America the Beautiful

The national park system is so diverse and dispersed, it is difficult to explain its scope and meaning to Americans and to communicate the need for its constant protection and care. But one little moment from the near past may help.

On a fall day more than 15 years ago, Lady Bird Johnson flew from sea to shining sea as part of her personal campaign to preserve and enhance the beauty of America. She began the day with a walk along the Atlantic beaches of Florida, the morning sun glistening off the facets of tiny grains of sand. That evening, as dusk fell, the First Lady went for a private walk along the Pacific shore in Humboldt County on California’s rugged North Coast. The next morning, Mrs. Johnson would formally dedicate the Redwood National Park. She was as alone as a President’s wife can be. Her Secret Service protectors and a single photographer maintained a respectful distance.

No one could guess her thoughts. But it would be difficult for even a sophisticated and traveled First Lady not to be moved by the experience of flying coast to coast in a single day and spanning, symbolically, the entirety and diversity of the American national park system. These are, quite literally, shrines of our cultural and historical heritage as well as the nation’s grandest natural wonders: from the Statue of Liberty to the Golden Gate, from Cape Cod to the Redwoods, from Valley Forge and Vicksburg to the Little Big Horn, from Independence Hall and the very White House where Mrs. Johnson lived to the wilds of the Grand Tetons or the North Cascades.

In the deepening shadows of the redwoods that fall twilight, the distant onlookers began to hear a quiet voice over the lapping noise of the waves. It was indistinct at first, but soon became stronger and recognizable. The First Lady was humming to herself; humming an intensely familiar tune and and possibly saying the words in her mind . . . “Oh beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, for purple mountain majesties . . . “

This quiet moment on the Pacific shore nearly two decades ago may sum up as well as any illusion the meaning and restorative force of the national parks, described once by Wallace Stegner as “absolutely American, absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best.”

Indeed, the park system has endured since 1968. It has grown, thanks to Mrs. Johnson’s husband and his successors, and it has undergone struggle and change and even political turmoil from within.

Today, the park system is beset with modern challenges that threaten to make it less than the best that future Americans deserve to inherit. In particular, the pressures and pollution of civilization are eroding the boundaries of the vast wilderness parks of the West to the point that they no longer may fulfill Henry David Thoreau’s promise, “In wildness is the preservation of the world.”

But today, also, there is fresh hope for the parks. The Conservation Foundation has just published a 407-page book entitled “National Parks for a New Generation.” It is an expert and exhaustive study of the problems facing the park system and proposed solutions--modest, achievable solutions. The book is commended to every member of Congress and every citizen as a realistic plan of action for preservation of the parks.

Even more encouraging is the recent pledge of the new National Park Service director, William Penn Mott of California, that when it comes to the parks, there can be no compromise. “We’ve got to err on the side of preservation,” he said. This is the message that those who love the parks, and realize the dangers they face, have been waiting to hear. This is the legacy of Thoreau, of Theodore Roosevelt, of Franklin Roosevelt, of Lady Bird Johnson, waiting to be carried into a new generation. This is the legacy of America the Beautiful.