Number
Notable Examples
National historic sites
16
Saint Gaudens (New Hampshire) Golden Spike (Utah)
National recreation areas
6
Delaware Water Gap (Pennsylvania-New Jersey)
National monuments
4
Biscayne (Florida)
National parks
4
Redwoods (California) North Cascades (Washington)
National historical parks
3
Nez Perce (Idaho)
National memorials
3
Johnstown Flood (Pennsylvania)
National seashores
3
Fire Island (New York) Assateague Island (Maryland-Virginia)
National lakeshores
2
Indiana Dunes (Indiana)
Farm park
1
Wolf Trap (Virginia)
International park
1
Roosevelt Campobello (U.S.-Canada)
National scenic riverway
1
Ozark (Missouri)
National scenic trail
1
Appalachian (Maine to Georgia)
By the latter part of the decade it became clear that the funding system was not working, mainly for three reasons. The first was that income was low due to failure of the Golden Eagle Passport. It was a pass which entitled the occupants of a car to enter all the national parks for a year for $7. Most visitors preferred to pay $2 for the day. Anticipated to produce $50 million, the Golden Eagle actually raised only $3.8 million in 1967. The second was that land prices, pushed up by the inflation of the Vietnam War, were appreciating at a rate of 10 percent a year. Finally, as Udall said, “The one really major disappointment to me was when the Vietnam War really began to be felt. The last three years were essentially tightening down. … It became a kind of hold-the-line operation. …” On January 3, 1967, he informed the Bureau of the Budget that the shortfall for the next decade could be $2.5 billion.
During 1967 Interior, Budget, and both Interior committees worked on a solution. For 1969 through 1973 they set a level of $200 million annually, a total of $1 billion. The income would be split evenly between the federal government and states, $100 million annually for each. Permits, admissions, and user fees would produce $12 million a year, the motorboat fuel tax about $35 million, and the sale of federal lands just under $50 million, a total around $97 million. The remaining $103 million would come from a new source, receipts from oil and gas leases on the outer continental shelf. But neither house acted until 1968, when the bill was easily passed and signed by the President on July 15. Thus, the solvency of the Land and Water Conservation Fund was assured for at least the next five years.3
Wilderness has been the beating heart of the conservation impulse. “Everybody,” John Muir wrote, “needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike.” Michael Frome wrote, “One cannot be lonesome, as John Muir once said, when everything is wild and beautiful and busy and steeped with God.” No movement could match wilderness preservation in attracting so many gifted writers, painters, and photographers to its ranks, among them: John James Audubon, George Catlin, Henry David Thoreau, Muir, Ansel Adams, Rachel Carson.
Aldo Leopold, called by some the “Father of the National Forest Wilderness system,” defined wilderness as an area big enough to provide a two-week pack trip without having to backtrack or cross one’s own trail. The main draftsman of the Wilderness Act, Howard Zahniser, was more specific in the statute:
A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain. An area of wilderness is further defined to mean in this Act an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions and which (1) generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man’s work substantially unnoticeable; (2) has outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation; (3) has at least five thousand acres of land or is of sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation and use in an unimpaired condition; and (4) may also contain ecological, geological, scenic, or historical value.
The primary object of wilderness legislation was the 9,139,721 acres controlled by the Forest Service of the Department of Agriculture in the lower 48 states which it classified as “wilderness,” “wild,” or “canoe.” Alaska was its own problem which would be confronted later. In addition, the Forest Service was responsible for 5,477,740 acres classified as “wild,” some of which might be brought into a wilderness system. All of these lands were in the West except for small tracts in North Carolina and New Hampshire. The canoe area was in northern Minnesota in the chain of lakes and streams shared with Canada along the international border.
In addition, the Department of the Interior administered two programs which contained wilderness areas. The Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wild-life was responsible for bird and animal sanctuaries, refuges, and ranges from which commercial activities were excluded by regulation. The bureau estimated that up to 24.4 million of its 28 million acres might be considered wilderness. The National Park Service produced similar numbers—22.2 million of 26.5 million acres. The national parks were protected from private exploitation by statute. There was, finally, an unknown acreage of wilderness that was privately owned and never considered for inclusion in the system.
Thus, the focus of attention was the Forest Service. From its inception in 1905 under Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot, the service had relied on policies of multiple use and sustained yield to resolve the conflict between development and conservation. Using timber as an illustration: Lumber companies were permitted to cut trees in the national forests on condition that they planted new trees to provide the same yield in the next generation. Since minerals and oil and gas were not renewable, sustained yield could not apply. In 1960 Congress converted Forest Service policy into law in the Multiple Use and Sustained Yield Act, authorizing the “most judicious use” for recreation, soil, range, timber, watershed, wildlife, fishing, and mining. The Wilderness Society feared that this broad language would lead inevitably to the death of wilderness in the national forests.
A few individuals in the Forest Service believed in wilderness and urged the abandonment of multiple use. Arthur H. Carhart, who surveyed for a request to convert the Trapper’s Lake region of the White River National Forest in Colorado in 1919 for roads and homesites, recommended rejection of the petition.
When he was a forester in Albuquerque, Aldo Leopold, concerned about the preservation of wildlife, argued for the maintenance of wilderness habitats. He succeeded in having 574,000 acres in New Mexico’s Gila National Forest set aside from development. Leopold was an outstanding writer and published his views widely, particularly in the celebrated collection of essays, A Sand County Almanac.
Bob Marshall was the most dedicated of the early advocates of wilderness. Independently wealthy and the holder of a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins, he worked for the Forest Service and as chief forester in Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs. At the outset of the New Deal he convinced Secretary Ickes, who headed the Public Works Administration, not to build roads in wilderness areas. Marshall, more than anyone else, developed a comprehensive philosophy of wilderness, notably in his book The People’s Forests. He urged a network of primeval reservations in all sections of the country.
In 1934 Marshall and several other wilderness enthusiasts hiked into what would become Great Smoky Mountains National Park and there agreed to form an organization to unite the friends of wilderness. The next yea
r Marshall left the government and with several others, including Howard Zahniser, created the Wilderness Society. A young man, he died in 1939 and left the society $400,000.
In 1954 James P. Gilligan received a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources after writing a dissertation on Forest Service administration of wilderness areas. The picture was bleak. That fall he addressed the Society of American Foresters to summarize his findings and urge the passage of a new law. In 1955 the Wilderness Society published Gilligan’s paper in its journal, The Living Wilderness. Zahniser, who had become the society’s executive secretary, pursued Gilligan’s ideas in a speech of his own. Senator Humphrey read it and inserted the text in the Congressional Record. The Wilderness Society, the Sierra Club, the National Wildlife Federation, the National Parks Association, and other conservation organizations joined to draft the bill Gilligan had urged. In fact, Zahniser was the main author, which may explain the oddity of the Wilderness Act among federal statutes for its lucid and graceful prose. He was, indeed, special. Michael Frome found Zahniser to be “studious, soft-spoken, and patient, both persuasive and persistent, a man of love for his fellow men, and highly principled.”
Humphrey introduced the first wilderness bill on June 7, 1956, with bipartisan sponsorship. In the Eisenhower era Humphrey did not expect quick action. In fact, there would be four Humphrey bills over the next eight years. The opposition from industry was formidable and there was, of course, no administration support. But the ever-cheerful Humphrey was neither surprised nor daunted.
The political situation changed dramatically for the better with Kennedy’s election in 1960. In his special message on natural resources on February 23, 1961, the new President urged Congress to enact the wilderness bill. It had the strong backing of both Freeman and Udall, along with a solid phalanx of conservation groups. Opposition came from the lumber, livestock, mining, and oil and gas industries, joined by the Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers.
The bill, S. 174, would place all areas classified as wilderness, wild, or canoe in a National Wilderness System immediately. The construction of roads and commercial activities, except those already in operation, would be prohibited. Mining presently under way could continue, but there would be no new mines unless the President certified that they were necessary in the national interest. Other lands in the National Forests, in the National Parks, and under the jurisdiction of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife would be reviewed over the next decade for inclusion in the system. The President could add these lands, but must notify Congress. Unless both houses voted to override him, these lands would be designated as wilderness. The responsible agency would be obliged to administer the selected areas in order to preserve their primitive character.
In the early sixties large majorities in both houses and in both parties favored a strong wilderness bill. Clinton Anderson, chairman of the Senate Interior Committee, was a protagonist and held in his pocket 12 of the 16 votes in his committee. Years before, Anderson and Aldo Leopold had been intimate friends and had hiked the New Mexico wilderness together. The problem was Aspinall, the slippery chairman of the House committee. At times he seemed to be for wilderness and at others opposed. In early 1964, Mike Manatos found him “precariously balanced.” Manatos, Larry O’Brien, and Lee White thought it a mistake to bring him to the White House for persuasion with President Johnson because he would resent the pressure. Aspinall, Manatos wrote, is a “very difficult individual.” While he lacked the power to prevent passage of the bill, he might be able to weaken it with amendments and he certainly could delay its passage.
On January 5, 1961, Anderson had introduced the Humphrey bill as S. 174 with 13 cosponsors. He held prompt hearings and the committee reported the bill on July 17 by a vote of 12 to 4. It reached the floor on September 1 and several delaying or debilitating amendments were defeated comfortably. The Senate adopted S. 174 on September 6 by a vote to 78 to 8.
Aspinall, bowing to pressure by opponents, delayed his hearings until the Outdoor Recreation Commission published its Study Report No. 3, “Wilderness and Recreation.” But the report, issued on April 16, 1962, strongly supported legislation to create a wilderness system.
The Subcommittee on Public Lands held hearings during the spring of 1962. At its executive session on June 29 Aspinall offered an “amendment.” It would have gutted the bill, and both Interior and Agriculture strongly opposed it. Nevertheless, the subcommittee followed Aspinall. The full committee went even further, allowing mining in wilderness until 1987 and authorizing a ski resort on 3500 acres of the San Gorgonio Wild Area in Southern California. While the committee reported on August 30, Aspinall did not file the report until October 3, 1962, the eve of adjournment. Thus, the wilderness bill died with the expiring 87th Congress.
Anderson cheerfully started over on January 14, 1963, in the 88th Congress, introducing the bill the Senate had passed in 1962, this time as S. 4 with 21 cosponsors. President Kennedy endorsed it in his Budget Message on January 21. Anderson held brief hearings and the Interior Committee reported the bill on April 2 by a vote of 11 to 5. After cursory debate, the Senate adopted it 73 to 12.
During the summer of 1963 Aspinall negotiated with Interior and Agriculture and they agreed on a new version of the bill. He abandoned his substitute and received only a few minor concessions for commercial interests. The conservation groups, including the Wilderness Society, endorsed the revised bill.
Aspinall held extended hearings in Olympia, Washington, Denver, Las Vegas, and Washington, D.C., between January and May 1964. The Wilderness Society noted, “Excellent hearings, fairly and expeditiously conducted, once again demonstrated the great public support … for wilderness preservation—and also revealed a new willingness on the part of former opponents to accept recently revised bills.” Zahniser testified on the last day. “It may seem presumptuous,” he said, “for men and women who live only 40, 50, 60, 70, or 80 years, to dare to undertake a program for perpetuity, but that surely is our challenge.” Six days later he was dead of a heart attack.
Aspinall now became the champion of wilderness. In a speech on the floor of the House he paid tribute to Zahniser and promised that his great goal would be reached. And so it was. The Interior Committee adopted the measure almost unanimously. On July 30 the House passed the bill by the incredible vote of 374 to 1. Udall wrote the White House that after “nearly six years of agonizing frustration,” history was being made “due in part to the leadership efforts of Rep. Aspinall.” The modest differences between the versions were quickly resolved in conference. Both houses adopted the final bill on August 20, 1964.
Vice presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey wrote Larry O’Brien to suggest that the President at the signing ceremony “pay his respects and his tribute to the late Howard Zahniser … , the father of the wilderness bill.” He continued,
I would also like to add that yours truly, Hubert Humphrey, was the original sponsor … and turned it over to Clint Anderson here in the Senate when he was chairman of the Interior Committee. I have been the main co-sponsor ever since the early 1950s. This bill was highly controversial in the beginning and I had to take most of the brickbats at the early stages [from the commercial interests in the northern Minnesota canoe district]. Like many other things, some of the controversy is dissipated in proper time and the bill passes. In the meantime, a few of us come out with the battle scars.
In his remarks at the mass signing on September 3, 1964, Johnson mentioned neither Zahniser nor Humphrey. The former, evidently, meant nothing to him and he did not hesitate to ignore or even humiliate Hubert Humphrey. Rather, he gave credit to his “distinguished and able Secretary of Interior,” along with Clinton Anderson, Henry Jackson, and Wayne Aspinall. Udall, Anderson, and Aspinall, the last in a bizarre way, fully deserved the accolade. One must certainly add the conservation organizations, particularly the Wilderness Society and its leader, Howard Zahniser. While Presidents Kennedy and Johnso
n both endorsed the bill, neither did much to get it through the Congress.
The statute created the National Wilderness Preservation System “to secure for the American people of present and future generations the benefits of an enduring resource of wilderness.” All National Forest areas classified as wilderness, wild, and canoe were immediately placed in the system. Within the next ten years the Secretaries of Agriculture and Interior could recommend to the President the addition of other lands under their jurisdiction. Each agency must administer system lands so as to preserve their wilderness character. Commercial activities already under way could continue, but new exploitation was severely restricted.
The National Wilderness Preservation System started with 9.1 million acres of Forest Service lands. By 1980 the service had contributed another 4.4 million in the lower 48 states and 5.3 million in Alaska. In his study Craig Allin anticipated the later addition of about 8 million acres. Thus, between 17 and 18 percent of Forest Service lands would become protected wilderness. Fittingly, this included the Bob Marshall National Forest in western Montana just south of Glacier National Park.
The National Park Service supplied less than 3 million acres in the lower 48, but added 32.4 million for wilderness in Alaska. The Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife holdings, including Alaska, had 19 million acres of wilderness, but very few were so designated because of differences over policy. The Bureau of Land Management had large holdings of which 10 to 20 million might eventually become wilderness.
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