Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Kipp: Hi, and welcome to a special edition of Missouri Outdoors.
I’m Kipp Woods.
Our subject today is history.
Not the ancient past, but recent events that shaped the lives of every Missourian.
We’ll be looking at the history of the Conservation movement in Missouri,
it’s a story that still lives in the memories
of the men and women who worked so hard to preserve our natural resources.
As you’ll see, we’ve come a long way.
Jim Keefe: Wildlife was at a low ebb in the 1920s and early 1930s.
It was an event to see a deer track in Missouri in those days.
They’d even put it in the paper that somebody had seen a deer.
Libby Schwartz: Their wasn’t a deer season.
Deer had to be transported and introduced into new areas.
Bill Crawford: Opening season was something.
When I came to work we didn’t have a deer season.
I can remember going down to Sam A Baker Park and measuring and weighing deer from the hunters.
Libby: You take turkeys, there was no hunting of turkeys.
And we feel that we did see a lot of progress in a lot of species, and so I’m real proud of that.
Jim Keefe: There was a spirit throughout the Department that we were on not just a job, but a crusade.
We were bringing wildlife and forests back to Missouri.
Bill Crawford: This is the result of research, management and then you get the return.
Jim Keefe: You go into other state agencies and people are doing a job.
You go into the Conservation Department and they're working at a cause.
And I think that's been true from the first day.
Kipp: This is Jim Keefe, former Information Chief with the Missouri Department of Conservation.
Shortly after the taping of this interview Jim passed away; he was 75 years old.
Thirty four of those years he spent with the Conservation Department,
writing articles and editing the Missouri Conservationist magazine.
In 1985 Jim wrote this book, “The First Fifty Years,” a history of the departments first five decades.
It tells an incredible story,
in just half a century, wildlife, almost completely eliminated, is back in abundance;
forests tower over once barren hillsides; and the waters of the state again teem with fish.
The people of Missouri made this happen,
people like Libby Schwartz, Bill Crawford, Jim Keefe, and voters like you.
This is our history, and it’s a story we’re proud to tell.
The Missouri Department of Conservation as we know it was officially created in 1936,
the result of a constitutional amendment voted on by the citizens of Missouri.
But the story doesn’t start there.
In the early 1900s forward thinking individuals and groups were beginning to understand
the need to conserve and manage our natural resources.
We begin our story at the Missouri State Archives in Jefferson City.
Lynn: Say Laura, do you have those game and fish permits with the Benton letters and so forth
we could take up front to a patron and work with them?
Narrator: Lynn Morrow and Laura Jolly are researchers and archivists at the Missouri State Archives.
Their job is to record and preserve the history of the state.
Lynn: Laura, one thing I was noticing the other day in the stacks
was this folder from the first administration of the Fish and Game Department.
Narrator: Research into these documents gives a unique insight
into the factors that led to the formation of the Conservation Department.
Lynn Morrow: The Conservation movement in the United States is now over a century old.
Even in Missouri in the 1890s there were grassroots movements in among sporting clubs
and sportsmen who were interested in obtaining some kind of regulatory bureaucracy
to govern what they saw as a diminished environment.
By the mid 1890s a lot of these clubs, particularly the ones based in St. Louis, were lobbying
the general assembly trying to see if a senator or representative would sponsor regulatory bills
to where, finally a group of St. Louis business men and attorneys and sportsmen
drafted legislation that was sponsored by Representative Harry Wamsley from Kansas City.
Narrator: The Wamsley Act of 1905 was the first law in the State of Missouri to protect fish and wildlife.
But the bill was weak, it lacked enforcement provisions
and was constantly under attack from forces representing the market hunters.
Lynn Morrow: In hindsight one always has to recognize that market hunting was a very profitable occupation.
A seasonal hunter that was pretty good shooting ducks in the Missouri Bootheel
would make more money in a couple of months than a farmer would in Texas County.
And market hunting in many different species was that way,
so the lobby group against regulation was very powerful.
Narrator: Another problem facing the early Fish and Game Commission was its political nature.
Every administration would bring a total change in personnel,
and key positions were doled out to political cronies rather than trained professionals.
Lynn: As everyone knows today, there were a lot of things experimented with for 25 years or so
until the constitutional amendment of 1936.
The early movement in this state, although it’s often looked upon as a time of patronage,
there was quite a severe battle that went on among opposing forces
to literally change culture and change tradition
and to create for the first time a bureaucracy that would have something to say.
It’s like any sort of movement, it doesn’t happen overnight.
But for forty years in Missouri, from the 1890s until the 1930s, there was groundwork laid
that helped create the modern bureaucracy that we are all so proud of.
Kipp: In 1935 Missouri was in the grip of one of the worst droughts in recorded history.
The heat and lack of rain dried up lakes and streams and fires burned the Ozark woods unchecked.
Though the state Game and Fish Department had been in existence for over 25 years,
the inconsistencies of the political system of wildlife management
was doing little to stem the devastation of Missouri's wildlife.
Missourians were fed up.
They wanted a system for managing game that worked.
On September 10th, 1935, a group of nearly 100 sportsmen from around the state
met at a hotel in Columbia to create a different system.
They wanted to take the politics out of wildlife management.
The Conservation Federation of Missouri was born,
and it’s president was a printer from Columbia named E. Sydney Stephens.
Jim Keefe: He was a little, short, fat, balding guy; unprepossessing looking.
But he had some kind of charm that just drew people to him,
and they would go out of their way to work for him.
Narrator: Stephens apparently came to the meeting in Columbia with an idea.
What they were proposing was a plan for a Conservation Commission.
Four members, with no more than two from the same political party,
appointed by the Governor for six year terms.
A Sedalia attorney, J. T. Montgomery, proposed the new commission be responsible
not only for fish and game species,
but also the management of non-game species like songbirds,
and for the development of a statewide forestry program.
What was being proposed was a comprehensive system for managing Missouri's natural resources,
and Syd Stephens knew how to get the job done.
(As Stephens): If you get a law passed what have you got?
The next legislature could repeal or amend it, and the politicians take over.
By the same token, if you attempt to get a constitutional amendment through the legislature
you won’t recognize it when it comes out.
But if you write the basic authority exactly as you want it,
put it on the ballot through the initiative and let the people vote it into the constitution,
then you’ve got something permanent.
Narrator: Proposition #4,
a constitutional amendment to create a nonpolitical Conservation Commission was born.
Ed Stegner: It started with people. It started at the grassroots, you might say.
Bill Crawford: I came from a family where my father was a principal of a high school,
but he was a farm boy; he hunted and fished all his life.
He grew up with the Model T’s in the early 20s and would travel all around the state
fly fishing in Bennett Springs and the Niangua River and all that kind of stuff.
So I came from that background.
My dad and I went out and put up posters all through Randolf County.
I can still remember nailing up this poster which said, "Vote For Proposition #4."
Ed Stegner: Doing it with the initiative petition is the hard way of doing it.
And I know because I’ve gathered a lot of signatures, but it’s the sure way.
You put it on the ballot exactly the way you want it on the ballot.
So that’s what they did. It proved to be a very good decision.
It passed by the largest majority at the time at least, that any constitutional amendment had ever passed.
I believe 3 to 1 or right at 3 to 1; and that’s a big majority, of course.
Narrator: The first person appointed to the new Conservation Commission
was the person who helped make it a reality, E.Sydney Stephens.
Stephens' first challenge was to get some expert help in the new science of wildlife management.
Fortunately, he knew where to go, University of Missouri Zoology professor Rudolf Bennett.
Bennett and graduate student Werner Nagel had just completed a landmark survey of Missouri’s wildlife.
As technical advisor to the new commission,
it was Rudolf Bennett who developed some of the basic tenants of the new Commission.
Jim Keefe: I don’t think there was any doubt that Bennett influenced greatly
the directions that Syd Stephens went because Syd was kind of a dreamer and visionary about wildlife,
but he didn’t have the technical background that Rudolf Bennett had.
So, Bennett would feed an idea to Syd Stephens and Syd could make it happen.
I remember Dr. Bennett was teaching a course in wildlife management
while I was a student at Missouri University in 1948.
Syd Stephens had died and Bennett announced it to the class and stood in front of us and cried.
He was that moved by the death of this man.
Narrator: Aldo Leopold, widely regarded as the father of the conservation movement,
had this to say about Missouri, and Syd Stephens.
(As Leopold) Conservation, at bottom, rests on the conviction that
there are things in this world more important than dollar signs and ciphers.
Many of these other things attach to the land and to the life that is on it and in it.
People who know these things are growing scarcer, but less so in Missouri than elsewhere.
This is why conservation is possible here.
This is what Sydney Stephens’ teachings add up to.
This is why land minded Missourians, can if they will,
build on the foundations Sydney Stephens has laid down for them.
Kipp: This is the original insignia of the Missouri Conservation Commission, adopted in 1942.
The Department’s mission was to protect and manage our fish, forests and wildlife.
As the Conservation Department developed, rapid gains were made in each of these areas.
The era of scientific resource management had come to Missouri.
Narrator: When the department began, the disciplines of fisheries, forestry, and wildlife management were new.
Young biologists, eager to put new ideas into play, took on incredible workloads.
Under the direction of the Conservation Department's first Director, Irwin T. Bode,
a group of young men and women set out to change the course of history,
to bring wildlife and other natural resources back to Missouri.
Joel Vance: I think we were lucky.
There aren’t too many states where you can find a whole handful of people who will go on to be legends.
I think I. T. Bode was the perfect director. He was tough, no nonsense.
He was not a Missourian, so he didn’t owe anything to anybody.
They hired biologists in a time when wildlife biology or wildlife management was a baby science,
in those days they were creating it as they went.
They hired people who learned it along with the job, they had no frame of reference.
They had to just go out in the field and live with the various critters and learn about them, which they did.
I think everybody with the Conservation Department in the 1930s and 1940s was a pioneer.
They simply were because nothing like it existed before they came on the scene.
Ed Stegner: I don’t think any state has gone as far as Missouri since then.
Even though many states have tried to copy Missouri’s system,
I don’t believe any of them have gone that far.
Narrator: One biologist would be given the responsibility of bringing back the turkey,
another was responsible for white-tailed deer.
The staff was small, the challenge enormous,
but these energetic men and women were young, smart, and highly motivated.
And the programs they initiated worked.
Jim Keefe: Of course you can’t get into somebody else’s mind what motivated them,
but they seemed to be more attached to a cause than just a job.
What they were doing was important and they wanted to be a part of it.
Libby Schwartz: First of all, it was small. Everybody knew everybody else.
They all cooperated.
For example, there were these four biologists that were taken on at the same time.
Whenever one of them needed help with his project, the other three would come and help him.
So, we where a sort of cooperative group of biologists.
Bill Crawford: We would wander up to little towns in the summer time
and show pictures shows on the main drag; conservation movies, and give free popcorn.
That kind of stuff
That’s the kind of stuff we got involved with. You had to get people’s attention.
They knew they had a new agency, a new Conservation Department.
They had promised that we would get it out of politics, that it would be based on the facts.
Announcer: Artificial propagation is being used today to build up breeding stock.
Narrator: The fisheries program was developing as well.
Advances in hatchery management led to greater numbers of fish,
and new delivery techniques allowed more of the fish to survive and grow in Missouri's streams.
Fish surveys, known as creel counts,
were made to determine the population and distribution of fish throughout the state.
One particularly successful program was the creation of farm ponds.
Originally proposed as water for upland game species,
the program quickly developed into the construction of ponds for livestock,
recreation, even domestic water supplies.
Coming off the drought years of the 1930’s, the Department’s offer of technical assistance
and loans of heavy equipment was well received by the public.
To date it is estimated that there are now over 320,000 farm ponds in the state,
many stocked with fish raised in Department of Conservation hatcheries.
(bell ringing)
In the forestry program there was one overriding problem to be dealt with: fire!
Under the direction of the first state forester George O. White,
a small handful of young foresters set out to begin the impossible task of controlling wildfires in the state.
Burning the woods had long been a local tradition in the Ozark.
It was thought to promote the growth of grasses and destroy ticks and snakes.
But the bare ground left after a fire was eroding rapidly, the Ozark hills were bare.
Again, the first challenge was dealing with public perception.
Fighting fires, usually with hand tools and without heavy equipment, was difficult and dangerous work.
Russell Noah: There are times you can’t get your breath for the smoke.
It’s just plain hard work.
If you learn what to do to the fire when you get there you can make it easy on yourself,
or you can make it *** yourself.
Where to put the back fire is critical, and where not to.
Where to try to stop one or where not to.
After you fight a few fires you know what the fire is going to do, and generally can outguess it.
Narrator: Irwin Bode served as the Director of the Conservation Department for twenty years.
Under his leadership wildlife returned to Missouri, forest fires were suppressed,
and farm ponds dotted the countryside.
The institution was functioning well, and the public was pleased with the results.
Fish, forests, and wildlife were once again part of Missouri’s natural heritage.
And the stage was set for the next step in protecting Missouri’s resources: the Design for Conservation.
KIPP: On January 1, 1967, a new director took the reins of the Conservation Department.
Carl Noren had been a biologist with the Department since 1940
and was instrumental in bringing the populations of raccoons and deer back from very low levels.
When he took on the new position of Director in 1967 he faced a different kind of challenge.
Increasing demands for Department services vied with inflation to decrease the Department's coffers.
At the same time, revenue from hunting and fishing licenses,
the traditional method to fund a fish and game department,
was not keeping up with the rising population
The Department was facing a financial crisis.
Noren knew that something would have to be done to insure an adequate and consistent source of funding.
The result was a program called Design for Conservation.
Libby Schwartz: It was tremendously important.
Until the Design for Conservation the emphasis was on hunting and fishing.
And with the Design emphasis became very great on wildlife and other environment, let's put it that way.
It was not just hunting and fishing, it was the relation of animals to their environment.
That was a big step forward.
I credited Carl Noren.
There were other people who had input, but he was the original power behind the throne
and the man who came up with the basic idea.
It was a monumental decision and program.
And I’m glad it was successful.
Narrator: In 1967 Carl Noren met with the head of the local Audubon Society, Warren Lambert.
Though their meeting concerned the hosting of a national Audubon Society meeting in St. Louis,
the seed was planted for a much bigger idea, developing funding sources to protect non-game species.
Once again the Conservation Federation of Missouri, a citizens' group got involved,
and a plan was created to ask voters to approve a one cent tax on soft drinks
to support an initiative developed by the Department now being called the Design for Conservation.
Ed Stegner: We first tried to finance this Design for Conservation,
or the big new overall program that was recommended.
The first one we got enough signatures for the soft drink tax, one penny per bottle.
But we made an error in drafting that and left off the enacting clause which said,
“be it resolved by the people of Missouri that the constitution be amended.”
That was all that was left off, but it was enough.
We went all the way to the supreme court and we lost it.
They weren't just exciting times, they were grueling times, it was tough.
And when we got all these people involved, and they worked their hearts out
and then they found out that we lost it really by stupidity,
we just made an error in drafting, you think that was hard.
Then going back the second time was really hard
because they had already worked their hearts out once and saw it blow up in their face.
It was tougher the next time.
Jim Keefe: So they licked their wounds and thought about it and went back and decided,
“Alright, we’ll try a conservation sales tax.”
That was to be a 1/8 of 1% conservation sales tax
earmarked for conservation programs and no other purpose.
They began working on that, again the same group that walked the streets and got people's signatures,
collected signatures to get this on the ballot in 1976, I believe
Narrator: It was a close election, and the results took quite a few people by surprise.
Ed Stegner: We trailed all night. It was about 4 or 3 in the morning - way, way late.
One of the wire services called me and said we had lost and did I have a comment.
I asked her how bad we had lost and she came back and checked and said, "Well, you’re ahead now."
So, we sneaked it through at the last minute.
Jim Keefe: We were all kind of stunned even though we hoped it would pass,
and a few of us knew it would pass.
It came as a big surprise.
Here we were on Wednesday morning after Tuesday with a whole new program to come up with,
but nobody realized how big a job we faced.
Joel Vance: The Design for Conservation; one of the major foundations was to acquire more public land.
Bill Crawford: There was a bunch of citizens that really didn’t want the state to own one acre of land
and they said we were going to steal land, we were going to use imminent domain,
we'd go out and take somebody's land from them.
None of that has ever happened. We’ve paid fair prices for everything we’ve bought.
Joel Vance: They’ve doubled what was owned by the Conservation Department before the Design was passed.
Also, the creation of the nature centers, the creation of the conservation education programs,
has been a godsend to the State of Missouri,
and the natural history section which includes botanists, zoologists, herpetologists and whatever,
all the disciplines of the outdoors that aren’t specific to hunting and fishing.
I think those are the major accomplishments.
I’m proudest of having been involved in the Design for Conservation campaign
and seeing it pass, and seeing what’s happened with it since it passed.
We really worked hard. I can’t help but be very proud of that.
Kipp: Through the years, the men and women who have contributed to the conservation movement have changed,
but the Department’s mission is still the same:
to manage and protect the fish, forests, and wildlife of the state.
It’s a mission that provides Missourians the opportunity to enjoy our natural resources today
while ensuring future generations that same opportunity.