The national movement to purify America from its sins continues and it is choosing targets major and minor. Three new names are on this week’s lists, two world famous and the other obscure.
Francis Newlands was a US Congressman and Senator who represented Nevada. He was a white supremacist, and, unsurprisingly, was a Democrat. He established the neighborhood today known as Chevy Chase, a tony, upscale community in Maryland and the District of Columbia. Sen. Newlands wanted Chevy Chase to be an exclusively white community. A fountain bears his name and there is a movement to have the Senator’s name removed. And while no one should support his racist views, the Congressman/Senator did leave a legacy. He supported the establishment of the National Park Service, and of National Forests, was an advocate of irrigation projects and an act of Congress that he sponsored, the Reclamation Act of 1902, created the Bureau of Reclamation. It was his 1898 resolution that annexed the Republic of Hawaii. As in the case of so many others, Sen. Newlands’ name is not on that fountain because he was a white supremacist but for his work to develop Chevy Chase. His views on race are deplorable, although aligned very closely with those of President Woodrow Wilson, and we believe that if the residents of Chevy Chase favor the removal of Sen. Newlands’ name the decision should be theirs. Unlike several other people whose statues have been torn down, Newlands apparently made no effort toward reconciliation, regret, or repentance. As we wrote above, today he is an obscure figure, who held loathsome racial views during his lifetime, and it is perfectly understandable that a memorial to him should be eliminated, even if it is not the reason for the honor. But where do we go from here? Are his legislative accomplishments in the field of conservation also to be erased? We can expunge his name from monuments or history books and we can do our best to pretend that he never existed, but we really can’t eliminate him from our past.