We Are Not Just Toying With Nature

Progressive, The, Jan, 1999 by Gaylord Nelson

Thirty-two years ago in 1966, a thirteen-year-old seventh-grader introduced me to an assembly of his Marshall Junior High School in Janesville, Wisconsin. After the event, he promised he would introduce me again sometime. Well, as we know, honorable politicians always keep their promises, albeit rather slowly sometimes. As a man of his word, Russ Feingold fulfilled that promise. Thirty-two years later, he introduced me at a colloquium sponsored by the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters last April. He just wanted to wait until he held my old Senate seat.

I'd like to make a brief comment on the courageous bipartisan fight Russ Feingold and John McCain, Republican of Arizona, have made in Washington against powerful odds in behalf of campaign finance reform. This is a matter of urgent concern to all of us because it goes to the heart of what responsible governance is all about.

What we have now is a debilitating corruption of the political system. Both parties are equally guilty and appear equally unable or unwilling to do anything about it. In recent years, each party has had control of Congress, and neither has been willing to act.

It is time for right-thinking Democrats, Republicans, and Independents to join hands in a drive to reform the system. If people are to reclaim control, they must take their government off the auction block where the public interest is being bought and sold by those special interests with the biggest campaign funds.

When I was first elected to the legislature fifty years ago, the political playing field was much more user-friendly than it is today. Fraternizing between Republicans and Democrats in those days was not a treasonable offense, and rigid ideologues and their organizations didn't have such influence on the political agenda. Republicans and Democrats would debate and wrangle all day, and at sundown sensibly move to the nearest pub to continue our friendly disputations on into the night.

The atmosphere of friendly collegiality is gone. That's too bad. Trust and respect for diversity of opinion are the stable underpinnings of any democratic institution and, even more so, of legislative bodies such as the Congress.

There was a time when voters viewed even their politicians somewhat favorably and with tolerable trust and a sense of humor.

When I was governor many years ago, and we had just passed a bipartisan tax bill, I received a letter from an outraged constituent, a Mr. Jensen, president of the Janesville Sand and Gravel Company, denouncing me as a modern-day Benedict Arnold. In a fit of irritation, I responded in kind, saying, "Dear Mr. Jensen, I have received your irrational letter, and I must say you sound emotionally disturbed to me. I suggest you consult a psychiatrist." Mr. Jensen promptly wrote back, saying, "Dear Governor Nelson, I appreciate your suggestion that I consult a psychiatrist--please send me the name of whomever you're using."

Since Earth Day 1970, newspaper reporters frequently ask what turned my interest to the environment. The answer is, I have no notion. It happened gradually over time--by osmosis, I suppose, the same way people become interested in classical music.

When I was growing up, Clear Lake was a village of some 670 in northwest Wisconsin (now ballooned to 950), sixty miles east of the Twin Cities. Several years ago on the occasion of his 100th birthday, my old friend Bert Goodspeed said, "When I came to Clear Lake eighty years ago there was a whole lot of nothing up here, and there still is." That was, and is, its strong point. The whole lot of nothing consisted mostly of three little lakes surrounded by dairy farms--Mud Lake at the end of Main Street on the east side of town, and at the west side Little Clear Lake and Big Clear Lake. The lakes were occupied by fish, turtles, cattails, and muskrat houses. Every fall and spring, migrating geese and ducks stopped by. There was enough going on around those lakes to keep us busy and stoke our interest in the works of Mother Nature.

By the time I went to the governor's office after ten years in the legislature, the environmental challenge had climbed to the top of my agenda and was, I thought, far more important than any other issue, including issues of war and peace. That is still my view.

In the governor's office, we successfully proposed a levy of a one-cent cigarette tax with the ultimate objective of acquiring a million acres of park, recreation, wetlands, and wildlife habitat. The idea has survived with bipartisan support for thirty-seven years. Upon election to the U.S. Senate, it was my good fortune to secure assignment to both the Interior and the Public Works committees, which had jurisdiction over most environmental legislation. From that vantage point, it became possible, finally, to give permanent protection to my favorite river, the St. Croix, and the beautiful Apostle Islands by passing legislation including both of them within the National Park System.

It also became feasible from that vantage point to successfully push through legislation establishing a National Hiking Trails system and to preserve the world-class 2,000-mile Appalachian Trail by authorizing the purchase of all the private lands crossed by the trail from Maine to Georgia. When the legislation passed, more than 800 miles of the Trail crossed private lands. As of this year, only thirty-three miles of additional private land acquisitions are needed to permanently protect the Trail.