Land as legacy: 20th century American presidents left land as their contribution for future generations to enjoy.

When Richard Wetherill, a free-spirited rancher from Mancos, Colo., stumbled upon Cliff Palace in 1888, he was consumed by what he saw. He took great interest in the archeological site, and he quickly developed considerable skill and knowledge as both a hunter and seller of its treasures. His rapidly expanding business raised the ire of archeologists and anthropologists alike, and they pressured government officials to put a stop to the pilfering of America's heritage. It wasn't until June 8, 1906, however, that President Theodore Roosevelt signed the Act for the Preservation of American Antiquities, and few, if any, people in attendance appreciated the significance of the moment.

The Antiquities Act was designed to be a handy tool for protecting specific historic sites that were in imminent danger of being spoiled. Waiting for Congress to act on such matters could take forever, and what was endangered could be lost during the debate. The act's authors were careful to restrict its scope to protecting lands, "the limits of which in all cases shall be confined to the smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be protected ..."

The act further stipulated that its violators could be fined up to $500, and that legitimate scientific organizations could continue to obtain permits to do their examinations, excavations and gatherings for the public good. Finally, the act gave the president of the United States the power to "declare by public proclamation historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest that are situated upon the lands owned or controlled by the government of the United States to be national monuments ..."

Theodore Roosevelt's Progressivism

In retrospect, it was no accident that the Antiquities Act coincided with Theodore Roosevelt's presidency. Roosevelt was an avid sportsman who relished outdoor life and revered nature. He was an Eastern intellectual who "came of age" in the American West. He later concluded, "I would not have been president, had it not been for my experience in North Dakota."

Roosevelt also embraced Progressivism, the belief that an enlightened group "in the know" should take responsibility for the direction of American society. Progressivism was a reaction to the excesses of individualism so characteristic of the late 19th century, and so well personified by Richard Wetherill. Wetherill, the freewheeling rancher who viewed the public domain as his for the taking, represented the old West that was now giving way grudgingly to a more ordered and settled America.

Three months after Roosevelt signed the Antiquities Act, he employed it in establishing Devils Tower in Wyoming as the country's first national monument. Devils Tower was not an endangered cultural heritage site. On the contrary, Roosevelt praised the basaltic column for its historic and scientific interest. Even more telling was Roosevelt's ensuing designation, at the urging of John Muir, of more than 800,000 acres as Grand Canyon National Monument in 1908. Clearly, the president was interpreting his discretionary power in the broadest possible sense. Roosevelt even capped his final 48 hours in office by setting aside more than 600,000 acres as Mount Olympus National Monument in Washington State, an act characterized by one historian as "Roosevelt's going-away present to himself."

What Roosevelt began, his successors continued. William Harding Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge all made frequent use of the Antiquities Act to protect both small and large pieces of the public estate. Some of the monuments were indeed established to protect American antiquities, but others reflected a more liberal interpretation of the act's language, giving presidents the power to create monuments for their historic or scientific interest.

The act's usage was paralleling a larger conservation movement, fueled by a cultural nationalism that championed the idea of giving controlled regulation of the nation's natural resources to a socially responsible, centralized government.

In this atmosphere, the Antiquities Act served a variety of purposes. Lobbyists and legislators, who wished to have scenic portions of their respective states set aside as national parks, appreciated the convenience of the national monument category as a "way station" while negotiating national park status with Congress. More importantly, the newly established National Park Service, under Stephen Mather and Horace Albright's leadership, encouraged the act's employment for similar strategic reasons.

In some cases, the Park Service saw the Antiquities Act as a way to protect areas deserving of national park status that were in danger of succumbing to private sector development. As national monuments, they could be safeguarded until national park designation brought them protection. In other cases, the Park Service saw the Antiquities Act as a good way to fend off proposals for inferior national parks. If a congressman's pet project couldn't qualify as a national park, perhaps it had potential as a national monument. Mather skillfully influenced the use of the Antiquities Act under three presidents--Wilson, Harding and Coolidge--and he is credited with being the driving force behind many of the national monument proclamations from 1916 to 1928. Upon his death, Congress eulogized Mather: "There will never come an end to the good that he has done."

Throughout the first third of the 20th century, there was scant opposition to presidential use of the Antiquities Act. This was due, in part, to Progressive-era politics, and the fact that establishing national monuments didn't interfere with the material progress of Western states. It was also that few people traveled for pleasure in those days, and there was little demand for accommodations within national parks or monuments.

It was a period of system-wide acquisition and expansion--much of it occurring in sparsely populated Western states and U. S. territories. Roosevelt's establishment of Grand Canyon National Monument in 1908, for example, occurred before Arizona was a state. Nor was Alaska a state when Wilson set aside more than 2 million acres as Katmai National Monument in 1918, or when Coolidge set aside another 2 million acres as Glacier Bay National Monument in 1925.

While the Antiquities Act was being invoked to protect treasured public lands from vandalism, theft and commercial development, the act provided no monies for their administration. The Antiquities Act stated simply that those federal agencies overseeing lands designated as national monuments would continue to be responsible for looking after them. This divergence between a president's ability to use the Antiquities Act to establish national monuments, and his inability to appropriate funds for their subsequent care-taking, would eventually come to be seen as the act's principal limitation.

Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal

The Great Depression, and Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, altered the significance of the Antiquities Act. Prior to the 1930s, the focus had been on the acquisition and expansion of a federal system of parks and monuments. Now the emphasis shifted to development. New Deal monies were appropriated to improve existing parks and monuments. Out-of-work citizens were given jobs in the Civilian Conservation Corps and other massive federal make-work programs to build the infrastructure needed for a nationwide system of outdoor recreation areas and facilities. The idea was to make the newly established system attractive, accessible and accommodating to tourists who would soon be flocking to the national parks and monuments in the 1940s, '50s and '60s.

The utility of the Antiquities Act diminished accordingly. Once the emphasis changed from the acquisition of new lands to the development of existing ones, presidential proclamation power gave way to congressional appropriation power. The executive branch of government needed to work in closer cooperation with the legislative branch that controlled the purse strings. Consequently, the executive branch began to see the wisdom of involving Congress in deliberative processes before establishing national monuments to ensure their funding afterwards. As a result, in the last half of the 20th century, the unilateral use of the Antiquities Act by the executive branch would become a weapon of last resort, to be used by presidents only when all other consultative processes had run their course.

The Antiquities Act was further curtailed by an increasing sense that it lent itself to an abuse of executive power. Franklin Roosevelt got into hot water over the creation of Jackson Hole National Monument in 1943; Dwight Eisenhower received backlash over the establishment of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Monument in 1961; Lyndon Johnson experienced conflict over the designation of Marble Canyon National Monument in 1969; Jimmy Carter caught opposition over the Alaska national monuments in 1978; and, most recently, Bill Clinton was not favored well over the establishment of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in 1996. In each case, there was congressional outrage over the president's seeming disregard for both legislative processes and states' rights.

States have often seen the Antiquities Act merely as an invasive tool for federal tinkering with "their" natural resources. The ill will generated by such tinkering continues to hamper the federal government's attempts to work with states in designating and managing natural resources that have a national significance. In each case, there was congressional outrage over the president's seeming disregard for legislative processes, and the outrage was often followed by calls for repealing the Antiquities Act.

American Indians have also felt slighted by the act's sweeping use. Many national monuments have been created without their consultation, even though they have inhabited lands earmarked for national monument status for generations. Examples include Arizona's Havasupai and Hualapai tribes when establishing Grand Canyon National Monument, and 10 tribes in Washington State who claimed parts of what became Olympic National Moment as their homeland. To add insult to injury, parts of some national monuments were lands originally ceded to tribes through treaties.

In "American Indians and National Parks," authors Keller and Turek conclude, "To conservationists, native people ... usually remained invisible, prehistoric or part of the scenery." These historic conflicts have helped create a rift between two groups that otherwise could be partners in the conservation movement--Native Americans and conservationists. Mutual suspicion regarding motives and approaches to land management continue to hinder their efforts to work cooperatively to preserve significant natural areas.

Land as Legacy

One of the most interesting aspects of the Antiquities Act has been its popularity with "lame duck" presidents. When leaving office, Democrats and Republicans alike, have often taken advantage of the act to enhance their legacies. The aforementioned designation of Mount Olympus National Monument by Theodore Roosevelt as a "going-away present to himself" is but one example. Another is Herbert Hoover's flurry of proclamations after his defeat by Franklin Roosevelt in 1932. In a three-month period, Hoover set aside a second Grand Canyon National Monument, White Sands National Monument, Death Valley National Monument, Saguaro National Monument and Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Monument, the last three of which have subsequently been converted into national parks.

In 1961, Eisenhower established the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Monument shortly before his second term ended, and Lyndon Johnson secured Marble Canyon National Monument in 1969 after Richard Nixon's election. In Johnson's case, it was not the "conservation Christmas gift to the nation" Johnson's secretary of the interior, Stuart Udall, had hoped for. Udall wanted to protect more than 8 million acres of Alaska as well, but Johnson was reluctant to cross congressman Wayne Aspinall, chairman of the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, who had been incensed by what he perceived to be executive fiat when Eisenhower created the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Monument in 1961.

Aspinall took a hard-line position, stating, "if [Eisenhower] was going to circumvent Congress, then he was going to have to pay for the activation and any subsequent needs of any such area out of his own pocket." Aspinall then blocked funding throughout the 1960s of what has since become the C&O National Historic Park. Johnson was fearful of a similar fate for Alaska's lands, and he stopped short of firing his weapon of last resort.

Then there was Jimmy Carter's good--bye gift to the nation, the conversion of Alaska's national monuments to more than 47 million acres of national parkland under the Alaskan National Interest Lands Conservation Act on Dec. 2, 1980, shortly after he had been defeated for reelection by Ronald Reagan. Carter had used the Antiquities Act in 1978 to create 15 national monuments in Alaska.

The Alaskan Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971, which authorized the Secretary of the Interior to designate up to 80 million acres of public land for possible inclusion in the federal reservation system, had protected those lands temporarily.

The law gave Sec. Rogers C.B. Morton two years to make his recommendations, and Congress five more to act upon those recommendations. Morton did his work, but Congress failed to act, and President Carter feared the lands under question would revert to the public domain where they would be susceptible to commercial exploitation--especially since Ronald Reagan had already named Alaska's governor, Walter Hickel, his Secretary of the Interior designee. So Carter set the stage for the historic legislation passed by his "lame duck" Congress in 1980. The Wilderness Society called Carter's decision "the strongest and most daring conservation action by any president in American history."

Finally, we are left to ponder the legacy of Bill Clinton, the last of America's 20th century presidents. Clinton used his Antiquities Act authority 22 times to proclaim 19 new monuments and enlarge three others. With one exception, Grand Staircase-Escalante, the monuments were designated during Clinton's last year in office, on the assertion that Congress had not acted quickly enough to protect federal land. Only Franklin Roosevelt used his authority more often, and only Jimmy Carter created more national monument acreage. Clinton's actions, like those of so many presidents before him, raised the ire of Western congressional leaders and provoked calls for legislation restricting the presidential powers granted under the Antiquities Act. The Bush Administration has promised to look into it.

Everlasting Treasures

The Antiquities Act likely will remain a weapon of last resort to be called on when a president feels cultural, scenic, historic or other resources of scientific interest in need of protection aren't going to be protected otherwise. Presidents who believe looking after the public estate is decidedly their prerogative will also likely employ it. To them, presidents alone serve a national constituency. But there is always the risk of political recrimination, the likes of which Lyndon Johnson was concerned about even as he left office.

At the same time, it is curious to note that when presidents no longer need be concerned about reelection, their attention frequently turns to their legacy. And for many of our past presidents, land as legacy appears to have been an appealing prospect. That was especially true for Theodore Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

In "America's National Monuments: The Politics of Preservation," historian Hal Rothman argues that the Antiquities Act is "the most important piece of preservation legislation ever enacted by the United States government." It has given presidents the flexibility to act quickly to safeguard areas of significance that otherwise would have been destroyed long before Congress got around to protecting them.

At the same time, Rothman suggests that the history of the Antiquities Act teaches us less about "participatory democracy than of individual perceptions of social obligation, less those of the moment than of the future." From Theodore Roosevelt's Progressivism, to Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, to Jimmy Carter's extraordinary stroke of the pen safeguarding millions of acres of Alaskan land, the Antiquities Act has made it possible for a select few individuals to transform their vision of what best represents the cultural idealism of America into a superb system of national parks and monuments.

As Rothman concludes, "The Antiquities Act is a reminder of the executive discretion in the name of the greater good with which the United States once trusted its presidents; despite periodic uses rightly termed excessive, its legacy is generally one of placing the future of the nation before the present needs or desires of individuals. It is an important indication of the social obligation American leaders once felt to maintain the physical and cultural features of this country for the benefit of all Americans." In the absence of the Antiquities Act, it is doubtful it could have happened.