John Saylor and the Grand Canyon, 1950-73*

This “green Republican”, as Smith labels him, played a significant role in the Grand Canyon’s history, first in 1950-1, then in the 1963-8 major dam battle, and finally probably would have in the 1972-5 expansion of Grand Canyon National Park, had he not died (in office) in October 1973.

Assessing that role is not a simple matter, given that during most of his career, he was in the House minority, affecting his political weight even when he was senior Republican on the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee. Yet those were different times than today. Congress worked differently. Democrats figured prominently on both sides of conservation/environmental/resource/development/Western issues. Saylor was a conservative of his time, and believed in a government that could work and do good, for his district and for the American people. Therefore, it was his responsibility and joy as a legislator to act constructively, to make laws, sometimes to oppose them, but overall to move government along as a positive force in the nation’s life, even as he fulminated against “big government” and “reckless over-spending”. The barn-burners and toadies-to-wealth who wear the Republican label today would scorn and revile his commitments and activities.

John Saylor: A Leader in Conservation and Environmental Issues, A Congressman, A Republican. Yes, a Republican. 1949-73

It is necessary and important, amidst my recounting of the effort to keep dams from being built in the Grand Canyon, to be introduced to John Saylor, U. S. Representative 1949-73, Republican from Pennsylvania. My own experience with Congressman Saylor was limited to 1966-8; his experience with defending our National Park System, and more generally America’s grand natural heritage, extended over a quarter-century of intense and significant environmental debate and change in public opinion and national policy.

A full account of Saylor’s life is provided in T. G. Smith’s Green Republican*. This biography, necessarily, presents a facet of the political history of a time, hard to imagine in this era, when government service was thought of as contributing to the building, widening, and strengthening of the American polity. Saylor, though rarely in the House majority, was as much or more concerned with building up America as he was in heading off wrong-headed policy directions.

Dam Battle - August 1967 Press

At the end of July, Cong. Morris Udall organized a river trip for nine of his House colleagues.  The Arizona Republic (1-2 Aug) was represented; here are the intrepid legislators near Phantom Ranch, investigating the Grand Canyon, Udall is the one grinning second from right. More important
 

to the newspaper was that Rodgers Morton (second from left), Republican of Maryland, “was convinced he was wrong in originally opposing” the CAP. After his six days on the river, Morton, “with a first-hand look at the country (was) convinced that the recreation advantages on the river with the dams are tremendous”. He saw that the damsites would not “interfere with Grand
Canyon National Park”, and would tell this to the “conservation groups and garden clubs in my own district” who had been “pressuring” him. Morton was the most outspoken of the group, though another member appeared shocked that the proposed reservoir would not reach to Phantom Ranch.

[This trip had no impact on the course of the legislation, but sad to say, events just downstream did affect Grand Canyon’s future. Orren Beaty, the man in the background fourth from left, slipped while on one of the pontoon rafts and hit his head on the motor, causing a serious enough injury that he was helicoptered out. Six years later, when Morton was President Nixon’s Secretary of the Interior, he was considering the question of whether motors should continue to be used on Grand Canyon trips. Remembering the Beaty incident, he decided that motors should stay while a study was done on river travel’s safety. This led to a 7-year delay in decision-making, and allowed motorboat operators to gain the upper hand in determining river traffic policy.
From my point of view, he showed remarkable consistency in the conclusions he drew in these two situations from his “first-hand look”. You can lead an ignorant person to the library; you cannot make him read books.]

Dam Battle - July 1967 Press (incl. a Kennedy river trip)

1 Jul articles, Post & AP, highlighted opposition to the Hayden-Jackson-Administration bill by California (Gov. Reagan will “oppose vigorously”) and Colorado & Wyoming (“special purpose legislation which proposes to rob Peter to pay Paul”).

2 Jul, the Sentinel predicted quick Senate passage and a long delay in the House. Aspinall spoke of it as “the death knell”, at least for “this year”. Behind-the-scenes talks remained unsuccessful. (The article remembered that the 1966 effort failed “in the face of strong opposition from conservation groups”.) The Senate will take up its version in July-August.

2 Jul, “disappointment” was voiced by Salt Lake City’s Tribune, although Senator Moss had voted for the measure since Utah’s projects were promised funding. He emphasized that he was disappointed in the final result.

4 Jul, the Star carried an AP story on the trip by Senator Kennedy’s large (over 40) short (the party left at Phantom ranch by foot, mule, or helicopter) river trip on four 28’ pontoons. They rescued a chihuahua, and “shot” some rapids on air mattresses. His only comment was that the river was “a great natural resource that should be enjoyed by as many as possible in years to come”. The Washington Post’s humorist Art Buchwald gave more details:

Dam Battle - June 1967 Press

The newsletter of a Californian “Colorado River Association” reprised the May Senate hearings, featuring their state’s Kuchel (r. fingerpointing) giving Secretary of the Interior Udall (l.) (and by extension, Arizona and Hayden, and Senators Anderson (m.) & Jackson — with eyes closed) a hard time:

The quote is the beginning of Kuchel’s charge that Udall had abandoned his 1966 Basin approach in the Pacific Southwest Water Plan. Kuchel also, of course, supported an import study and Hualapai dam (so much for the much-vaunted power of the Sierra Club of California).
  Also reported was the presidential signing of authorization for a nuclear desalting plant for California. It even printed an alarmist warning from Reclamation’s Dominy that rapids-running of the Colorado “is dangerous enough to require advance issuance of a permit to take the risk”. He notes that there were 362 river-runners in 1962; over 1000 in 1966, but 3.5 million visits to Lake Mead. [A recent report (“USNews” May 2017) called Lake Mead the “deadliest of US Park Service sites”, with an average of 8 drownings a year.]

Dam Battle - May 1967 Press. And River-running report.

The legislative arena, battlefield, in 1967 was ready to be given a radically different appearance from the year before. In 1966, Aspinall and the House protagonists were given the opportunity to craft a Basin-wide accord. They did, but the time it took and the formidable opposition brought out as a result, doomed the effort, dependent as it was on passing the House with every detail in place no matter how far-fetched.
  The lessons from that experience learned, the administration and the Senate reconfigured the landscape with initiatives that broke with Basin accords while satisfying the major opponents the 1966 effort had revealed—the Pacific Northwest and advocates for a damless Grand Canyon. It cannot be stressed enough that the particular players—Sec. Udall, and Senators Hayden, Jackson, Anderson—disposed of the power necessary to make this reconfiguration work. With a different Interior Secretary, without the seniority and position of those three Senators, California and Colorado would have been more formidable proponents of the Aspinall-Basin House approach.
  If my contention is correct that this contest was a hinge moving America between very different futures, then those four individuals were key in directing the forces that prevailed.

Dam Battle - April 1967 Press

2 Apr, Republic, ad by Salt River Project: “You can be sure there will always be a plentiful supply of priceless water at the lowest possible cost even though the users of water may double in the next ten years.”

3-5 Apr, Star ran editorials and answering letters about the Young-Martin report that recommended changes in use of Arizona’s water, away from cattle feed, in order to avoid building the CAP. The paper was disturbing enough that the dean of U of Arizona’s agricultural college issued an official rebuttal. (Although a tempest in the Tucson teapot, the items showed the fears CAP backers had that any crack in the state’s pro-CAP front could doom their chances.)

5 Apr, Republic reports that Utah’s Senator Moss had introduced a bill for a CAP with a Grand Canyon dam and a feasibility study for water import. His approach was allied with California’s, reinforcing the line between the Hayden-Jackson-administration approach and the Colorado-California commitment to the 1966 effort.