Beyond Earth Day: Fulfilling the Promise

Appendix 1: Letter to John F. Kennedy

Appendix 1: Letter to John F. Kennedy Appendix 2: Introduction to “Environmental Agenda for Earth Day 1970” Notes Acknowledgments Index Appendix 1 Letter to John F. Kennedy Regarding the president’s proposed resources and conservation tour 163 August 29, 1963 The Honorable John F. Kennedy President of the United States The White House Dear Mr. President: Some time ago you suggested I might send you some ideas respecting your proposed resources and conservation tour. Along with this letter I have enclosed several pages of quotations , some of which may be fitting for your speeches. Though it is likely most everything I might suggest has been considered, I will toss in all that occurs to me in the hope some of it might be useful. The fact that you are going on a nation-wide tour will command great attention for several reasons including the fact that no President has done exactly this before. The question is how to maximize the effect -- how to hit the issue hard enough to leave a permanent impression after the headlines have faded away -- how to shake people, organizations and legislators hard enough to gain strong support for a comprehensive national, state and local long-range plan for our resources. In the very first speech of your tour I think it is important to dramatize the whole issue by stating that you are leaving the Capital to make a nation-wide appeal for the preservation of our vital resources because this is America's last chance. That the next decade or so is in fact our last chance can be documented with a mass of bone chilling statistics -- these statistics and what they mean will paint a picture with a compelling force understandable to everyone. Raehel Carson's book on pesticides is a perfect example of the kind of impact that can be made with specifics. The situation is even worse in this country respecting water pollution , soil erosion, wildlife habitat destruction, vanishing open spaces, shortage of parks, etc. As you well know, for more than a half century, conservationists have been writing, speaking and pleading for the preservation of our resources. Though the public is dimly aware that all around them, here and there, outdoor assets are disappearing, they really don't see the awful dimension of the catastrophe. The real failure has been in political leadership . This is a political issue to be settled at the political level, but strangely politicians seldom talk about it. Now for the first time in fifty years, conservationists have the President speaking for them. Since your voice will be heard, I think you should tell the whole story in your series of speeches. The public should be told: That there is no domestic issue more important to America in the long run than the conservation and proper use of our natural resources, including fresh water, clean air, tillable soil, forests, wilderness, habitat for wildlife, minerals and recreational assets. 164 APPENDIX 1 That, in fact, our destruction of the landscape, the pollution of our air and waters, the overuse and abuse of our outdoor resources has proceeded at a pace in excess of any other culture in history. That we need only look to the Middle East, China and India to see what happens to a culture and economy when it destroys its resources. That the urgency of the issue right now is that the pace of our destruction has accelerated in the past 20 years and we have only another 10 or 15 years in which to take steps to conserve what is left. Theodore Roosevelt said 50 years ago: "...There is no question now before the nation of equal gravity with the question of the conservation of our natural resources." There have been many other similar warnings before and since. But day in and day out, America has been too preoccupied with other problems to retain a sense of urgency about the crisis in our natural resources. Recently, Brooks Atkinson, in the New York Times, reported: "No doubt, the history of American civilization could be written in terms of our changing attitudes toward nature. In 300 years we have passed through three significant stages: (1) indifference or hostility to nature; (2) romantic delight in nature, and now, (3) fear that man, the great predator, may destroy nature and civilization at the same...