IT MIGHT BE EXPECTED THAT A GROUP OF CITIZENS WHO boldly proclaimed a need for “a militant and democratic citizen-based state resource-use organization”1 at the midpoint of the twentieth century would encounter opposition at its very founding. Such was the case for the upstart Citizens Natural Resources Association of Wisconsin.
The CNRA was established in 1950 by a small group of citizens concerned about plans to cut down an alley of large hackberry trees during construction of Highway 30 near Oconomowoc.2
Among the founding members was Frederick L. Ott, a paper salesman of old Milwaukee wealth. “We were mad. Some letter writing, then get-togethers—all-day sessions—then [we] decided to become citizen watchdogs,” he said, recalling the tree controversy. “We wanted something different from other conservation organizations. More militant. Ready to mobilize.”3
The hackberry battle was the opening salvo for these citizens, who believed “there are forces at work in Wisconsin which tend to emphasize only the economic values of natural resources under a philosophy of resource-use which evidently is based upon a short-sighted immediate policy at the expense of sound long-term use.”4 But even before that, the CNRA found controversy.
The invitation to the group’s organizational meeting, scheduled to be held December 16, 1950, at the Milwaukee Public Museum, is telling in itself. It came on paper with the letterhead of the Wisconsin Conservation Commission, the citizens’ board that oversaw operations of the Wisconsin Conservation Department, and was most likely penned by Walter Scott, who served as an administrative assistant with the commission.
Scott had compiled a list of state residents who were to be invited to the organizational meeting.5 In addition to the 350 names he submitted to fellow CNRA organizers, letters informing recipients of the meeting were sent to another 350 addresses, according to a letter to Scott from the museum staff who handled the mailings. Citizens invited to the meeting came from all walks of life and all corners of the state. Many had deep roots in Wisconsin’s conservation community. Some were academics, while others were influential politicians, including governor-elect Walter J. Kohler, and iconic newspaper figures, such as William T. Evjue, publisher of the Capital Times in Madison.
Scott’s involvement is telling. Even though he was an employee of the Wisconsin Conservation Department (later the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources), Scott would play an influential role throughout the DDT battles. He seemed to make no effort to hide his activities: numerous documents from the period show Scott wasn’t much inhibited by his state job when it came to being active on natural resources issues. Still, while Scott was dedicated to the establishment of the CNRA and its campaigns, some of the environmentalists who fought DDT distrusted the state agency that employed him or criticized it in the belief it moved too slowly on the pesticide. Not unlike Dean Glenn Pound of the College of Agriculture, Scott had a daily balancing act.
The CNRA’s pre-organizational committee included Scott and a handful of other activists. Among them were Charles “Chappie” Fox of Oconomowoc, an ardent conservationist better known for his connections to the Circus World Museum in Baraboo; well-known conservation activists Wallace Grange of the Sandhill Game Farm in central Wisconsin and Aroline Schmitt of Milwaukee; along with Milwaukee Public Museum leaders such as Albert Fuller, its curator of biology, and Owen Gromme, an artist and a curator of mammals and birds. Alvin L. Throne, then a professor of botany at Milwaukee State Teachers College, was the only academic on the committee.
The committee anticipated pushback from other conservation groups, and the invitation to the December 1950 organizational meeting made this clear. “No doubt your immediate reaction to this proposal will be ‘we don’t need any more conservation organizations in Wisconsin, especially if the present groups function as intended.’”6 The invitation noted that members of the pre-organizational committee were themselves affiliated with other groups and sought to define the differences, noting that “this new group will work with (and not against) all other conservation organizations in the state having similar plans and purposes.”
That wasn’t enough to appease leaders of the Izaak Walton League of America, who strongly objected to the new group. The IWLA and its local divisions had long been a major force on behalf of conservation in Wisconsin and across the country. One of the first national conservation organizations with individual membership, the IWLA was formed in Chicago in 1922 by anglers who wanted to protect fishing waters. The IWLA, whose members were referred to as “Ikes,” had one hundred thousand supporters in the 1920s, but its membership was declining by 1950. In Wisconsin, the Ikes had fought early conservation battles, including efforts to protect Horicon Marsh and Wisconsin’s scenic rivers. Ikes who attended the CNRA’s December organizational meeting to voice opposition included William Voight Jr., national executive director of the IWLA; A. D. Sutherland and Virgil Muench, past presidents of the Wisconsin Division of the IWLA; and A. M. Buechel, then president of the Wisconsin Division of the IWLA. All the Wisconsin leaders had solid reputations in the Wisconsin conservation community. Indeed, Muench and Sutherland would later be inducted into the Wisconsin Conservation Hall of Fame for their conservation work in the state and beyond.
Perhaps it was the decline in membership and influence that led IWLA officials to challenge the formation of a new organization. They pointed out at the CNRA’s organizational meeting that membership in the Milwaukee IWLA division had declined from about a peak of 3,600 to about 400 by 1950.
The Ike leaders clearly ruffled feathers of members of the new organization that day. On December 17, Throne sat down to pen a sizzling letter to the four Ikes regarding their “regrettable action” at the meeting the previous day. “Had you gentlemen appeared at that meeting as individual citizens, your actions might be understandable and perhaps excusable,” he wrote. “But appearing in your several official capacities, as you gentlemen did, it is my opinion that your actions are indefencible [sic], highly unethical, and gave to the Izaak Walton League of America the greatest black eye the League has ever received.” He continued, “You gentlemen exhibited before the people assembled so extreme a case of jitters and bitter jealousy as to raise in their minds the reason for those jitters and jealousy.”7
Throne questioned whether the IWLA was “skating on so thin ice that it cannot stand the competition that you gentlemen imagine the new organization will give you? Is it that the principles of the new organization are so sound and your own so weak that you fear it? Is it that the plan to put a full-time executive secretary in Madison [something that did not materialize] is so good an idea that petty jealousy prompts you to desire that the League should be the one to do so? Or is it that the conservation of you gentlemen and the League is so narrow as to hold that any ideas not fostered by your brains are worthless?”
He went on to paint the CNRA as a potential partner for the IWLA, writing, “In my opinion, if the League is truly concerned about conservation, it should embrace the new Association as a brother ally, both fighting for the same cause, hand in hand.”
A few days later, Sutherland answered Throne by letter. He noted that he had to leave the meeting early and didn’t speak, for he was there to listen. The letter outlined the Ikes’s ongoing efforts in Wisconsin, noting, “Apparently you have not heard of the enactment of the Pollution law which was opposed by the most powerful influential combinations that the Izaak Walton League ever combated. Our bill passed unanimously in both Houses.”8
Sutherland appealed for support for the IWLA’s own efforts to hire “a full-time man to co-ordinate the many Chapters’ activities and I trust you will help us in trying to get such a man.”
In the last paragraph, Sutherland raised the issue of Walter Scott’s involvement. “I am wondering if the meeting I attended which was presided over by a full time employee of the Conservation Department in the presence of the Chairman of the Conservation Commission didn’t suggest that the Conservation Commission intended to control the proposed new Conservation organization.”9
For his part, Scott was criticized by some for letting the Ikes have their say during the organizational meeting. Responding to Roy Swenson, a CNRA supporter and conservation coordinator for Milwaukee Public Schools, Scott defended his approach. “It was more or less unexpected to see so many of the top flight IWLA members come into the meeting, obviously determined to present a negative approach. It seemed that there was no other way to handle the situation than to let them speak their piece, unfortunate as it was, I believe, for their organization.”10
The Ikes weren’t the only opponents of the new organization. William J. Knoll, editor of the Badger Sportsman in Wausau, said so in the January 1951 issue of his publication. Lauding Muench’s comments at the meeting, Knoll wrote: “Mr. Muench has taken a similar view to that of The Badger Sportsman, which has contended for years that we need less such organizations and more support given to those that have been doing a good job for the past many years. The aim of the new Organization is to sponsor an educational program of conservation. This paper has been carrying on this program for years and has over 32,000 readers to whom such a message is being reached. . . . What we need are fewer organizations but more effective ones, rather than one organization working opposite the other.” Knoll went on to invite the CNRA to back his publication, writing, “If only the recently organized Citizens Natural Resources Association would put their effort in backing our program, they would have a means of reaching the sportsmen, and help to get many more to support their program. The columns of this newspaper are open to any organization new or old who are fighting for better conservation.”11
Scott conveyed his reaction to other CNRA founders in a note: “We have now made the ‘social column.’ We have had a backhanded invitation to use this yellow sheet to gain new members and fight our battles. I, for one, am very pleased to see that Knoll has chosen to be on the other side—it would be impossible for me to be on the same side with him even if he were right—which he is very seldom.”12
The early squabbling was a hint of a deeper split to come in future decades, one that divided traditional conservation organizations—especially those of the hook-and-bullet crowd—and modern-day environmental organizations. The camps shared many of the same concerns, such as habitat loss, pollution, and exploitation of natural resources. But some basic differences split them, including hunter and nonhunter friction, variances in rural and urban mindsets, and, surely, determining which natural resources issues were most pressing and then deciding how to address them. Another split would rear its head as the environmental movement grew: women were drawn more to environmental groups than those of the sportsmen. This led to the CNRA becoming an organization in which women played major roles, both as leaders and members.
Protests aside, the CNRA was indeed organized that December day in Milwaukee: “The new organization was to be militant in nature, follow the principles of Aldo Leopold, and remain a group of committed conservationists.”13
Dues were five dollars and trial memberships one dollar. Wallace Grange would become its first president. Aroline Schmitt became president a decade later as the CNRA began to focus on pesticides. In addition to those who formed the pre-organizational committee, other founding members were W. C. McKern, Emil Kruschke, and Trudi Scott, Walter’s wife.
Joseph Hickey was on the group’s first advisory committee, but after a short time he had second thoughts. His actions would hint of pressure from other quarters.
Hickey had informed Walter Scott that he needed to resign from the committee and possibly from the CNRA altogether. A February 20, 1951, letter from Scott to CNRA president Grange provides insight. “When he could not give me any good reason for wishing to retire from our advisory committee (and he even seemed to want to divorce himself from membership) I kept after him until he indicated that he had been told by his superiors [at the University of Wisconsin] that continued relationship with the CNRA constituted a form of lobbying and that he would have to sever such relationships,” he wrote. “He indicated that [R. J.] Muckenhirn [a University of Wisconsin soil scientist and early CNRA member] was out of town and he was anxious to secure his reaction because he no doubt would be in the same position, as he also is in the College of Agriculture.”14
Scott went on to speculate about the status of another early CNRA member, University of Wisconsin botanist John Curtis, whose book Vegetation of Wisconsin would become recognized as a major contribution to the development of plant ecology. “As Curtis is in the liberal arts school [College of Letters and Science], he may not be affected as directly but that is hard to say.”
The upstart organization was clearly making waves in the halls of academia.
In its first decade, with the DDT battle a few years off, the CNRA focused its attention on advocating for the designation of the state’s first wilderness area, located in the Flambeau State Forest along the Flambeau River. Throughout the 1950s, its natural roadside vegetation policy guidelines served as a reference for highway crews and utilities in their removal of roadside vegetation. It protested pollution of state rivers and worked to create better state pollution-control laws.
The great cranberry scare of 1959 hinted at the rough-and-tumble decade on the horizon for the organization. It also produced some of the earliest hints that the CNRA was going to get into the row over pesticides and their impacts, real or imagined. Just days before Thanksgiving in 1959, US Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Arthur Flemming announced that some cranberries grown in the United States had been contaminated with aminotriazole, a weed killer that was linked to cancer in laboratory animals. Acknowledging that not all berries were contaminated—those grown in Wisconsin among them—Flemming still recommended that Thanksgiving meals be served without the tart treats. It was just a recommendation, but some states went further, ordering cranberries be removed from store shelves and restaurants. Homes and restaurants across the country took the prudent path and eliminated the traditional side dish.
Critics claimed Flemming dramatically overreacted. Proponents applauded him for adhering to the “Delaney Clause,” an amendment to the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938. The proviso said no additive could be deemed safe (or given Food and Drug Administration approval) if found to cause cancer in humans or experimental animals. The Delaney Clause was initially opposed by the FDA and by scientists, who believed an additive used at very low levels need not necessarily be banned because it may cause cancer at high levels. Proponents justified the clause on the basis that cancer experts had not been able to determine a safe level for any carcinogen. The FDA says to this day that—notwithstanding critical publicity—Flemming’s action had beneficial results, particularly in convincing farmers that pesticides must be used with care. Also, to this day critics cite the cranberry scare as the first of many overreactions to chemicals in consumer products.
The CNRA jumped into the fray with a resolution calling for the agriculture committees in both houses of Congress to begin “a widespread public investigation of the present uses of chemical herbicides and insecticides.”15 It began: “Whereas—the highly poisonous effects on human life of the so-called Wonder Chemicals in cranberry and other food production have alarmed federal and other officials, and alerted our citizens of their potential danger. . . . The purpose of this investigation would be to endeavor to determine the direct and side effects of these chemicals on human and animal life with the object of enacting legislation control of the use of such chemicals.”
The resolution also hinted at the coming battle over DDT. “Whereas—the entire population is literally being bombarded with poisons, in the air they breath [sic] (mosquito and tree sprays), the food they eat, and the water they drink, without their consent and in spite of their protests.”
Copies of the resolution were distributed widely at the state and national level.
CNRA president Schmitt of Milwaukee went a step further, writing to Flemming on behalf of the organization: “Your action in regard to contaminated cranberries deserves the commendation and support of the people, not only of the United States, but of other countries as well.”16 In her letter, Schmitt went on to slam newspaper coverage of the matter, and shared copies of the CNRA’s own pesticide materials with Flemming. (As early as 1951, the CNRA held a conference on the dangers of chemical sprays, which led to the production of a manual for roadside pesticide spraying. The organization distributed the manual to highway departments and businesses that sprayed weeds along roads, in the hope they would do so with restraint.)
An ardent conservationist, Schmitt was used to action. Though she was beset by illness and bedridden for several years, she didn’t cower easily, having cruised timber for the US Forest Service during World War II. Her job was to estimate amounts of standing forestland resources available for the war effort. This job earned her some encounters with the business end of a gun, pointed by property owners who didn’t want her on their land, recalled her daughter, Maxine Roberts.17
Perhaps this steeled Schmitt for future battles. “She wouldn’t back down if she knew she was right,” her daughter recalled.
Environmentalists’ efforts aside, politicians were quick to show their support for cranberry growers. Vice President Richard Nixon and Senator John F. Kennedy—soon to square off in a presidential election—both publicly consumed cranberries in Thanksgiving photo ops. Nixon boldly consumed four helpings of cranberry sauce. Kennedy, from the key cranberry state of Massachusetts, drank two glasses of cranberry juice. Life magazine captured Kennedy taking his portion.
Back in Wisconsin, the CNRA made sure Governor Gaylord Nelson got a copy of the resolution. A few years later, in 1962, the same year Silent Spring was published, Nelson would win a seat in the US Senate and soon emerge as a major environmental leader. Nelson was one of the first national politicians to call for a ban on DDT.
In the end, the cranberry scare served to ignite the passions of those who saw herbicides and insecticides as potential threats to health. The CNRA was among the first groups to tap into those concerns and turn them into action. The organization would stay engaged over the decade, mostly building awareness through its newsletters and meetings. Many of its members also belonged to other conservation groups and spread the word to them. A critical mass of concerned citizens was building from the ground up.
The cranberry scare also sharpened the battle lines in the pesticide fray. Despite growing concerns among some citizens, opposing pesticides “was radical back in those days,” recalled Roy Gromme, who was president of the CNRA when the group sought a hearing on DDT in 1968.18 “People were in favor of pesticides. It was the easy way to go.”
Schmitt’s presidency of the CNRA ended in February 1961, not without some frustration. A few months earlier, she had written to Walter Scott, complaining that on the tenth anniversary of the organization, there was “no one willing to do the job necessary to keep it going let alone make it a strong, working body.”19 A month later, Gromme acted as secretary for a meeting at which “a discussion on the pros and cons of disbandment of the organization was held.”20 It didn’t happen, and the CNRA limped along without a major cause to clamp onto.
But soon the group would find itself edging toward a bigger battle. DDT, the wonder chemical from World War II, had arrived. Dutch elm disease was marching across the eastern United States and, as cities scrambled to halt it, DDT spraying in populated areas and its visible impacts on bird life was drawing the attention of concerned citizens. It was one thing to use DDT on farm crops and forestland. Spraying it in the treetops that shaded residential homes was another matter.
Despite its earlier issues with the CNRA, the Izaak Walton League of America would later join CNRA in petitioning for the DNR hearing on DDT. Other hunting and fishing organizations across Wisconsin and the nation would also unite with the upstart CNRA environmentalists to curtail DDT use or see it banned. With garden clubs, women’s organizations, civic groups, businesses and some industries also joining in, a large and influential coalition was coming together for one of the first major battles in a new environmental era.