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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 17, 1963)
Features the interests of the future . . . Tribune SECTION B MEDFORD. OREGON. SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1963 PAGES 1 to 8 Cfliftles Aire IFooaht iim CCoimsos oiimrll llimd Industry Vies With Nature Sports fA TT MEDFORDiSfe Jk J" ft. - This scene shows part of the site for the proposed Prairie National Park in Pottawatomie county, near Manhat tan, Kans. (UPI) Where Buffalo Once Roamed (Editor's not! Unknown to millions of Americans who might on day have a vital interest in th outcome, a fierc battl is raging in the heart of Kansas ovar cre ation of a national park. On one side are thos who believe it important to preserve a part of vanishing America; on the other, those who would be driven from their homes if the park became a reality. The author of this dispatch, a UPI Washington reporter, spent much of his childhood in the area.) By NORMAN RUNNION United Press International Manhattan, Kan.-(UPH-The landmark known as Twin Mounds in central Kansas has witnessed many notable events in the long and colorful history ot the great prairies. Buffalo roamed it, Indians camped on it, and Steward L. Udall was kicked off it. The man who gave the boot a verbal one to the U. S. secretary of interior was cattle rancher Carl Bel linger. A tall and lean frontiersman, with a small mus tache and twinkling blue eyes, Bellinger was only doing what came naturally to his ancestors a century ago defending his rights against all comers. Bellinger's father, in this same territory, saw a Pawnee Indian war party moving by his house B6 years ago. They passed west without stopping. Udall halted awhile and, to 52-year-old Carl Bellinger, the secretary's abrupt and explosive stroll on Twin Mounds a year ago last Dec. 5 was far more dangerous than the Pawnee. Preserve Part of Prairi What Udall wanted then, and still seeks, is a Prairie National Park on 57.000 acres of Pottawatomie county. The idea is to preserve part of the vanishing prairie for posterity. The hope is that Americans of future gen erations may then be able tn see for themselves what the great grasslands were like when their population was the buffalo and the antelope. What Bellinger wanted then, and still seeks, is to be left alone. It is land that is his home and his livelihood, as it is to Glen and Viola Dodge, to Dave Carlson, Earl Moycr and a host of other ranchers who dwell in the 57,000 acres of proposed park. A bill to create the park will be submitted to Con gress. If it should pass, within a matter of a few years the ranchers would be off their land, the fences and man-made ponds removed, buffalo and antelope herds in stalled, a road built and camp sites established out in the hills. Bill Died In Last Congress A similar bill died in the last Congress, which set up the Point Reyes Seashore National Park in Cali fornia. One park per Congress usually is the rule. The Issue of the prairie merely was postponed. Sooner or later the Scnalors and Representatives must deal with one of the stickiest national park dilem mas in a long time. Unlike any other, this one would be created on land that is 100 per cent privately owned. To provide pleasure and history for the whole nation, it would be necessary to bring chaos to the few. Is it worth it? The ranchers ask. No Doubt About Need Udall has written: "We have no doubts about the need for preservation of a representative section ot illustrating an important part ot the country's heritage, so that present and future generations may experience and enjoy a sample of prairie as H existed during the days of the Indians, early sctllcrs and emigrants " To this Bellinger replies: "Dogaone it. I think it's just a bureaucratic grab. They've just tried to run over us rough-shod, just as if we don't count " And there arc naturally, counter-arguments. William Colvin. editor of the Manhattan Mercury, a daily with a circulation of 9.500. played a leading role in getting Interior Department to select this particular 57.000 acres for the park. View of Overall Problem Colvin's view ol the overall problem is this: "I don't see that the relocation of people is a really valid com plaint.'' He adds: "It's a simple and inexorable ex ample of progress " Professor E. Raymond Hal n Kansas university, a long-time advocate o( a prairie park, has the scientists view of the need to preserve the prairie graces. He has written: "Continued over-grazing just as completely ruined this prairie in 50 years (or less) as plowing it up in two successive years would have." Disagreeing is Dave Carlson, president of the Twin Mound Ranchers association, which represents the ma jority feeling of the 101 families living in the park area. Many, like Carlson, raise cattle. Now in Better Condition Carlson says the prairie grass now is in better con dition than at any lime in years. The owners, he de clares with conviction, know that the grass is their salvation. Mrs. Alice Radcr, who lives in Manhattan but who owns 200 acres in the park area about five miles away, muses about the tourists. "They're perfectly welcome to camp on my properly," she says. "But once they run into rattlers, chiggcrs, poison ivy and sand burrs, they'll get right off." Colvin, rubbing a hand through his crew-cut hair while sitting in the Mercury's small office in downtown Manhattan, takes note of the ranchers' criticism that the 100-degree-plus midsummer Kansas heat will make camping unbearable. "Anyone who thinks the park service is going to put a site on a hot hill has a hot head," he says, implying the planners will seek cool streamside locations instead. Land Surrounds Arguert Surrounding all the arguers is the land itself. There are stubby, mesa-like hills on which the sky seems to hang; long stretches of gently waving grasses that end abruptly by a Irec-shrouded creek: vistas of sky from which erupt sudden and fierce summer storms. It is dramatic, exciting country, at least to those who love il. At the same time it could perhaps appear ordi nary and unspectacular to those whose concept of a national park is glacier-riven mountains, or steaming geysers of awesome canyons. As one rancher put it: "It's just a lot of grass and sky and dinky little hills. We like it, but I'll bet tourists are going to look at it and wish they hadn't left the super highway." Revolt Against Methods His fellow ranchers agree. But most of all, they revolt against the so-called high-handed methods which llicy say have left the ranchers out of the picture. They first heard a park was to be established on their property when they read about it in Bill Colvin's Mercury. Supporting the concept of a prairie monument are the National Park Service, the preservationists, and the local businessmen. The park service obviously has no ax to grind, lla one aim is to preserve this minute parcel of Americana which il is convinced may otherwise disappear. The preservationists are equally detached. They have been horrified by over grazing in the pasl and fear it will destroy this land, too. Claim They Have No Interests The Manhattan business supporters claim I hey. loo. have no vested interests except the good of all the American, people who need parks. Yet they cannot help mentioning, in the next breath, the down-to-earth ef fects of an adjacent national park: Great local prestige and thousands of families in cars looking or gas sta tions, motels and restaurants. All these factions prepared the scene for Udall when he landed on Twin Mounds and found Carl Bellinger waiting lor him He had heard the secretary would inspect tiie park site that day, and that no one had asked permission lor him lo land on private property. "I thought, the hell with you. you got no permission' Bellinger recalled " Udell's Helicopter Lands So he went to Twin Mounds, and Udall's helicopter landed. "They thought I was there to welcome him," he said, smiling mischievously. "But I wasn't " Persuasively and firmly, he ordered Udall to get off because he was trespassing. That was a battle won, but the war still is in progress. Congress alone may have to decide whether the good side is that of the park service, and the need to pre serve the American heritage; or, that of the rights and belirfs of g hardy group of men and women who ait themselves n integral part of that heritage.. (Editor's note: The battle between big industry and conservationists has been going hot and heavy since the days of Theodore R o o i r 1 1. Th latest skirmish in the war is be ing waged in Indiana, on the shores of Lake Michi gan, where industrialists plan to build a steel mill and nature lovers have vowed to stop them. In the following dispatch th In diana news manager of United Press International tells the story of "The Battle of the Dunes.") By BOYD GILL United Press International Indianapolis, lnd. IUPU The flora and fauna along most of the sand dunes on the southern tip of Lake Michigan sleep in peaceful hibernation these bleak winter days while a battle rages from Illinois to Washington over whether the shores shall be a large Industrial complex or a na ture haven. But all is not silent in the dunes. Giant machinery is already clearing and pre paring part of a 3.300-acre tract in the heart of the dunes for a $250 million steel mill announced late last year by Bethlehem Steel company. It's going upon a tract known In naturalists as "undisturbed since the beginning of geo logical time." While the machines claw at the dunes, two sets of stalwart citizens battle over whether nature or man shall prevail. The "bailie of the dunes" Is a fight between propo nents of an Indiana deep water port capable of han dling ocean-g o i n g ships, loading and unloading car goes to and from Indiana's factories and fields, and hard-fighting people who consider the unspoiled dunes a vast, unmatched natural treasure. 200 Floral Varieties "The virgin dunes, for esls and bogs contained in these two units largely owned by Bethlehem con lain more than 2,000 floral varieties, including plant types native to the south western United Stales, the Arctic regions, tropical cli mates and of our cast coast." So says material published by the Save the Dunes Council Inc., the or ganization through which the nature lovers are fight ing the port. "Nowhere else is such 3 variety available for scien tific study and education," according lo "Save The Dunes." "At this place in Ihe Dunes is perhaps the greatest natural laboratory on our continent." Supporters of the port in clude Gov. Matthew E. Welsh, all five living for mer Indiana governors rep resenting both political parties, both U.S. senators from the Hoosier state and 10 of the state's 11 con gressmen. While Indiana Democrats and Republicans once agreed only on such issues as motherhood, they now put forward a solid front favoring a port' at Burns Ditch, a narrow arti ficial waterway which emp ties into the lake in the dunes area. Approved for Feasibility The port they want lo built has been approved for feasibility by the U. S. Army corps of engineers. But Indiana has been sty mied in its bid for federal approval and for allocation of funds to help finance the port construction. The chief roadblock is Sen. Paul H. Douglas, ID Ill), who took up the cudg els for the Save The Dunes Council not long after It was organized in 1953. When it appeared there was no chance lo block a part somewhere in Indiana, the Save The Dunes inter ests proposed a tri-city harbor in the populous Gary-Hammond. T his is where steel-making grew in desolate country south east of Chicago a half cen tury ago into Ihe second most populous country in Indiana and the greatest steel production center in the nation. Setback Announcement Bethlehem's announce ment of a huge mill to be built on the opposite side of the proposed port from a $103 million plant Mid west Steel Corp. built in 1959 was a setback to the nature lovers. They had contended all along there was no tangible evidence Bethlehem planned to build there, even when the big steel firm bought 4.000 acres and spent $6.5 million for il. Douglas' countered with a proposed Senate bill to obtain more than 9,000 acres of dune-lands, includ ing the 2.200-acre Indiana Dunes Slate park for a national preserve. Among the government dignitaries whom Douglas attracted to the dunes for a first-hand look was Inte rior Secretary Stewart Udall. Udall seemed im pressed by what he saw. Washington delays held up approval of the port and Indiana, which previously had set aside $2 million for the purchase of land for the harbor, girded itself lor the possibility of financing the construction of thc outer harbor and breakwater it self. Governor Welsh, a Demo cral, with the backing of Lt. Gov. Richard Risline, a Republican, proposed creat ing an economic develop ment fund of $36 million. Three-fourths of the fund would be used to start con struction of the port with out federal aid. Indiana port interests wore a rut in the road be tween Indianapolis and Washington trying to per suade the federal agencies to speed up a decision on economic aid. Republicans backing the port threw in a complaint that the state was being punished by the Kennedy administration because In diana gave Richard M. Nixon a 250,000-voto ma jority in the 1960 presi dential race. Legislature May Act If Douglas intends to slop industrial expansion cast ward around the 42-mile In diana perimeter of the lake, he'll have to hurry. The In diana legislature, now in session, is likely to take steps lo speed up Ihe port so it can be used before the decade runs out. Even though the Save The Dunes movement num bers thousands of persons, there is not much of a ground roots drive In In diana against the port. Too many governmental and political figures, hopeful of seeing the Indiana economy pick up strength to end a lengthy lag,' are on the port side. Port backers point to the Slate park which stretches for about three miles along the lakeshore and Imply the conservationists ought to be satisfied with that. But the conservationists want all or nothing. Described by Naturalists The prize the dunes themselves have been de scribed by naturalists since the turn of the century as "unique in North America for geological and botani cal contents." ! Desert cactus and Arctic jackpine grow side by aide with thousands of other types of plants, some ex tremely rare, within sight of the great steel complex of Gary. It is a bird watch ers heaven. Naturalists argue that wastes and fumes from big factories will choke out the last vestiges of nature. The shifting dunes and their picturesque forma tions would perish in a maze of construction, say the conservationists. Indiana Spokesman Chief Indiana spokesman for the nature lovers is Thomas E. Duslin, a Fort Wayne public relations man who fights the port in terests with a sharp tongue and unabated energy. Dustin accuses politicians and government officials of being under the thumb of the rich steel interests. He contends that 97 per cent of the benefits of a public port would go to the steel interests. While Dustin lashes Welsh, Risline and the Hoosier delegation In Con gress, the Indianans rail at Douglas. Using Shoreline Bill The gist of port-minded Hoosiers contention is that Douglas is using his nation al shoreline bill as a de fense against encroachment on the Illinois port busi ness around Chicago; that he is seeking to keep a large recreational area lor the benefit of his Chicago constituents, or that he is carrying on a harassment campaign, because ot the 1960 election results. A national park has been considered in the dunea area since just b e f o r World War I. A port hai been, talked about since 1929. But the two interests never clashed openly until alter the Army engineer! in 1949 approved a survey for a port and the conserva tionists hastily organized for the battle against it. No end Is in sight. svV A This li the Jit of tht dunei area in Indiana on the ihorei of Lak Michigan. (UPQ
