Conservation, Preservation and the National Parks
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bria_28_4:Layout 1 4/19/2013 3:55 PM Page 1 Bill of Rights Constitutional Rights in Action Foundation SUMMER 2013 Volume 28 No 4 CONSERVATION, PRESERVATION, AND THE NATIONAL PARKS Wikimedia Commons THE U.S. NATIONAL PARKS SYSTEM BEGAN IN THE LATE 19TH CENTURY. OVER TIME, THE RATIONALE FOR NA- TIONAL PARKS HAS EXPANDED FROM SIMPLY MAINTAINING SCENERY FOR TOURISTS TO RESTORING ORIGINAL ECOSYSTEMS. The Eastern United States shares with Canada one of the world’s most spectacular places in nature: Niagara Falls. By the 1830s, most of the land next to the falls on the American side was privately owned and fenced. Tourists crowded into commercial viewing areas and souvenir shops. Those disheartened by the spoiling of this natural wonder referred to it as “the shame of Niagara Falls.” By the mid-1800s, most of the land in the Eastern U.S. was in private hands. But in the West, the federal government owned vast stretches of land. There the idea of national parks took root. First National Parks The beauty of California’s Yosemite Valley stunned early visi- tors to the area. They saw massive U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt (left) and naturalist John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, cliffs, a rock dome sheared in half, stand on Glacier Point, Calif. Yosemite Falls is on the left. and one waterfall plunging 2,245 feet, the highest in North America. When settlers began claiming THE ENVIRONMENT land in Yosemite Valley, a public This edition of Bill of Rightsin Action focuses on the environment. The first outcry arose to protect it and also to article examines how the national park system developed in the United States. The second article profiles Rachel Carson, the author of Silent Spring, and preserve a nearby grove of giant se- explores her influence on the modern environmental movement. quoia trees threatened by loggers. U.S. History: Conservation, Preservation, and the National Parks Many feared a repeat of the shame of Niagara. In 1864, Congress and U.S. History: Rachel Carson and the Modern Environmental Movement U.S. HISTORY © 2013, Constitutional Rights Foundation, Los Angeles. All Constitutional Rights Foundation materials and publications, including Bill of Rights in Action, are protected by copyright. However, we hereby grant to all recipients a license to reproduce all material contained herein for distribution to students, other school site personnel, and district administrators. (ISSN: 1534-9799) (c) 2013 Constitutional Rights Foundation bria_28_4:Layout 1 4/19/2013 3:55 PM Page 2 President Abraham Lincoln en- In 1872, Congress and President Roosevelt lobbied Congress to acted a law that handed Yosemite Ulysses Grant made Yellowstone pass the Yellowstone Game Protec- over to California to manage as a the first national park — not only tion Act of 1894, which strength- state park for “public use, resort, in the U.S., but in the world. The ened enforcement of laws against and recreation.” law set aside 3,500 square miles of illegal hunting in the park. This ex- In 1868, John Muir arrived in federal land as “a public park or panded the rationale for national California. An expert on plants who pleasuring ground for the benefit parks beyond protecting scenery to had hiked many wilderness areas in and enjoyment of the people.” also protecting wildlife. the U.S., he discovered the wonders Meanwhile, John Muir was lob- of Yosemite. Muir published articles bying for Yosemite to be returned Saving the Wilderness on his spiritual experiences in the to federal control and made a na- Theodore Roosevelt had been a wilderness and also wrote scientific tional park. He made the same sickly child, but had relied on papers. Contradicting most geolo- “worthless lands” argument that willpower to force himself to gists, he argued correctly that gla- Hayden had used for Yellowstone. become, in his word, “manly.” He ciers had formed the Yosemite In 1890, Congress created three hunted, fished, hiked, and em- Valley. His fame as a naturalist California national parks. The Se- braced the outdoor life. After grad- spread throughout the U.S. quoia and General Grant (later uating from Harvard, he traveled Yosemite did not become Amer- King’s Canyon) parks protected throughout the West and started a ica’s first national park. That honor groves of giant redwoods. Yosemite ranch in North Dakota. went to Yellowstone, located National Park included mountain In 1890, the U.S. Census Bu- mainly in northwest Wyoming. and forest areas but not the spec- reau announced the West had been Reports of Yellowstone’s regu- tacular Yosemite Valley or nearby largely settled and the frontier had larly erupting water geysers, steam- Mariposa Grove of sequoias. They come to an end. This got Roosevelt ing rivers, and bubbling mud pools remained in California’s hands. thinking about the importance of had been dismissed as “Yellow- Disappointed, Muir founded the holding on to what was left of stone hallucinations” for many Sierra Club, in part to work toward America’s wilderness. years. Finally, a U.S. government including these jewels of nature When President William expedition led by geologist Ferdi- within the park. McKinley was assassinated in 1901, nand Hayden in 1871 documented Vice President Roosevelt moved these fantastic features and more. When settlers began into the White House. His top Hayden became the leading ad- wilderness priority was to make vocate for Congress to preserve Yel- claiming land in Yosemite Arizona’s Grand Canyon a national lowstone as a national park. He Valley, a public outcry park. But fierce opposition from warned against business interests local miners, ranchers, loggers, and planning to enter Yellowstone “to arose to protect it and tourist businesses killed his pro- fence in these rare wonders so as posal in Congress. to charge visitors a fee as is now also to preserve a nearby In 1903, Roosevelt toured the done at Niagara Falls.” West by train. At the Grand During the debate in Congress grove ofgiant sequoia Canyon, he pleaded with Arizo- over creating Yellowstone National trees threatened nans to “keep this great wonder of Park, many had to be convinced nature as it now is.” He then vis- that the federal public land in- by loggers. ited California and joined John volved was useless for home- Muir in a campout under the stars steading, farming, ranching, In 1887, Theodore Roosevelt, at Yosemite. Muir spent his time mining, lumbering, or other eco- then a federal civil servant, helped with Roosevelt arguing for the re- nomic purposes. For them, public organize the Boone and Crockett turn of the Yosemite Valley and lands were meant to be sold or Club. Originally for rich big game Mariposa Grove of giant trees to leased for settlement and their re- hunters, the club supported the cre- federal control as part of Yosemite sources. Hayden argued that Yel- ation of national parks as essential National Park. lowstone’s high altitude, harsh refuges for endangered wildlife. The In 1906, Roosevelt persuaded climate, and poor soil made it club took up the cause of saving a Congress to include the Yosemite Val- “worthless lands” except for their small herd of the vanishing buffalo ley and Mariposa Grove within park scenery and natural wonders. in Yellowstone National Park. boundaries. But he grew frustrated 2 U. S. HISTORY (c) 2013 Constitutional Rights Foundation bria_28_4:Layout 1 4/19/2013 3:56 PM Page 3 by how long it took Congress to act and to approve new national parks he wanted like Grand Canyon. Congressman John F. Lacy (R- Iowa) became an ally of Roosevelt. A supporter of protecting cliff dwellings and other ruins of the ancient southwest pueblo people, he designed a bill modeled after an 1871 law that had given the presi- dent the power to create national forests on his own. The Antiquities Act of 1906 gave the president the National Park Service authority to protect “historic land- A park ranger atop his car, c. 1935, keeps an eye on a herd of bison. marks, historic preservation struc- or expand national monuments, na- home, that wildness is a neces- tures, and other objects of scientific tional forests, game preserves, and sity, and that mountain parks interest” on public land as national bird reservations. Altogether, he left and reservations are useful not monuments. an astounding legacy: five national only as fountains of timber and The Antiquities Act proved to parks, 18 national monuments, 150 irrigating rivers, but as foun- be just the legal tool Roosevelt national forests (created or en- tains of life. needed to bypass Congress and larged), 51 bird reservations, and Pinchot and Muir became speed up the protection of Amer- four national game preserves. ica’s natural and man-made her- friends and allies during numerous itage. Within a year, he created Conservation vs. Preservation trips in the West. But they clashed seven national monuments by ex- In 1905, President Roosevelt bitterly when San Francisco pro- ecutive order such as New Mex- had put Gifford Pinchot in charge posed to dam the river running ico’s Chaco Canyon, the largest of the new U.S. Forest Service, through the Hetch Hetchy Valley of U.S. archaeological site of ancient which took over management of Yosemite National Park in order to pueblo ruins. the national forests. Pinchot had create a city water reservoir. Then, in 1908, Roosevelt de- studied forestry at Yale and in Eu- Preservationists like Muir de- clared Grand Canyon an “object of rope and was America’s first pro- scribed Hetch Hetchy as almost a unusual scientific interest” and fessional forest expert. twin to the magnificent Yosemite made it a national monument. In 1907, Pinchot proposed the Valley.