Transcripts For CSPAN3 Barry Goldwater The Conservationist 20141227

Veterans reflecting on their experience, sunday at 4 00 p. M. Eastern time here on cspan3s American History tv. Coming up next, exploring former senator Barry Goldwaters commitment to environmental preservation and look at how his commitment evolved over time. The Kansas City Public Library hosted this hourlong event. Good evening and welcome to the Kansas City Public Library. I am henry fortunato, director of public affairs. I want to thank you all for participating in my ongoing Stealth Campaign to provide speaking opportunities for all of my buds from graduate school. All the guys i went to graduate school with at the university of kansas. Tonights interest in that category is Brian Allen Drake an upandcoming environmental historian who studied under the incomparable donald wurster, and now, he is a lecturer in history at the university of georgia but before i tell you anymore any more about him, let me introduce the topic of his talk adapting an opening line that another of our fellow graduate students used every fall on the first day of the undergraduate history classes that he taught. 100 years from now, he would say, all of you will be dead. Hows that for a wake up at 8 00 in the morning for sleepy undergraduates . 100 years from now, all of you will be dead, and unless you accomplish something utterly extraordinary or perpetuate some horrible evil, the odds are that no one that alive will remember you. He would then go on to say that even if you do get into that rarefied zone where your name lives on, the odds are it will be as a caricature, which is to say you will be remembered all right, but possibly for the wrong thing. Which brings us to Barry Goldwater. 50 years ago today today right now the then senator from arizona known as mr. Conservative accepted the republican nomination for president at the cal palace in san francisco. Only two things about that moment in time i generally remembered. First, eighth raise from goldwaters speech, which and its mangled form go Something Like this extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. Second, the fact that goldwater went on to suffer and elect world defeat of landslide proportions at the hands of Lyndon Johnson. But what if we are remembering Barry Goldwater for the wrong things . What if there is a different Barry Goldwater, someone who wrestled with apparent contradictions between his intellectual believes in limited government and his personal attachment to the great outdoors. That, in a nutshell, i think is the question that brian drake is going to explore in tonights presentation. An original lecture developed just for us titled very goldwater the conscience of a conservationist. His talk draws on his first and recently published book, loving nature, fearing mistakes environmentalism before antigovernment politics and reagan. It is for sale after this talk and he will be selling copies. One last comment before i depart a month for now, it will be hard to believe 15 years since i went back to school to begin work on what i called my middleage masters degree. Ryan drake brian drake was in post of my first two classes that semester. I was struck by the cogency of his arguments and his unerring ability to decipher the point of the assigned readings, which well, many of which were rather opaque and somewhat slow going. Then when we started to write papers, which were p are reviewed by other class members, i was struck again by his phenomenal talent for writing, his ability to produce scholarly work that was totally accessible. Brian had cracked the code, the first one in both classes to do so. Some people never quite figured it out, but i digress. In his remarks tonight, i have no doubt he will demonstrate that talent or all of you for all of you. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome brian drake. [applause] thank you. Thank you very much. Let me begin by saying a few things about henry, who is one of the most hes one of the smartest, wittiest people i know. He is a treasure. You are lucky to have him here. Thank you very much for those comments. I also wanted to say, as well, it is a thrill to be in kansas city. I love this town. This is a great town. And i love this region. Im a big fan of the great plains, and ive been reminded of that over the last 48 hours or so. Just what a great place it is. So thank you for that. I think its time to cut to the chase. I wondered if we might begin by hearing those famous words of Barry Goldwater from 50 years ago today at cow palace. If we could cue that video to begin, or not. [laughter] i will remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. [applause] let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. There they are, and they are in somewhat edited form. Before i talk about that, let me tell you about myself. As henry mentioned im an , environmental historian. What that means is i study the influence of nature on Human History and the reciprocal human influence on nature. What do people think about nature, how do they treat nature, and how does nature respond in turn and affect us . Its sort of back and forth. Its one of my favorite historical topics. When i was in graduate school, i got interested particularly in the environment movement, who became an environmentalist, why did they become an environmentalist, what happens when other parts of their lives intersect with their environmentalism, and particularly, i got fascinated by people who became environmentalists that you would never expect. You can kind of see where this is going. One of the things i love about historical study is one heck torah the historical actors go off script and they do things you do not expect. To like the fact that people are complicated. That is a truism in real life. Its a truism for a reason. People are complicated. I wanted to explore that. My two interests came together in my book, and they come together in this talk today. I want to explore the complicated world of arizona senator and environmentalist Barry Goldwater who accepted the republican nomination for president 50 years ago today. The complicated world of Barry Goldwater if you remember Barry Goldwater, complicated is not a word that is usually associated with the senator from arizona. It might even elicit a laugh. The classic image of goldwater of course, this is one of his Campaign Posters the classic image looks Something Like this. Barry goldwater was extremely conservative, predictably and extremely conservative. The distilled essence of political conservatism. An opponent of the new deal. That equally vociferous opponent of Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society, opposed to welfare, opposed to regulation, opposed to excessive taxes, a defender of traditional morality, an opponent of unions, militantly anticommunist, a supporter of the military, etc. And so forth. We can just take them off take them off tick them off. Put together, he almost emerges as a cardboard cutout, a statue, an ideology attached to a warm body, uncompromising aggressive, perhaps even according to his critics dangerously so. You can see that in just a couple film clips that i would like to show you. Can we run the communism video . This is from a great website called living room candidates. This is the 1964 campaign commercial from senator goldwater. Hand over your heart, ready begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america [foreign language] and the republic for which it stands, one nation, under god [foreign language] liberty and justice for all. I want American Kids to grow up as americans, and they will if we have the guts to make our intentions clear, so clear they dont need translation or interpretation, just respect for a country prepared as no country in all of history ever was. In your heart, you know hes right. Vote for Barry Goldwater. There is his Famous Campaign motto. Needless to say, this very intense anticommunism meme made people very nervous. The Johnson Campaign took full advantage of this. If we could run just another weapon, please. This is a Lyndon Johnson campaign commercial from that same year. [explosion] on october 20 4 1963, Barry Goldwater said of the nuclear bomb, merely another weapon. Merely another weapon . Vote for president johnson. The stakes are too high for you to stay home. And the next 1 yeah the next one is a little more fancy. More famous. You may remember this. This is the infamous daisy commercial of 1964. If we could run that, as well. Its a little bit longer. One, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 6, 6, 8 9 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. [explosion] these are the stakes. To make a world in which all of gods children can live, or to go into the darkness. We must either love each other or we must die. Vote for president johnson on november 3. The stakes are too high for you to stay at home. Maybe the most famous political cartoon in all of American History. Youll notice goldwater is not mentioned by name. It is sort of understood you are supposed to know who was being referred to. Barry goldwater scared many democrats, and he scared many republicans, as well. Id like to finish. One more commercial before we get into the meat of this. This one is lesser well known. Note theres an environmental element here. This is a commercial called ice cream. They use to explode atomic bombs in the air. Children should have lots of vitamin a and calcium, but they shouldnt have any other chemicals. These things come from atomic bombs, and they are radioactive. They can make you die. Do you know what people finally did . They got together and signed a Nuclear Test Ban treaty, and then the radioactive poisons started to go away. But now there is a man who wants to be president of the United States, and he doesnt like this treaty. He fought against it. He even voted against it. He wants to go on testing more bombs. His name is Barry Goldwater, and if he is elected, they might Start Testing all over again. Vote for president johnson on november 3. The stakes are too high for you to stay home. In 1964, as in 2014, we dont expect nuance in our political ads, adsnd ads from both sides were misleading. Lyndon johnson was not a socialist dictator. Not Joseph Stalin with a texas drawl. And Barry Goldwater was not a warmonger. Hey dr. Strangeloveesquetype character. In fact, if you look at his whole life, his whole political life, what you find is that Barry Goldwater often went off and very interesting and unexpected directions. He was a more supple thinker than he was given credit for. Not just by his opponents but also by his supporters. Some examples that you are familiar with at the end of his life, he broke with the Republican Party over the influence of the religious right. He was not a fan of Jerry Falwell and pat robertson. He championed the right of gay people to serve in the military, supported a democrat in 1992 when karen english ran for congress. He was a supporter of planned parenthood for his entire life. He was also a member of the naacp, which was dashing white supporters of segregation, maybe the most hated organization in the country. He even had a warm reputation we forgot this picture, this is from his 1968 Senate Campaign great picture. There he is in his backyard in this photograph. Goldwater, of course, was a good friend with one of his blog one of his big political rivals, john kennedy. They talked about campaigning together. Imagine that. Going on the campaign trail and debating each other but still remaining friends. So, back to the commercial, the last one that i showed the idea that goldwaters election would be an environmental disaster is especially relevant to this idea of goldwater being complicated. We are going to see the famous maverick streak of the senator verizon extended to environmental issues. Let me begin by telling you a little bit about Barry Goldwater. Barry goldwater was born in phoenix, arizona, first of january, 1909. He was the son of a welltodo Department Store owner named baron goldwater. He was an adventurous kid, a little wild, maybe a lot wild. He ended up in military school in stanton, new fruit virginia because of this. He loved to do all the things that boys did. Like pranks, run around with his buddies. He loves to camp. He loved to hunt. An area around child that mountain you will see Camelback Mountain, the most famous natural icon in phoenix. This is a picture of it in the early 1900s as Barry Goldwater would have seen it. It is covered in houses mostly now. Wideopen spaces, and these had a significant influence on goldwater for the whole of his life. These useful experiences in the desert are going to shape his environmentalism as an adult. Let me tell you a little thing about his mother, who was crucial to this. Josephine goldwater was from nebraska. She moved to arizona because she had tuberculosis. The idea was that the clear, invigorating air of arizona would cure you or at least make things a little bit less intense. She did not expect to live long. She ended up living for several decades. She met baron goldwater, married him, had three children, and she loved nature. Deeply. One of the things she loved to do was to go on car camping trips. This was in the 1920s. This is the era in which we first had car camping. Camping used to be the domain of the wealthy. You got on a train, and you went to yosemite. Now you get in your model t, and you head out to the desert. That is what she did. She took her kid with them. I believe that is Barry Goldwater at the wheel. He did a lot of driving on these trips. There they are crossing the Colorado River on their way over to southern california. One of these many trips that they took. Joan goldwater pointed out the beauties of nature. She was not an intensely religious woman, but she believed god was present mostly in his creation. She was very keen to point that out. That real church, so to speak, was the wild. That was a lesson that Barry Goldwater took part. Took to heart. Just some really wonderful experiences. As barry got older, he continued in this tradition. He picked up a rifle. This is Barry Goldwater on the left, rifle in hand. That is his younger brother bob and his younger sister carolyn. His mother is on the left. The other two folks are unidentified. This is one of their many camping trips. As he became an adult, he continued this and got into photography. When he got married, his wife gave him one for one of his first christmas gifts. Around the arizona countryside. He also learned to fly, and he would take aerial pictures. He became pretty quickly a really remarkable artist. This is something we didnt always appreciate. In 1940, he published what would be the first of several books of photography. He was accepted into the Royal Society of photographers on the basis of this book. Got a couple of shots here. There he is. I love this shot of him in his levis taking a picture of an arch somewhere in arizona. He was a big fan of the four corners area. As you can tell. Like this one as well, circa 1940. Take a look at some of these pictures. These next three shots are shots excuse me, one more this is later in life, wearing those same levis at his house in scottsdale with his camera cactus, and american flag. I wanted this to be my book cover, but we went with something else. This is one of his shots. I love this one. Hes not ansell adams, but hes not bad. They were very different politically, but they shared a love for this kind of photography. I think this is just a wonderful shot. My favorite maybe of all is this one, Monument Valley in arizona. Look at those clean lines. This is a man who has an eye for light and shadow and denied for that pristine ansell adamsesque look. I love this photograph. One of my favorites. One more he was also famous for photographing native people. This is a navajo man that may be his most famous and most reproduced photograph, this not a whole man. Long before he got interested in politics, long before he became a politician, he was a man who was thinking about the wilderness, thinking about nature. Briefly, he goes off to military school in virginia, comes back home to go to the university of arizona. He does not finish because his father dies, and he takes over the goldwater store. He ends up being a businessman. Gets married himself, has three children, and gets his career as a conservative. Deeply opposed to Franklin Delano roosevelt. Did not like their new deal for a variety of reasons. Editorializes against it in the arizona republic. Im getting ahead of myself. This one will be appropriate. Round about this time, 1939, 1940, he got a chance to go on a trip to the grand canyon. The Colorado River was a different place in 1940. There was only one dam on it hoover dam. The rest of the river ran wild. Not many people in 1940 had gone down it. Goldwater would be a member of the 13th expedition to go down the Colorado River and the 73rd person. He joined one of the expeditions in the summer of 1940, and darned if he didnt make it all the way through the grand canyon. It was an incredible experience for him. He kept a journal, and he took a lot of photographs. I want to read an entry from his journal on that trip. And i quote the tall spires near the rim looked as though god had reached out and wiped a brush of golden paint across them, gilding those rocs in the bright glow of setting sun. Below the heights, the canyon is filled with the blue haze not unlike smoke. The river winds. Soft cumulus clouds tinted with the soft pastel shades of evening. Thats astonishing. I dont think that is something we associate with Something Like Barry Goldwater. Who knew about this lyricism and his love for the canyon . He loved the grand canyon, i think, above all natural features. His love for that place comes out strongly in this. He took his camera with him, as i mentioned. He took a Motion Picture camera and a still camera. He took hundreds of photographs, 3000 feet of moving picture, and he went on a speaking tour after he emerged from the canyon. There were times when he was showing the film and pictures five times a day. Over 10,000 people saw it in the year or so after he went through the grand canyon. This, i would argue, had at least something to do with his political success. He decided to run for the Phoenix City Council in 1948. People were going to vote for him primarily on the issues. He was concerned about corruption and excessive government and concerned about a probusiness atmosphere. People voted for him for those reasons, but i think they voted for him partly because he was the man who ran the canyon. He used to fly in his aircraft at campaign stops. That was a romantic image, the cowboy image, the outdoorsman image. I think it was crucial. He had the canyon as a backdrop. He finds out he has a talent for politics, and he decides in 1952 to run for senate. Lo and behold, he wins. This is something of a bellwether. Democrats had always dominated the state of arizona, and now we have a repulsion junior senator in 1952. This is portending the shifts that have brought us the current political map. He knocked off senator mcfadden. As a young senator, he gets a lot of the dirty jobs, the ones no one wants to do. He has to do the reelection tour, going around and giving speeches and eating rubber chicken. His agenda at the time was typically conservative. When he spoke on the floor of the senate, he railed against labor unions. He was very anticommunist, as you know. He was not an environmentalist as we would recognize it today. We are going to get there. It means im going to switch gears for just a second. I want to tell you a little bit about environmentalism. That is important, as well. We are going to go back. I often tell my students environmentalism is a product of the 60s the 1860s. Environmentalism is very old. If you go back far enough, you can go back and see what we will recognize as environmentalism. Its a very old movement. As the Industrial Revolution picks up steam and gets bigger and bigger, what you see is more environmental damage. What we got in the turnofthecentury, an era called the progressive era, we got the emergence of what is known as conservation. Conservation is first the first organized Environmental Movement in america. What a conservationist was, they were a reformer, usually middleclass, and they believed in a few principles. One was that the Industrial Revolution was destroying natural resources. They were not opposed to growth. No one interpreted it as an antigrowth, but the idea that the growth was done in an unsustainable way, as we would say today. We need to ameliorate those problems. What we need to do is have scientific experts, the conservationists said, working for the government to manage resources in a way that they didnt disappear, that we would avoid timber scarcity and so on. Have you ever wondered where the u. S. Forest Service Comes from or the bureau of reclamation or the bureau of land management, every federal bureaucracy . It emerges from this period. Its very progovernment. It believes the government has a duty, in fact, to do what it can to manage resource development. Here is one of the big ironies. Conservation had a political home, a partisan home in the Republican Party. This was an idea strongest in the gop. You think of Teddy Roosevelt as the greatest example. Its a republican movement. I will touch on that later. Some conservationists also said, we should preserve land not for economic reasons but just because its beautiful and spiritual. We should have wilderness areas and national parks. They were called preservationists. Sometimes, they would fight. Inside the conservation movement, there were progress people and then wilderness reservationist people. It was a civil war, very angry at one another. By the time Barry Goldwater is on the scene, conservation is the dominant environmental ethic. This is the philosophy informing how everyone inside and outside the government, how they treat the natural world. When goldwater starts out, he is a conservationist. He believes very much in economic growth. He was an avid champion of economic growth. He was, in fact, an avid an intense advocate of what was called reclamation. Forgive me if this is too simple. If you are far enough west in georgia, they dont always know about reclamation conservationists often believed that rivers that were not dammed were wasted. They should be tamed. Rivers should be made to work for the good of the country. The way we tame a river, we put a damper on it. The government got involved ind dam building. Starting in 1902. This was the idea that have formed the new deal. The new dealers and roosevelt loved their dams. Who already believed in an aggressive government. They gravitated to this naturally. Goldwater gravitated to it as well. As an arizona in who wanted Economic Prosperity in a place without water, he recognize that federal reclamation had to happen. This put him in an interesting situation because it is only the government they can build these really massive dams. You have goldwater in an awkward position of demanding the federal government built dams in the west. At the same time, as he was lambasting the Tennessee Valley authority, he calls it galloping socialism. Because there is creeping collectivism and galloping socialism. Sort of socialism on the dead run, basically. He did some ideological gymnastics to pull that off, i think. He would temporarily transform into a loose constructionist of the constitution to deal with that. You look at some of the major dams. He supported what was called the echo park dam in the 1950s. Problem with the dam is it was right in the middle of Dinosaur National park. It was defeated in 1956 after an intense fight, a bunch of environmental groups fought it. He was a big champion of the dam. He said it is not going to destroy the us that exam we need the water. It will not destroy the aesthetics. He was a big supporter of the Central Arizona project in bridge canyon. I dont know if anybody knows about this, but it brings water from lake havisu to phoenix. Its cold generating plant that powers water. He was going to be a dam built inside grand Canyon National park. That would never fly today. As you can imagine, even then, the uproar was intense. Goldwater, a man who loved the grand canyon, was a supporter. He said, dont worry. Its going to be fine. As i was saying before, he is not an environmentalist yet. He goes against the wilderness act of 1964. It created the official government wilderness designation which you see today. He was a big opponent of that, but not for the reasons you might expect. This is where you start to see the very flicker of Barry Goldwater the environmentalist. He said i am opposed to the wilderness act because i love wilderness so much. What an act will do, it will be like a fourstar rating. If you make an area a wilderness area, everyone will want to go there. When they do that, they will destroy it through overuse. Better to leave it alone. It is a very interesting argument. Has a lot of merit, because in places like the grand canyon that is what has happened. Its been loved to death. He warned that would happen. So, moving on, in 1964, he decides to run for president. Got a couple of shots here. There he is giving a speech. Classic goldwater look here. Like this one as well. There he had a bluegrass brand tour with him called the goldwaters. Folk music and 9064 was not usually associated with conservatives. This was a conservative version of that. This was a goldwater girl. Does not appear to be hillary clinton, who was one. But the results getting ahead of myself. The results were not good for Barry Goldwater. He was beaten severely. Here is the map. Just a couple of things. He funded his campaign partially through the sale of a book of photography called the face of arizona. It is beautiful. I have been fortunate enough to see this thing. A white leather bound book with all kinds of photographs captioned by the senator himself. Fabulous. Pictures. Its a kind of book that any environmentalist would be proud to own today. I like that. That is really interesting that he is funding his campaign with this. 2500 and you got one of the first 100 autographed copies. Thats quite a bit of money, of course, in those days. But, second of all, after goldwater goes down to significant defeat, the only place he wins is his home state and the deep self. Deep south. I always tell my students why did a jewish republican member of the naacp when the south . Because were in the middle of a very important lyrical shift. Political shift. Thats for another lecture we are in the middle of a very important political shift. This is Camelback Mountain today surrounded by suburban sprawl. You will notice there is no development on the mountain. One of the reasons is because of Barry Goldwater. He was associated with in one of the main organizers of a group called save the Camelback Mountain foundation. They went around collecting money, working with landowners to buy the rights to preserve this mountain untouched. They were successful. One of the ironies is they had to rely on land and Water Conservation fund to help them. Because they could not raise enough money. But goldwater, for four years, worked very hard to keep development off Camelback Mountain. You can go hiking there today. It is a fabulous hiike. A little tough but a wonderful view. He said, this old mountain is worth the fight. He was preserving landscape in phoenix. In the mid1960s when he was out of the political ieye. So, lets go back, though, to, there we go to history again. Now, after world war ii is when conservation starts to become what we would call today environmentalism. Couple things are going on. In the 1950s, we have massive in the 1960s, we have massive economic growth. Creates a big middle class. What do middleclass people want to do . They have got money and they want to spend it. They want to buy tvs and automobiles and take their automobile and go on a road trip to the national parks. They want environmental amenities they want natural experiences as part of their lifestyle. They began organizing, asking, insisting that their government do things to protect those environments they like. And so, you start to get in the suburbs, i have a friend who wrote a book about this what you get in the suburbs is the birth of environmentalism. Environmentalism i would not call it a radical movement, but it emerges out of the least radical population, the middle class. And it becomes very strong. And people get interested in sprawl and green space and clean air and water and so on and so forth. And liberals pick up on this. Lyndon johnson, if you read the Great Society speech he talks about preserving the natural world. Liberals begin to associate they begin to see themselves as defenders not just of the working class and unions but of the middleclass and the amenities of the middleclass lifestyle. The affluent lifestyle. Lyndon johnson picks up on this. They begin to adopt environmentalism. This is the origin of liberal environmentalism, that the government has the ute to protect nature has a duty to protect nature. Four peoples use and enjoyment. Then comes the protests of the late 1960s, antivietnam protests and the civil right movement. So on and so forth. Those things infuse the Environmental Movement and give it new vigor and son on on. By 1970, you have things like earth day. April 22. You have a slew of legislation like the Clean Air Act and a little bit later the clean water act. The endangered species act. All sorts of things. The development of the epa in 1970. On and on. All the major pieces of environmental legislation emerge from this period and signed by richard nixon, ardently the secondmost most important environmental president after Teddy Roosevelt. Also, a republican. Did not actually like environmentalists. He tended to see voters, though, when he looked at earth day rallies. Things have changed. It is very different in 1970 the 1964. Dairy goldwater is influenced by this. He is deeply influenced by all this. Hes influenced by some of his personal experiences as well. In 1969, he was flying into an air force base and he cannot see because of the smog. He had to land on estimates. He was freaked out by this. He wrote a letter to his friend, he said, i could not believe what i had to do. Our air pollution problem is hitting out of hand. He also noted while he was flying that there is everywhere, everywhere, he called it gouging and cutting from suburban growth. This makes me nervous. We should do something about it. Just like every other american. He is getting concerned. He is very mainstream when it comes to his response to environmental problems. Listen to this. When i first read this quote, i had one of those moments that historians have for you think smoking gun. Bing it does not happen very often. You have to create the smoking gun with the evidence. But listen to this. He wrote a book called conscience of the majority. He wrote, it was the usual goldwater stuff until you got to the nexttolast chapter. The chapter was called saving the earth. Listen to this paragraph. I happen to be one who has spent much of his public life defending the business community, the Free Enterprise system, and local governments from harassment and encroachment from an outside federal bureaucracy. Thus, it is that my attitude on the question of pollution seems to have caused more interest. I am frank about how i feel. I have discussed it with newspapers and in speeches and on nationally televised talk shows. I feel very definitely that the Nixon Administration is absolutely correct in crackign d ngd down on companies and municipalities to continue to pollute the nations air and water. While i am a great believer in the free competitive air enterprise system, i am an Even Stronger believer in the right of our people to live in a clean and pollutionfree and climate. To this end, it is my belief that when pollution is found, it should be halted at its source even if it requires stringent Government Action against important segments of our national economy. That sound his supporters going, what . Wow. That was a really phenomenal example of the changes that are going on. He is reacting to responding to the currents of his time. He is not frozen in time. I will refer you to my book because there are too many examples. But he goes on to support all of nixons environmental initiatives. He urges crack downs on copper mines in arizona. He pushes for federal wilderness areas, even though he voted against the legislation that made those possible. He worked to expand the grand Canyon National park, to double in size. He worked with a liberal democrat on that. He tried to limit boating in the grand canyon and on and on and on. Earth day itself, as you can see here, he is at a Delphi University in new york where he gives a rip roaring speech castigating us for public smoking in the air. He said, clean air is more important than a healthy economy. Then he urged people to join planned parenthood to prevent overpopulation, which at the time was a big environmental concern. So, basically what we have is one of the most conservative members of the Senate Speaking and voting around 1970 in ways that it is impossible to imagine today. Final thing. The Glen Canyon Dam. Anybody ever been to Paige Arizona . You might be familiar with lake powell. Shrinking right now because of lack of water. Goldwater had voted to approve that dam, even though it flooded one of the most scenic stretches of the colorado. By the mid1970s, he had changed his tune because Glen Canyon Dam it stops all the silt from going downstream. It ruined the beaches of the grand canyon. It reduced the temperature of the water to Something Like 47 degrees. You cannot swim in the colorado. As i once discovered when i was 17. Thinking that it was a desert and that it would be great. Didnt make it out nearly. He said, this was in fact the biggest political mistake of his life. Voting for the Glen Canyon Dam. Even bigger than his vote against the civil rights act. The vote against the wilderness act. I think that is really astounding. Now, as i said, goldwater was a man who responded to change. He responded to the tenor of the time. What youll find as well, his environmentalism comes and goes. By the mid 1970s, he started to retreat. He had a little bit of buyers remorse. He supported the epa but he was shocked that when it actually began to regulate or regulate in a way he thought was excessive. He began to have doubts. By the 1970s, he was grumbling that maybe it should be eliminated. The sierra club thought his grand canyon proposal was not aggressive enough. They got into a big fight. He quit the sierra club. Of which he had been a member for many years. My files, my favorite, i have is very indignant letter of resignation. He didnt like it when environmentalists opposed the supersonic transport, the american version of the concord. Environmentalists were very opposed to it. For all kinds of reasons. They predicted it would cause Climate Change. It was overblown. At the time, there was concern. Goldwater liked everything that flew. Their opposition made him mad. Then along came the reagan revolution and james watt. And goldwater respond to that as well. He began to question perhaps whether he had gone too far in his environmentalism. He liked james watt. James watt was notorious environmentalists, disliked him intensely because he was a very vocal antienvironmentalist. He was very good at that job. So, they were bumper stickers in the 1980s outdam de watt. But goldwater liked him. Hes responding to the rise of the reagan right. But he he never entirely abandons his environmentalism. If you look at his late career in the 1980s, you see a couple of interesting things. First of all, you see that in 1984, he sponsored the arizona wilderness bill. The bill provided for 28 federal wilderness areas in the state of arizona. Now, again, remember, he voted against the legislation that made that possible. The wilderness act of 1964. In 1984. The ashes of the famous sage br ush rebellion are still smoldering. The rebellion was a movement of state legislatures in the west are doing that land that was in control of federal government should be given back to the states. And that environmental regulations of federal land were too stringent. They needed to be eliminated. Even as the embers weres still smoking, here is goldwater authorizing the wilderness act or proposing the wilderness act. Joins an Organization Called republicans for environmental protection, which is now called conservator. Now called conservative america. I dont want to read too much into this, but their argument was republicans have a strong environmental tradition, and that we have gotten away from that, they said. We need to get that back. I think goldwaters joining of that group in a way we said in message he did not like the direction the current, the Republican Party was going. As you know, we have seen this all over and other aspects of his life. He disagreed very much with the religious right. He was a champion of the rights of gays to serve in the military. And so on and so forth. He is a maverick is the phrase we hear. That applied to his successor john mccain. That maverick streak has a green tint to it. It is still there in the 1980s. Let me finish by noting a couple things. He retires in 1986. He dies in 1988. His ashes, some of them, are spread over the again can it which i think is an appropriate place for them to be. Spread over the grand canyon. I think there are a couple of lessons we can pull from this. As henry will attest, m my graduate advisor said that the most important question is so what . My take on so what. We have learned that environmentalism was a very partial movement. Very powerful movement and that it could appeal to lots of people. It could sometimes show up in the most unusual places. It was not just a movement. In fact it was a sea change in , the way people felt about the natural world. It affected all kinds of folks. It is not a movement that belongs to one side of the political spectrum or the other. Related to that is that there is a strong republican environmental tradition. When we look back at 2014, that is an interesting question. Today, you do not often associate environmentalism and not federal regulation with the Republican Party. Thats a fairly recent phenomenon. I think it has a lot to do with, its a, candid answer, but the Republican Party has swung to the right over the last 20 or 30 years. You may remember reagans famous line he said government is not the solution. Government is the problem. When you say that, you make it difficult for goldwaters environmentalism to exist anymore. It has a lot to do with why it sort of disappeared. I think there are lessons for both sides. I think conservatives can look at environmentalism and not think of it as an alien ideology. That its a legacy, kind of like civil rights, as the conservative movement. Liberals can look at it and realize it is not just them. It is everyone. We are all in this together. Especially in this era of environmental problems. We are going to beat everybody. We are going to need everybody. I think we can look back to history and draw lessons. With that, i will yield the balance of my time, as they say in the senate, and wait for your questions. Thank you very much. [applause] go ahead, sir. Thank you. In your estimation, what current president ial candidate or potential president ial candidate or National Politician most resembles Barry Goldwater and his nuanced conservatism . Well, youre asking essentially are there any environmentally minded republicans . Honestly, not many that are springing to mind. The last one i think, people like olympia snowe. There is a regional thing. Youll notice the republicans that come from new england or from california, oregon, washington. They tend to be more environmental than other regions. Democrats if they are from the west can be less environmental. No, that is an interesting observation. Is you dont see a lot. I think that is an interesting historical puzzle. Thats another book. I confess that in my own introduction, i do not dig deep into it because i didnt not sure of the answers. I think it will take a little thought. Go ahead. I was fascinated to learn that the republicans really did originate environmentalism. I learned something tonight. Then im equally astounded that they have moved so far away from something that was such a background for them. I especially think now about the state of oklahoma. Extremely conservative. They have three times the number of earthquakes than california due to the fracking. But it seems that consequences be damned is their policy now. It kind of ties back in to the other fellas question, what is it going to take for the republicans to return to their conservation roots . Historians are really bad at predicting the future. My chinese history professor told us three weeks before Tiananmen Square that it would never happen. So avoid particular future. I will say this is where useful example, you can look to the past. If Barry Goldwater can do it i think anybody can. That sends a lesson that it does not make you a traitor to your ideology. To embrace these things. You know i do not know. , again, i lay in bed and i think about questions like that and i not have a good answer for you. But i think we have some resembles of the past i can maybe help us. Examples of the past that can maybe help us. Yes, sir . Given the fact of what you said that he was apparently quite a bit ahead in terms of being an environmentalist, calling himself that. Do you think or did he ever indicate that he resented when the left kind of took that over . And became the standard bearers of it, and he had been interested in trying to do things long before they ever he did. One of the things that, he didnt like was what he considered the extremism of some environmentalists. He thought the opposition to the air pollution caused by the sst was absolutely just ridiculous. It was motivated more by ideology and antimodernist feelings. He was never that, he was never as direct, but you can infer in his comments in the late 1980s that he did resent. He believed in moderation in the pursuit of justice is no vice. He was very moderate in some ways. So he died in he died in 1988. He retired in 1986. It sounds like he mightve actually been interested in the whole environmental change thats happening given what he knew. Yes. It happened in his own state. I think that is a great observation. Thought about this a lot. I think Climate Change, for instance, he would be concerned. I do not have any doubt. When you think about somebody for long enough, you feel like you can get into that head. I do not doubt he would be concerned, especially as a National Security aspect, he was very concerned about resource scarcity. Back in the oil crisis days in 1973 he was really panicked. The resource side of Climate Change would make him very nervous. He would also warn against being too nervous. He would go for that middle ground. You would not like he would not want you to go to out there. I have no doubt he would be concerned. He does seem to we do seem to have a tendency to go from one extreme to the other in this country. We can live with it easily. A question and a parallel. Goldwater was characterized as such a warmonger. Ironically, jonhnson took us into vietnam being characterized as the peacemaker. You have a feel for what might have come of a goldwater presidency in relation to vietnam . Im going to dodge that question if at all possible. One of the things they warn you in graduate school about counterfactual. It is very difficult to say. You know, the warmonger thing is overblown. I do not team is going to nuke vietnam. In all seriousness, i do not mean to dodge. I think experts who are better versed in Foreign Policy and that sort of thing are better suited to answer that question. I dont know. I dont know. Great question. [inaudible] agent orange, if he was a true environmentalist. That would have been interesting. His National Defense going up against his concern. He did express concern about ddt. Land issues and preservation was more his interest. But did a couple times wonder about ddt. Agent orange, maybe he would have been nervous. I dont know. I did not find enough in the archives to find a sense of where he would have gone there. Maddening what you do not know sometimes. [applause] thank you. Thank you. Sunday, Washington Posts fact checker columnist on his biggest pinocchios of 2014 award, giving the politicians and Political Parties he believes made the biggest false claims. Democrats tend to get a little more upset at them. They kind of think that the media is on their side, where is republicans firmly believe in the myth of the liberal media, so they kind of expect that the Washington Post they are not going to be fair. I kind of thing i hope that over the last four years i have done enough back and forth treated both parties with equal fervor that people will come to grudgingly say, you are someone we can do business with. The Senate Majority pac the Senate Majority pack, they stopped answering my questions, because they felt they were not getting a fair shake from me. Sunday night on cspans q a. Sunday afternoon on reel america, we feature tried by fire, a 1965 episode of the u. S. Armys the big picture, narrated by paul newman. December marks the 70th anniversary of the world war ii battle of the bulge. The film chronicles the story of the 84th infantry division, reflecting on their experience. Sunday at 4 00 p. M. Eastern time, here on cspan 3s American History t. V. Next, on the civil war, a panel of historians and authors talks about factors that impacted lincoln Election Campaign in 1864. They explore lincolns expansion of president ial war powers and his relationship with both democratic and republican newspapers. They also debate whether the gettysburg address was the beginning of lincolns reElection Campaign and the impact of the soldiers vote. This hourlong event was part of the lincoln forums annual symposium in gettysburg, pennsylvania. Good morning. I welcome everybody. I am honored to be here and hosting this panel or moderating this panel on the election of 1864. We have a terrific group of