Message to the Congress Transmitting Second Annual Report on the Status of the National Wilderness Preservation System.
To the Congress of the United States:
The period of expansion and exploration, the great era of successive western frontiers, has now become a part of our American past. To the pioneer of history the wilderness was a foe to be conquered, so that he might make farms and pastures out of the endless forests.
Today's pioneer has a new purpose--to preserve some remnants of that wilderness from the onrush of modern civilization.
The axe and the plow will not serve us in this struggle. Today's instruments are more subtle. They are progressive law and informed public opinion--demanding that we maintain our wilderness birthright.
The Wilderness Act is one in the long list of creative conservation measures that Congress has passed and I have signed into law.
Legislation is one thing; administration is another. The Executive Branch must fulfill its responsibility with common sense and imagination. Our people must be given the opportunity to know, even for short periods of time, the wonders of God's creation expressed in earth's wilderness areas.
The maintenance of our existing Wilderness System is a priority program of the Federal government. We are constantly reviewing Primitive and Roadless Areas to determine whether they should be recommended for preservation as part of our Wilderness System.
The Congress has wisely provided for public participation as reviews of the Primitive and Roadless Areas proceed. I am determined to assure that both the Department of Agriculture and the Department of the Interior will provide full opportunity for the expression of public views before final recommendations are prepared for transmittal to the Congress.
I am pleased to send to Congress today the second annual report of our progress in implementing the Wilderness Act. We are well under way toward protecting God's gift of mystery and wonder that is the American Wilderness.
LYNDON B. JOHNSON
The White House
February 14, 1966
Note: The President transmitted the Second Joint Annual Report of the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of the Interior on the Status of the Wilderness Preservation System (17 pp. processed). The report is printed in House Document 381 (89th Cong., 2d sess.).
Lyndon B. Johnson, Message to the Congress Transmitting Second Annual Report on the Status of the National Wilderness Preservation System. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/238201