Well, good evening and welcome to the kansas city public library. I am henry fortunato, director of public affairs. I want to thank you all for participating in my ongoing Stealth Campaign to provide speaking opportunities for all of my buds from graduate school. My all the guys i went to graduate school with at the university of kansas. Tonights entrant in that category is brian allen drake. An up and coming environmental historian who studied under the incomparable donald warster and now hes a lecturer in history at the university of georgia. But before i tell you any more about brian, let me introduce the topic of his talk by adapting an opening line that another one of our fellow graduate students used every fall on the first day of the undergraduate history classes that he taught. 100 years from now, he would say, all of you will be dead. Hows that for a wakeup at 8 00 in the morning for sleepy undergraduates . 100 years from now, all of you will be dead, and unless you accomplish something utterly extraordinary or perpetuate some horrible evil, the odds are no one then alive will remember you. He would then go on to say that even if you do get into that rarefied zone where your name lives on, the odds are it will be as a caricature, which is to say youll be remembered all right, but possibly for the wrong thing. Which brings us to Barry Goldwater. 50 years ago today, today, right now, the then senator from arizona known as mr. Conservative accepted the republican nomination for president at the cow pa las in san francisco. Only two things about that moment in time are generally remembered. First, a phrase from goldwaters speech, which in its mangled form goes Something Like this. Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. And second, the fact that goldwater went on to suffer an electoral defeat of landslide proportions at the hands of Lyndon Johnson. But what if we are remembering Barry Goldwater for the wrong things . What if there is a different Barry Goldwater, someone who wrestled with apparent contradictions between his intellectual beliefs in limited government and his personal attachment to the Great Outdoors . That in a nutshell, i think, is the question that brian drake is going to explore in tonights presentation. An original lecture developed just for us titled Barry Goldwater, the conscience of a conservationist. The talk draws on his first and recently published book, loving nature, fearing the state, and antigovernment politics before reagan. Its published by the university of washington press. Its for sale after this talk, and hell be signing copies. One last comment before i depart. A month from now, it will be, hard to believe, 15 years since i went back to school to begin work on what i called my middleaged masters degree. Brian drake was in both of my first two classes that semester. In the early sessions, i was struck by the cogency of his arguments and his unerring ability to decipher the point of the assigned readings, which, well, many of which were rather opaque and somewhat slow going. Then when we started to write papers which were Peer Reviewed by other class members, i was struck again by brians phenomenal talent for writing. His ability to produce scholarly work that was totally accessible. Brian had cracked the code, the first one in both classes to do so. Some people never quite figured it out, but i digress. In his remarks tonight, i have no doubt that brian will demonstrate that talent for all of you. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome brian drake. Thank you. That was wonderful. Thank you, thank you very much. Let me begin by saying some nice things about henry. Who is one of the most one of the smartest, wittiest, most erudite people i know, and he is a treasure, and youre lucky to have him here. Thank you very much for those comments. I also wanted to say as well, its a thrill to be here in kansas city. I love this town. This is a great town. I love this region. Big fan of the great plains, and i have been reminded of that over the last 48 hours or so. Just what a great place it is. So thank you for that. I think its time to cut to the chase, and i wonder if we might begin by hearing those famous words of Barry Goldwater from 50 years ago today at the cow palace. If we could queue that video to begin or not. I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no advice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. There they are, in somewhat edited form. Before i talk about that, let me tell you a little about myself. As henry mentioned, im an environmental historian. What that means is i study the influence of nature on human history, and the reciprocal human influence on nature. What do people think about nature, how do they treat nature . How does nature respond in turn and affect us . Its always a back and forth. One of my favorite historical topics. When i was in graduate school, i got interested particularly in the Environmental Movement. Who became an environmentalist, why did they become an environmentalist, what happens when other parts of their life intersect with their environmentalism, and particularly, i got fascinated by people who became environmentalists that you would never expect. You can kind of see where this is going. One of the things i love about historical study is when historical actors go off script. When they do things that you do not expect. That you would never expect. I like the fact that people are complicated. Thats a truism, i realize, but it is a truism for a reason. I think sometimes we lose sight of that. People are complicated. And i wanted to explore that. So my two interests came together in my book, and they come together in this talk today. So i want to explore the complicated world of arizona senator and environmentalist Barry Goldwater. Who accepted the republican nomination, as you know, for president 50 years ago today. Now, the complicated world of Barry Goldwater, if you remember Barry Goldwater, know much about him, complicated is not a word that is normally associated with the senator from arizona. It might even elicit a laugh. The classic image of goldwater, of course, this is one of his campaign posters. The classic image looks Something Like this. Barry goldwater was extremely conservative. Predictably and extremely conservative. The distilled essence, you might say, of political conservatism, an opponent of the new deal, an equally vociferous opponent of Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society, as opposed to welfare, as opposed to regulation, as opposed to excessive taxes, a defender of traditional morality, an opponent of unions. Militantly anticommunist, supporter of the military, et cetera, and so forth. We can tick them off. They are put together, he almost emerges as a kind of cardboard cutout. A statue, an ideology attached to a warm body. Uncompromising, aggressive, perhaps even according to his critics, dangerously so. And you can see that in just a couple film clips that i would like to show you now. Can we run the communism video . These are from the this is from a great website. Called living room candidate. This is a 1964 campaign commercial from senator goldwater. Hand over your heart. Ready, begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america. To the republic for which it stands, one nation under god. Indivisible. [ speaking Foreign Language ] liberty and justice for all. I want American Kids to grow up as americans. And they will if we have the guts to make our intentions clear. So clear they dont need translation or interpretation, just respect for a country prepared as no country in all history ever was. In your heart, you know hes right. Vote for Barry Goldwater. There is his Famous Campaign motto. Needless to say, this very intense anticommunism made critics rather nervous, and the Johnson Campaign took full advantage of that. If we could run just another weapon, please. This is a Lyndon Johnson campaign commercial from that same year. On october 24th, 1963, Barry Goldwater said at the nuclear bomb, merely another weapon. Merely another weapon . Vote for president johnson. The stakes are too high for you to stay home. The next one, yeah, the next one is even more famous. You may remember this. This is the infamous daisy commercial of 1964. If we could run that as well, please. Its a little bit longer. One, two, three, four, five, seven, six, six, eight, nine, nine. Eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Zero. These are the stakes. To make a world in which all of gods children can live. To go into the dark, we must either love each other or we must die. Vote for president johnson on november 3rd. The stakes are too high for you to stay home. Again, maybe the most famous political cartoon in all of american history. Youll notice, not mentioned by name. Its sort of understood that youre supposed to know who is being referred to. Barry goldwater scared Many Democrats and many republicans as well. I would like to finish one more commercial before we get into the meat of this. This one is lesser wellknown, but note, theres an environmental element here. This is a commercial called ice cream. Used to do. They used to explode atomic bombs in the air. Now children should have lots of vitamin a and calcium, but they shouldnt have any separatiam 90 or cesium137. Slug these things come from atomic bombs and theyre radioactive. They can make you die. Do you know what people finally did . They got together and signed a Nuclear Test Ban treaty, and then the radioactive poisons started to go away. But now, theres a man who wants to be president of the United States, and he doesnt like this treaty. He fought against it. He even voted against it. He wants to go on testing more bombs. His name is Barry Goldwater. And if hes elected, they might Start Testing all over again. Vote for president johnson on november 3rd. The stakes are too high for you to stay home. All right, now in 1964, as in 2014, dont expect nuance in our political ads. And ads from both sides, i think, were misleading. Lyndon johnson was not a socialist dictator, not josef stalin with a texas drawl. And Barry Goldwater was not a warmonger, a dr. Strangeloveesque type character. In fact, if you look at his whole life, his whole political life and his life in general, what you find is that barry goad water often went off in interesting and unexpected directions. He was a more supple thinker than he was given credit for, not just from his opponents but also his supporters. Examples, something youre probably familiar with. At the end of his life, he broke with the Republican Party over the influence of the religious right. He was not a fan of Jerry Falwell and pat robertson. He championed the right of gay people to serve in the military. Supported a democrat, karen english in 1992 when she ran for congress. He was a supporter of planned parenthood for his entire life. He was also a member of the naacp. Which was, for white supporters of segregation, maybe the most hated organization in the country. He even, of course, as you probably know, had a warm reputation with forgot this picture. Incidentally, this is from his 1968 senate campaign. Great picture, there he is in his backyard. And this photograph grasz the cover of a book on the 64 campaign. But goldwater, of course, was good friends with his one of his big political rivals. That was john f. Kennedy. They in fact talked about campaigning together. Imagine that in 2014. Going on the campaign trail together and debating one another but still remaining friends. So back to the commercial, the last one that i showed. The idea that goldwaters election would be a kind of environmental disaster is especially relevant to this idea of goldwater being complicated. As were going to see, the famous maverick streak of the senator from arizona extended to environmental issues. So let me begin by telling you a lilt bit about Barry Goldwater. He was born in phoenix, arizona, first of january, 1909, and he was the son of a well to do Department Store owner named baron goldwater. He was an adventurous kid, a little wild. Maybe a lot wild, actually. He ended up in military school in stanton, virginia, actually because of his wildness. He loved to do all the things that boys did, play pranks, run around with his buddies. He loved to camp. He loved to ride. He loved to hunt. An area around Camelback Mountain, i dont know if you have been to phoenix, but if you fly into sky harbor airport, look to the north and youll see Camelback Mountain. Its probably the most faups nar icon in phoenix. This is a picture of it in the early 1900s, as Barry Goldwater would have seen it. Its covered in houses mostly now. Heres another shot. Wide open spaces. These wide open spaces had a significant influence on goldwater for the whole of his life, in fact. These youthful experiences in the desert are going to shape his environmentalism as an adult. So, let me tell you a little bit about his mother, who was crucial to this. Josephine goldwater was from nebraska and she moved to arizona because she had tuberculosis. The idea at the time was the clear invigorating air of arizona would cure you or at least make the symptoms less intense. She did not expect to live long. She lived for several decades. Maybe it worked. She met baron goad water, married him. Had three children, and she loved nature deeply. One of the things she loved to do, in fact, was to go on car camping trips. This was in the 1920s. In the 1920s, this was the era where we first had car camping. Camping, going to the wilderness, used to be some ways the domain of the wealthy. You went on the train and went to yosemite. Now you got in your model t and you head out into the desert. Thats what she did. And she took her kids with them. You cant see them. I believe thats Barry Goldwater at the wheel. He did a lot of driving on those trips. There they are in their automobile crossing the Colorado River, on their way over to southern california. In one of these many, many trips they took. Jo goldwater lectured her children on natural history. She pointed out the beauties of nature. She was not an intensely religious woman, but she believed god was present mostly in his creation, so she was very keen to point that out, the real church, so to speak, was the wild. That was a lesson that Barry Goldwater took to heart. Just some really wonderful experiences. As barry got older, he continued this tradition. He picked up a camera he picked up a rifle before he did that. This is Barry Goldwater on the left with a rifle in hand. Thats his younger brother bob and his younger sister carolyn. His mother is on the left next to him. The other two folks are unidentified. But this is one of their many camping trips. But as he became an adult, he continued this. He got into photography. When he got married, his wife gave him for one of his first Christmas Gifts in 1934, gave him an eastman camera. He started lugging the camera around the arizona countryside. He also learned to fly and he would take aerial pictures. And so he became pretty critically a really remarkable artist. This is something i think we didnt always appreciate. In 1940, he published the first of what would be several books of photography. He was elected to the Royal Society of photographers on the basis of this book. Got a couple shots here. There he is, i love this one in his levis taking a picture of an arch somewhere in arizona. He was a big fan of the four corners area, as you can tell. Like this one as well. This is circa 1940. And take a look at some of these pictures here. These next three shots are shots, actually, excuse me, one more. This is later in life, wearing those same levis as near as i can tell in his house in scottsdale with his camera. Cactus and american flag. I thought about asking if i could get this to be my book cover, but we went with something else. But this is one of his shots. I love this one. Gorgeous. Hes not and is he adams, but hes not bad. He was in fact friends with ansel adams. Very different politically, but they shared a love for this kind of photography. I think this is just a wonderful shot. My favorite maybe of all, though, is this one. Monument valley in arizona. Look at those clean lines. This is man who has an eye for light and shadow and an eye for that pristine ansel adamsesque look. I love this photograph. One of my favorites. One more. He was also famous for photographing native people. This is a navajo man, and maybe his most famous and most reproduced photograph. So, again, you can see long before he got interested in politics, long before he became a politician, he was a man who is thinking about the wilderness, thinking about nature. Briefly, goes off he goes off to military school, as i mentioned, in virginia. Comes back home to go to the university of arizona. He does not finish because his father dies and he takes over the goldwater store. He ends up being a businessman. Gets married himself, has three children. And begins in the 1930s, begins his career as a conservative. He was, as you would expect, deeply opposed to Franklin Delano roosevelt, did not like the new deal for a variety of reasons. Editorializes against it in the arizona repub