Gaylord Nelson

In this White House photo from September 1963 in the Nelson Collection, presidential aide Arthur Schlesinger (l), President John Kennedy, and Sen. Gaylord Nelson (r) walk from the Marine One presidential helicopter upon arrival in Superior, Wisconsin. The group toured the Apostle Islands lakeshore and Kennedy gave a speech that was televised nationally. This image was used widely by Nelson staff and regional news media.

After graduating from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1942, Gaylord Nelson was drafted into the U.S. Army.  After World War II ended, he returned to his native state and to politics, the profession he was bred to pursue.  His great-grandfather was a founding member of the Republican Party.  His father was a mayor.  When Gaylord was nine, his dad took him to hear Progressive Party firebrand Robert M. La Follette campaign from the back of a train. 

On their way home, the boy's father asked him if the experience had made him want to go into politics when he grew up.  

"Yes, he replied."  "But I'm afraid by the time I grow up Bob La Follette will have settled all the problems and there will be nothing for me to do."

After practicing law briefly in Madison, Nelson served in the state legislature and as governor before running for the U.S. Senate in 1962.  In Washington, he found that Senator La Follette had left plenty for him to do.  Nelson's passion was conservation, which he successfully urged President Kennedy to discuss on a coast-to-coast tour.  Nelson's crusade was nearly drowned out by the political furor surrounding the Vietnam War, which Nelson came to oppose.  But a tactic of the peace activists -- campus "teach-ins" -- inspired him.  Why not adopt that method for environmental issues?  Speaking to Seattle conservationist in 1969, Nelson called for a nationwide grassroots demonstration on behalf of the environment the following Spring. He invited everyone to participate. 

"The response was electric,"  he recalled in 2005.  "Telegrams, letters, and telephone inquiries poured in from all across the country.  The American people finally had a forum to express concern about what was happening to the land, rivers, lakes, and air--and they did so with spectacular exuberance."

The upshot was Earth Day, celebrated for the first time on this date, and every ensuring April.  Many conservationists consider April 22, 1970, the day that signifies the birth of the modern environmental movement. 

"Earth Day worked because of the spontaneous response at the grassroots level," Gaylord Nelson wrote.  "We had neither the time nor the resources to organize 20 million demonstrators and the thousands of schools and local communities that participated.  That was the remarkable thing about Earth Day.  It organized itself." 
(Excerpted from "On This Date" by Carl M. Cannon.)

Gaylord Nelson was a liberal.