The Act's range and vision are broad, indeed. Abraham Lincoln's birthplace now a National Historic Park; an Ice Age Floods geologic trail being established in the Pacific Northwest; additional land segments in several states being included along the Cherokee people's route in the Trail of Tears; fossil sites and finds on federal land given higher theft protection. Many other additions secured -- as to the Minute Man and the Palo Alto national historic parks -- to places with major engagements during the nation's wars; protection, or study for future preservation listing, of important places in the long struggles for civic and civil rights -- such as a commemorative trail to the Women's Rights National Historic Park, or Green McAdoo School in a town in Tennessee where black students were first integrated before Little Rock High in a state-operated school. Wilderness status protection has been expanded, thereby to assure secure habitat for wildlife and opportunities for human enlightenment and spiritual renewal outdoors, for portions of our most revered forest lands such as in Sequoia and Kings canyon, Rocky Mountain and Joshua Tree national parks and others. New parks and recreation areas were created under the Act, for public ownership and use, in many states and new funds authorized for study of yet other historic, natural-resource or scenic assets ow often at risk due to development pressures, as the Rocky Fork forest land was until recently in our region.

In our technified and complex world, increasingly crowded, polluted and uglified through urban blight and destruction of natural landscapes, protecting remnant "wild land" areas and historic places takes on ever greater importance. One acre of public, state parks land here in Tennessee, for example, is now used by 45 people. Without significant new acquisitions, the Tennessee Environmental Council projects that acre would need to be shared by 54 people a decade hence. Growing numbers, as President Franklin Roosevelt urged so long ago, mean need for more public lands. "It is the plain duty," he said, of those who enjoy the scenery and natural resources which have been handed down to them, to make inventory and provide for the needs of the future. This duty entails that "certain mighty natural features of our land [be] preserved for our children and our children's children," existing park boundaries be extended and that "the National Government should gladly assume the burden and responsibility" for many parks.

After a starvation diet in recent years, one is glad to see the nation's public lands program receive renewed emphasis and funding. Disheartening, however, while the majority party carried the Omnibus Lands Act through the Congree, only one Tennessee House member of the minority part (Wamp, 3rd District) gave it his support.