Rightful Heritage: The Renewal of America

by Douglas Brinkley

  22.Carl Carmer, The Hudson (New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1939), pp. 362–65; chap. 32 is all about Carmer and FDR’s confab of 1938 on the Hudson River.

  23.Thomas Lask, “Carl Carmer, Novelist, Historian of Upstate New York, Dead at 82,” New York Times, September 12, 1976.

  24.Musso, FDR and the Post Office, p. 62.

  25.FDR to Admiral C. J. Peoples, February 12, 1938.

  26.Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project, “Teaching Eleanor Roosevelt Glossary: Federal Project Number One,” accessed October 9, 2014, http://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/teachinger/glossary/federal-proj ect-number1.cfm. See also Don Adams and Arlene Goldbard, New Deal Programs: Experiments in Cultural Democracy (1995), http://www.wwcd.org/policy/US/newdeal.html#FEDONE. The list of painters employed by the Federal Art Project reads like a who’s who of modern art; Jacob Lawrence, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko all produced work for the government during the Depression. The Federal Writers’ Project, publisher of the American Guide Series of state monographs that FDR so loved, ultimately released 800 distinct titles by a talented and diverse roster of writers that included Zora Neale Hurston, John Cheever, Ralph Ellison, and Studs Terkel.

  27.USDA Forest Service, “Establishment and Modification of National Forest Boundaries: A Chronologic Record, 1891–1973” (Washington, DC: USDA Division of Engineering, 1973).

  28.FDR to Daniel W. Bell, February 24, 1938, FDRL.

  29.FDR to Louis B. DeKoven, June 8, 1938, FDRL.

  30.Harold L. Ickes, speech to Northwest Conservation League, June 29, 1938, Ickes Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

  31.Ibid.

  32.Newton, Design on the Land, p. 544.

  33.Schrepfer, The Fight to Save the Redwoods, p. 61.

  34.Turner, Sierra Club: 100 Years of Protecting Nature, p. 124.

  35.Tom Turner, The Making of the Environmental Movement (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2015), p. 32.

  36.Mary Street Alinder, Ansel Adams: A Biography (New York: Henry Holt, 1996), pp. 105–6.

  37.A. E. Demarcy to Ansel Adams, c. January 8, 1939, quoted in William A. Turnage, Introduction, in Ansel Adams, Sierra Nevada—The John Muir Trail (New York: Little, Brown, 2006), p. xvii.

  38.Author interview with Michael Adams, April 8, 2015.

  39.Alinder, Ansel Adams, p. 106.

  40.James Glover, A Wilderness Original (Seattle: The Mountaineers, 1986), p. 234.

  41.Black, Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom, p. 442.

  42.Waldo Schmitt, “The President’s Cruise of 1938,” Journal Notes, September 1938, Smithsonian Archive, Washington, DC.

  43.Cordell Hull to Harold Ickes, October 28, 1933, National Park Service Files, Ickes Office Files (Record Group 48), NARA, Washington, DC.

  44.Richard E. Blackwelder, The Zest for Life, or Waldo Had a Pretty Good Run: The Life of Waldo LaSalle Schmitt (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1979), p. 123.

  45.Biographical note, finding aid for Waldo Schmitt Papers, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, http://siarchives.si.edu/collections/siris_arc_217388.

  46.Mares, Fishing with the Presidents, p. 79.

  47.Box 94, Schmitt Papers, Smithsonian Archive, Washington, DC.

  48.Waldo Schmitt to Commander C. A. Bailey, September 9, 1938, Schmitt Papers, Smithsonian Archive, Washington, DC.

  49.Waldo Schmitt, “The Presidential Cruise of 1938,” unpublished essay, n.d., Schmitt Papers, Smithsonian Archive, Washington, DC.

  50.See Wallace J. Nicholas, Blue Mind (Boston: Little, Brown, 2014); and Nicola Joyce, “Book Review: ‘Blue Mind,’ on the Benefits of Being Near Water, by Wallace J. Nichols,” Washington Post, August 8, 2014.

  51.U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command, photo NH 93163.

  52.William K. Vanderbilt, To Galápagos on the Ara, 1926 (Mount Vernon, NY: privately printed, 1927).

  53.FDR, Public Papers of the United States, Vol. 7 (Washington, DC: Office of the Federal Register, 1999), p. 503.

  54.FDR, The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1938: The Continuing Struggle for Liberalism, ed. Sam Rosenman (New York: Macmillan, 1941).

  55.Mares, Fishing with the Presidents, p. 79.

  56.Eleanor Roosevelt, “My Day,” July 8, 1938.

  57.“Roosevelt in Pacific Lands 45-Pound Tuna,” New York Times, July 29, 1938.

  58.FDR to Eleanor Roosevelt, July 24, 1938, FDRL.

  59.Ibid.

  60.FDR to Eleanor Roosevelt, July 31, 1938, FDRL.

  61.FDR, Address to the Roosevelt Home Club, August 27, 1938, Hyde Park, NY.

  62.“National Chiefs to Dedicate Span,” New York Times, August 14, 1938.

  63.Ibid.; and “President and Premier to Inaugurate Officially New Thousand Islands Bridge,” Ottawa Citizen, August 17, 1938.

  64.FDR, Dedication Speech of Thousand Islands Bridge near Clayton, NY, August 18, 1938.

  65.Blackwelder, The Zest for Life, p. 123.

  66.William Rigdon, White House Sailor (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1962), pp. 60–62.

  67.“Scientist Roosevelt’s Catch to Enrich National Museum,” Washington Post, August 13, 1938.

  68.Ibid.

  69.Schmitt, “The President’s Cruise of 1938.”

  70.Waldo L. Schmitt to Franklin D. Roosevelt, October 29, 1938, Schmitt Papers, Smithsonian Archive, Washington, DC.

  71.FDR, Address to the Roosevelt Home Club, August 27, 1938.

  72.Jean Sherwood Harper to Eleanor Roosevelt, January 10, 1938, Eleanor Roosevelt Papers, in Nixon, ed., Franklin D. Roosevelt and Conservation, Vol. 2, pp. 166–67.

  73.Ibid.

  74.Gabrielson, Wildlife Refuges, p. 17.

  75.W. F. Kubichek, “The CCC Rehabilitates Waterfowl Habitat,” in Proceedings of the North American Wildlife Conference at the Mayflower Hotel, Washington, DC (February 7, 1936).

  76.Gabrielson, Wildlife Refuges, p. 120.

  77.Author interview with Lee M. Brown, Miami, FL, January 2, 2013.

  78.Happy Days, May 8, 1937.

  79.Jimmy Carter, An Hour Before Daylight (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001), pp. 104–7.

  80.Author interview with former president Jimmy Carter, February 1, 2013. In 1976 Jimmy Carter launched his presidential campaign at the Little White House in honor of FDR, his boyhood hero.

  81.FDR to Henry Wallace, January 19, 1938, FDRL.

  82.FDR to Henry Wallace, January 25, 1938, FDRL.

  83.FDR to Henry A. Wallace, January 27, 1938, FDRL.

  84.Executive Order 9185, 7 C.F.R. 4713, June 25, 1942.

  85.Franklin D. Roosevelt, press conference (transcript) at Hyde Park, October 7, 1938, FDRL.

  86.Arthur Krock, “Taxpayers Revolt,” New York Times, November 10, 1938.

  87.Andrew E. Busch, “The New Deal Comes to a Screeching Halt in 1938,” Ashbrook Center, Ashland University, May 2006, http://ashbrook.org/publications/oped-busch-06-1938/.

  88.Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1938, pp. 605–7.

  89.Cissy Patterson quoted in Amanda Smith, Newspaper Titan: The Infamous Life and Monumental Times of Cissy Patterson (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011), p. 381.

  90.Ibid., p. 392.

  91.Clarke, Roosevelt’s Warrior, pp. 294–95.

  92.Eleanor Roosevelt, “My Day,” April 15, 1943.

  93.John F. Hoffman, Arches National Park: An Illustrated Guide (San Diego, CA: Western Recreational Publication, 1985), p. 14.

  94.Ibid.

  95.Arches National Park Main Entrance Road, Moab Canyon Wash Culvert (Moab Vicinity), Grand County, UT, Historical American Engineering Record, Arches National Park Archive.

  96.David R. Brower to Doug Scott (Sierra Club Conservation Director), July 13, 1989, http://www.permatopia.com/wetlands/compromise.html.

  97.FDR to Henry A. Wallace, January 27, 1939, FDRL.

  98.Turner, David Brower: The Man and the Environmental Movement (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2015), p. 35.

  99.Cornebise, The CCC Chro
nicles, p. 107.

  100.FDR to Angelo J. Rossi, March 24, 1939, FDRL.

  101.FDR to Clyde L. Seavey, March 14, 1939, FDRL.

  102.Watkins, Righteous Pilgrim, pp. 568–77.

  103.James H. Rowe Jr., special assistant to the president, to Edwin M. Watson, secretary to the president, June 1, 1939.

  104.Douglas Hillman Strong, Trees—or Timber? (Three Rivers, CA: Sequoia Natural History Association, 1980), p. 48.

  105.William Colby quoted in Fox, The American Conservation Movement, pp. 216–17.

  106.Glover, A Wilderness Original, p. 263.

  107.Irving Brant, James Madison, The Virginia Revolutionist, 1941; James Madison the Nationalist 1780–1787, 1948; James Madison: Father of the Constitution, 1787–1800, 1950; James Madison: Secretary of State 1800–1809, 1953; James Madison: The President, 1809–1812, 1956; James Madison: Commander in Chief, 1812–1836, 1961 (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill 1941–1961).

  108.Ansel Adams, An Autobiography (Boston: Little, Brown, 1985), p. 343.

  CHAPTER 17: “TO BENEFIT WILDLIFE”

  1.Paige, The Civilian Conservation Corps and the National Park Service, p. 114.

  2.Dolin, Smithsonian Book of National Wildlife Refuges, pp. 103–5.

  3.Peter Van Wyk, Burnham, King of Scouts: Baden-Powell’s Secret Mentor (Victoria, Canada: Trafford, 2003), pp. 545–46.

  4.David C. Scott and Brendan Murphy, The Scouting Party: Pioneering and Preservation, Progressivism, and Preparedness in the Making of the Boy Scouts of America (Irving, TX: Red Honor Press, 2010), pp. 3–27.

  5.Quoted in Brinkley, The Wilderness Warrior, p. 527.

  6.Edward H. Saxton, “Saving the Desert Bighorns,” Desert (March 1970), pp. 17–18.

  7.Van Wyk, Burnham, King of Scouts, p. 550.

  8.Leonard J. Arring, “The Sagebrush Resurrection: New Deal Expenditures in Western States, 1933–1939,” Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 52 (1983), p. 12.

  9.FDR quoted in Boys Life (February 1934).

  10.FDR, speech to Ten Mile River Scout Camp, Narrowsburg, NY, August 23, 1933.

  11.David C. Scott, My Fellow Americans: Scouting, Diversity, and the U.S. Presidency (Dallas, TX: WindRush, 2014), p. 93.

  12.FDR to R. K. Wickstrum, January 26, 1939, FDRL.

  13.Gabrielson, Wildlife Refuges, p. 99.

  14.James K. Morgan, “Slamming the Ram into Oblivion,” Audubon, Vol. 75, no. 6 (November 1973), p. 17.

  15.Laycock, The Sign of the Flying Goose, pp. 251–52.

  16.“Refuge System Celebrates Anniversary: 75 Years and Going Strong,” Fish and Wildlife News (December 1978/January 1979), p. 22.

  17.Harold L. Ickes to FDR, December 15, 1938, FDRL.

  18.U. S. Geological Survey, “PWRC Strategic Science Plan” (Laurel, MD: USGS, 2008).

  19.“Patuxent Refuge to Fashion Utopia for Wildlife,” Washington Sunday Star, July 28, 1931. Patuxent was located twenty miles from the South Building of the Department of Agriculture in Washington, DC. To reach the refuge around the time of its dedication, biologists and visitors commonly took Maryland Avenue to Fifteenth and H streets and then Baltimore Pike to Peace Cross at Bladensburg. After making a right on Defense Highway to Lanham, they took the left-hand fork to Bowie. Once in Bowie, they made a left turn onto the Laurel-Bowie Highway. After 3.5 miles on the Laurel-Bowie Highway, a gate marked “Patuxent Research Refuge” appeared on the right side of the road.

  20.Patuxent is divided into three areas. The North Tract offers opportunities for wildlife observation, hunting, and fishing. The Center Tract houses the refuge’s headquarters and the Wildlife Research Center (a research study site). The South Tract contains the National Wildlife Visitor Center and various trails.

  21.L. B. Morley, “Early History of Patuxent Wildlife Research Center (circa 1948),” Patuxent Archive, Laurel, MD.

  22.Blair Bolles, “Wild-Life Laboratory,” New York Times, June 18, 1939.

  23.“Wallace Dedicates Wildlife Station,” Washington Evening Star, June 5, 1939.

  24.Scott Hart, “U.S. Sets Up Vast Wild Life Refuge on Historic Maryland Estate,” Washington Post, May 28, 1939.

  25.Graham, The Land and Wildlife, p. 11.

  26.Ira N. Gabrielson, Wildlife Conservation (New York: Macmillan, 1941); Wildlife Refuges (cited above); Wildlife Management (New York: Macmillan, 1951).

  27.David Sibley, “Birds Make Anyplace a Chance for Discovery,” Audubon (March/April 2013), p. 18.

  28.John O’Reilly, “State Wardens Inspect Federal Wildlife Station,” New York Herald Tribune, March 22, 1940.

  29.“Mr. Wallace: Please Keep It ‘Experimental’!” Modern Game Breeding (June 1939).

  30.Ira N. Gabrielson, “Waterfowl Restoration: The Plain Facts,” address to Maryland State Game and Fish Protective Association, Baltimore, December 14, 1936; Ira N. Gabrielson, “The Problem of Duck Conservation,” speech to Illinois Sportsman Association, Chicago, June 29, 1936, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Archive, Shepherdstown, WV.

  31.“Patuxent Refuge to Fashion Utopia for Wildlife,” Washington Star, May 28, 1939.

  32.Ira M. Gabrielson, “A National Program for Wildlife Conservation,” North American Wildlife Conference speech (transcript), February 7, 1937, NCTC-USFWS Archive, Shepherdstown, WV.

  33.Hartley H. T. Jackson, “Conserving Endangered Wildlife Species,” Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters, Vol. 35 (1944), pp. 61–69.

  34.Bolles, “Wild-Life Laboratory.”

  35.Henry Lyon, “Historic Site Cleared for Suburban Wildlife Haven,” Washington Evening Star, April 10, 1931.

  36.Robert J. Orth and Kenneth A. Moore, “Distribution and Abundance of Submerged Aquatic Vegetation in Chesapeake Bay: An Historical Perspective,” Estuaries, Vol. 7, no. 4 (1984), pp. 531–40.

  37.Ibid.

  38.Rachel Carson, “Guarding Our Wildlife Resources,” Conservation in Action, no. 5 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1948), p. 26. See also “Mr. Wallace: Please Keep It ‘Experimental’!”

  39.Hoagland, Hoagland on Nature, p. 68.

  40.Robert Bruskin, “Effort Is Made to Give Workers Better Prices,” [n.d. 1939], newspaper clippings file, DuPont Papers, NCTC-USFW, Shepherdstown, WV.

  41.Linda Lear, Witness for Nature: The Life and Legacy of Rachel Carson (New York: Henry Holt, 1997), p. 105.

  42.Three of Rachel Carson’s four NWR booklets are “Mattamuskeet: A National Wildlife Refuge,” Conservation in Action, no. 4 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1947); “Parker River: A National Wildlife Refuge,” Conservation in Action, no. 2 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1947); “Chincoteague: A National Wildlife Refuge,” Conservation in Action, no. 1 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1947). A fourth booklet, Guarding Our Wildlife Resources, came out in 1948 and praised FDR’s National Wildlife Refuge System to kingdom come.

  43.Rachel Carson, Under the Sea-Wind (New York: Oxford University Press, 1941); The Sea Around Us (New York: Oxford University Press, 1951); The Edge of the Sea (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1955).

  44.Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962).

  45.The refuges established by FDR in May 1939 included Appert Lake, Billings Lake, Bone Hill Creek, Buffalo Lake, Camp Lake, Canfield Lake, Charles Lake, Dakota Lake, Flickertail, Florence Lake, Half-Way, Hutchinson Lake, Johnson Lake, Lake Moraine, Lake Oliver, Little Goose, Little Lake, Lords Lake, Lost Lake, and Minnewastena.

  46.FDR, speech in Grand Forks, ND, October 4, 1937, FDRL.

  47.U.S. Fish and Wildlife Comprehensive Conservation Plan, North Dakota Limited-Interest National Wildlife Refuges (Lakewood, CO: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, April 2006).

  48.Ibid.

  49.Kathy Tandberg, “Proud to Be a CCC Boy,” The Common: Supplement to Beulah Beacon and Hazen Star, June 17, 1999.

  50.The North Dakota refuges established by FDR in 1939 as a second round include Ardoch, Brumba, Cottonwood Lake, Hiddenwood, Hobart Lake, L
ake George, Lake Ilo, Lake Nettie, Lake Patricia, Lake Zahl, Lambs Lake, Maple River, McLean, Pleasant Lake, Rock Lake, Shell Lake, and Sibley Lake.

  51.Laycock, The Sign of the Flying Goose, pp. 271–74.

  52.Cohen, The Tree Army, p. 152.

  53.Laycock, The Sign of the Flying Goose, pp. 271–73.

  54.Elwyn B. Robinson, History of North Dakota (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1966), pp. 397–409.

  55.National Park Service, “Federal Relief Construction in North Dakota, 1931–1943” (National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Documentation Form, August 2010), http://history.nd.gov/hp/PDFinfo/MPDF%20Complete%20Rev%2010 _2010.pdf.

  56.Davis and Davis, Our Mark on This Land, pp. 223–24.

  57.“The International Peace Garden,” North American Game Warden Museum, accessed March 16, 2015, http://www.gamewardenmuseum.org/PeaceGarden.php.

  58.U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, “Waterfowl Production Areas: Prairie Jewels of the Refuge System,” accessed June 22, 2014, http://nctc.fws.gov/Pubs9/NWRS_waterfowl01.pdf.

  59.Dyana Z. Furmansky, Rosalie Edge, Hawk of Mercy: The Activist Who Saved Nature from the Conservationists (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2010).

  60.“Hawks—Good and Bad,” National Sportsman (August 1940), p. 8.

  61.Brant, Adventures in Conservation with Franklin D. Roosevelt, p. 49.

  62.Bald Eagle Protection Act of 1940, 16 U.S.C. 668–668d, 54 Stat. 250.

  63.Harpers Ferry Center, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, “Perry’s Victory and International Peace Memorial, Long-Range Interpretive Plan,” October 2011, pp. 9–10, http://www.nps.gov/pevi/learn/management/upload/Perrys-Victor y-LRIP_final2Update.pdf.

  64.FDR, Executive Order 7937, Establishing West Sister Island Migratory Bird Refuge, August 2, 1938. Online at American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=61277.

  65.Gary Wedemeyer, “A Brief History of the Western Fisheries Research Center 1934–2006,” USGS Western Fisheries Research Center, last modified July 25, 2013, http://wfrc.usgs.gov/about/history.html.

  66.“1,741,000,000 Trees Planted by CCC,” New York Times, July 3, 1939.

  67.Ibid.

  68.Quoted in Maher, Nature’s New Deal, p. 154.