January 2011

Sir:… We have a fair city which one could say is beset by all the pollution and conservation problems rolled into one.…

When my husband and I, as newlyweds, arrived in Ventura (short for San Buenaventura) in 1948, it was a beautiful town of 18,000 built around two valuable commodities, agriculture and oil. Our geographical location was superb, between the ocean and the mountains. There was no influx or smog from the Los Angeles Basin. …

Now I will list our condition twenty-two years later—a mere twenty-two years later. …

Sir: It is my pleasure to offer a correction to your article entitled “A Wrecker’s Dozen” (February, 1970). The Emmanuel Shearith Israel Synagogue which you have pictured will not be torn down as part of an urban renewal project. The synagogue was placed on the National Register of Historic Places … before final go-ahead for federal funds was authorized. …

Robert Fink
Assistant to the Director
State Historical Society of Colorado Denver, Colorado

Sir:… You will be pleased to know that the Destrehan Manor House is not doomed. The landmark is located on property owned by American Oil Company, where we once operated a refinery. After the refinery was abandoned and dismantled in 1959, the Manor House became the object of vandalism and other deterioration. This occurred despite our providing around-the-clock guard service after the refinery was closed.

We are now negotiating to sell the property. While doing so, we intend that the sale exclude the Manor House and some surrounding property. This we plan to donate to a local historical society with whom we’ve been working. We are hopeful that the land sale and donation will be completed within the near future. …

Harry A. Swanson
Manager, Field Service
American Oil Company Chicago, Illinois

Sir: … At various times in the past twenty-five years I have joined and supported organizations devoted to “conservation.” I have found, to my sorrow, that most of the people (and organizations) have exceedingly narrow interests and little interest or understanding of conservation. Therefore, although we must pursue conservation and preservation with increased vigor, it is imperative that we also devote considerable effort toward teaching our people what conservation is …

Above all, we have to inspire great numbers of people to “put their money where their mouth is.” … It has been my observation that hunters are the only single group who have been willing to spend considerable sums of money in support of conservation per se. All others lobby for the “government” to spend its money for their pet projects. Too many individuals and organizations spend far too much effort fighting other conservation and preservation activities and far too little … on actual projects of lasting value. …

I am not a hunter, fisherman, camper, or bird-watcher and have no personal interest in a “wilderness” area or the like.

Dear Establishment Freaks: Please take my name off of your mailing list. I am not interested in your books or your “American Heritage.” I’m afraid I belong to that group on the other side that grew up in the Go’s. I have heard all I want to about the neat 20's and 30's from my parents. I have borne personal witness to the culmination of that keen heritage. Uptight White amerika is on the run and my generation intends to keep it running. Amerika had a good thing going until Alexander Hamilton opened his big mouth and the revolution was sold out to the conservatives. We just might have to take a second shot at pulling off another revolution by 1976. I learned all about my Heritage in school, sap that I was I believed it. So send your books to all the little old John Birch ladies. I’m busy trying to clean up just one of the messes you dudes have tried to cover up, the native people of this country that managed to survive the genocide.

Thanks for the free envelope.

Don Petterson Culbertson, Montana

Sir: Because my family already receives AMERICAN HERITAGE I think it would be unwise to add another membership subscription, but I could not let this opportunity go by without letting you know how much I enjoy it.

Your magazine gives a very good look into the very human history of our country. By showing the diversity of our nation’s history you combat the current oversimplification of America’s past. …

James J. Moynihan, Jr.
Fairfield University Fairfield, Connecticut

POLLUTING THE PRESTILE MR. GRAHAM REPLIES DELEHANTY’S FINEST GROWING PAINS WRECKERS’ LOSSES A PLEA FOR RESTRAINT JUVENES DUM SUMUS

Sir: Frank Graham has written a lively account of the controversy over the Prestile Stream (“That Mess on the Prestile,” February, 1970). Unfortunately, his journalistic effort on behalf of a worthy cause—environmental improvement—is marred by several inaccuracies.

First, the Prestile did not change from a pure trout stream to a polluted watercourse in 1960, when the Vahlsing potato-processing plant was built, or in 1965, when construction began on the Vahlsing sugar-beet refinery. Fish kills and blocked fish migrations were documented by state agencies as early as 1953. The fight over the discharges from the Vahlsing potato plant should be examined against the background of sewage discharges from Easton and Mars Hill, starch-factory discharges, and the dumping of potatoes along the stream. The B classification represented a goal, not a physical fact. The sugar-beet refinery has never polluted the Prestile. Reclassification was a temporary technical step, and it did not affect and has not affected the quality of the stream.