John F. Seiberling often explained that in preserving land, we preserve something of ourselves. One generation sends an enduring message to its successors about what it holds dear.
These are the words of an editorial eulogy published in his hometown newspaper, the Akron Beacon Journal, after Congressman Seiberling’s death, at 89, in early August.
Seiberling takes his place in the highest echelon among wilderness heroes. Consider the extraordinary extent of the conservation achievements in which he played a shaping role during 16 years in Congress:
- He was one of a handful of Americans of whom it can accurately be said that he led the way in establishing more than 100 million acres as national parks, wildlife refuges, wild rivers, and wilderness areas.
- He was central to legislation that protected hundreds of new wilderness areas in more than 30 states.
John Seiberling
The grandson of the founder of Goodyear Tires, a baron of industry, John Seiberling chose to become a labor lawyer. Having served in France in World War II, he married his beloved Betty Behr, who said he believed in treating women as equals. John Seiberling was practicing law in Akron when students protesting the Vietnam War were killed at nearby Kent State University, which led him to run for Congress in order to press for ending the war. He defeated the long-time Republican, pro-war incumbent, and began his service in Congress in 1971. He was a member of the Judiciary Committee that investigated the Watergate scandal and that voted to impeach President Richard Nixon.
Long an active conservationist in Akron, Seiberling also sought a seat on the committee handling legislation concerning national parks and public lands (now the Natural Resources Committee). There he guided legislation that established the 30,000-acre Cuyahoga Valley National Park between Akron and Cleveland.
In the late 1970s, Seiberling teamed with Congressman Morris (“Mo”) Udall, of Arizona, to lead the epochal nationwide campaign to protect vast new national parks, national wildlife refuges, wild rivers, and wilderness areas across the public lands in Alaska. Udall, who was chairman of the committee, guided the legislative strategy while depending on Seiberling as master of the complex details about each of the proposed parks and wilderness areas encompassing well over 100 million acres. The Udall-Seiberling proposal was made a top legislative priority by President Jimmy Carter when he came to office in 1977.
As chairman of a special subcommittee created to address this massive legislation, Seiberling held dozens of hearings on the proposal during 1977, not only in Alaska’s major communities, but in villages across the state. Ultimately, he stood at the side of President Carter as the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act was signed into law on December 2, 1980. That single law designated over 56 million acres of wilderness across the federal lands in Alaska, within greatly expanded units of the national park, wildlife refuge, and forest systems.
Seiberling’s subcommittee also handled legislation to establish new wilderness areas in the rest of the country. Between 1980 and 1986, when he chose to retire from Congress, he presided over the protection of over 10 million acres of wilderness on public lands across the Lower 48 states.
John Seiberling in the Inyo National Forest, 1967
“John Seiberling was a model legislator,” said Doug Scott, policy director of the Campaign for America’s Wilderness, who helped lead the coalition of conservation groups that rallied to support the Alaska Lands Act. “He mastered every detail, showing enormous patience to help mold solutions to each of the issues large and small that arose in the scores of public land bills that emerged from his subcommittee. And he won the support of both Republicans and Democrats out of respect for his depth of knowledge as well as his quiet passion for conservation.”
A true renaissance man, John Seiberling was a great photographer, who loved to visit the places proposed for wilderness protection. He could on a prompt hum a Mozart concerto, or quote Oliver Wendall Holmes, or do a mean imitation of Winston Churchill. He was beloved by his colleagues, his staff, and by conservationists by the hundred who found him humble, accessible and eager to do good work for people and the land. This wilderness champion and great man will be sorely missed.
