NEW BREED of OUTLAWS

By James Bishop, Jr.
(August 20, 2018)

Is Montezuma Castle Safe?
What about the Verde Valley?

Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches, or its romance.
– Theodore Roosevelt

In 1907, in a message to Congress, archconservative Teddy Roosevelt issued this dictum: “To waste, to destroy, our natural sources, to skin, and exhaust the land …will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought to hand down to them amplified.”

Despite hellish pressure from influential oil, copper and asbestos interests that fought and often-blocked legislation Roosevelt needed, he still became a man who changed history. Using the powers of the Antiquities Act, he set aside 800,000 acres of Grand Canyon. Speaking of its value as a cultural treasure,  he told visitors: “Keep this great wonder of nature as it now is. You cannot improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it.” 

In 1919, that wonder of the world was upgraded to a national park, thus protected from the slings and arrows of Man’s desire to bulldoze it and its environs forever.

Despite his death in 1919, it was believed that many treasured places in the Four Corners region had been saved and would not be lost to greed so generations down ahead would be able to savor western history.

In the shadows were oil, coal, and mining forces, out foxed by Roosevelt this time.  But waiting in the wings,  hoping the conservation leader, the Harvard man they dubbed “A wild-eyed revolutionary, ” would be forgotten down the line. Then the public lands would become private again so that drilling and corporate bulldozers and massive development would take over in Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona.

However,  there was his amazing legacy that his adversaries had to deal with. Using his authority to protect wildlife and public lands he had created the U.S. Forest Service, 150 forests, 51 federal bird reserves, 4 national game preserves, 5 national parks, 18 national monuments by enabling the 1906 American Antiquities Act. During his presidency, 230 million acres of public land were protected.

Imagine the reaction of The Bull Moose—his favorite nickname — were he to return to learn that an assault is in the works on Grand Canyon, legendary Chaco Canyon, Bear’s Ears National Monument, Grand Staircase Escalante  always  ignoring their Federal mission to protect significant cultural resources— and avoiding the Congress.

What has happened to Teddy’s fervor for preserving national landmarks of beauty, grandeur, and history? Facts speak for themselves: Is nothing sacred to the new White House? “Why get in a sweat about developing ruins, are they not already ruins?” asked a colleague of a reporter in D.C.

White House go-getters are determined to lease and develop every acre they possible can,  which will minimize the potential for conserving these landscapes in the future, all in a way to bring back coal production   and oil drilling even to the Sacred grounds of Chaco Canyon.  

Wouldn’t Roosevelt be ashamed of what the government is doing?

How ironic it is that what Roosevelt’s own party now leads the charge to launch uranium mining on 1 million acres close to Grand Canyon Park.  If a flash flood were to sweep 66,000 pounds of uranium into the Colorado River, it would increase the water’s uranium content to dangerous levels. Already, arsenic levels higher than normal are being detected in the Colorado due to earlier uranium operations—many Navajo workers have not been paid for their dangerous work.

Truth be told, it would take a much longer piece to describe the destruction of Teddy’s contribution that has been made to our culture.

To put it mildly, the conversation movement launched with his heart and soul leadership is under siege. So are programs dealing with climate change and wild life protection. As for cleaner energy, a White House staffer was heard to say, “Wind energy? We are against it, it kills birds.”    Rumor has it that a congressman is eying the Verde Valley to wipe out rules and launch development. Clearly today’s outlaws don’t need six guns to get their way, just ask the White House who never heard of Teddy.

A few years ago, Barry Goldwater told me that he had reached the conclusion that,  “while large industry is important, fresh air and clean water are more important, the day may come when have to lay that kind of hand on the table, and see who is bluffing”.

Nobody is bluffing about the imminent destruction of treasured places of American history. “In decades to come,” states the New Yorker’s Elizabeth Kolbert, expert on climate change and Southwest history, “one can hope that many of the Trump government mistakes …will be rectified. But the destruction of the country’s last unspoiled places is a loss that can never be reversed.”