The Power of an Idea
How powerful is an idea? A good one can change the world, as Gaylord Nelson proved by creating Earth Day. American Heritage Magazine called the first Earth Day, which drew 20 million participants, “one of the most remarkable happenings in the history of democracy.” Over the next ten years, 28 major pieces of environmental legislation became law.
Earth Day endures and is a world-wide event. But its creator succumbed July 3, 2005, to cardiovascular failure. He was 89. “Anyone who cares about quality of our air, water, and land should be grateful for the life of Gaylord Nelson,” said Wilderness Society President William H. Meadows. “I admired Gaylord for many reasons: his courage, his intelligence, his integrity, his sense of humor, his ability to work with people of all political persuasions. When he left the Senate, he could have cashed in his career and made millions. Instead, he joined our staff.” In fact, Nelson was a member of The Wilderness Society staff longer than anyone in our 70-year-history: 24 years.
The son of a country doctor and a nurse, Nelson was born in Clear Lake, Wisconsin. After serving in the State Senate for ten years, he became only the second Democrat to be elected Wisconsin governor in the 20th Century. He went on to serve for 18 years in the U.S. Senate, capping a 32-year span as an elected official.
As governor, he won passage of a landmark program to preserve open space and recreational land. It was funded by a one-cent-per-package tax on cigarettes and became a model for other states. In the Senate he championed dozens of environmental laws, including the Wilderness Act. He fought to ban hard detergents containing phosphorous and was the first member of Congress to propose a ban on DDT.
Nelson was a leader on other fronts as well: consumer protection, civil rights, poverty, and civil liberties. He took on the tire industry on safety issues and held ten years of hearings that spotlighted problems in the pharmaceutical industry. He was one of the earliest opponents of the Vietnam War, and drafted an amendment to the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin resolution to make it clear the resolution did not authorize a ground war, but Sen. J. William Fulbright assured Nelson the amendment was not necessary because President Lyndon B. Johnson had no intention of escalating the ground war. When escalation came, Nelson cast one of three votes against an appropriation for the war in 1965, saying, “You need my vote less than I need my conscience.” A survey by a political science professor found him to be the most popular senator among his colleagues.
During World War II he commanded a company of black troops in the segregated Army. He and his wife Carrie Lee, an Army nurse during the war, are featured in a chapter of Tom Brokaw’s bestseller The Greatest Generation. Nelson’s many honors included the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award.
On the eve of the original Earth Day, Nelson told a college audience: “The battle to restore a proper relationship between man and his environment, between man and other living creatures, will require a long, sustained, political, moral, ethical, and financial commitment far beyond any commitment ever made by any society in the history of man. Are we able? Yes. Are we willing? That’s the unanswered question.”
A biography of Nelson, The Man from Clear Lake by Bill Christofferson, was published in 2004. To order a copy, send a check for $22.00 to The Wilderness Society, 1615 M St., NW, Washington, DC 20036 (attn: Linda Smith). Supplies are very limited, so you may want to inquire first by email or phone (202-833-2300).
