If you would, talk about your concept of the system: how you would define it and whether it’s a finite thing or whether it should continue to grow; just your concept of parks as a system and how to determine what should come into the National Park System.
I saw a television program last night on this fantastic formation in the state of Washington. Did you happen to see that? Well, I forget what the title of the program was but it was about Missoula Lake. Have you ever heard of Missoula Lake?
No.
I never had either. But there was a glacier independent of the Canadian glaciers that came down in the Ice Age that formed, that blocked the river that goes through Missoula, Montana, and created a 500-mile lake, 1,000 feet deep. And when the water broke the dam of the glacier from the Washington State side, that water washed across the state of Washington and into the Pacific Ocean. I don’t know the name of it, but it’s a formation that we don’t yet have in the National Park System. I think it should be in the National Park System. I think the natural areas have not had nearly the opportunity for expansion.
We still lack a good hardwood national forest park in the Northeast. We were going to do one in Pennsylvania. That was when the concept of national preserves came about. I told Joe [Rep. Joseph M.] McDade [of Scranton, Pennsylvania], the senior minority member on the House Appropriations Committee, that Pennsylvania had a large area of land that had been polluted with tailings from mining. This land could be set aside as a preserve. We were going to set it up as a preserve for thirty years with no visitation, use it for the Job Corps boys and girls to go in and restore the natural environment. The restoration could take decades but the result would be a great natural park. This is much like what the CCC [Civilian Conservation Corps] boys did in Shenandoah [National Park]. Shenandoah was all farmed over, cut over, burned over, and today we argue about the size of the wilderness. That’s what we could have if we used those preserves in that way in the Northeast [and took] over this mined out, depleted land, which often is a burden to the communities where which it exists. McDade could not get enough support and never introduced legislation. Instead he focused on Scranton, Pennsylvania, and railroads. He wanted the Park Service to look at Scranton as a site to interpret railroads. The Park Service was not interested in doing this. When McDade secured an appropriation for a railroad historic site, the Service had no choice. Steamtown [National Historic Site] was not the best national park but it is the only one that reflects the history of the railroads. We’re creating history everyday, so there will never be an end to historical areas.
We haven’t nearly finished commemorating the cultural achievements and the achievements of the Industrial Revolution in America and the contributions that … enrich our lives everyday. Those things ought to be in the National Park System. We’re building the park system for eternity, not for tomorrow. So you can talk away the relevance of it: “We got one that looks like that so we don’t need another one.” But we don’t have that one that talks about the Industrial Revolution. We have the Saugus Iron Works [National Historic Site], but the Saugus Iron Works to represent the Industrial Revolution is like a pimple on an elephant. I mean, there is so much more to the Industrial Revolution that is not commemorated. They got a little bit of the Ford family money in the museum to Henry Ford in the Detroit area. But heavens, that’s just a miniscule part of the whole story of transportation [as it evolved through the Industrial Revolution and afterward] in this country, none of which is in the National Park System. And all of which ought to be.
You mention the term “thinning of the blood,” which former director James Ridenour coined. How do you feel about that concept? Do you think that the process of deciding what sites come into the system has become too politicized?
Let me tell you. You can’t get it too politicized. You know why? Because the framers of the foundation of this government said politicians are the ones who are going to establish the public-land policy of America. That’s why you find that my term as director was so much different than those of my predecessors. Mather and Albright believed very much, as I did, in the role of the Congress. That’s why Mather spent thousands of dollars personally taking congressmen out to the parks.
I had a “show me” trip every year, in which I invited the Congress to go see the parks in the National Capital Region. The idea came from Horace Albright who said that the National Capital Parks was a microcosm of all of the natural areas and cultural areas that we had in the National Park System outside of Washington. And that’s true. We’ve got the monuments as cultural, historical areas; we’ve got Rock Creek Park, one of the first natural areas saved in the National Park System. We’ve got them all. So I ran that “show me” trip every year financed by a donation from Laurance S. Rockefeller, which Horace Albright arranged. Those members of Congress, the politicians, are the ones who make the policies so you’ll never get me to say that there is a “thinning of the blood” of any congressionally approved area, because that is the policy-making body of all public lands in America, not the bureaucrats in the National Park Service.
Now the historians, they have their criteria. Chickamauga [and Chattanooga National Military Park] may not be as historically significant as Gettysburg, but the Congress established them both. Who is to say which one shouldn’t be there? And certainly I can agree that Gettysburg was more influential in the course of [the Civil] War than perhaps Chickamauga. But I don’t know that I would exclude Chickamauga to have Gettysburg. I don’t think you can get too much politics in it [the selection of sites], that’s all I’m trying to say.
Related to that, in a 1981 interview you indicated that during your administration the Park Service witnessed what you called “the largest legislative explosion in its history.” I would love to hear you talk about how you account for that explosion. It sounds like recognizing the important role of Congress was part of that.
Absolutely. I wore out three pairs of shoes a year walking the halls of Congress to make it happen. Yes. Absolutely. That was it. That was my commitment. I never once missed a congressional hearing in which I was asked to testify. Not once, because that’s the body that sets the public-land policy of America. The president is important, because he represents one-third in the legislative process. He can veto it, and then it takes two-thirds plus one to overrule him. So he represents one-third minus one. But he’s not the maker of public-land policy, and neither is the director of the National Park Service. That’s why I was very careful to get my directive from the secretary confirmed by the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee and a piece of legislation saying the National Park System consisted of natural, cultural, and recreational areas as the foundation for my management policies.
I’ll say this without any sense of criticism, but when the [presidential] administration decides in public-land matters that Congress doesn’t count, they’re absolutely totally mistaken, because that’s a constitutional responsibility of the Congress. It’s nothing dreamed up by one politician or one political party that has a minority or a majority of the voters at any time. That is a mandate given the Congress by the founders of the Constitution to set the public-land policy of America. So I never felt they were meddling. I did my damnedest, and I make no apologies, to engage them and cultivate them, and to take them fishing if that’s what it took to get the bill through. Or to take them hiking if that’s what it took to get the bill, whatever it took to get the bill through, I was for doing it.
You have also spoken over the years about the distinction between congressional authorization and appropriations, and how important getting the money was. Would you like to elaborate on that for a minute?
You better believe it. That was, so far as I know, the first time ever that I got the authorization committee [the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs] to go sit down and talk with the Appropriations Subcommittee [the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior and Related Agencies]. But I was able to do that because of my total commitment to the fact that not only the authority that I had, but the money that I needed, had to come out of the Congress, because I can’t spend a nickel unless they give it to me. I’ve got to first get it authorized, and then I’ve got to get it appropriated. If there is a difference between the two committees, I can have all the authorization in the world, but if I can’t get the chairman of the Appropriations Committee to appropriate the money, it’s useless. That was when I was able to get congressmen and the leadership of my subcommittees [House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs and House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior and Related Agencies] to sit down across the table from each other and talk about my budget. I don’t apologize for that. I think that is what has to be done if you’re going to get your money.
