near "Old Rag" in Shenandoah National Park in 1956
The death of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy reminds us of the important roles that he and President John F. Kennedy played in the enactment of the Wilderness Act of 1964 — and reminds us, too, of so many other wilderness heroes whose memory lives on through their achievements in wilderness conservation.
The proposed Wilderness Act had been before Congress for four years when President Kennedy took office in January 1961, but the legislation had made little progress. Having endorsed the bill during his campaign, President Kennedy made it a top priority of his New Frontier conservation policy. With that impetus, the bill passed the Senate in September 1961. However, when the House of Representatives failed to act, the bill died at the end of the 87th Congress in 1962.
The Senate passed the Wilderness Act again promptly in the new Congress, in April 1963 — with the newly-elected Senator Edward M. Kennedy adding his vote to the overwhelming bipartisan support. After personal lobbying by President Kennedy right up to the week before his death, it passed the House of Representatives, to be signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on September 3, 1964.
With the death of Senator Kennedy, only two senators are still serving who were there to support the Wilderness Act four decades ago — Sen. Robert Byrd (D) of West Virginia and Sen. Daniel Inouye (D) of Hawaii — and just one member of the House, Rep. John Dingell (D) of Michigan.
The list of leaders in Congress who worked for the success of the Wilderness Act reflects the nationwide support and bipartisan tradition in wilderness conservation that continues to this day — Congressman John P. Saylor (R) of Pennsylvania, Senator Hubert H. Humphrey (D) and Congressman Al Quie (R) of Minnesota, Senators James Murray (D) and Lee Metcalf (D), and Congressman James Battin (R) of Montana, Senator Thomas Kuchel (R) of California; Senator Richard Neuberger (D) of Oregon, and Senator Clinton Anderson (D) of New Mexico, among many others.
There has also been a rich history of gifted conservation leaders working to develop the crucial concepts for effective wilderness protection policies. This Hall of Fame features Aldo Leopold and Bob Marshall, who worked for wilderness protection within the U.S. Forest Service in the 1920s and 1930s, respectively. These were two of the eight leaders who founded The Wilderness Society in 1935. Over the following two decades, leaders of the Society and its close partners in the Sierra Club, the National Wildlife Federation, the National Parks Association, the Izaak Walton League, and the National Audubon Society worked together to develop and refine the elements and wording for legislation to protect wilderness areas — Howard Zahniser, Benton MacKaye, Harvey Broome, Kenneth Reid, Sigurd Olson, Olaus and Mardy Murie, Thomas Kimball, Ernest Griffith, Charlotte Mauk, Charles Callison, Stewart Brandborg, David Brower, Polly Dyer, George Marshall, Mike Nadel, and Peggy and Edgar Wayburn.
These leaders, and scores of others, made fundamental contributions to our national wilderness preservation policy, and their pioneering work is reflected in the rich diversity of the hundreds of wilderness areas now protected by the Wilderness Act all across the country. They have set a fine example for the next generation of “wilderness warriors.”
