The obituaries for Lady Bird Johnson last week focused mainly on her advocacy for highway beautification, largely failing to note that nearly all of the 200 laws related to the environment during the Johnson administration had her stamp on them, including the Wilderness Act of 1964, the Wild and Scenic Rivers Program, the Land and Water Conservation Fund and many additions to the national parks system. She worked to protect the redwoods and block the damming of the Grand Canyon.<\/p>\n
The environmental movement was just being born \u201d\u201d Rachel Carson had published \u201cSilent Spring\u201d\u009d the year before Johnson took office \u201d\u201d but it found in Lady Bird its most effective advocate. She hoped to leave the country more beautiful than she found it, and there is no doubt that she did so \u201d\u201d beginning with her efforts at cleaning up the slums of the nation\u2019s capital to the creation of the National Wildflower Research Center here in Austin.<\/p>\n
From the start, however, the centerpiece of Mrs. Johnson\u2019s legacy was crippled by compromises with the billboard lobby. You wouldn\u2019t know it from last week\u2019s coverage, but Lyndon Johnson realized when he signed the bill that it was a failure. \u201cWe have placed a wall of civilization between us and between the beauty of our land and of our countryside,\u201d\u009d he reflected. \u201cThis bill … does not represent what the national interest requires. But it is a first step, and there will be other steps.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
There were no other steps.<\/p>\n