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.
John Muir was instrumental in preserving Sequoia National Park and the Yosemite Valley. He co-founded the Sierra Club and led the fight to conserve the forests of the western United States. His legacy for conservation stretches from Alaska to Florida’s Gulf Coast and there are millions of acres of majestic beauty that might not have been preserved had it not been for the efforts of John Muir. But he also made many negative statements about American Indians and African-Americans, and these have resulted in recent attempts by the Sierra Club to address his opinions. The Sierra Club has written, “As the most iconic figure in Sierra Club history, Muir’s words and actions carry an especially heavy weight. They continue to hurt and alienate Indigenous people and people of color who come into contact with the Sierra Club.” The Club announced that it would “shift towards investing in racial justice work and determine which of its monuments need to be renamed or removed.” Again, John Muir’s legacy toward preservation exceeds that of Senator Newlands, and thus his reputation may give him a bit more support and we may not see campaigns to completely eliminate him from the historical record.
And there is another major figure in the conservation movement who legacy may be tainted by racism. John James Audubon, who died in 1851, was an ornithologist who painted birds and other wildlife in their natural habitat. He was one of our most illustrious artists and scientists. In 1905 the Audubon Society was founded in his name and today it is one of the premiere conservation organizations in America. But, Audubon also owned slaves, during a time in which it was legal to own slaves; and, just as the Sierra Club with John Muir, the Audubon Society has announced that it will “speak out and condemn his past, and will publish a new biography that will include Audubon’s “ethical failings.” Well, the organization is well within its rights to change its name or to un-do those “ethical failings,” but it was no secret that Audubon owned slaves or made statements that were negative toward African-Americans. Those “failings” were not the reason he was honored. Instead, he was renowned as an artist, a naturalist, and a scientist. Until the death of George Floyd, our history books tended to minimize the negative aspects of the lives of famous people. Now, we tend to emphasize them.
This all sounds so familiar, with people who once were considered admirable and whose contributions were thought to be positive now being relegated to a lower status because of things they said or did that actually had no direct influence on their accomplishments. It is likely that Senator Newlands’ name will be removed from the fountain in Chevy Chase; John James Audubon and John Muir, whose achievements were of greater importance, may well be spared ultimate removal. Is it not possible to decry the racially-prejudiced flaws of famous people without casting important accomplishments onto the garbage heap? John James Audubon was not a great artist and naturalist because he was a slaveholder, and John Muir’s racial viewpoints are not what made him renowned\ as a preservationist.
By all means, let us tell the truth about famous Americans, exploring their errors and sins; and let us make sure that we do not defend them as racists, but the point that we have been making over the past few weeks is that we should consider the positives as well as the negatives. The process by which we are cancelling people is very inconsistent, with some formerly-respected people assailed, while others who were just as racist or prejudiced are given free passes.
Slavery is one of the great shames of our colonial and early federal history, but it was hardly a uniquely American institution. Millions more slaves were sent to other European colonies than were sent to America, yet for reasons not easily understood, the sins of those nations are downplayed. Let us remember that the Constitution contained the means to end slavery and the slave trade, and America fought its bloodiest war in order to bring slavery to a halt.
John Muir and John James Audubon are remembered for their magnificent achievements for preservation and art, not because of their racial prejudices. And regardless of one’s opinions of those famous people, it is extremely unfair to place responsibility for those viewpoints on modern society and on people who were not slaveholders, were not racists and who were not even alive at the time those people flourished. Let us maintain our perspective. If we are to condemn the likes of John James Audubon or Thomas Jefferson or James Madison, who among us can meet the standards of modern times?