Harold Ickes

Harold Leclair Ickes
Cornelius Amory Pugsley Gold Medal Award, 1942
Harold Leclair Ickes (1874-1952) received the Pugsley Gold Medal "for his indefatigable support of the National Park Service." He was born on a farm in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Ickes' mother died when he was sixteen. His early childhood was austere and painful. His mother was highly religious, believed in the virtues of hard work, and bequeathed to him in the values of industry, honesty and thrift. His father was irresponsible and uncaring, often unemployed, was an alcoholic who gave his eldest son little care or affection, was rarely seen in the home, and his rejection by his father left a deep psychological scar on Ickes.
His lower middle class rural family background and the acute poverty he experienced both with his family and in his early years in Chicago, prompted him to aggressively champion and defend the "underdog" throughout his political career. It fostered his lifelong commitment to social justice and civil rights. He once said: "We are not in this world to work like galley slaves for long hours at toilsome tasks in order to accumulate in the hands of 2 percent of the population 80 percent of the wealth of the country."
Given his father's lack of interest in him when his mother died, Ickes was sent to live with relatives in Chicago. Encouraged by a dedicated high school teacher, he enrolled in the newly opened University of Chicago, which had recruited an excellent faculty. He was penniless, received no financial support, but found tutoring and night teaching jobs (often to new immigrants) to meet his living costs. Doggedly he pursued his studies, living in an unheated room and working long hours. Graduating in 1897, he chose not to appear to receive his diploma because he was embarrassed by his shabby clothes.
Overcoming such difficult circumstances helped to instill in him a desire for recognition and achievement, identification with those who were disadvantaged, and an independent spirit. After graduation he worked as a sports writer and later as a political reporter for several Chicago newspapers. While working at the newspapers, he became enamored with, and subsequently involved in, Chicago politics. He was appalled at the pervasive corruption in the city's political system and strongly influenced by his association with a group of settlement workers led by Jane Addams, who became a special friend, and their work with the poor.
He returned to the University of Chicago in 1903 to study for a law degree because he believed a law practice would provide more status and clout in the political arena than would journalism. Ickes' involvement in politics provided an exciting diversion from his drab law practice, an outlet for his energies, a sense of importance by virtue of association with prominent men, the excitement and challenge of a contest and an opportunity for the personal recognition he needed so badly. Upon receiving his degree in 1907 he established his own law office. The degree took him so long because he dropped out occasionally to work in political campaigns, but he graduated cum laude.
Realizing early that despite his ability he lacked the personal appeal and disposition to be elected to office, himself, Ickes became an astute observer of political behavior and an indefatigable campaign worker. He mastered the skills of political organization and efficient management and used them on behalf of aggressive, independent candidates who like himself, viewed politics and life as a moral battleground. He later reflected, "I had never hankered for public office...I was plainly not the vote-getting kind. No one will argue with that statement...I belonged to that exclusive group sometimes referred to, derisively as 'king makers.' "
Ickes was a practicing lawyer in Chicago from 1902 through 1933. He regarded the law "as a tool, not a chalice." He used his profession to advance the causes of "Do Gooders" and political liberals. He was a Bull Moose Progressive Republican who evolved into a New Deal Democrat. While he was practicing law, Ickes was active in Chicago politics. A contemporary described Chicago at this time as "built upon bribery, intimidation, bulldozing of every kind, knifing, shooting, and the whole swimming in whisky." He was chairman of the Cook County Progressive Party, 1909-1914; member of the Illinois State Committee, 1915-1916; member of the Progressive National Committee and National Executive Committee, 1915-1916; manager of six Chicago mayoral, U.S. senatorial and presidential campaigns, 1905-1916; and a delegate to Republican, Progressive and Democratic Nominating Conventions, 1916-1920 and 1932-1944. He served with the 35th Division in France, 1918-1919 as a YMCA employee bringing material aid and comfort to the troops in battle areas, because poor hearing disqualified him from regular military service.
His ability to invest so much energy into politics was facilitated by his marriage to a very rich woman, Anna Wilmorth in 1911 after a decade long, complex relationship with her. It was an unhappy marriage, but he endured it until her death in 1935. They lived well in a large house, with many servants, and a large garden in which Ickes, an avid flower gardener, spent many happy times. After her death, Ickes remarried a much younger woman, purchased a farm to satisfy his country instincts, and his second marriage was successful.
In 1932, he led an independent Republican committee supporting the Democratic candidate for president, Franklin D Roosevelt, in part because of the candidate's connection with Theodore Roosevelt. To the surprise of many, he was appointed Secretary of Interior. Ickes later stated, "The newspapers were taken by surprise and so was everyone else, myself included." He later reflected, "When 1932 rolled around, I felt that I had seen nearly everything in the way of politics that was worth seeing. It turned out that it had been only a trial heat for a balky horse."
Ickes served from 1933 to 1946, which was longer than any of his predecessors or successors. He was arguably the most effective Secretary of Interior in history. Ickes believed that conservation was among the most important responsibilities of government and regarded himself as a conservationist in the mold of Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot. At the time Ickes became Secretary, the Interior Department had a reputation for corruption -- for bending to pressures from private interest groups in its management of public resources. Though some of his methods were heavily handed, no one could deny that Ickes quickly put his house in order. He was considered something of a "righteous scold," and earned the nickname of "Honest Harold." His integrity was unchallenged, but he was an irascible and sometimes interfering administrator. Frequently difficult and sometimes tactless, he was outspoken in his criticism of political opponents and "the Interests" (big business).
Ickes took a special interest in the administration of the National Park Service. He had always enjoyed flowers and gardens, and on a two-week horseback trip through Glacier National Park in 1916 he came to appreciate wilderness as much as other types of scenic beauty. He had known and respected Stephen Mather, a fellow Chicagoan, and he wisely asked Mather's successor, Horace Albright, to remain as director of the Park Service in 1933. Albright understood the bureaucracy in Washington, provided valuable advice on appointments, and reinforced Ickes' support for aesthetic conservation.
Between 1933 and 1941, in the years before the U.S. became engaged in World War II, the NPS lands increased from 8.2 million acres to over 20 million acres. He insisted on the parks remaining natural and worked against opening them up with additional concessionaire amenities or roads. He thought locating big, expensive hotels like Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone "was a wrong concept to begin with." His tenure saw additions to the NPS system of parks which included Shenandoah, Great Smoky Mountains, Everglades, Joshua Tree, Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Big Bend, Olympic, Kings Canyon, Isle Royal, and Organ Pipe Cactus. It was the most expansive era of growth ever experienced in the NPS.
Ickes pressed strongly for a comprehensive Wilderness Act, but this was not finally enacted until the mid-1960s. He advocated a national seashore program observing, "When we look up and down the ocean fronts of America, we find that everywhere they are passing behind the fences of private ownership. The people can no longer get to the ocean...I say the people have a right to a fair share of it." He got only Cape Hatteras National Seashore but, again, the seeds he sowed came to function in the mid 1960s when a series of national seashores were established. He also supported the activities of the Bureau of Reclamation in building multi-purpose dams which incorporated additional opportunities for water recreation in the western U.S., but many of these had adverse ecological effects that Ickes had not anticipated.
Ickes was a dedicated conservationist whose aspiration was to transform the Department of Interior into the Department of Conservation. It was an aspiration he fought for throughout his tenure, but he was not successful. He sought to absorb the Bureau of Biological Survey (which oversaw national wildlife refuges) and the Forest Service from the Department of Agriculture, and in exchange offered Interior's Grazing Service (created by the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934), the Bureau of Reclamation, the General Land Offices, and the Soil Erosion Service to the Department of Agriculture. When Secretary of Agriculture, Henry Wallace, rejected the deal, Ickes turned to Congress, where his allies introduced legislation in 1935 that would have renamed Interior, the Department of Conservation, and folded the Forest Service into it. Wallace argued that conservation was more an idea than a specific governmental function and that setting up a Department of Conservation was like creating a Department of Prosperity. The Forest Service resistors argued "Wood is a crop. Forestry is tree farming. It belongs in the Department of Agriculture with all other farming and production from the soil."
The bill was killed in the House, as was a similar measure that passed the Senate in 1936. Ickes continued to fight for his plan and persuaded Roosevelt to include it in reorganization bills the Administration introduced in 1937, 1938, and 1939. But in the 1939 reorganization act, Interior received only the Bureau of Fisheries (from Commerce) and the Bureau of Biological Survey (from Agriculture), which were merged into the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Ickes continued to battle for this cause and it was perhaps his greatest frustration. Agriculture Secretary Henry Wallace and those who preceded and succeeded him mounted extraordinary defensive actions that always worked. Gifford Pinchot, former Forest Service director and erstwhile Progressive, lined up in favor of the status quo. So did Forest Service officers and employees who deluged the Congress with letters in favor of staying put. When the President finally endorsed the Interior position, after years of importuning by Ickes and years of the President attempting to avoid a decision, it was too late. Too many minds were finally made up. When it was defeated again in 1940, Ickes offered his resignation because he was so disappointed. In a handwritten note Roosevelt responded: "We -- you & I, were married 'for better or worse' -- and it's too late to get a divorce & too late for you to walk out of the home --anyway. I need you! Nuff said. Affec. FDR" Noting in his diary that it was "pretty difficult to do anything with a man who can write such a letter," Ickes agreed to stay.
He was a strong supporter of civil rights. In a well-publicized incident in 1939, the Daughters of the American Revolution refused the use of their hall to the great African American soprano Marian Anderson. Ickes arranged for her to perform on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. He introduced her to the over 75,000 who attended one of the greatest concerts in the history of the US. The event is enshrined in a mural on a ground floor wall of the Department of Interior building. In his role as administrator of the Public Works Administration, which was an extraordinarily successful venture, he worked closely with the NAACP to establish quotas for African Americans. He advocated protection of the rights of minorities and took the position that "society is no happier or stronger than its most miserable and weakest group." At a time of widespread racial segregation, Ickes employed African Americans in responsible positions and opened the dining room in the Interior building to them.
During World War II, the administration of most park, conservation, and wildlife management work was transferred out of Washington to make room for proliferating wartime agencies, an action of which Ickes disapproved. Domestic conservation programs were of secondary importance in those years and Jackson Hole, Wyoming, was the only major national monument created in that period (1943).
Ickes' cantankerous character was legendary. The historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., said of him: By the evidence of the diary into which he regularly discharged his most private thoughts, he was a quivering mass, sensitive as a girl, suspicious as a moneylender. The years of battle had hardened his skin rather than his sensibility. There were softer strains within: the dry, deadpan humor; the deep concern for friendless groups like Indians; the delight in dahlias; the gourmet's fondness for good food and liquor; above all, the touching, desperate need for private affection and public reassurance. A nagging mastoid ailment and chronic insomnia increased his internal tension. Wanting everyone to love him but trusting no one, he was convinced that mankind was engaged in an unrelenting conspiracy against him. He questioned everyone's motives, regarded disagreement as sabotage and vindictiveness (at least his own) as virtue...His egotism was so massive that he remained personally unconscious of its existence. With the best will, he could not but conclude that anything which extended his power served the republic. Schlesinger also recognized the other side of the coin -- that 'bellicosity implied boldness; self-righteousness implied rectitude; ambition implied energy; mistrust implied vigilance.' Here was an 'indominable defender of the national interest.' When Ickes resigned from President Truman's administration in 1946 he had been the longest serving Cabinet officer of any department in US history. He fulfilled a long-term yearning to return to his journalism roots and became a newspaper columnist, three times a week, for the New York Post and its syndicate, later writing a weekly column from the New Republican as well. Ickes authored The New Democracy (1935); America's House of Lords: An Inquiry into the Freedom of the Press (1939); Not Guilty: An Official Inquiry into the Charges Made by Glavis and Pinchot against Richard Ballinger, Secretary of the Interior, 1909-1910 (1940); The Third Term Bugaboo (1940); compiled Freedom of the Press Today (1941); and authored Fightin' Oil (1943) and The Autobiography of a Curmudgeon (1943). His "My Twelve Years with FDR" ran in eight parts in the Saturday Evening Post (June-July, 1948). His three-volume Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes (1933-1954) was published posthumously and offers insight into his personal and official lives for the years 1933-1941.

Sources
Sterling, K.B., Harmond, R.P., Cevasco, G.A., & Hammond, Lorne F. (1997). Biographical dictionary of American and Canadian Naturalists and Environmentalists. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Van Cleve, Ruth (1999). A most improbable secretary. People, Land & Water. March/April., 40-43.
Strong, Douglas H (1988) Dreamers and defenders: American conservationists. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press.
Lear, Lina J. (1981) Harold L. Ickes: The aggressive progressive 1874-1933. New York: Garland Publishing.

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