[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 152 (Friday, December 12, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Page S6784]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       REMEMBERING MARTIN LITTON

 Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I ask my colleagues to join me in 
honoring the memory of Martin Litton, a legendary conservationist and 
great outdoorsman who died on November 30 at the age of 97.
  Clyde Martin Litton was born in Los Angeles on February 13, 1917. As 
an English major at UCLA, he met his future wife, Esther, and became a 
conservation activist--forming a student group that kept roads out of 
California's wildlands. After graduating in 1939, he worked as the 
publicist for an Arizona dude ranch and as a tour guide at the Los 
Angeles Times. When war broke out, he joined the Army Air Corps and 
became a glider pilot flying missions behind enemy lines. In gentler 
times, he piloted his own plane and loved taking environmental and 
political leaders for wild rides into the wild.
  After the war, Martin returned to the Times as a freelance writer, 
filing stories and photos from long backpacking trips with his wife and 
young family. He later worked at Sunset magazine, first as travel 
editor and later as senior editor.
  In 1952, David Brower, the first executive director of the Sierra 
Club--which had hitherto been a hiking and outdoors group with little 
involvement in public policy--enlisted Litton to help him fight the 
Bureau of Reclamation's plan to build two dams at Dinosaur National 
Monument, and the group successfully lobbied Congress to scuttle the 
plan by 1956. That battle helped transform the Sierra Club into the 
powerful national advocacy organization we know today, with Litton 
supporting the Club's activism as a member of the national board from 
1964 to 1972.
  Along with his good friend Brower, Litton is widely recognized as one 
of the founders of the modern environmental movement. Brower called 
Martin his ``environmental conscience'' because he never compromised 
his principles as he led the conservation movement to some of its 
greatest victories. With his eloquent writing, beautiful photographs, 
and fiery rhetoric, he inspired the efforts to keep dams out of the 
Grand Canyon, a ski resort out of the Sierras' pristine Mineral King 
Valley, and logging out of the Giant Sequoia National Monument. He was 
instrumental in the creation of Redwood National Park in 1968; 2 years 
later, dissatisfied with the park's boundaries, he led the successful 
fight to protect an additional 48,000 acres.
  A longtime oarsman and whitewater enthusiast, Litton also started a 
company in 1971 to take tourists through his beloved Grand Canyon in 
small wooden boats. He maintained an active role in Grand Canyon Dories 
and at 87 became the oldest person ever to pilot a boat through the 
Canyon.
  A fierce and determined defender of our nation's wildlands, Martin 
Litton was a force of nature--and a force for the preservation of 
nature. On behalf of the people of California, who have benefitted so 
much from his life work, I send my deepest gratitude and condolences to 
his beloved wife, Esther; children John, Donald, Kathleen, and Helen; 
five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Martin's memory and 
legacy will live on with everyone who loves America's priceless natural 
heritage, which he did so much to preserve and protect.

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