THE
TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE WILDERNESS ACT: Still in Pursuit of
the Promised Land
Michael Frome
Berkeley, California April 26, 1984
I feel highly honored at being here at the University of California,
invited to deliver the 1984 Horace M. Albright Lecture on Conservation.
I am blessed at the opportunity to express my ideas freely and fully
before this audience in this setting, under the banner, as it were,
of a man I have known and admired for years, and am privileged to
call my friend, Horace Albright, one of the principal figures in
the history of conservation.
Freedom of expression is paramount in my life. I say that as a
journalist, but I believe that free expression is the keystone of
the health and efficiency of any institution or government or society.
Diversity of opinion, even dissent, challenges an institution, or
a political, social and economic system, to continually review and
renew itself.
As a journalist, I believe that truth-telling is essential to my
profession. Truth-telling must and will prevail. "Knowledge
will forever govern ignorance," wrote James Madison, "and
a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves
with the powers that knowledge gives." What greater goal could
a journalist set for himself? What finer reputation could be earn
than as one who arms the people with the power that knowledge gives?
The same is true of anyone, for that matter, anyone with knowledge
and position from which to communicate it. At times, to be sure,
an open expression of ideas may seem foolhardy or risky. It endangers
professional acceptance and advancement. But freedom of the individual,
with the right of self-expression, is sacred. I consider my freedom
as a need, like water or food, to sustain the spirit as well as
the body; for real success or failure comes only from within and
society cannot impress it from without. To quote Joseph Wood Krutch:
"Only the individualist succeeds, for only self-realization
is success."
Or as a reader of Field & Stream wrote to me: "History
books are records of events and the doings of individuals who didn't
go with the flow." Let truth hang out and consequences follow.
The challenge is to make the most of the democratic American system.
It may not be so good, as they say, except when compared with the
alternatives. From my own life I know that it works. That I should
have uncensored outlets open to my writing, that I should have a
place to lecture at the University of Idaho (as I did earlier at
the University of Vermont), and that I should be here tonight -
such experiences give me faith in myself and the American system.
The only trouble with democracy is that we take it for granted.
Democracy is what we make of it, a system under which we the people
get what we deserve. Laws and regulations have their place, but
only people make things work. That is why I feel that writers, and
educators, too, should be leaders in the exercise of free expression.
We are the human machinery that stimulates and sustains the democratic
system.
Wilderness I see as the embodiment of freedom, which is why I've
chosen to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Wilderness
Act with you here tonight. That law is an extension of the charter
handed down by the founding fathers with its guarantee of life,
liberty and pursuit of happiness. Wilderness I equate with freedom
from want, war, and racial prejudice, and the freedom to cultivate
one's thoughts in one's own way.
Last summer while in northern Minnesota, I got to thinking about
Arthur Carhart, one of the wilderness pioneers. During the period
he worked for the Forest Service as a landscape architect, from
1919 to 1923, he was dispatched to the Superior National Forest,
in Minnesota, with directions to prepare a plan for recreation development.
Carhart, however, recognized that the area could be "as priceless
as Yellowstone, Yosemite, or the Grand Canyon-if it remained a water-trail
wilderness. " His bosses thought that was wild talk; they were
considering a master plan to build roads to reach every lake and
to line the shores with thousands of summer homes. But Carhart persisted
to advocate his own concept, won support and laid the basis for
establishment of what we now call the Boundary Waters Canoe Area.
Shortly before Carhart left, Sigurd Olson arrived on the scene.
Over the years Olson would stand in meeting halls urging that natural
values be protected from assorted mining, dam-building, logging
and motorboating. It wasn't easy and sometimes he was treated to
hoots of scorn and derision. Years later Carhart paid tribute to
Olson for leading a small group, which held, as he said, "a
thin line of defense protecting this exquisite wilderness until
help could rally to save it."
What was it they found worth defending? Based on my experience,
I would call it the feel of freedom above all else. Freedom from
crowds, cars and mechanical noises. Freedom that comes from doing
for one's self, without dependence on technological support. Freedom
in nature, derived from being among creatures that get up and fly
when they want to, or run, swim, wiggle, dive and crawl, all admirable
modes of self-propulsion. In the northern Minnesota wilderness I
felt free to pick and savor wild blueberries, free to swim in cool
waters, cool and dark, almost as pure as in the days of the Chippewa
Indians.
I went to Minnesota as part of an exploration of wild America,
pursuing adventures and encounters with different kinds of people
and asking what wilderness means to them. They made some beautiful
statements, usually simple yet lofty and profound. One of my friends,
a forester in Idaho, said:
"You get away from your tradition and lifestyle in a wilderness
and you find out in a heluva hurry who you are and what you're capable
of, what are the real issues in life. What really frightens you
will come to the surface.
"Wilderness is my lifestyle. Wilderness is necessary. It represents
that part of America that once was and always will remain. Wilderness
is forever. We should be lucky enough to be smart enough to set
it aside. We don't have to be like the Europeans. We don't have
to wish for that type of land representation. We'll have it. I think
we're smart in doing it."
The very idea of wilderness enriches my body, mind and spirit,
but is also elevates me to look beyond my own wants and needs. The
American tradition has sought the transformation of resources; the
Wilderness Act, however, stimulates a fundamental and older tradition
of relationship with resources themselves. A river is accorded its
right to exist because it is a river, rather than for any utilitarian
service. Through appreciation of wilderness, I perceive the true
role of the river, as a living symbol of all the life it sustains
and nourishes, and my responsibility to it.
The Wilderness Act of 1964 opened an era of new legislation to
protect rivers, trails, endangered species of plants and animals,
air, water and the environment. My travels and studies convince
me that wilderness itself merits the right to be wild. Wilderness
is meant for the bald eagle, condor, spotted owl, and ivory-billed
woodpecker; for birds that nest in the tops of old trees or in the
rotted holes in tree trunks and that need dead or dying logs to
house the grubs and other insects on which they feed. Wilderness
is for grizzly bears, mountain lions, bighorn sheep, elk and wolves
that need large areas set aside from civilization.
We are fortunate, in America, as my forester friend said, that
we have such places at this advanced stage of history. As to why
our generation benefits from this legacy, I identify two principle
influences.
The first of these is the influence of leadership, sometimes idealistic,
sometimes practical, conceiving wilderness as a valuable entity,
or resource, defining its place and purpose in national destiny,
demonstrating the means of protection and perpetuation. This leadership
is as old as the republic, manifest in earlier days through the
works of James Fenimore Cooper, George Catlin, George Perkins Marsh,
and in pre-World War 11 years of Arthur Carhart, Aldo Leopold and
Bob Marshall. The last three were Forest Service employees, which
shows that government officials can be wilderness leaders, too-though
few, if any at all, have made much of a mark in the last 30 or 40
years.
The identification of Horace Albright with this notable lecture
series leads me to discuss the early role of his agency, the National
Park Service, and its approach to wilderness. From 1872, when Yellowstone
National Park was established (even before there was a National
Park Service), the Department of the Interior administered wilderness
as a deliberate mission, even to calling troops of cavalry to protect
it when Congress failed to allocate funds through non-military channels.
Early directors of the Park Service were strong wilderness advocates
and activists. I love the story of how Stephen T. Mather, the first
director, issued an order to a lumber company to dismantle its mill
and depart the bounds of Glacier National Park. When the order was
disregarded, Mather personally headed a brigade that exploded the
mill with 13 charges of TNT. On another occasion, when it was suggested
to him that park superintendents be appointed under the same political
terms as postmasters, Mather replied that he was going to pick his
own people according to capability alone.
Those early years of the National Park Service were its heyday,
when Mather and Albright built a vigorous, capable, aggressive organization,
devoted to public service and committed to wilderness. It not only
safeguarded wilderness values where they existed, but often restored
these values, despite powerful opposition, in areas like Big Bend,
Sequoia, Yosemite, Glacier, and the Great Smoky Mountains, all of
which had been degraded by logging, grazing, mining or settlement.
When I was writing my book about the Great Smokies, "Strangers
in High Places," Horace was a major source of historic information.
He told me, among other things, about his confrontation with Senator
Kenneth D. McKellar. McKeller was a rough, tough, crusty machine
politician, who built his strength in Tennessee by "bringing
home the bacon" from Washington and by demanding every bit
of his share in control of patronage (which earned him the title
of "grand-pappy of all political pie-hunters"). He built
his strength in the Senate through the system of seniority, which
recognizes and rewards the talent of surviving through one election
after another.
In the early 1930s, when McKellar learned there was to be a scenic
road built on the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains of the new Shenandoah
National Park in Virginia, he demanded one just like it for the
Great Smokies. Here is what happened (to quote from "Strangers
in High Places"):
"The national parks director went to see him and endeavored
to explain that because of the rugged topography there could never
be a road along the eastern crest of Smoky, and moreover that there
never should be - that a large portion of the Great Smokies should
be preserved as a roadless wilderness. The two national parks were
designed to complement each other, Albright emphasized; it would
be ridiculous to develop them exactly alike.
"McKellar exploded. He couldn't bother with such details as
the meaning of a national park and the methods of its management.
He blasted Albright and for good measure blasted Albright's parentage.
That a damn career bureaucrat would dare stand in the way of the
welfare of Tennessee! McKellar would have liked to punch the rascal
(who had to be a Republican anyway, since he was serving under Hoover)
squarely in the nose, and he said so.
"Albright withdrew. He was a tough man in his own right, but
knew when to advance and when to retreat. In a few days he returned
to Capitol Hill. McKellar refused to see him, but Albright had brought
along an intermediary, a mutual friend, who insisted that he listen
to the parks director and held him strongly by the arm while he
did. 'I will explain to you the difference between the two parks,
of Virginia and North Carolina-Tennessee,' began Albright. After
so doing, he concluded, 'I will not, under any circumstance, go
ahead with the road you demand. Furthermore, Senator McKellar, I
resent your personal insults.'
"Despite McKellar's power and influence, that road was not
built. The politicians were obliged to accept the National Park
Service as a bureau that ran its affairs on non-partisan integrity.
They may not have liked it, but they respected the Service all the
more because it lay beyond the spoils system."
Alas and alack, they don't much make them like Mather and Albright
anymore. Nor like Giffort Pinchot or Ferdinand Silcox either. But
they do make them like John Muir; maybe not quite like the singular
Muir, but in his image. This leads me to the second significant
influence in the protection of wilderness.
One lesson I learned from Horace years ago is that the act of setting
up national parks is not enough to make them work. By the same token,
having 80 million acres designated in the National Wilderness Preservation
System doesn't insure their sanctity. National parks, national forests,
national wildlife refuges, state parks and forests, county and city
parks - no tract of public land has its future assured simply with
a label, nor because it has a staff of paid professionals in charge.
As I said earlier, laws and regulations have their place, but only
people make things work. What is most needed, as Horace expressed
it years ago, is "wider support from more citizens who will
take the trouble to inform themselves of new needs and weak spots
in our conservation program."
The fact is that each national park, starting with Yellowstone,
came into being through public will and desire. Someone had a dream,
plus the determination to rally others to make that dream come true.
Such is the story of the Redwoods, Santa Monica Mountains, North
Cascades, Rocky Mountain, Glacier, Great Smoky Mountains, all of
them. The same principle applies to the ongoing protection of preserves
once they are established, that is, through the identification of
those "new needs and weak spots."
An individual may be struck with a brilliant idea in land use,
but that idea reaches fulfillment because the people want it to.
For example, the Appalachian Trail was conceived in 1921 by Benton
MacKaye, a trained forester and regional planner. It was based on
his wanderings in the New England forests, although others had already
begun localized trails. In an article titled "An Appalachian
Trail - A Project in Regional Planning," he envisioned "a
'long trail' over the full length of the Appalachian skyline from
the highest peak in the North to the highest peak in the South."
Few proposals in regional planning have ever fired the imagination
as did MacKaye's. Scattered groups and individuals began to work,
ultimately to work together to forge the Appalachian Trail into
the longest marked path in the world. It has been supported ever
since as something more than merely a recreational footway. "This
is to be a connected trail," as the Appalachian Trail Conference
declared in its constitution as early as 1925, "running as
far as practicable over the summits of the mountains and through
the wildlands of the Atlantic seaboard and adjoining states, from
Maine to Georgia, to be supplemented by a system of primitive camps
at proper intervals, so as to render accessible for tramping, camping,
and other forms of primitive travel and living, the said mountains
and wildlands, as a means for conserving and developing, within
this region, the primeval environment as a natural resource."
The establishment of the Idaho Primitive Area is another case in
point. I recently came across historic data, including the minutes
of a meeting conducted at Boise in December 1930. The governor of
Idaho, H. Clarence Baldridge, had appointed a committee to consider
the wisdom of setting aside something to be called "primitive
area" in the heart of the national forests of the state. The
governor at that 1930 meeting said it was the wildest country he
had ever seen and that the general consensus was it should be "perpetuated
as nearly in its natural state as possible for future generations."
Following considerable study and consultation, the Forest Service
set aside approximately one million acres.
The Idaho Primitive Area came into existence because the people
of the region wanted it to. That was in 1931, more than half a century
ago. It was established on paper but endures down to our time in
fact. It is sometimes argued that wilderness is the playground of
elite and effete urbanites, but I don't believe it. The Idaho Primitive
Area would have been lost a long time ago if the people of the state
had not felt their stake in it as some priceless possession. Little
wonder that, when then Senator Frank Church conducted hearings on
the proposed permanence and enlargement of the Idaho Primitive Area,
people who had never spoken publicly before stood and opened their
hearts in praise of an area larger and wilder than Yellowstone.
Little wonder that, in seeking for some appropriate way of paying
tribute to Senator Church before his death, Idaho should unite in
1984 behind the new name of the Frank Church-River of No Return
Wilderness, the largest wilderness outside of Alaska.
One further illustration. Twenty years ago, I attended a symposium
conducted at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon on the question of
whether the Colorado River flowing far below us should be dammed.
David Brower, the executive director of the Sierra Club, argued
fervently that it should not be. My friend Martin Litton was present
there, too, and was very active in opposing the plans of the Bureau
of Reclamation, but Brower has been most identified with leadership
in that issue. I recall how he charged at that symposium that the
Sierra Club book on the Grand Canyon was being suppressed and was
not available for sale in the national park.
As it happened, the park superintendent of that time was a friend
of mine. I was with him only an hour after Brower had made his remark.
The superintendent's feathers were ruffled. "Why, of course
we have the book for sale. It's right here. " And there it
was, hidden under the counter. The Secretary of the Interior, Stewart
L. Udall, was one of the conservation heroes of the period, but
nowhere near infallible. He was a principal advocate of the proposed
dams on the Colorado River and of environmentally destructive power
development in the Southwest. As a consequence, national park people
were silent and silenced.
In 1970 four seasonal employees resigned their positions at Mesa
Verde National Park after being warned not to discuss with visitors
effects of the nearby massive Black Mesa stripmining project on
the Hopi Indians. "Morally," they declared, "we felt
we could no longer work for an agency whose purpose is to protect
our cultural heritage, but whose practice is censorship of major
environmental problems which ultimately affect the very park in
which we were working."
Those four employees should have been praised, rather than forced
to resign. Professional training tends to teach one to conform and
direct ambitions into safe channels, whereas freedom of expression
needs to be recognized, stimulated and defended as an essential
element of good government. But where government leadership fails,
in the absence of a Mather or Albright, then the public voice must
be heard. With due credit to the instrumental role of David Brower,
it wasn't quite he who saved the Grand Canyon, but people all across
this country who expressed themselves, echoing the plea of President
Theodore Roosevelt early in this century: "Do nothing to mar
its grandeur."
So it is with wilderness, the natural treasure that enriches our
lives and our land. The Wilderness Act of 1964 could never have
been passed without broad public support and approval. Thus we celebrate
this 20th anniversary of a momentous and proud happening, one of
the noble achievements of modern civilization, a show of ethics
and idealism to contrast with super-technology, super-colonialism
and violence. The National Wilderness Preservation System provides
hope for a coming age of reason and nonviolence, in which respect
for the earth and of all its occupants will prevail.
But we have a long road to travel to realize the promise of the
promised land. And I don't lay the blame on commerical interests
which may or may not view wilderness as a source of raw materials.
The four federal agencies responsible for administering the Wilderness
System have not met their responsibility or opportunity. They don't
think or plan in ecosystems. They don't direct serious attention
to wilderness administration. They don't coordinate their approaches.
In my travels across the country I haven't seen a single wilderness
managed as it should be in fulfillment of the letter and spirit
of the Wilderness Act, but I have seen wilderness areas in terrible
condition, abused and degraded.
Little attention is directed to wilderness theory and principle.
I've met more than a few personnel at all levels in these agencies
who have never taken the time to read the Wilderness Act and consider
it to be all a bother anyway. "Well," they demand to know,
"how much wilderness do you actually need?" While recognizing
that it can't all be wild, I feel reluctant to answer that question;
what counts more is whether each succeeding generation must settle
for an increasingly degraded world, reflected in de0 graded, circumscribed
living. I can't juxtapose resource commodities against wilderness
when the great value of wild country lies in its freedom, challenge
and inspiration.
We need to safeguard the sources of freedom, challenge and inspiration.
The Constitution is recognized as a sacred document guaranteeing
freedom of expression, though it requires continual testing and
defending. Wilderness is equally sacred, in my view - a living document
of land and people, as valid and vital as the Constitution.
I've learned that we, even the experts - or especially the experts
- understand very little about wilderness reserves: of how to manage
and interpret wilderness so it will always be wild; of its abundant
benefits to society; of how to apply the lessons of wilderness to
make the whole earth a better place to live. We need to assess actual
and potential values of wilderness reserves in terms of their bearing
on human sensitivity and creativity.
I respect resource management and the education of resource professionals,
but I want that professionalism firmly and broadly grounded, in
philosophy and ethics as well as science. That's what makes being
part of a natural resource learning institution exciting to me.
Last year, under the auspices of the Wilderness Research Center
of the University of Idaho, my colleagues and I conducted the First
National Wilderness Management Workshop. The Chief of the Forest
Service, Max Peterson, one of the principal participants, felt moved
to call it a "landmark conference," and the immediate
result was to raise the visibility of wilderness in resource management
on federal lands. More people now know there are problems that must
be addressed. Other such projects are planned at the University
of Idaho, along with ongoing courses in wilderness conservation
and management.
Last month I was privileged to speak at Colorado State University
on the "Twentieth Anniversary of the Wilderness Act: Heroes
Who Made It Happen - New Heroes in the Making." A few years
ago that presentation would have been unlikely; forestry schools
didn't care much for the subject. Now Colorado State is preparing
for a major national conference on wilderness research and, even
more significant, to serve as host for a world wilderness congress
in 1987.
These activities by educational institutions are timely. The 20th
anniversary of the Wilderness Act finds us on an upward curve of
environmental concern, with wilderness at the heart of our environment,
as at the heart of the nation.
I think of the campaigners for the Wilderness Act as true patriots:
Howard Zahniser, David Brower, William O. Douglas, Richard Neuberger,
Olaus Murie, Stewart Brandborg, Hubert Humphrey, John P. Saylor,
Sigurd Olson, and others who should not be forgotten. My research
shows Horace Albright as one of the early proponents of a Wilderness
Act. At the Mid-Century Conference on Resources for the Future,
held in Washington, in December 1953, he declared as follows:
"The wilderness areas in the national forests have never had
a basis in law. They have been set aside by the Secretary of Agriculture
for a good many years, and I am not sure that even now he can go
to Congress and get such a law. Right away it would be asked: Would
that mean the stopping of grazing, or of mining, or of cutting?
But, just the same, law is the only means by which the areas can
eventually be protected. The wilderness areas, or some of them and
some of their characteristics, ought to be embodied in the law."
My favorite heroes are my own breed, writers who are activists,
like Sig Olson, Dick Neuberger, Wallace Stegner, Paul Brooks, Bernard
DeVoto, and especially journalists who tell it like it is, like
John Oakes. In the New York Times of May 13, 1956, he reported that
Senator Humphrey was sponsoring a bill that would set up a national
wilderness preservation system. "The idea is certainly worth
exploring," John wrote, "if what is left of our country
in a natural state is worth saving, as many of us believe it is."
He outlined the problem as follows:
"This isn't just a question of city folks seeking outdoor
recreation, or enjoying spectacular scenery, or breathing unpoisoned
air. It goes much deeper; it springs from the inextricable relationship
of man with nature, a relationship that even the most insensitive
and complex civilization can never dissipate. Man needs nature;
he may within limits control it, but to destroy it is to begin the
destruction of man himself. We cannot live on a sterile planet,
nor would we want to."
Of course we can't. The 20th anniversary of the Wilderness Act
gives assurance that we will not have to. We have still to achieve
the promised land, but the pursuit itself is uplifting and yields
its own
Introducing: Michael Frome
Mr. Frome was born in New York City and spent most of his early
years there and in Washington, D.C. He studied at City College of
New York and George Washington University, without obtaining a degree,
being eager, or over-eager, as he admits, to begin a career in journalism.
His debut was inauspicious, a start from the bottom at the Washington
Post and International News Service. He joined the Army Air Corps
during World War 11 and was trained as a navigator in the Air Transport
Command, which led to flights to distant corners of the globe. For
the last year of the war he was stationed at Hamilton Field at San
Rafael, and made his first visit to Berkeley, to see a football
game.
Following the war he returned to the Washington Post as a full-fledged
reporter, writing front-page stories. But travel had made him restless.
He went south for a time to write for the Nashville Tennesseean,
then returned to Washington to do public relations for the American
Automobile Association. During this period he developed and cultivated
his interest in tourism, the out-of-doors, and conservation. He
met Horace Albright, who was then Chairman of the National Parks
Advisory Board, and such other members of the Board as Alfred Knopf,
the literary lion, and Bernard DeVoto, the author.
In 1959 he became a freelance writer, first focused on travel,
then shifting his attention to conservation, natural resources,
forestry, wildlife, and political issues relating to the environment.
Over the years he has contributed to major magazines and newspapers.
He has been a conservation columnist for American Forests, Field
and Stream, and the Los Angeles Times. Currently his columns appear
in Defenders of Wildlife and Western Outdoors, but you never can
tell when you will pick up a publication with a Michael Frome byline
or some quotation of his work.
He has been a prolific writer. His books include The Forest Service,
revised and updated in 1984; Battle of the Wilderness and Whose
Woods These Are, both reprinted this year; Strangers in High Places;
the Rand-McNally National Park Guide; and The National Parks. He
has lately completed Promised Land - Adventures and Encounters in
Wild America, which will appear early next year.
Michael has received a number of awards. He particularly prizes
the Mort Weisinger Award presented in 1981 by his peers of the American
Society of journalists and Authors for the best magazine article
published in the preceding year, a five-part series titled "The
Ungreening of the National Parks."
No stranger to the academic community, Michael has lectured at
many colleges and universities. In 1978 he served as Visiting Professor
of Environmental Studies at the University of Vermont. In 1981-82
he was Author-in-Residence at the Pinchot Institute for Conservation
Studies, headquartered at the Gifford Pinchot Estate at Mitford,
Pennsylvania. For the past two years he has been Visiting Associate
Professor of Wildland Recreation Management in the College of Forestry
at the University of Idaho, where he will continue for another year
at least. Idaho is fortunate to have him.
Michael Frome is a spokesman for wilderness, for wildlife, for
public lands, for wise land use. He is an independent voice and
a critic constructive in the public interest. Walter J. Hickel,
while Secretary of the Interior, declared "Mike tells it like
it is, not like we'd like to think it is." Senator James McClure
of Idaho greeted our speaker at a wilderness hearing as follows:
"Now, you've criticized me, but you've been fair and done it
with a flair. You've pinned my hide to the wall, but it's up there
with some pretty good hides. I'm glad you're here in Idaho."
Back
to List of Horace Albright Lectures Back
to Horace Albright Lecture
Center
Lectures Center
for Forestry Home |