The Centennial Return of Stewardship to the Ecological Society of America - Earth Stewardship: Linking Ecology and Ethics in Theory and Practice - page 164

writings of the scientifi cally elect—Fraser Darling, for example. Of course, we have always
had such writers (David, Isaiah, John Muir) but they were not scientifi cally elect; they were
poets. Is Fraser Darling only a poet? . . .
There are straws which indicate that this senseless barrier between science and art may one
day blow away and that wildlife ecology, if not wildlife management, may help do the
blowing.
Strong stuff. Heartfelt. And typical. Any alliance between the WS and the ESA
would have to involve some growth on both sides. Wilderness recreation would
have to become more studious; ecological study would have to become more axio-
logical—more frankly imbued with value and religious sensibility. One might say
that for Leopold ( 1940 , p. 338) the “dramas of ecology and evolution” were the
liturgy and rites of a new paganism. He lamented that the model scientist of his
day—the heyday of Logical Positivism in the philosophy of science—had “become
as callous as an undertaker to the mysteries at which he offi ciates” (Leopold 1938 ,
p. 107). That, Leopold hoped, would soon change.
A change did come to the ESA, but not the one Leopold envisioned. Indeed, the
positivist temperament seized the ESA with a vengeance. Throughout the 1920s and
1930s, led by the Committee for the Preservation of Natural Conditions, the ESA
was a vigorous player in national politics. For example, it agitated for the establish-
ment of the Glacier Bay National Monument; vigorously opposed predator control
in Yellowstone National Park and the diversion of water from Yellowstone Lake for
commercial use; and it actively opposed opening Organ Pipe National Monument to
prospecting and mining (Kinchy 2006 ). From the outset there were members of the
ESA who were uncomfortable with advocacy and political agitation, in the interest
of scientifi c objectivity and credibility; others, who were employees of government
agencies, were forbidden by law from lobbying elected offi cials (Kinchy 2006 ). By
the 1940s the tide began to turn against Shelford and the Committee within the ESA
(Kinchy 2006 ).
According to Kinchy ( 2006 ), World War II was the storm surge that eventually
swept the Committee away. The war effort and the need for resource extraction
overtopped nature preservation when push came to shove. Scientists in other fi elds
patriotically put themselves in service to the US government—and at the same time,
with urgent government sponsorship and funding, made rapid scientifi c advances—
while the posture of the ESA had been largely adversarial in its relations with the
government. The Executive Committee of the ESA became increasingly disaffected
with the preservation committee and more and more attracted to the posture of other
professional scientifi c organizations, which stood for a relationship of science to
politics as informing and advising and not as agitating and advocating policy and
legislation. But Shelford remained adamant and uncompromising—and as obstrep-
erous as ever. Robert Griggs, an early ally of Shelford's, led the campaign against
advocacy on the part of the ESA. He served the Society as president in 1944 and put
the fate of the preservation committee to a vote of the membership. In 1945, the
constitution of the ESA was amended preventing the preservation committee from
advocating policy positions. In 1946, the members of the preservation committee
voted to disband.