguration of John F. 07:14.000 --> 07:15.000 Kennedy, becoming the first poet 07:15.000 --> 07:18.000 ever invited to speak at such an 07:18.000 --> 07:21.000 important national event. 07:21.000 --> 07:23.000 The title of the poem is 07:23.000 --> 07:25.000 "The Gift Outright." 07:25.000 --> 07:27.000 The land was ours before 07:27.000 --> 07:29.000 we were the land's. 07:29.000 --> 07:31.000 She was our land more than 07:31.000 --> 07:32.000 a hundred years 07:32.000 --> 07:34.000 Before we were her people. 07:34.000 --> 07:35.000 She was ours 07:35.000 --> 07:38.000 In Massachusetts, in Virginia, 07:38.000 --> 07:39.000 But we were England's, still 07:39.000 --> 07:41.000 colonials, 07:41.000 --> 07:42.000 Possessing what we still were 07:42.000 --> 07:44.000 unpossessed by, 07:44.000 --> 07:46.000 Possessed by what we now no 07:46.000 --> 07:48.000 more possessed. 07:48.000 --> 07:50.000 Something we were withholding 07:50.000 --> 07:51.000 made us weak 07:51.000 --> 07:53.000 Until we found out that it was 07:53.000 --> 07:54.000 ourselves 07:54.000 --> 07:55.000 We were withholding from our 07:55.000 --> 07:57.000 land of living, 07:57.000 --> 07:59.000 And forthwith found salvation 07:59.000 --> 08:01.000 in surrender. 08:01.000 --> 08:03.000 We found ourselves as a nation 08:03.000 --> 08:04.000 Frost says, 08:04.000 --> 08:05.000 when instead of withholding 08:05.000 --> 08:07.000 ourselves from the land, we 08:07.000 --> 08:10.000 became part of it. 08:10.000 --> 08:11.000 Such as we were, 08:11.000 --> 08:12.000 he wrote, 08:12.000 --> 08:14.000 we gave ourselves outright 08:14.000 --> 08:16.000 To the land vaguely realizing 08:16.000 --> 08:19.000 westward. 08:19.000 --> 08:20.000 We found ourselves and our 08:20.000 --> 08:22.000 salvation in our surrender to 08:22.000 --> 08:25.000 the land. 08:25.000 --> 08:27.000 Now the story of our public 08:27.000 --> 08:29.000 lands is part of the story of 08:29.000 --> 08:31.000 that transformation, part of who 08:31.000 --> 08:32.000 we are. 08:32.000 --> 08:34.000 The story of our public lands is 08:34.000 --> 08:36.000 obviously a story of very real 08:36.000 --> 08:38.000 places. 08:38.000 --> 08:39.000 Awe inspiring scenery, as well 08:39.000 --> 08:41.000 as vast and intimidating 08:41.000 --> 08:43.000 landscapes, fertile lands as 08:43.000 --> 08:46.000 well as harsh deserts. 08:46.000 --> 08:48.000 But it is also the story of an 08:48.000 --> 08:50.000 idea, a very American idea. 08:50.000 --> 08:54.000 After the Declaration of 08:54.000 --> 08:56.000 Independence, the idea that 08:56.000 --> 08:58.000 founded our nation. 08:58.000 --> 09:00.000 It is, I think, America's best 09:00.000 --> 09:02.000 idea. 09:02.000 --> 09:05.000 I'm going to begin my story with 09:05.000 --> 09:06.000 the author of that founding 09:06.000 --> 09:08.000 idea. 09:08.000 --> 09:11.000 In 1767, nine years before 09:11.000 --> 09:13.000 drafting the Declaration of 09:13.000 --> 09:15.000 Independence, Thomas Jefferson 09:15.000 --> 09:17.000 came across what he described 09:17.000 --> 09:19.000 as, "the most sublime of 09:19.000 --> 09:21.000 nature's works," Virginia's 09:21.000 --> 09:23.000 natural bridge, a limestone arch 09:23.000 --> 09:26.000 215 feet high spanning a gorge 09:26.000 --> 09:28.000 carved by a tributary of the 09:28.000 --> 09:30.000 James River. 09:30.000 --> 09:32.000 "The rapture of the spectator is 09:32.000 --> 09:34.000 really indescribable," Jefferson 09:34.000 --> 09:36.000 wrote, before attempting, 09:36.000 --> 09:39.000 nonetheless, to describe it. 09:39.000 --> 09:41.000 At the top he said, "you 09:41.000 --> 09:43.000 involuntarily fall on your hands 09:43.000 --> 09:45.000 and feet, creep up to the 09:45.000 --> 09:47.000 parapet and peep over it. 09:47.000 --> 09:49.000 Looking down from this height 09:49.000 --> 09:50.000 about a minute gave me a violent 09:50.000 --> 09:52.000 headache. 09:52.000 --> 09:53.000 But from the bottom," he said, 09:53.000 --> 09:55.000 "it is impossible for the 09:55.000 --> 09:56.000 emotions arising from the 09:56.000 --> 09:58.000 sublime to be felt beyond what 09:58.000 --> 09:59.000 they are here. 09:59.000 --> 10:01.000 So beautiful an arch, so 10:01.000 --> 10:03.000 elevated, so light, and 10:03.000 --> 10:05.000 springing as it were, up to 10:05.000 --> 10:07.000 heaven." 10:07.000 --> 10:10.000 Now 1767, there were no public 10:10.000 --> 10:12.000 lands at the time. 10:12.000 --> 10:16.000 Everything belonged to the king. 10:16.000 --> 10:18.000 So Jefferson paid King George 20 10:18.000 --> 10:20.000 shillings for the natural bridge 10:20.000 --> 10:24.000 and 157 surrounding acres. 10:24.000 --> 10:25.000 "I view it in some degree as a 10:25.000 --> 10:27.000 public trust," he wrote a friend 10:27.000 --> 10:29.000 later, "and would on no 10:29.000 --> 10:30.000 consideration permit the bridge 10:30.000 --> 10:33.000 to be injured, defaced or masked 10:33.000 --> 10:35.000 from public view." 10:35.000 --> 10:38.000 A public trust, he called it, 10:38.000 --> 10:39.000 but it was still private 10:39.000 --> 10:41.000 property, his, not a public 10:41.000 --> 10:45.000 land. 10:45.000 --> 10:46.000 A quarter of a century later 10:46.000 --> 10:48.000 Jefferson was president of the 10:48.000 --> 10:49.000 new nation, which at the time 10:49.000 --> 10:51.000 stretched from the Atlantic 10:51.000 --> 10:53.000 seaboard to the Mississippi 10:53.000 --> 10:55.000 River, when he made the greatest 10:55.000 --> 10:57.000 land deal in world history. 10:57.000 --> 10:59.000 It brought us Iowa, after all. 10:59.000 --> 11:01.000 [laughter] 11:01.000 --> 11:02.000 For three cents an acre he 11:02.000 --> 11:05.000 bought the Louisiana Territory, 11:05.000 --> 11:08.000 8,200 square miles, doubling the 11:08.000 --> 11:11.000 size of the United States. 11:11.000 --> 11:13.000 And while not quite extending 11:13.000 --> 11:15.000 our boundary to the Pacific, 11:15.000 --> 11:17.000 putting us on the trajectory to 11:17.000 --> 11:19.000 becoming a continental nation, 11:19.000 --> 11:21.000 instead of the Brazil of North 11:21.000 --> 11:23.000 America. 11:23.000 --> 11:25.000 Not everyone approved of the 11:25.000 --> 11:28.000 bargain, as good as it was. 11:28.000 --> 11:29.000 "We are to give money, of which 11:29.000 --> 11:31.000 we had too little," a Boston 11:31.000 --> 11:34.000 newspaper complained, "for land 11:34.000 --> 11:35.000 of which we already have 11:35.000 --> 11:37.000 too much." 11:37.000 --> 11:38.000 But Jefferson had a plan for 11:38.000 --> 11:41.000 all that surplus land. 11:41.000 --> 11:42.000 He envisioned an orderly 11:42.000 --> 11:43.000 settlement, an empire of 11:43.000 --> 11:46.000 liberty, stretching westward. 11:46.000 --> 11:48.000 The land surveyed into grids and 11:48.000 --> 11:50.000 parcels, offered at auction by 11:50.000 --> 11:52.000 the General Land Office to 11:52.000 --> 11:54.000 yeoman farmers, with each new 11:54.000 --> 11:56.000 patent signed by the president 11:56.000 --> 11:58.000 himself. 11:58.000 --> 12:00.000 An orderly settlement is what he 12:00.000 --> 12:01.000 envisioned. 12:01.000 --> 12:02.000 Well, it didn't work out that 12:02.000 --> 12:03.000 way. 12:03.000 --> 12:05.000 Orderly settlement, it turns out 12:05.000 --> 12:06.000 was not part of the American 12:06.000 --> 12:07.000 character. 12:07.000 --> 12:10.000 Land hunger, land fever, 12:10.000 --> 12:11.000 described it better. 12:11.000 --> 12:14.000 By 1832 the quickened pace of 12:14.000 --> 12:16.000 claims had created a backlog of 12:16.000 --> 12:19.000 10,500 patents awaiting 12:19.000 --> 12:20.000 President Andrew Jackson's 12:20.000 --> 12:23.000 signature to become legal. 12:23.000 --> 12:25.000 It was such an obstacle to 12:25.000 --> 12:26.000 settlement, that congress 12:26.000 --> 12:28.000 figured a way to solve it. 12:28.000 --> 12:29.000 They passed a law authorizing a 12:29.000 --> 12:30.000 clerk to forge the president's 12:30.000 --> 12:33.000 name. 12:33.000 --> 12:34.000 If your grandparents have a 12:34.000 --> 12:37.000 deed, a patent, signed by the 12:37.000 --> 12:38.000 president of the United States 12:38.000 --> 12:40.000 after Andrew Jackson, it wasn't 12:40.000 --> 12:42.000 the president that signed it. 12:42.000 --> 12:42.000 It was some... 12:42.000 --> 12:44.000 It was before there were 12:44.000 --> 12:45.000 robo-signings, they started 12:45.000 --> 12:47.000 this. 12:47.000 --> 12:48.000 They wanted to do that so that 12:48.000 --> 12:51.000 the disposal of the public land 12:51.000 --> 12:52.000 would not slow down. 12:52.000 --> 12:54.000 The federal government, which 12:54.000 --> 12:57.000 relied in part by the sale of 12:57.000 --> 12:59.000 the domain for revenue, could 12:59.000 --> 13:01.000 continue doing, "a land-office 13:01.000 --> 13:04.000 business." 13:04.000 --> 13:05.000 That's where this phrase comes 13:05.000 --> 13:07.000 from. 13:07.000 --> 13:08.000 The very phrase tell you a lot 13:08.000 --> 13:10.000 about our attitude toward the 13:10.000 --> 13:11.000 public domain. 13:11.000 --> 13:13.000 We intended to get rid of it at 13:13.000 --> 13:15.000 the pace of a land-office 13:15.000 --> 13:17.000 business. 13:17.000 --> 13:20.000 But that same year, of 1832, the 13:20.000 --> 13:21.000 artist George Catlin, traveling 13:21.000 --> 13:23.000 on the vast Great Plains in 13:23.000 --> 13:24.000 search of what he called "the 13:24.000 --> 13:26.000 grace and beauty of nature," had 13:26.000 --> 13:28.000 come across a teeming herd of 13:28.000 --> 13:30.000 buffalo and was suddenly struck 13:30.000 --> 13:33.000 with the premonition that they, 13:33.000 --> 13:35.000 and the Indians who depended 13:35.000 --> 13:37.000 upon them, would someday be gone 13:37.000 --> 13:38.000 forever. 13:38.000 --> 13:41.000 Then he had an epiphany. 13:41.000 --> 13:42.000 Much of nature, he realized was 13:42.000 --> 13:44.000 destined "to fall before the 13:44.000 --> 13:46.000 deadly ax and desolating hands 13:46.000 --> 13:49.000 of cultivating man." 13:49.000 --> 13:51.000 And yet the further mankind 13:51.000 --> 13:53.000 became separated from what he 13:53.000 --> 13:56.000 called "pristine wildness," "the 13:56.000 --> 13:58.000 more pleasure does the mind of 13:58.000 --> 14:00.000 enlightened man feel in 14:00.000 --> 14:02.000 recurring to those scenes." 14:02.000 --> 14:04.000 He went on, What a splendid 14:04.000 --> 14:06.000 contemplation when one imagines 14:06.000 --> 14:08.000 them, by some great protecting 14:08.000 --> 14:10.000 policy of government preserved 14:10.000 --> 14:13.000 in a magnificent park, 14:13.000 --> 14:14.000 a nations park. 14:14.000 --> 14:16.000 Containing man and beast in all 14:16.000 --> 14:18.000 the wild and freshness of their 14:18.000 --> 14:21.000 nature's beauty. 14:21.000 --> 14:23.000 I would ask no other monument 14:23.000 --> 14:25.000 to my memory, nor any other 14:25.000 --> 14:26.000 enrollment of my name amongst 14:26.000 --> 14:28.000 the famous dead, he said, than 14:28.000 --> 14:30.000 the reputation of having been 14:30.000 --> 14:31.000 the founder of such an 14:31.000 --> 14:33.000 institution. 14:33.000 --> 14:35.000 Catlin published his thoughts 14:35.000 --> 14:36.000 in a letter to a New York City 14:36.000 --> 14:38.000 newspaper the next year, but his 14:38.000 --> 14:40.000 idea for a nation's park 14:40.000 --> 14:43.000 attracted little attention. 14:43.000 --> 14:44.000 Quite the contrary, the main 14:44.000 --> 14:46.000 business of congress remained 14:46.000 --> 14:49.000 the same, figuring out ways of 14:49.000 --> 14:51.000 disposing of public lands so it 14:51.000 --> 14:54.000 could be put to private use. 14:54.000 --> 14:56.000 By 1841, so many settlers were 14:56.000 --> 14:59.000 pouring onto lands not yet even 14:59.000 --> 15:01.000 surveyed, that congress passed 15:01.000 --> 15:03.000 the Preemption Act, which 15:03.000 --> 15:05.000 permitted squatters to purchase 15:05.000 --> 15:07.000 up to 160 acres of public land 15:07.000 --> 15:10.000 for as little as a $1.25 15:10.000 --> 15:13.000 an acre before it was surveyed 15:13.000 --> 15:15.000 and offered at auction if they 15:15.000 --> 15:16.000 could show a certain number of 15:16.000 --> 15:18.000 months of residence and a 15:18.000 --> 15:20.000 certain number of improvements 15:20.000 --> 15:22.000 to their claim. 15:22.000 --> 15:24.000 The French journalist, Alexis de 15:24.000 --> 15:26.000 Tocqueville, who traveled the 15:26.000 --> 15:28.000 United States around that time, 15:28.000 --> 15:30.000 summarized the prevailing 15:30.000 --> 15:32.000 American attitude toward their 15:32.000 --> 15:34.000 land, I think, the best. 15:34.000 --> 15:35.000 In Europe, he wrote, people 15:35.000 --> 15:38.000 talk a great deal about the 15:38.000 --> 15:39.000 wilds of America, but the 15:39.000 --> 15:41.000 Americans themselves 15:41.000 --> 15:44.000 never think about them. 15:44.000 --> 15:45.000 They are insensible to the 15:45.000 --> 15:47.000 wonders of inanimate nature. 15:47.000 --> 15:49.000 They may be said not to 15:49.000 --> 15:51.000 perceived the mighty forest 15:51.000 --> 15:53.000 that surround them, until the 15:53.000 --> 15:55.000 fall beneath the hatchet. 15:55.000 --> 15:56.000 Their eyes are fixed upon 15:56.000 --> 15:58.000 another sight, the march across 15:58.000 --> 16:01.000 these wilds, draining swamps, 16:01.000 --> 16:02.000 turning the course of the 16:02.000 --> 16:05.000 rivers, peopling solitudes, and 16:05.000 --> 16:07.000 subduing nature. 16:07.000 --> 16:09.000 They will habitually prefer the 16:09.000 --> 16:11.000 useful to the beautiful, he 16:11.000 --> 16:13.000 said, and they will require 16:13.000 --> 16:15.000 that the beautiful should be 16:15.000 --> 16:18.000 useful. 16:18.000 --> 16:20.000 Under the banner of Manifest 16:20.000 --> 16:22.000 Destiny, in less then a decade 16:22.000 --> 16:23.000 from then, we fought a war with 16:23.000 --> 16:26.000 Mexico, added California and the 16:26.000 --> 16:28.000 Southwest, negotiated with Great 16:28.000 --> 16:29.000 Britain to give us the Pacific 16:29.000 --> 16:32.000 Northwest, and accepted Texas 16:32.000 --> 16:33.000 into the union. 16:33.000 --> 16:34.000 Well, we make some mistakes 16:34.000 --> 16:36.000 every once in awhile, right? 16:36.000 --> 16:37.000 [laughter] 16:37.000 --> 16:38.000 There you go. 16:38.000 --> 16:40.000 If we could go back in time, the 16:40.000 --> 16:42.000 things we could do. 16:42.000 --> 16:46.000 Rick Perry's dream would have 16:46.000 --> 16:50.000 come true. 16:50.000 --> 16:51.000 But now there was a lot more 16:51.000 --> 16:54.000 space to fill, and more space to 16:54.000 --> 16:57.000 be made "useful." 16:57.000 --> 16:59.000 When the Civil War slowed down 16:59.000 --> 17:00.000 the rate of settlement, congress 17:00.000 --> 17:02.000 nonetheless tried to stimulate 17:02.000 --> 17:04.000 it, by upping the ante. 17:04.000 --> 17:07.000 The Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 17:07.000 --> 17:09.000 promised vast tracts of the 17:09.000 --> 17:11.000 public domain to the companies 17:11.000 --> 17:12.000 building the first 17:12.000 --> 17:13.000 transcontinental railroad from 17:13.000 --> 17:15.000 Omaha to Sacramento. 17:15.000 --> 17:17.000 That same year, the Homestead 17:17.000 --> 17:19.000 Act offered individuals their 17:19.000 --> 17:22.000 own 160 acres for free if they 17:22.000 --> 17:24.000 improved the land and filed for 17:24.000 --> 17:26.000 their deed. 17:26.000 --> 17:29.000 Into this environment, while the 17:29.000 --> 17:30.000 nation was still fighting to see 17:30.000 --> 17:33.000 if it would even survive, and 17:33.000 --> 17:35.000 for reasons history does not 17:35.000 --> 17:38.000 provide clear documentation to 17:38.000 --> 17:42.000 explain, in 1864 Senator John 17:42.000 --> 17:45.000 Conness of California proposed 17:45.000 --> 17:47.000 something totally unprecedented 17:47.000 --> 17:50.000 in human history. 17:50.000 --> 17:52.000 Setting aside, not a landscape 17:52.000 --> 17:54.000 garden or a city park, but a 17:54.000 --> 17:57.000 large tract of natural scenery 17:57.000 --> 18:01.000 for the enjoyment of everyone. 18:01.000 --> 18:03.000 More than 60 square miles of 18:03.000 --> 18:04.000 federal land encompassing the 18:04.000 --> 18:06.000 Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa 18:06.000 --> 18:09.000 Grove of giant Sequoias, were to 18:09.000 --> 18:11.000 be transferred to the care of 18:11.000 --> 18:12.000 the state of California "for 18:12.000 --> 18:14.000 public use, resort and 18:14.000 --> 18:18.000 recreation," and made 18:18.000 --> 18:21.000 "unalienable forever." 18:21.000 --> 18:22.000 That is, reserved from private 18:22.000 --> 18:25.000 ownership for all time. 18:25.000 --> 18:28.000 In other words, he was asking 18:28.000 --> 18:30.000 congress to do the exact 18:30.000 --> 18:33.000 opposite of what it had been 18:33.000 --> 18:34.000 doing for all of it's existence. 18:34.000 --> 18:37.000 To save a piece of public land 18:37.000 --> 18:39.000 for the public, instead of 18:39.000 --> 18:41.000 trying everything possible to 18:41.000 --> 18:43.000 sell it, or even give it away, 18:43.000 --> 18:45.000 so it could become private 18:45.000 --> 18:47.000 property. 18:47.000 --> 18:49.000 Conness obviously understood 18:49.000 --> 18:50.000 this when he introduced his bill 18:50.000 --> 18:52.000 on the senate floor. 18:52.000 --> 18:53.000 "I will state to the senate," he 18:53.000 --> 18:55.000 said, "that this bill proposes 18:55.000 --> 18:57.000 to make a grant of certain 18:57.000 --> 18:58.000 premises located in the Sierra 18:58.000 --> 19:00.000 Nevada Mountains in the state of 19:00.000 --> 19:02.000 California, that are for all 19:02.000 --> 19:05.000 public purposes worthless, but 19:05.000 --> 19:07.000 which constitute perhaps, some 19:07.000 --> 19:09.000 of the greatest wonders of the 19:09.000 --> 19:10.000 world." 19:10.000 --> 19:12.000 For all public purposes 19:12.000 --> 19:14.000 worthless is what he was just 19:14.000 --> 19:17.000 saying about Yosemite and the 19:17.000 --> 19:18.000 Maripose Grove. 19:18.000 --> 19:20.000 How many people have been there? 19:20.000 --> 19:23.000 Pretty worthless, right? 19:23.000 --> 19:24.000 But that was the first point he 19:24.000 --> 19:26.000 made, before tossing in a little 19:26.000 --> 19:28.000 nationalism that Yosemite and 19:28.000 --> 19:29.000 the big trees where also 19:29.000 --> 19:32.000 world-class wonders, something 19:32.000 --> 19:34.000 more spectacular than the Old 19:34.000 --> 19:38.000 World, Europe, could claim. 19:38.000 --> 19:40.000 Then, in case they had forgotten 19:40.000 --> 19:42.000 that initial point, he 19:42.000 --> 19:43.000 reiterated. 19:43.000 --> 19:45.000 "It is a matter involving no 19:45.000 --> 19:47.000 appropriation whatever," he 19:47.000 --> 19:48.000 promised. 19:48.000 --> 19:51.000 "The property is of no value to 19:51.000 --> 19:52.000 the government." 19:52.000 --> 19:54.000 In other words, to those other 19:54.000 --> 19:56.000 congressmen and senators, 19:56.000 --> 19:57.000 something of a freebie. 19:57.000 --> 19:59.000 Congress wouldn't be spending 19:59.000 --> 20:00.000 any money and wouldn't be 20:00.000 --> 20:02.000 depriving it's citizens of 20:02.000 --> 20:06.000 "valuable," "useful" land, 20:06.000 --> 20:07.000 that is, good farmland or 20:07.000 --> 20:09.000 merchantable timber or precious 20:09.000 --> 20:11.000 minerals, by prohibiting private 20:11.000 --> 20:13.000 ownership. 20:13.000 --> 20:15.000 It helped, no doubt, that this 20:15.000 --> 20:17.000 was a place tucked into a remote 20:17.000 --> 20:19.000 recess of the Sierra Nevada. 20:19.000 --> 20:22.000 It helped that Carleton Watkins' 20:22.000 --> 20:24.000 stunning photographs of the 20:24.000 --> 20:26.000 valley, and those huge, ancient 20:26.000 --> 20:28.000 trees, hung in the 20:28.000 --> 20:29.000 Sergeant-at-Arms's office near 20:29.000 --> 20:31.000 the senate chamber. 20:31.000 --> 20:33.000 It certainly helped that at 20:33.000 --> 20:35.000 least one prominent business 20:35.000 --> 20:37.000 interest, a steam-ship company 20:37.000 --> 20:38.000 eager to take tourists to 20:38.000 --> 20:40.000 California to see these wonders, 20:40.000 --> 20:43.000 wanted the law to pass. 20:43.000 --> 20:44.000 It probably helped that many of 20:44.000 --> 20:46.000 the senators knew that some of 20:46.000 --> 20:48.000 California's mammoth trees had 20:48.000 --> 20:50.000 already been cut down, 20:50.000 --> 20:52.000 illiciting the scorn of those 20:52.000 --> 20:53.000 who already rubbed the 20:53.000 --> 20:55.000 commercial degradation of 20:55.000 --> 20:58.000 Niagara Falls in the nation's 20:58.000 --> 20:59.000 face. 20:59.000 --> 21:01.000 Now, at least one of the 21:01.000 --> 21:03.000 celebrated big tree groves would 21:03.000 --> 21:05.000 be preserved, to show off to any 21:05.000 --> 21:08.000 disdainful European, de 21:08.000 --> 21:10.000 Tocqueville might come to mind, 21:10.000 --> 21:12.000 who doubted America's superior 21:12.000 --> 21:14.000 natural wonders or it's capacity 21:14.000 --> 21:17.000 to properly care for them. 21:17.000 --> 21:19.000 It's impossible to look down 21:19.000 --> 21:20.000 your nose when your head is 21:20.000 --> 21:22.000 craned upwards looking at the 21:22.000 --> 21:25.000 top of a live Sequoia tree. 21:25.000 --> 21:27.000 Virtually no real debate arose 21:27.000 --> 21:30.000 over Conness' bill. 21:30.000 --> 21:31.000 The senate passed it and moved 21:31.000 --> 21:33.000 on to other issues. 21:33.000 --> 21:34.000 A month later, the house did the 21:34.000 --> 21:35.000 same thing. 21:35.000 --> 21:39.000 On June 30, 1864, whether he 21:39.000 --> 21:43.000 realized it fully or not, 21:43.000 --> 21:44.000 President Abraham Lincoln took 21:44.000 --> 21:46.000 an historic step. 21:46.000 --> 21:48.000 He signed a law to preserve 21:48.000 --> 21:51.000 forever a beautiful valley and a 21:51.000 --> 21:52.000 grove of trees that neither he 21:52.000 --> 21:56.000 nor the members of congress had 21:56.000 --> 21:58.000 ever seen, thousands of miles 21:58.000 --> 22:01.000 away in California. 22:01.000 --> 22:03.000 The seed of the national park 22:03.000 --> 22:05.000 idea had been planted. 22:05.000 --> 22:08.000 Our attitude toward public lands 22:08.000 --> 22:13.000 had just now begun to evolve. 22:13.000 --> 22:15.000 Now a year later, 1865, a small 22:15.000 --> 22:17.000 group gathered in Yosemite 22:17.000 --> 22:19.000 Valley to hear one of the state 22:19.000 --> 22:22.000 commissioners read a report he 22:22.000 --> 22:23.000 had written about the future of 22:23.000 --> 22:25.000 this new park that had been 22:25.000 --> 22:26.000 entrusted to the state of 22:26.000 --> 22:28.000 California. 22:28.000 --> 22:29.000 His name was Frederick Law 22:29.000 --> 22:31.000 Olmsted, better known as one of 22:31.000 --> 22:33.000 the designers of New York City's 22:33.000 --> 22:35.000 Central Park. 22:35.000 --> 22:36.000 He was living temporarily in 22:36.000 --> 22:38.000 California where he was 22:38.000 --> 22:40.000 overseeing a big mining estate 22:40.000 --> 22:44.000 not far from Yosemite. 22:44.000 --> 22:46.000 Like Senator Conness, Olmsted 22:46.000 --> 22:48.000 was acutely aware of American's 22:48.000 --> 22:50.000 predisposition to commerce. 22:50.000 --> 22:52.000 After describing the new park's 22:52.000 --> 22:54.000 natural beauty, he began his 22:54.000 --> 22:56.000 report by noting what he called 22:56.000 --> 22:58.000 the "obviously pecuniary 22:58.000 --> 23:01.000 advantage" of such scenery. 23:01.000 --> 23:03.000 Switzerland, he noted, prospered 23:03.000 --> 23:05.000 economically from the thousands 23:05.000 --> 23:07.000 of tourists visiting the Alps. 23:07.000 --> 23:09.000 Their money supported inns and 23:09.000 --> 23:11.000 restaurants, provided farmers 23:11.000 --> 23:13.000 with "their best and almost only 23:13.000 --> 23:16.000 market" for surplus products. 23:16.000 --> 23:18.000 It fostered to developments of 23:18.000 --> 23:20.000 railroads and carriage roads, 23:20.000 --> 23:22.000 steamboat lines and telegraphs, 23:22.000 --> 23:24.000 that all contributed substantial 23:24.000 --> 23:26.000 revenue to the nation of 23:26.000 --> 23:28.000 Switzerland. 23:28.000 --> 23:30.000 So too, Olmsted predicted, would 23:30.000 --> 23:31.000 the scenic attraction of 23:31.000 --> 23:33.000 Yosemite and the big trees 23:33.000 --> 23:35.000 become a financial boon to 23:35.000 --> 23:37.000 California, and ultimately, the 23:37.000 --> 23:39.000 United States. 23:39.000 --> 23:41.000 Scenery as magnificent as 23:41.000 --> 23:44.000 Yosemite's, carefully protected, 23:44.000 --> 23:46.000 would be good for business. 23:46.000 --> 23:48.000 And business is the business of 23:48.000 --> 23:50.000 America. 23:50.000 --> 23:53.000 But Olmsted also offered a new 23:53.000 --> 23:55.000 argument for the park. 23:55.000 --> 23:57.000 Economics and international 23:57.000 --> 24:00.000 bragging rights paled as 24:00.000 --> 24:02.000 rational for preserving 24:02.000 --> 24:03.000 Yosemite, he said, compared to 24:03.000 --> 24:05.000 something much more fundamental, 24:05.000 --> 24:07.000 the purposes of democracy and 24:07.000 --> 24:12.000 the enduring promise of America. 24:12.000 --> 24:14.000 Throughout history, he argued, 24:14.000 --> 24:16.000 the world's aristocracies and 24:16.000 --> 24:17.000 richest families had always set 24:17.000 --> 24:19.000 aside the most magnificent 24:19.000 --> 24:22.000 places for their own exclusive 24:22.000 --> 24:24.000 benefit. 24:24.000 --> 24:25.000 Here's what he said. 24:25.000 --> 24:26.000 The enjoyment of the choicest 24:26.000 --> 24:28.000 natural scenes in the country 24:28.000 --> 24:30.000 and the means of recreation 24:30.000 --> 24:32.000 connected with them is thus a 24:32.000 --> 24:35.000 monopoly of a very few, very 24:35.000 --> 24:37.000 rich, people. 24:37.000 --> 24:39.000 The great mass of society, 24:39.000 --> 24:41.000 including those to whom it 24:41.000 --> 24:43.000 would be of the greatest 24:43.000 --> 24:45.000 benefit is excluded from it. 24:45.000 --> 24:46.000 But the United States, he said, 24:46.000 --> 24:47.000 was founded on a different 24:47.000 --> 24:49.000 notion than protecting the 24:49.000 --> 24:51.000 special privileges of birth or 24:51.000 --> 24:53.000 wealth. 24:53.000 --> 24:56.000 He said, It is the main duty of 24:56.000 --> 24:57.000 government, if it is not the 24:57.000 --> 24:59.000 sole duty of government, to 24:59.000 --> 25:01.000 provide means of protection for 25:01.000 --> 25:03.000 all it's citizen in the pursuit 25:03.000 --> 25:05.000 of happiness against the 25:05.000 --> 25:07.000 obstacles otherwise 25:07.000 --> 25:09.000 insurmountable which the 25:09.000 --> 25:11.000 selfishness of individuals, or 25:11.000 --> 25:13.000 combinations of individuals, is 25:13.000 --> 25:15.000 libel to interpose to that 25:15.000 --> 25:16.000 pursuit. 25:16.000 --> 25:18.000 The establishment by government 25:18.000 --> 25:20.000 of great public grounds for the 25:20.000 --> 25:22.000 free enjoyment of the people 25:22.000 --> 25:24.000 under certain circumstances is 25:24.000 --> 25:28.000 thus justified and enforced 25:28.000 --> 25:30.000 as a political duty. 25:30.000 --> 25:33.000 A political duty, he said. 25:33.000 --> 25:36.000 A government of the people has 25:36.000 --> 25:37.000 the duty to protect it's 25:37.000 --> 25:39.000 citizens' rights, including the 25:39.000 --> 25:42.000 pursuit of happiness, against 25:42.000 --> 25:44.000 the narrow and often powerful 25:44.000 --> 25:46.000 interests that would otherwise 25:46.000 --> 25:50.000 monopolize it for themselves. 25:50.000 --> 25:51.000 Like Lincoln in his Gettysburg 25:51.000 --> 25:53.000 Address, though not nearly as 25:53.000 --> 25:56.000 briefly or poetically, Olmsted, 25:56.000 --> 25:58.000 I think, had deliberately 25:58.000 --> 26:00.000 referred to the nation's most 26:00.000 --> 26:01.000 sacred document, the pursuit of 26:01.000 --> 26:03.000 happiness. 26:03.000 --> 26:05.000 He then linked it to an idea 26:05.000 --> 26:06.000 that summoned it's essence 26:06.000 --> 26:10.000 forward, expanding it in a way 26:10.000 --> 26:11.000 that Jefferson himself would 26:11.000 --> 26:14.000 have understood and approved of. 26:14.000 --> 26:16.000 It was the Declaration of 26:16.000 --> 26:19.000 Independence applied to the 26:19.000 --> 26:21.000 land. 26:21.000 --> 26:22.000 Next, Olmsted got down to his 26:22.000 --> 26:25.000 specific plans for Yosemite. 26:25.000 --> 26:26.000 California needed to invest in 26:26.000 --> 26:28.000 better roads to the Valley and 26:28.000 --> 26:30.000 Mariposa Grove, cutting the time 26:30.000 --> 26:32.000 and expense of travel in half, 26:32.000 --> 26:34.000 so that the grant did not, by 26:34.000 --> 26:36.000 virtue of its inaccessibility 26:36.000 --> 26:37.000 become what he called "a rich 26:37.000 --> 26:39.000 man's park." 26:39.000 --> 26:40.000 He estimated the roadwork 26:40.000 --> 26:43.000 would cost about $25,000 and 26:43.000 --> 26:45.000 suggested the state spend an 26:45.000 --> 26:47.000 addition $12,000 for better 26:47.000 --> 26:49.000 trails, surveys, advertising and 26:49.000 --> 26:51.000 construction of five 26:51.000 --> 26:53.000 strategically placed cabins as 26:53.000 --> 26:54.000 free resting places for 26:54.000 --> 26:56.000 visitors. 26:56.000 --> 26:57.000 But none of this would be 26:57.000 --> 26:59.000 worthwhile, he warned, without 26:59.000 --> 27:03.000 remembering another duty, the 27:03.000 --> 27:05.000 duty to future generations and 27:05.000 --> 27:08.000 the duty to the scenery itself. 27:08.000 --> 27:11.000 Regulations needed to be enacted 27:11.000 --> 27:12.000 and enforced, he said, to 27:12.000 --> 27:15.000 protect "the dignity of the 27:15.000 --> 27:17.000 scenery" against the demands of 27:17.000 --> 27:19.000 what he called, "the 27:19.000 --> 27:21.000 convenience, bad taste, 27:21.000 --> 27:23.000 playfulness, carelessness or 27:23.000 --> 27:25.000 wonton destruction of present 27:25.000 --> 27:28.000 visitors." 27:28.000 --> 27:30.000 In a place as timeless as 27:30.000 --> 27:33.000 Yosemite, Olmsted declared, "the 27:33.000 --> 27:36.000 rights of posterity" outweighed 27:36.000 --> 27:38.000 the immediate desires of the 27:38.000 --> 27:40.000 present. 27:40.000 --> 27:42.000 So he is reading this aloud, for 27:42.000 --> 27:44.000 those of you who have been to 27:44.000 --> 27:46.000 Yosemite, in a meadow along the 27:46.000 --> 27:47.000 beautiful Merced River, with the 27:47.000 --> 27:52.000 waterfalls flowing over those 27:52.000 --> 27:54.000 magnificent cliffs, and 27:54.000 --> 27:57.000 gathering there and flowing past 27:57.000 --> 27:58.000 them. 27:58.000 --> 28:00.000 There was about 30 people 28:00.000 --> 28:01.000 listening to it. 28:01.000 --> 28:03.000 That was the largest tourist 28:03.000 --> 28:07.000 group to date in Yosemite Valley 28:07.000 --> 28:09.000 at that point, which had been 28:09.000 --> 28:11.000 first visited by white people in 28:11.000 --> 28:13.000 1851. 28:13.000 --> 28:15.000 The first tourists were 1855. 28:15.000 --> 28:17.000 Ten years later, a group of 28:17.000 --> 28:20.000 30 was an awful big group. 28:20.000 --> 28:22.000 There, standing before what 28:22.000 --> 28:24.000 constituted a crowd in Yosemite 28:24.000 --> 28:26.000 Valley in 1865, when fewer than 28:26.000 --> 28:29.000 100 tourists normally visited 28:29.000 --> 28:32.000 each year, Olmsted cast his 28:32.000 --> 28:37.000 vision far over the horizon. 28:37.000 --> 28:38.000 He invited his listeners to do 28:38.000 --> 28:41.000 the same. 28:41.000 --> 28:43.000 He said, before many years, if 28:43.000 --> 28:44.000 proper facilities are offered, 28:44.000 --> 28:46.000 these hundreds will become 28:46.000 --> 28:48.000 thousands, and in a century the 28:48.000 --> 28:50.000 whole number of visitors will 28:50.000 --> 28:53.000 be counted by millions. 28:53.000 --> 28:54.000 An injury to the scenery so 28:54.000 --> 28:57.000 slight that it may be unheeded 28:57.000 --> 28:59.000 by any visitor now, he said, 28:59.000 --> 29:02.000 will be one multiplied by those 29:02.000 --> 29:03.000 millions. 29:03.000 --> 29:05.000 Therefore, laws to prevent an 29:05.000 --> 29:07.000 unjust use by individuals of 29:07.000 --> 29:09.000 that which is not individual, 29:09.000 --> 29:10.000 but public, property, must be 29:10.000 --> 29:13.000 made and rigidly enforced. 29:13.000 --> 29:15.000 This duty of preservation, he 29:15.000 --> 29:17.000 said, is first, because the 29:17.000 --> 29:20.000 millions who are hereafter to 29:20.000 --> 29:21.000 benefit have the largest 29:21.000 --> 29:23.000 interest in it, and the largest 29:23.000 --> 29:25.000 interest should be first and 29:25.000 --> 29:28.000 most strenuously guarded. 29:28.000 --> 29:30.000 Yosemite, he proclaimed, was "a 29:30.000 --> 29:33.000 trust from the whole nation." 29:33.000 --> 29:35.000 An expression of, what he 29:35.000 --> 29:37.000 said, "the will of the nation is 29:37.000 --> 29:38.000 embodied in the act of congress 29:38.000 --> 29:40.000 that this scenery shall never be 29:40.000 --> 29:42.000 private property, but that like 29:42.000 --> 29:44.000 certain defensive points upon 29:44.000 --> 29:46.000 our coasts, it shall be held 29:46.000 --> 29:49.000 solely for public purposes." 29:49.000 --> 29:54.000 This was a stunningly prescient 29:54.000 --> 29:56.000 document. 29:56.000 --> 29:57.000 All the more remarkable because 29:57.000 --> 29:59.000 it was written so early in 29:59.000 --> 30:01.000 America's, and therefore the 30:01.000 --> 30:03.000 world's, first venture into 30:03.000 --> 30:05.000 setting aside large tracts of 30:05.000 --> 30:06.000 public land. 30:06.000 --> 30:08.000 Without any precedent or any 30:08.000 --> 30:11.000 guidance Olmsted had just 30:11.000 --> 30:14.000 presented a closely reasoned yet 30:14.000 --> 30:15.000 farsighted argument about the 30:15.000 --> 30:18.000 future of Yosemite and of all 30:18.000 --> 30:20.000 future parks. 30:20.000 --> 30:22.000 Filled with democratic theory as 30:22.000 --> 30:23.000 well as practical 30:23.000 --> 30:25.000 recommendations, lofty ideals 30:25.000 --> 30:27.000 and the nuts and bolts of 30:27.000 --> 30:28.000 management. 30:28.000 --> 30:29.000 A manifesto combining the 30:29.000 --> 30:32.000 Declaration of Independence and 30:32.000 --> 30:34.000 the Constitution, on behalf of 30:34.000 --> 30:36.000 public parks, binding them to 30:36.000 --> 30:38.000 the principles that had founded 30:38.000 --> 30:42.000 the nation now embarking on yet 30:42.000 --> 30:45.000 another experiment in democracy. 30:45.000 --> 30:47.000 Nothing like it had been written 30:47.000 --> 30:49.000 before. 30:49.000 --> 30:50.000 And I must tell you, nothing 30:50.000 --> 30:55.000 better has been written since. 30:55.000 --> 30:58.000 It would be natural therefore, 30:58.000 --> 30:59.000 to think of Olmsted's report as 30:59.000 --> 31:01.000 the blueprint that guided the 31:01.000 --> 31:03.000 development of the new park at 31:03.000 --> 31:05.000 Yosemite and all national parks 31:05.000 --> 31:07.000 and public lands that would 31:07.000 --> 31:08.000 follow. 31:08.000 --> 31:10.000 That would be natural and nice, 31:10.000 --> 31:13.000 but it would not be close to the 31:13.000 --> 31:14.000 truth. 31:14.000 --> 31:16.000 History, some of you who are 31:16.000 --> 31:18.000 history students here know, 31:18.000 --> 31:21.000 follows it's own winding paths. 31:21.000 --> 31:24.000 No one at Olmsted's reading had 31:24.000 --> 31:26.000 disagreed with his proposal. 31:26.000 --> 31:28.000 But once he was safely out of 31:28.000 --> 31:29.000 California and back at Central 31:29.000 --> 31:32.000 Park in New York City, a small 31:32.000 --> 31:33.000 group of his fellow 31:33.000 --> 31:35.000 commissioners secretly convened 31:35.000 --> 31:37.000 and decided his recommendations 31:37.000 --> 31:39.000 were too expensive and too 31:39.000 --> 31:41.000 controversial to bring before 31:41.000 --> 31:43.000 the legislature. 31:43.000 --> 31:45.000 With the governor's concurrence 31:45.000 --> 31:48.000 the report was quietly shelved. 31:48.000 --> 31:53.000 Nearly a century would elapse 31:53.000 --> 31:56.000 before an Olmsted biographer, 31:56.000 --> 31:57.000 going through the papers of the 31:57.000 --> 31:59.000 Olmsted Brothers' firm in 31:59.000 --> 32:01.000 Brookline, Massachusetts in 32:01.000 --> 32:03.000 1952, unearthed a copy of that 32:03.000 --> 32:06.000 report and published it. 32:06.000 --> 32:08.000 In the mean time, the history of 32:08.000 --> 32:11.000 Yosemite, the national park 32:11.000 --> 32:13.000 idea, and our relationship with 32:13.000 --> 32:15.000 the public lands, would need to 32:15.000 --> 32:17.000 proceed the way so much of 32:17.000 --> 32:21.000 American history has, not from a 32:21.000 --> 32:24.000 blueprint, however brilliant, 32:24.000 --> 32:27.000 but by experimentation, by 32:27.000 --> 32:31.000 improvisation, trial and error. 32:31.000 --> 32:33.000 Not by a straight path, but a 32:33.000 --> 32:36.000 winding road with several turns. 32:36.000 --> 32:38.000 I'm just going to walk you past 32:38.000 --> 32:40.000 a few of those turns. 32:40.000 --> 32:43.000 In 1872, eight years later, 32:43.000 --> 32:45.000 congress was asked to set aside 32:45.000 --> 32:47.000 another remarkable part of the 32:47.000 --> 32:48.000 land, the headwaters of the 32:48.000 --> 32:50.000 Yellowstone, where rivers steam 32:50.000 --> 32:52.000 and mud boil, amidst the 32:52.000 --> 32:54.000 greatest collection of geysers 32:54.000 --> 32:56.000 in the world. 32:56.000 --> 32:58.000 The rational for keeping it 32:58.000 --> 33:01.000 inalienable for all time was 33:01.000 --> 33:02.000 exactly the same as with 33:02.000 --> 33:04.000 Yosemite. 33:04.000 --> 33:05.000 It wasn't good farmland, no 33:05.000 --> 33:07.000 valuable timber of minerals, and 33:07.000 --> 33:09.000 so on. 33:09.000 --> 33:10.000 Once again, a major business 33:10.000 --> 33:12.000 interest, in this case the 33:12.000 --> 33:14.000 Northern Pacific Railroad, 33:14.000 --> 33:15.000 seeing the possibility of 33:15.000 --> 33:17.000 increased profits from a 33:17.000 --> 33:19.000 spectacular tourist attraction, 33:19.000 --> 33:21.000 was working behind the scenes in 33:21.000 --> 33:23.000 congress. 33:23.000 --> 33:25.000 In the house and senate to quell 33:25.000 --> 33:27.000 any lingering resistance to 33:27.000 --> 33:28.000 removing public land from 33:28.000 --> 33:30.000 development, supporters made 33:30.000 --> 33:32.000 specific reference to the 33:32.000 --> 33:34.000 precedent that had already been 33:34.000 --> 33:37.000 set in Yosemite, except for one 33:37.000 --> 33:39.000 difference. 33:39.000 --> 33:40.000 Yellowstone was in Wyoming 33:40.000 --> 33:42.000 Territory. 33:42.000 --> 33:45.000 There was no state to take over 33:45.000 --> 33:47.000 management of it. 33:47.000 --> 33:49.000 Therefore this proposed park 33:49.000 --> 33:51.000 would have to be a federal 33:51.000 --> 33:54.000 responsibility. 33:54.000 --> 33:55.000 And so, though modeled in every 33:55.000 --> 33:57.000 respect on the Yosemite grant 33:57.000 --> 33:59.000 eight years earlier, Yellowstone 33:59.000 --> 34:01.000 became the world's first 34:01.000 --> 34:05.000 national park. 34:05.000 --> 34:07.000 It was a distinction arising 34:07.000 --> 34:08.000 more out of happenstance than 34:08.000 --> 34:12.000 intention, but in time it would 34:12.000 --> 34:14.000 prove to be of the utmost 34:14.000 --> 34:16.000 significance, a turning point in 34:16.000 --> 34:19.000 the evolution of the park idea. 34:19.000 --> 34:22.000 Meanwhile, a fellow from here in 34:22.000 --> 34:25.000 Wisconsin was wandering around 34:25.000 --> 34:28.000 the Sierra Nevada, about to add 34:28.000 --> 34:29.000 another reason why we need 34:29.000 --> 34:31.000 public lands. 34:31.000 --> 34:33.000 Not economic opportunity, not 34:33.000 --> 34:35.000 national pride, not political 34:35.000 --> 34:40.000 duty, but spiritual necessity. 34:40.000 --> 34:42.000 If you haven't guessed, his name 34:42.000 --> 34:44.000 was John Muir. 34:44.000 --> 34:46.000 He was an immigrant from 34:46.000 --> 34:47.000 Scotland, a University of 34:47.000 --> 34:50.000 Wisconsin dropout, a Civil War 34:50.000 --> 34:52.000 draft evader, an inventive 34:52.000 --> 34:54.000 genius who could have become a 34:54.000 --> 34:56.000 titan of industry in the Gilded 34:56.000 --> 34:57.000 Age. 34:57.000 --> 35:00.000 A man who had walked from 35:00.000 --> 35:03.000 Indiana to Florida, and later 35:03.000 --> 35:05.000 walked from San Francisco to 35:05.000 --> 35:07.000 Yosemite, all the while 35:07.000 --> 35:09.000 searching for a direction and a 35:09.000 --> 35:11.000 purpose for his life. 35:11.000 --> 35:15.000 Luckily for our nation, he found 35:15.000 --> 35:16.000 it in the mountains he called 35:16.000 --> 35:18.000 "the range of light," 35:18.000 --> 35:20.000 and in the valley he considered 35:20.000 --> 35:21.000 "the grandest of all the special 35:21.000 --> 35:24.000 temples of nature I was ever 35:24.000 --> 35:26.000 permitted to enter, the sanctum 35:26.000 --> 35:30.000 sanctorum of the Sierra," 35:30.000 --> 35:32.000 Yosemite Valley. 35:32.000 --> 35:34.000 Talk about finding salvation by 35:34.000 --> 35:36.000 surrendering to the land. 35:36.000 --> 35:38.000 Muir found himself by losing 35:38.000 --> 35:41.000 himself in nature. 35:41.000 --> 35:44.000 Here's how he described it. 35:44.000 --> 35:46.000 We are now in the mountains. 35:46.000 --> 35:48.000 They are within us, kindling 35:48.000 --> 35:51.000 enthusiasm, making every nerve 35:51.000 --> 35:53.000 quiver, filling every pore and 35:53.000 --> 35:55.000 cell of us. 35:55.000 --> 35:57.000 Our flesh and bone tabernacle 35:57.000 --> 35:59.000 seems transparent as glass to 35:59.000 --> 36:02.000 the beauty about us. 36:02.000 --> 36:04.000 As if truly an inseparable 36:04.000 --> 36:06.000 part of it, thrilling with the 36:06.000 --> 36:07.000 air and trees, streams and 36:07.000 --> 36:09.000 rocks, in the waves of the sun. 36:09.000 --> 36:12.000 A part of all nature, neither 36:12.000 --> 36:16.000 old nor young, sick nor well, 36:16.000 --> 36:19.000 but immortal. 36:19.000 --> 36:21.000 I must drift about these 36:21.000 --> 36:22.000 love-monument mountains, he 36:22.000 --> 36:24.000 said, glad to be a servant of 36:24.000 --> 36:26.000 servants in so holy a 36:26.000 --> 36:28.000 wilderness. 36:28.000 --> 36:30.000 Now that was more than a 36:30.000 --> 36:32.000 restless young man finally 36:32.000 --> 36:35.000 finding a new direction in life. 36:35.000 --> 36:36.000 This was a profoundly religious 36:36.000 --> 36:38.000 experience. 36:38.000 --> 36:41.000 A moment of ecstasy and a 36:41.000 --> 36:42.000 revelation on the most 36:42.000 --> 36:44.000 fundamental level. 36:44.000 --> 36:45.000 He wasn't choosing a future to 36:45.000 --> 36:47.000 follow, it was calling him to 36:47.000 --> 36:51.000 it. 36:51.000 --> 36:52.000 Muir understood it immediately 36:52.000 --> 36:53.000 in those terms. 36:53.000 --> 36:55.000 "How glorious a conversion," he 36:55.000 --> 36:56.000 recorded in his journal that 36:56.000 --> 36:58.000 same day, "so complete and 36:58.000 --> 37:00.000 wholesome." 37:00.000 --> 37:01.000 Muir called it his 37:01.000 --> 37:04.000 "unconditional surrender" to 37:04.000 --> 37:05.000 nature. 37:05.000 --> 37:08.000 "In these mountains," he wrote, 37:08.000 --> 37:09.000 "everything is perfectly clean 37:09.000 --> 37:11.000 and pure and full of divine 37:11.000 --> 37:13.000 lessons, until the hand of God 37:13.000 --> 37:16.000 becomes visible." 37:16.000 --> 37:18.000 That hand pointed in one 37:18.000 --> 37:20.000 direction. 37:20.000 --> 37:21.000 The realization that all of 37:21.000 --> 37:23.000 creation is intertwined and on 37:23.000 --> 37:25.000 an equal standing. 37:25.000 --> 37:28.000 Mankind is not above nature, but 37:28.000 --> 37:31.000 one part of a great joyously 37:31.000 --> 37:34.000 interconnected web of being, 37:34.000 --> 37:35.000 where rivers chant an exulting 37:35.000 --> 37:38.000 chorus and what he said "the 37:38.000 --> 37:40.000 very stones seemed talkative, 37:40.000 --> 37:44.000 sympathetic, brotherly." 37:44.000 --> 37:46.000 That realization, in turn, 37:46.000 --> 37:50.000 pointed him to his destiny. 37:50.000 --> 37:52.000 I will follow my instincts, be 37:52.000 --> 37:54.000 myself for good or ill, and see 37:54.000 --> 37:56.000 what will be the upshot. 37:56.000 --> 37:58.000 As long as I live I'll hear 37:58.000 --> 37:59.000 waterfalls and birds and winds 37:59.000 --> 38:02.000 sing. 38:02.000 --> 38:04.000 I'll interpret the rocks, learn 38:04.000 --> 38:06.000 the language of floods, storm 38:06.000 --> 38:07.000 and the avalanche. 38:07.000 --> 38:09.000 I'll acquaint myself with the 38:09.000 --> 38:11.000 glaciers and wild gardens, and 38:11.000 --> 38:13.000 get as near the heart of the 38:13.000 --> 38:17.000 world as I can. 38:17.000 --> 38:19.000 As you all know, Muir would go 38:19.000 --> 38:21.000 on to become a national voice. 38:21.000 --> 38:23.000 Not the only one, but the most 38:23.000 --> 38:25.000 eloquent one, in a growing 38:25.000 --> 38:27.000 conservation movement as the 38:27.000 --> 38:29.000 19th century entered its closing 38:29.000 --> 38:31.000 decade. 38:31.000 --> 38:33.000 When more and more Americans 38:33.000 --> 38:34.000 became alarmed at what the 38:34.000 --> 38:36.000 nation's headlong rush westward 38:36.000 --> 38:38.000 had done to the land and to the 38:38.000 --> 38:40.000 natural world. 38:40.000 --> 38:41.000 Buffalo that had once teemed 38:41.000 --> 38:43.000 over the Great Plains numbering 38:43.000 --> 38:45.000 in the tens of millions had been 38:45.000 --> 38:47.000 annihilated for their hides and 38:47.000 --> 38:49.000 reduced to a few hundred, or 38:49.000 --> 38:51.000 even fewer. 38:51.000 --> 38:53.000 Great flocks of birds that had 38:53.000 --> 38:54.000 once darkened the skies had been 38:54.000 --> 38:56.000 devastated on an industrial 38:56.000 --> 38:58.000 scale by market hunters seeking 38:58.000 --> 39:01.000 to supply restaurants with meat, 39:01.000 --> 39:03.000 or women in big cities with 39:03.000 --> 39:06.000 exotic plumes for their hats. 39:06.000 --> 39:08.000 Timber syndicates that had laid 39:08.000 --> 39:09.000 waste to the uplands of the 39:09.000 --> 39:11.000 upper Midwest were now mounting 39:11.000 --> 39:14.000 an assault on the public domain 39:14.000 --> 39:16.000 forest of the mountain west. 39:16.000 --> 39:18.000 Mining had long since switched 39:18.000 --> 39:20.000 from being a swarm of individual 39:20.000 --> 39:22.000 prospectors panning in a stream 39:22.000 --> 39:25.000 to powerful hydraulic hoses 39:25.000 --> 39:28.000 dismantling entire hillsides, or 39:28.000 --> 39:30.000 deep open pits next to smelters 39:30.000 --> 39:32.000 that belched arsenic-tinged 39:32.000 --> 39:36.000 smoke day and night. 39:36.000 --> 39:37.000 Railroads now reached into every 39:37.000 --> 39:39.000 corner of the country. 39:39.000 --> 39:41.000 Indians had been conquered and 39:41.000 --> 39:44.000 forced onto reservations. 39:44.000 --> 39:46.000 Towns had sprung up in enough 39:46.000 --> 39:47.000 places that the director of the 39:47.000 --> 39:50.000 census of 1890 announced, "there 39:50.000 --> 39:53.000 can hardly be said to be a 39:53.000 --> 39:56.000 frontier line." 39:56.000 --> 39:58.000 Seizing on that, another man 39:58.000 --> 40:00.000 from Wisconsin and the 40:00.000 --> 40:02.000 university here, the historian 40:02.000 --> 40:04.000 Frederick Jackson Turner, 40:04.000 --> 40:06.000 proclaimed, "And now four 40:06.000 --> 40:08.000 centuries from the discovery of 40:08.000 --> 40:09.000 America, at the end of a hundred 40:09.000 --> 40:11.000 years of life under the 40:11.000 --> 40:13.000 Constitution, the frontier has 40:13.000 --> 40:15.000 gone, and with it's going has 40:15.000 --> 40:18.000 closed the first period of 40:18.000 --> 40:20.000 American history." 40:20.000 --> 40:23.000 The census bureau, by the way, 40:23.000 --> 40:25.000 had an interesting turn of 40:25.000 --> 40:26.000 phrase in discussing the 40:26.000 --> 40:27.000 nation's westward march. 40:27.000 --> 40:29.000 Once a place had a population 40:29.000 --> 40:31.000 density of more than two people 40:31.000 --> 40:33.000 per square mile it had been 40:33.000 --> 40:36.000 "redeemed from wilderness and 40:36.000 --> 40:37.000 brought into the service 40:37.000 --> 40:38.000 of Man." 40:38.000 --> 40:39.000 Hear that. 40:39.000 --> 40:43.000 Redeemed from wilderness. 40:43.000 --> 40:45.000 Redeemed from wilderness. 40:45.000 --> 40:47.000 A virgin forest, in other words, 40:47.000 --> 40:49.000 was redeemed when the trees were 40:49.000 --> 40:50.000 clear-cut. 40:50.000 --> 40:52.000 A wild, flowing river was 40:52.000 --> 40:54.000 redeemed by a dam. 40:54.000 --> 40:56.000 Miners could redeem 40:56.000 --> 40:57.000 mountainsides. 40:57.000 --> 40:59.000 Iron rails and barbed wire could 40:59.000 --> 41:02.000 redeem the plains. 41:02.000 --> 41:04.000 Now the great forced-march 41:04.000 --> 41:05.000 across the continent seemed 41:05.000 --> 41:08.000 over, and here was Johnny Muir 41:08.000 --> 41:11.000 insisting on the opposite point 41:11.000 --> 41:12.000 of view. 41:12.000 --> 41:14.000 Wilderness wasn't redeemed by 41:14.000 --> 41:17.000 Man, he was saying. 41:17.000 --> 41:21.000 Man is redeemed by wilderness. 41:21.000 --> 41:22.000 With his influential friends in 41:22.000 --> 41:24.000 the East Muir pushed congress to 41:24.000 --> 41:27.000 create a few more national parks 41:27.000 --> 41:29.000 including one in the high 41:29.000 --> 41:31.000 country surrounding the still 41:31.000 --> 41:33.000 state-owned and managed Yosemite 41:33.000 --> 41:37.000 Valley and Big Tree Grove. 41:37.000 --> 41:39.000 In 1891 he pushed for yet 41:39.000 --> 41:40.000 another park farther south 41:40.000 --> 41:43.000 around Kings Canyon. 41:43.000 --> 41:44.000 But this time congress wouldn't 41:44.000 --> 41:46.000 go along. 41:46.000 --> 41:48.000 In again, another one of these 41:48.000 --> 41:49.000 last minute, very little 41:49.000 --> 41:51.000 understood additions to a piece 41:51.000 --> 41:55.000 of legislation, it ended up 41:55.000 --> 41:56.000 handing presidents the 41:56.000 --> 41:59.000 unilateral power to set aside 41:59.000 --> 42:02.000 forest reserves in the west. 42:02.000 --> 42:05.000 No one was entirely sure what 42:05.000 --> 42:07.000 the purpose of these reserves 42:07.000 --> 42:09.000 was, water-shed protection? 42:09.000 --> 42:11.000 Forest preservation? 42:11.000 --> 42:13.000 A momentary break on the 42:13.000 --> 42:14.000 pell-mell advances of the timber 42:14.000 --> 42:16.000 syndicates? 42:16.000 --> 42:19.000 But President Benjamin Harrison 42:19.000 --> 42:21.000 soon flexed his new power. 42:21.000 --> 42:22.000 With strokes of his pen he set 42:22.000 --> 42:24.000 aside forest preserved covering 42:24.000 --> 42:27.000 13 million acres, 42:27.000 --> 42:28.000 including the forest surrounding 42:28.000 --> 42:30.000 Yellowstone and four million 42:30.000 --> 42:32.000 acres along the Sierra Divide 42:32.000 --> 42:34.000 between Yosemite and Sequoia 42:34.000 --> 42:37.000 National Parks and surrounding 42:37.000 --> 42:39.000 the Kings Canyon area that Muir 42:39.000 --> 42:42.000 had described. 42:42.000 --> 42:44.000 With this, another model for 42:44.000 --> 42:46.000 protecting large landscapes had 42:46.000 --> 42:49.000 been born, the National Forest 42:49.000 --> 42:50.000 System. 42:50.000 --> 42:51.000 Through a process that was just 42:51.000 --> 42:54.000 as messy, just as seemingly the 42:54.000 --> 42:56.000 result of happenstance, just as 42:56.000 --> 42:59.000 reliant on the earnest and 42:59.000 --> 43:01.000 sometimes behind-the-scenes 43:01.000 --> 43:03.000 efforts of individual citizens, 43:03.000 --> 43:05.000 and just as interconnected with 43:05.000 --> 43:07.000 Yosemite as the one that had 43:07.000 --> 43:09.000 created the National Parks. 43:09.000 --> 43:12.000 Together, the environmental 43:12.000 --> 43:14.000 historian Donald Worster has 43:14.000 --> 43:16.000 written, "The two kinds of 43:16.000 --> 43:18.000 federal conservation would 43:18.000 --> 43:19.000 eventually protect nearly 300 43:19.000 --> 43:21.000 million acres, reaching from the 43:21.000 --> 43:23.000 Everglades of Florida to the 43:23.000 --> 43:24.000 Brooks Range in northern Alaska. 43:24.000 --> 43:27.000 The birthing of those ideas," he 43:27.000 --> 43:28.000 said, "occurred in the 43:28.000 --> 43:30.000 Yellowstone and Sierra regions 43:30.000 --> 43:33.000 during the infamous Gilded Age, 43:33.000 --> 43:35.000 but especially during the 43:35.000 --> 43:37.000 1890-1893 period when it became 43:37.000 --> 43:40.000 clear that land conservation had 43:40.000 --> 43:42.000 become a legitimate and 43:42.000 --> 43:44.000 necessary part of American 43:44.000 --> 43:48.000 democracy." 43:48.000 --> 43:49.000 Let me jump to another 43:49.000 --> 43:51.000 milestone. 43:51.000 --> 43:53.000 In the late spring of 1903 43:53.000 --> 43:55.000 President Theodore Roosevelt 43:55.000 --> 43:56.000 made an unprecedented, 43:56.000 --> 43:58.000 cross-country, whistle-stop tour 43:58.000 --> 44:01.000 of the nation, 14,000 miles by 44:01.000 --> 44:05.000 train, 25 states, 150 towns and 44:05.000 --> 44:07.000 cities, and more than 200 44:07.000 --> 44:09.000 speeches in the space of eight 44:09.000 --> 44:11.000 weeks. 44:11.000 --> 44:13.000 In the midst of it he camped for 44:13.000 --> 44:15.000 a while in Yellowstone National 44:15.000 --> 44:17.000 Park where he also gave a speech 44:17.000 --> 44:19.000 that focused on what he called 44:19.000 --> 44:22.000 the "essential democracy" of the 44:22.000 --> 44:25.000 national parks. 44:25.000 --> 44:27.000 He said, This park was created 44:27.000 --> 44:28.000 and is now administered for the 44:28.000 --> 44:30.000 benefit and enjoyment of the 44:30.000 --> 44:31.000 people. 44:31.000 --> 44:33.000 It is the property of Uncle Sam 44:33.000 --> 44:36.000 and therefore of all of us. 44:36.000 --> 44:38.000 The only way that the people as 44:38.000 --> 44:41.000 a whole can secure to themselves 44:41.000 --> 44:42.000 and their children the enjoyment 44:42.000 --> 44:44.000 and perpetuity of what the 44:44.000 --> 44:45.000 Yellowstone Park has to give, 44:45.000 --> 44:48.000 he said, is by assuming 44:48.000 --> 44:50.000 ownership in the name of the 44:50.000 --> 44:52.000 nation, and jealously 44:52.000 --> 44:53.000 safeguarding and preserving the 44:53.000 --> 44:55.000 scenery, the forest and the wild 44:55.000 --> 44:58.000 creatures. 44:58.000 --> 45:00.000 A little bit later on this 45:00.000 --> 45:01.000 trip he stopped briefly at the 45:01.000 --> 45:03.000 Grand Canyon, a sight he had 45:03.000 --> 45:05.000 never seen before, but 45:05.000 --> 45:07.000 recognized immediately as a 45:07.000 --> 45:08.000 place needing greater federal 45:08.000 --> 45:11.000 protection. 45:11.000 --> 45:14.000 "Leave it as it is," he advised 45:14.000 --> 45:16.000 the people of Arizona, 45:16.000 --> 45:18.000 "The ages have been at work on 45:18.000 --> 45:22.000 it, and Man can only mar it." 45:22.000 --> 45:24.000 And then Roosevelt came to 45:24.000 --> 45:26.000 Yosemite where he spent three 45:26.000 --> 45:29.000 glorious nights camping with 45:29.000 --> 45:30.000 John Muir, once in the grove of 45:30.000 --> 45:33.000 Sequoias, once at Glacier Point 45:33.000 --> 45:36.000 overlooking the valley, and once 45:36.000 --> 45:38.000 on the valley floor itself. 45:38.000 --> 45:40.000 Now, believe me, Roosevelt was 45:40.000 --> 45:43.000 already a committed outdoors man 45:43.000 --> 45:44.000 and conservationist, but that 45:44.000 --> 45:47.000 camping trip, I believe, was the 45:47.000 --> 45:49.000 most important camping trip in 45:49.000 --> 45:51.000 American history. 45:51.000 --> 45:54.000 Around the camp fire-- and this 45:54.000 --> 45:55.000 is from a Louis & Clark addict, 45:55.000 --> 45:58.000 okay, so that's a big statement. 45:58.000 --> 45:59.000 [laughter] 45:59.000 --> 46:01.000 If I said this at a Louis & 46:01.000 --> 46:02.000 Clark meeting I'd now be run 46:02.000 --> 46:05.000 out of town on a rail. 46:05.000 --> 46:06.000 But it still was the most 46:06.000 --> 46:07.000 important camping trip in 46:07.000 --> 46:09.000 American history. 46:09.000 --> 46:10.000 Around the campfire, Muir said 46:10.000 --> 46:11.000 later, "I stuffed him pretty 46:11.000 --> 46:14.000 well regarding the timber 46:14.000 --> 46:15.000 thieves, the destructive work of 46:15.000 --> 46:18.000 the lumbermen and other spoilers 46:18.000 --> 46:19.000 of the forest." 46:19.000 --> 46:21.000 The camp cook and guide 46:21.000 --> 46:23.000 reported that the two men talked 46:23.000 --> 46:24.000 late into the night "about the 46:24.000 --> 46:26.000 conservation of forests in 46:26.000 --> 46:27.000 general and Yosemite in 46:27.000 --> 46:29.000 particular." 46:29.000 --> 46:30.000 Adding that he "heard them 46:30.000 --> 46:33.000 discussing the setting aside of 46:33.000 --> 46:34.000 other areas of the United 46:34.000 --> 46:38.000 States for park purposes." 46:38.000 --> 46:39.000 The biggest problem, the cook 46:39.000 --> 46:40.000 said, was that both men wanted 46:40.000 --> 46:41.000 to do all the talking 46:41.000 --> 46:43.000 themselves. 46:43.000 --> 46:45.000 [laughter] 46:45.000 --> 46:47.000 Within three years Roosevelt 46:47.000 --> 46:49.000 would sign the bill that would 46:49.000 --> 46:51.000 return the Sequoia Grove and 46:51.000 --> 46:52.000 Yosemite Valley from the state 46:52.000 --> 46:54.000 of California to the federal 46:54.000 --> 46:56.000 government as part of a unified 46:56.000 --> 46:58.000 national park. 46:58.000 --> 46:59.000 The seed had been planted and 46:59.000 --> 47:02.000 had been taken root in 47:02.000 --> 47:03.000 Yellowstone with a different 47:03.000 --> 47:06.000 mutation, had floated back to 47:06.000 --> 47:09.000 the Sierra and sprung up as a 47:09.000 --> 47:12.000 national forest, and finally 47:12.000 --> 47:14.000 unified itself as one national 47:14.000 --> 47:19.000 park in all of Yosemite. 47:19.000 --> 47:22.000 Roosevelt would go on to be the 47:22.000 --> 47:23.000 greatest conservation president 47:23.000 --> 47:25.000 in our history, adding five new 47:25.000 --> 47:27.000 national parks. 47:27.000 --> 47:28.000 That's doubling the number of 47:28.000 --> 47:30.000 national parks at that time, by 47:30.000 --> 47:32.000 the way, 51 bird sanctuaries, 47:32.000 --> 47:34.000 four national game refuges, and 47:34.000 --> 47:36.000 often in the face of fierce 47:36.000 --> 47:39.000 congressional opposition, 100 47:39.000 --> 47:41.000 million acres worth of national 47:41.000 --> 47:43.000 forest. 47:43.000 --> 47:45.000 Under his leadership more than 47:45.000 --> 47:48.000 280,000 square miles of federal 47:48.000 --> 47:50.000 land, an area larger than the 47:50.000 --> 47:52.000 state of Texas-- 47:52.000 --> 47:55.000 [laughter] 47:55.000 --> 47:56.000 would be placed under one kind 47:56.000 --> 47:58.000 of conservation protection or 47:58.000 --> 48:00.000 another. 48:00.000 --> 48:03.000 Roosevelt would also sign one of 48:03.000 --> 48:05.000 the most important laws in the 48:05.000 --> 48:07.000 history of public lands, the 48:07.000 --> 48:08.000 thing called the Antiquities 48:08.000 --> 48:10.000 Act. 48:10.000 --> 48:12.000 It was originally intended to 48:12.000 --> 48:13.000 protect places like ancient 48:13.000 --> 48:14.000 cliff dwellings from being 48:14.000 --> 48:15.000 dispoiled and vandalized. 48:15.000 --> 48:19.000 It granted a president the 48:19.000 --> 48:20.000 extraordinary power, the 48:20.000 --> 48:22.000 exclusive authority, without any 48:22.000 --> 48:24.000 congressional approval, to 48:24.000 --> 48:25.000 preserve places that would be 48:25.000 --> 48:28.000 called, not national parks, nor 48:28.000 --> 48:31.000 national forests, but national 48:31.000 --> 48:33.000 monuments. 48:33.000 --> 48:34.000 Roosevelt not only signed that 48:34.000 --> 48:36.000 into law, but he used it 18 48:36.000 --> 48:38.000 times in his presidency. 48:38.000 --> 48:40.000 Places like the very first one, 48:40.000 --> 48:42.000 Devil's Tower in Wyoming, and 48:42.000 --> 48:45.000 then, named for his good friend 48:45.000 --> 48:48.000 and camping companion, Muir 48:48.000 --> 48:50.000 Woods in California. 48:50.000 --> 48:52.000 The Antiquities Act allowed 48:52.000 --> 48:54.000 protection of places so called 48:54.000 --> 48:56.000 "scientific interest." 48:56.000 --> 48:58.000 Although it had been aimed at 48:58.000 --> 49:01.000 only small-sized parcels, it did 49:01.000 --> 49:03.000 not absolutely restrict the 49:03.000 --> 49:04.000 number of acres a president 49:04.000 --> 49:08.000 could set aside. 49:08.000 --> 49:09.000 There was Theodore Roosevelt as 49:09.000 --> 49:11.000 president remembering standing 49:11.000 --> 49:12.000 there on the rim of the Grand 49:12.000 --> 49:16.000 Canyon saying, "Leave it alone." 49:16.000 --> 49:20.000 On January 11, 1908, Roosevelt 49:20.000 --> 49:22.000 stretched this law as never 49:22.000 --> 49:24.000 before, declaring the Grand 49:24.000 --> 49:26.000 Canyon "the object of unusual 49:26.000 --> 49:28.000 scientific interest, being the 49:28.000 --> 49:30.000 greatest eroded canyon within 49:30.000 --> 49:32.000 the United States." 49:32.000 --> 49:34.000 With a stroke of his pen, he set 49:34.000 --> 49:38.000 aside 806,400 acres. 49:38.000 --> 49:40.000 An area larger than, not Texas, 49:40.000 --> 49:42.000 but the state of Rhode Island, 49:42.000 --> 49:45.000 as a national monument. 49:45.000 --> 49:48.000 Now, I'm going to stop there, at 49:48.000 --> 49:50.000 the rim of the Grand Canyon, 49:50.000 --> 49:52.000 with Theodore Roosevelt 49:52.000 --> 49:53.000 deploying the Antiquities Act in 49:53.000 --> 49:56.000 a way that subsequent presidents 49:56.000 --> 49:58.000 would do on behalf of protecting 49:58.000 --> 49:59.000 public lands. 49:59.000 --> 50:01.000 The lands, I will remind you, 50:01.000 --> 50:04.000 that belong to all of us. 50:04.000 --> 50:06.000 Each one of us are owners of 50:06.000 --> 50:08.000 those lands. 50:08.000 --> 50:10.000 Franklin Roosevelt saved the 50:10.000 --> 50:12.000 Grand Tetons with it. 50:12.000 --> 50:14.000 Jimmy Carter doubled the amount 50:14.000 --> 50:17.000 of protected land, the Louisiana 50:17.000 --> 50:20.000 Purchase of conservation, when 50:20.000 --> 50:22.000 he used it in Alaska. 50:22.000 --> 50:24.000 Bill Clinton used it at Grand 50:24.000 --> 50:27.000 Staircase-Escalante in Utah. 50:27.000 --> 50:28.000 All of them got the same 50:28.000 --> 50:31.000 response as Roosevelt did when 50:31.000 --> 50:33.000 he used the Antiquities Act at 50:33.000 --> 50:35.000 the Grand Canyon. 50:35.000 --> 50:37.000 The locals reviled him. 50:37.000 --> 50:39.000 Congress berated him. 50:39.000 --> 50:42.000 And history, history still 50:42.000 --> 50:47.000 honors and remembers him for it. 50:47.000 --> 50:49.000 There would be other types of 50:49.000 --> 50:50.000 public land protection in the 50:50.000 --> 50:53.000 years to come. 50:53.000 --> 50:55.000 The blown out farms of the Dust 50:55.000 --> 50:56.000 Bowl. 50:56.000 --> 50:58.000 By the way, November 18 and 19 50:58.000 --> 51:03.000 on your local station-- 51:03.000 --> 51:05.000 The blown out farms of the Dust 51:05.000 --> 51:06.000 Bowl of the 1930's that ruined 51:06.000 --> 51:09.000 farmers, sold back to the 51:09.000 --> 51:11.000 federal government. 51:11.000 --> 51:13.000 Homesteading in reverse. 51:13.000 --> 51:15.000 They were selling their 51:15.000 --> 51:16.000 homesteads back to the federal 51:16.000 --> 51:18.000 government. 51:18.000 --> 51:19.000 They were re-seeded in grass 51:19.000 --> 51:21.000 instead of cash crops, and 51:21.000 --> 51:23.000 turned into four million acres 51:23.000 --> 51:27.000 of national grasslands. 51:27.000 --> 51:29.000 The 1960's would witness an 51:29.000 --> 51:31.000 explosion of national seashores 51:31.000 --> 51:34.000 and lakeshores, national 51:34.000 --> 51:35.000 recreation areas, national 51:35.000 --> 51:37.000 trails, and wild and scenic 51:37.000 --> 51:39.000 rivers, and of course, national 51:39.000 --> 51:40.000 wilderness. 51:40.000 --> 51:43.000 It's, you know, incumbent for me 51:43.000 --> 51:47.000 to say, here in Wisconsin, of 51:47.000 --> 51:49.000 how many prominent Wisconsin 51:49.000 --> 51:50.000 people were involved in all 51:50.000 --> 51:52.000 those things I just mentioned. 51:52.000 --> 51:53.000 People with names like Gaylord 51:53.000 --> 51:57.000 Nelson and Bud Jordahl and two 51:57.000 --> 52:01.000 generations of Leopolds. 52:01.000 --> 52:02.000 I hope that in your future there 52:02.000 --> 52:03.000 will be more lectures and those 52:03.000 --> 52:07.000 could be the topic of one or two 52:07.000 --> 52:09.000 of them. 52:09.000 --> 52:11.000 Because that is still the 52:11.000 --> 52:13.000 evolution and growth of this 52:13.000 --> 52:16.000 idea. 52:16.000 --> 52:17.000 But as I said, we're back at the 52:17.000 --> 52:19.000 Grand Canyon with Theodore 52:19.000 --> 52:22.000 Roosevelt, looking down on the 52:22.000 --> 52:25.000 Colorado and pondering the 52:25.000 --> 52:27.000 weaving course of America's 52:27.000 --> 52:29.000 public lands from the time 52:29.000 --> 52:31.000 Thomas Jefferson preserved 52:31.000 --> 52:33.000 Virginia's Natural Bridge as a 52:33.000 --> 52:36.000 public trust. 52:36.000 --> 52:37.000 The Grand Canyon, I would 52:37.000 --> 52:38.000 submit, is as self-evident a 52:38.000 --> 52:41.000 national park as any place in 52:41.000 --> 52:44.000 America. 52:44.000 --> 52:45.000 In fact, there was a bill 52:45.000 --> 52:47.000 proposing making it a national 52:47.000 --> 52:49.000 park, what would have been the 52:49.000 --> 52:52.000 world's second national park, in 52:52.000 --> 52:55.000 1882. 52:55.000 --> 52:56.000 It was defeated easily because 52:56.000 --> 52:58.000 of the special interests that 52:58.000 --> 53:01.000 had other ideas for making it, 53:01.000 --> 53:03.000 as de Tocqueville would have put 53:03.000 --> 53:05.000 it, useful. 53:05.000 --> 53:06.000 Or put another way, too many 53:06.000 --> 53:08.000 people, in terms of the census 53:08.000 --> 53:13.000 bureau, wanted to redeem it. 53:13.000 --> 53:15.000 The same thing happened in 1883 53:15.000 --> 53:16.000 and 1886. 53:16.000 --> 53:18.000 Bills for a national Grand 53:18.000 --> 53:21.000 Canyon Park were proposed and 53:21.000 --> 53:23.000 defeated. 53:23.000 --> 53:24.000 John Muir called for making it a 53:24.000 --> 53:26.000 national park in his book 53:26.000 --> 53:28.000 Our National Parks in 1902. 53:28.000 --> 53:31.000 Still no action. 53:31.000 --> 53:33.000 Theodore Roosevelt had wanted to 53:33.000 --> 53:35.000 make it a national park too. 53:35.000 --> 53:37.000 But even he, this most vigorous 53:37.000 --> 53:40.000 and powerful president, couldn't 53:40.000 --> 53:42.000 get it done. 53:42.000 --> 53:43.000 Though he did move the ball 53:43.000 --> 53:44.000 forward with the Antiquities Act 53:44.000 --> 53:45.000 and making it a national 53:45.000 --> 53:47.000 monument. 53:47.000 --> 53:49.000 Every repeated attempt to place 53:49.000 --> 53:50.000 it along Yellowstone as a 53:50.000 --> 53:53.000 protected space was beaten back, 53:53.000 --> 53:58.000 and beaten back, until 1919 when 53:58.000 --> 54:00.000 the Grand Canyon became the 16th 54:00.000 --> 54:03.000 national park. 54:03.000 --> 54:06.000 37 years of constant struggle to 54:06.000 --> 54:08.000 decide that the grandest canyon 54:08.000 --> 54:10.000 on Earth ought to be a national 54:10.000 --> 54:12.000 park. 54:12.000 --> 54:16.000 That is what defenders of the 54:16.000 --> 54:18.000 park idea, and public lands, 54:18.000 --> 54:21.000 have always been up against, and 54:21.000 --> 54:24.000 always will be. 54:24.000 --> 54:27.000 There will always be someone who 54:27.000 --> 54:28.000 looks at a river flowing though 54:28.000 --> 54:30.000 a canyon and thinks, "What a 54:30.000 --> 54:33.000 perfect location for a dam." 54:33.000 --> 54:34.000 There will always be someone for 54:34.000 --> 54:36.000 whom a forest of ancient trees 54:36.000 --> 54:39.000 is a business opportunity. 54:39.000 --> 54:40.000 There will always be someone, 54:40.000 --> 54:42.000 who while contemplating a 54:42.000 --> 54:43.000 magnificent mountainside 54:43.000 --> 54:45.000 considers whether it could be 54:45.000 --> 54:47.000 dismantled for the minerals 54:47.000 --> 54:48.000 underneath. 54:48.000 --> 54:50.000 Or upon entering an exquisite 54:50.000 --> 54:52.000 valley, calculates the potential 54:52.000 --> 54:54.000 for a development of trophy 54:54.000 --> 54:57.000 homes behind a locked gate. 54:57.000 --> 54:59.000 There will always be someone 54:59.000 --> 55:01.000 whose definition of the pursuit 55:01.000 --> 55:03.000 of happiness is chasing a 55:03.000 --> 55:05.000 buffalo herd on a snowmobile, or 55:05.000 --> 55:08.000 careening across a slick rock 55:08.000 --> 55:11.000 wilderness in a dune buggy. 55:11.000 --> 55:13.000 Anyone who understands our 55:13.000 --> 55:15.000 national history, springing as 55:15.000 --> 55:17.000 it does from our national 55:17.000 --> 55:20.000 character, knows this. 55:20.000 --> 55:21.000 Are we the people who 55:21.000 --> 55:24.000 systematically drove a uniquely 55:24.000 --> 55:25.000 American animal like the buffalo 55:25.000 --> 55:29.000 to the brink of extinction? 55:29.000 --> 55:31.000 Or are we the people who created 55:31.000 --> 55:33.000 the uniquely American refuge for 55:33.000 --> 55:35.000 them in the world's first 55:35.000 --> 55:37.000 national park, where they were 55:37.000 --> 55:39.000 ultimately spared from 55:39.000 --> 55:41.000 elimination. 55:41.000 --> 55:43.000 We have never, and never will, 55:43.000 --> 55:46.000 resolve that question, this 55:46.000 --> 55:48.000 tension at our core. 55:48.000 --> 55:50.000 We take our identity from the 55:50.000 --> 55:52.000 land in ways people of few other 55:52.000 --> 55:54.000 nations do. 55:54.000 --> 55:57.000 Yet, in our predilection to make 55:57.000 --> 55:59.000 the beautiful useful, we often 55:59.000 --> 56:01.000 make it ugly, or at least 56:01.000 --> 56:03.000 sullied and tawdry. 56:03.000 --> 56:05.000 Nothing and no one is redeemed 56:05.000 --> 56:09.000 in that process. 56:09.000 --> 56:11.000 We end up fouling of own nest 56:11.000 --> 56:13.000 and looking for some other last, 56:13.000 --> 56:16.000 best place in which to start the 56:16.000 --> 56:18.000 process all over again. 56:18.000 --> 56:19.000 With boundless optimism, we set 56:19.000 --> 56:21.000 out to leave our mark on the 56:21.000 --> 56:23.000 world around us, but deep down 56:23.000 --> 56:29.000 there's an uneasiness, a sadness 56:29.000 --> 56:31.000 at the heart of our exuberant 56:31.000 --> 56:32.000 energy. 56:32.000 --> 56:33.000 Perhaps the world would be 56:33.000 --> 56:36.000 better off without our mark upon 56:36.000 --> 56:38.000 it. 56:38.000 --> 56:40.000 "The battle for conservation, 56:40.000 --> 56:43.000 John Muir observed, "will go on 56:43.000 --> 56:46.000 endlessly." 56:46.000 --> 56:47.000 So whether the future will 56:47.000 --> 56:50.000 generate new threats to the 56:50.000 --> 56:52.000 public lands, America's best 56:52.000 --> 56:56.000 idea, is not in question. 56:56.000 --> 56:58.000 The only question is whether the 56:58.000 --> 57:02.000 future will supply a fresh 57:02.000 --> 57:05.000 supply of public land champions 57:05.000 --> 57:07.000 as the counterbalance. 57:07.000 --> 57:09.000 Our children and our children's 57:09.000 --> 57:10.000 children will need those 57:10.000 --> 57:14.000 champions. 57:14.000 --> 57:15.000 If they do step forward, 57:15.000 --> 57:17.000 springing as they must, from 57:17.000 --> 57:19.000 that other half of our national 57:19.000 --> 57:20.000 character, and finding their 57:20.000 --> 57:23.000 salvation through their 57:23.000 --> 57:28.000 surrender to the land, John Muir 57:28.000 --> 57:30.000 has already written their 57:30.000 --> 57:32.000 epitaph. 57:32.000 --> 57:34.000 It is, "They will not be 57:34.000 --> 57:35.000 forgotten. 57:35.000 --> 57:37.000 The trees and their lovers will 57:37.000 --> 57:40.000 sing their praises, and 57:40.000 --> 57:43.000 generations yet unborn will rise 57:43.000 --> 57:47.000 up and call them blessed." 57:47.000 --> 57:49.000 Thank you very much. 57:49.000 --> 57:53.000 [applause]