{"id":149178,"date":"2022-10-14T09:55:25","date_gmt":"2022-10-14T13:55:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=149178"},"modified":"2024-07-03T14:42:35","modified_gmt":"2024-07-03T18:42:35","slug":"audio-hear-the-powerful-voice-of-edmund-muskie-36-who-launched-the-clean-water-act-50-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2022\/10\/14\/audio-hear-the-powerful-voice-of-edmund-muskie-36-who-launched-the-clean-water-act-50-years-ago\/","title":{"rendered":"Audio: Hear the powerful voice of Edmund Muskie ’36, who launched the Clean Water Act 50 years ago"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Edmund Muskie \u201936 is considered a prime mover and leading voice of modern American environmentalism. In many ways, he quite literally was the voice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fifty years ago, as a U.S. senator from Maine, Muskie\u2019s Bates-trained voice sounded across the country. From Sacramento to Millinocket to Pensacola, he explained in lucid and compelling and logical terms why a new law to protect water from pollutants was not just good for Americans and America, but absolutely necessary for our survival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Maine Sunday Telegram<\/em> ran this political cartoon in February 1968 showing Edmund Muskie as David taking on the Goliath of air and water pollution.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On Oct. 18, 1972, the Clean Water Act became law, all because of Muskie, who understood to his Maine-born core that protecting the natural environment was inseparable from protecting what he called \u201cour total human environment,\u201d incorporating economic and other realms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In speaking to audiences around the country \u2014 audio clips are below, from the Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library \u2014 Muskie followed an important principle of argumentation and debate learned at Bates: Understand, respect, and speak to your audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe technical term is argumentum ad populum<\/em>,\u201d says Jan Hovden, lecturer in rhetoric, film, and screen studies and director of debate at Bates. \u201cMuskie is appealing to the values of the common people and making sure that they are at the forefront of the arguments that he’s making.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This 1960s-era photo shows Muskie with Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall and an unidentified park ranger at Maine\u2019s Cadillac Mountain. (Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Muskie was a shy kid who came to Bates from Rumford, Maine. He blossomed through public speaking and debate, taking four semesters of public speaking, all taught by Brooks Quimby, Class of 1918, a professor of argumentation and speech from 1927 to 1967, and namesake of the Quimby Debate Council at Bates, which Hovden coaches. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So Muskie probably heard Quimby say to him and his classmates, as the professor wrote in his book, So You Want to Debate, <\/em>\u201cDon\u2019t mumble, be careful to pronounce every syllable.\u201d He probably heard Quimby\u2019s advice to \u201clisten to Lowell Thomas on the radio<\/a>\u201d and to \u201cwatch for poor diction, \u2018git\u2019 for \u2018get.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“Eddie” Muskie ’36 (left) studies in his Parker Hall room with his roommate, unknown. (Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A listener will also hear many pauses in Muskie\u2019s speeches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe’s using it for effect,\u201d says Hovden. Muskie is allowing his words to sink in with his audience. \u201cPauses are an incredibly important part of speech-giving. Like after giving a startling fact, you just want to let that sink in. You need to pause for probably three seconds. And that’s really hard for people to do.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Muskie\u2019s formal speaking style is a thing of the past, suggests Hovden, \u201cvery consistent with how you would expect an educated man of his stature to speak during that time period.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fifty years ago, science and scientists were not disputed, and Muskie gained fame for knowing the science of pollution. \u201cMuskie was speaking when science was prominent,” says Hovden, “when being able to establish yourself as an expert about something, or as an intellectual elite, was actually seen as good. People were looking for educated people to figure things out. Whereas today, that’s just not the case.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking to Democratic supporters in October 1970 at an Elks Lodge in Millinocket, Muskie offered a raison d\u2019\u00eatre for his work to advance environmental legislation. He had been asked his one wish for Maine. He said, \u201cI hope we find a way to create economic opportunity for all people without destroying the beauty that is this state.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe\u2019s trying to emphasize the idea that these two goals are not mutually exclusive,\u201d Hovden said. \u201cAny path going forward, we can’t just say one or the other. We have to do both. This is what has to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Muskie insisted that it was not only possible but imperative to think about the \u201ctotal human environment\u201d \u2014 the natural, economic, health, and social environments. \u201cHe was incredibly consistent,\u201d says Hovden. \u201cIt\u2019s so impressive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the aftermath of the infamous Santa Barbara oil spill in early 1969, state forestry conservation crews made up of prisoners clean up oil-soaked straw on the beach on Feb. 6, 1969, in Santa Barbara, Calif. Polluted water and air were ubiquitous \u2014 and nearly accepted \u2014 threats before U.S. Sen. Edmund Muskie ’36 did the work to pass the Clean Water and Clean Air acts. (AP Photo\/Wally Fong, FILE)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
March 24, 1970: Muskie speaks to the conference of the National Association of Counties<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Muskie began many talks with what today are called \u201cdad jokes.\u201d As Hovden explains, \u201cJokes can be a very effective introductory part of a speech or even used throughout the speech \u2014 with some big caveats. It can’t be something that offends your audience members. The audience has to get the joke. The focus isn’t on the joke at the expense of what it is that you’re talking about. Muskie seemed to understand that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In March 1970 in Washington, D.C., Muskie began with a joke as he addressed 500 officials from 50 states representing local counties that depended on federal funding for anti-pollution measures. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The joke is about \u201cbenign neglect\u201d \u2014 a swipe at President Nixon, who was advised to adopt this laissez faire <\/em>strategy on racial strife:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Listen to the clip: Muskie tells a joke about “benign neglect.”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Transcript<\/strong>:
[With every new administration here in Washington] we get a whole new lexicon of phrases anyway. One of the most interesting ones, that ought not to apply certainly to this field, is the phrase \u201cbenign neglect.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You know, I have an old friend of mine up in Maine, he’s a Republican, too, 70 years old, who’s lived all his life on a Maine farm. And I asked him if he had heard of that phrase, benign neglect, he said he had. And I asked him if he knew what it meant. He said he did. So I asked him if he wouldn’t explain. Well, he said, \u201cIf you were standing on a bridge and watching a man drown, and did nothing about it, that would be neglect. But if at the same time you smiled, that would be benign neglect.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Muskie sometimes uses the phrases \u201cwhole society\u201d or “total human environment” in his call for a \u201ctotal strategy to protect the total environment.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Listen to the clip: “We must reclaim the total human environment”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Transcript:<\/strong>
And we should all understand that we are all in the same boat. That what happens to our environment must make a difference to all of us, whoever we are. And that what happens to each of us, must make a difference to the rest of us. So we must reclaim the total human environment. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Edmund Muskie ’36 (back left) poses with his siblings and his mother, Josephine, in Muskie’s hometown of Rumford, Maine, in this undated photograph. (Photograph courtesy of the Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Oct. 10, 1970: Muskie speaks to citizens at an Elks Lodge in Millinocket, Maine <\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Asked on a local radio show what his one wish for Maine was, Muskie replied: “<\/em>To create economic opportunity for all people without destroying the beauty that is this state.” The “Ken” and “Bill” in the clip are probably fellow Democrats, then-Gov. Kenneth Curtis and then-Rep. Bill Hathaway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later, at the Elks Lodge, he says that after reflection, that first answer was the best one. \u201cHe’s using repetition for effect,\u201d says Hovden. \u201cHe’s really just saying, \u2018This is what has to happen, and, you know, after I’ve thought about it, yeah, that’s still what has to happen.’\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n