Stewart Udall

1920–2010

An early supporter of John F. Kennedy’s 1960 presidential campaign, it was Stewart Udall who suggested to the newly elected president that he invite Robert Frost to read a poem at his inauguration. He also helped save New York City’s Carnegie Hall from demolition. But Udall is best remembered for vastly expanding America’s network of national parks, adding nearly 4 million acres of public land and creating four major national parks.

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Stewart Lee Udall was born in St. Johns, Ariz., into a politically prominent family. His grandfather, a Mormon missionary, founded the town, and his father was chief justice of the Arizona Supreme Court. But young Stewart “hardly lived a life of privilege as a child,” said The Washington Post. Growing up on what he once called “the tail of the frontier,” Udall plowed fields with horses and, in high school, worked as a hired hand for 50 cents a day. After serving in the Army Air Forces during World War II and finishing his studies at the University of Arizona, he opened a law office with his brother Morris. In 1954, Stewart won a seat in Congress and served there until he joined the Kennedy and then the Johnson administrations. His brother took over his House seat.

“A liberal Democrat from the increasingly conservative and Republican West,” Udall quickly went to work translating his conservationist beliefs into policy, said The New York Times. As interior secretary, Udall spearheaded landmark environmental legislation that protected millions of acres of wilderness land, created the Cape Hatteras and Cape Cod national seashores, and set water-quality standards. An active outdoorsman until the end of his life, he summed up his environmental ethic while hiking the Grand Canyon when he was in his mid-70s: “I guess Teddy Roosevelt, who slept out in the snow up on the South Rim nearly a hundred years ago, said it right for all time: ‘There it is, magnificent. Man cannot improve upon it; leave it alone.’”

Udall died after taking a fall last week. His son Tom is now a Democratic senator representing New Mexico, and his nephew, Morris Udall’s son Mark, represents Colorado in the Senate.