A speech by Terry Bracy to the 2009 Udall Scholars
August 8, 2009
On a snowy day in January of 1965, I walked into the Cannon House Office Building and the magical world of
Mo Udall. I was changed forever.
Forty-four years later, I'm still here. Fifteen years helping build this foundation: schooled by the lessons
of Mo, my mentor, and intoxicated by the humor and optimism of the Udall Ethic. I eventually left Mo's employ,
but I never left Mo. We remained close friends. After his passing, I have attempted to carry forward his
commitment to public service, to decency, and to the development of young leaders to enter the arena of
Public Service. You are those young leaders; this is your moment; and this scholarship certificate is your
license to go and change the world.
Mo loved to tell an old Irish story they told about their national airline, Aer Lingus. The story goes...
A jetliner takes off from Shannon headed for New York. No more than a few minutes into the flight, the
passengers feel the plane shake and turn, and the pilot comes on: Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm afraid I have
a bit of bad news. We've lost an engine, but we have another. Just as a precaution, will all those who can
swim, move to the left side and all those who can't take seats on the right. Nervous passengers quickly
accommodated. No more than ten minutes later, the plane shakes horribly and starts losing altitude. On comes
the pilot: Ladies and Gentlemen, I am afraid I have further bad news, we have lost the second engine and will
have to ditch. For the swimmers on the left, Shannon is about 110 miles North Northeast. And for those who
can't, thank you for flying Aer Lingus.
In his humorous way, this story expresses a frustration we all feel: the sense that forces larger than
us—airlines, Wall Street, insurance companies, medical institutions—set the stage for our lives, and make us
feel that we are helpless to effect change. A daily collision with these forces can drag anyone down and cause
a person to adopt a determinist pessimism: the idea that we are pawns.
I have learned that nothing could be further from the truth. Sure, the constraints of the physical world and
genetics create the stage on which each of our stories is played out. But the script, itself, is unwritten.
That is up to us.
I want to talk about how I learned this from Mo and Stewart Udall: brothers who emerged from a rugged rural
upbringing, to a place of national leadership. Mo used to joke that St. Johns was so small that signs saying
you had entered and left were on the same post. Stewart reflected that they never noticed the arrival of the
Great Depression because they lived in a permanent economic depression.
Yet, the brothers Udall seized their moment and changed the world. Theirs is a story about the power of the
individual and the multiple power of teamwork.
When Alaska was granted statehood in 1959, federal lands were parceled out to competing claimants. But the
aboriginal land claims of the Alaskan Natives—the state's most disenfranchised population—were ignored.
Several years later, there was a huge oil discovery on the State's North Slope which caused the oil giants to
approach then Secretary of Interior Stewart Udall for permits and the right-of-way to build the controversial
Trans-Alaska Pipeline.
Conservationists objected, but it was obvious that they were not destined to win. There was too much oil and
too much attendant political power on the scale. When the oil industry approached Stewart, he was ready. He
told them he had an open mind, but there was a serious issue no one had taken into account: the unsettled
claims of the Alaskan Native tribes. How could he dedicate lands which were still under legal dispute?
In 1968, Secretary Udall performed the greatest demonstration of political judo I have ever witnessed. He
announced a freeze on all Alaskan lands until the Native claims were settled. All of a sudden, the great
political weight of the commodity world was thrown behind the heretofore neglected claims of the tribes.
The oil lobbyists soon landed in the office of Stewart's brother, Congressman Mo Udall, an effective young
legislator and a bridge to the environmental community. I was his legislative assistant, and I spent much
of the next two years helping shape compromises which would allow Mo to pass the Alaska Native Claims Act
of 1971. Today, most of the Alaskan native Corporations created by the Act are great success stories.
There is a story about the first day of committee markup that has always stayed with me. As the Committee was
assembling, I was waived to the front by a senior Southerner, a fellow who always liked to be on the winning
side of a vote. "Terry, do we in fact have the votes to pass this bill?" he inquired. "Yes, sir," I assured
him. "Well then go and tell Morris he can have my vote...and Terry, what IS an aboriginal?" Such was the limited
knowledge and interest in Native rights in those days.
But that is only part of the story. Mo Udall had his own inspiration. He directed me to draft an amendment
that would order a study of all remaining federal lands and recommendations for their appropriate development
or preservation. These lands and this study paved the way for something truly historic: The Alaska Lands Act
of 1980, which saved America's last frontier. Many rate this act as the single most important piece of
conservation legislation in the Twentieth Century.
I wasn't there for the final act. I had moved on. But I took all of the valuable lessons I learned with me:
The first lesson is that seeds well tended can grow into great oaks: small things become big things. This has
always been characteristic of the Udalls. When Mo came to Congress late in a special election in 1961, all the
good committee assignments were gone—and he, the most junior Member of the House was handed the booby prize,
a seat on the House Post Office and Civil Service Committee, a body that rarely met and under the tutelage of
a nice but sleepy southerner with a weakness for bourbon. Within a couple of years, Mo had organized a
committee revolution, wrote new rules, created strong subcommittees, gave himself a plum chairmanship. Mo's
first act was to rewrite Congressional pay rules, and in exchange for a big raise, insisted that new ethics be
enforced in the House that sharply limited outside financial activities. This reform ultimately led to the
creation of an Ethics Committee. A couple of years later, with the Postal system collapsing, Mo removed this
last vestige of Congressional patronage (Congressmen used to appoint all the postmasters) and created the U.S.
Postal Corporation.
Little things turn into big things.
We applied this lesson when we established this institution. Unlike the other three federal educational
foundations, the Udall Foundation never actually received the $40 million endowment Congress promised.
Instead, because of some unfortunate political maneuvering at the time, we received only $19 million. We
plowed ahead anyway, and tonight we have the pleasure of your company and the goodwill and activism of more
than 1,000 Udall Scholars in every state.
Seeds grow into great oaks when well tended.
A second lesson has to do with recognizing "the moment" and the skilled use of leverage, political judo.
Addressing this dinner eight years ago, my friend Bill Bradley was asked if anyone in the future is likely
to match the impact of the Udalls on environmental reform. He said, "Probably not. They were the right leaders,
and that was the moment." That was their moment!
I think we have another.
Who could have known in the 1960's that climate change would be upon us? Who could have guessed the seas will
rise, the snows will melt, and that the American Southwest will contend with permanent drought? And who might
have predicted that history would have delivered two new Udalls to the United States Senate, the eldest
children of Mo and Stewart, who share their fathers' ethics, brilliance and drive?
Keep an eye on Senators Mark and Tom Udall.
The final lesson I want to discuss, taught by the Alaska case, is the value of compromise. How many here
believe that Stewart and Mo Udall liked the idea of a hot oil pipeline traversing the Tundra of Alaska, all
the way from the North Slope to the southern port of Valdez? The answer is obvious—they didn't. But the two
Udalls were also shrewd calculators of the political odds. They weighed the forces at play and knew the
pipeline would be built. So they thought carefully about how to minimize the potential damage and what could
be gained for America in return.
In other words, they held their noses and made a political investment, and has history ever proved them right.
Think about the price they extracted: the first major Indian claims settlement in modern times which set the
precedent for many others that have followed, and the most important lands preservation act of the century.
Of course, not all compromises yield such remarkable results. But the environmental community can learn much
from what they did: they truly used the power of compromise so that in the end all parties won.
Too often in politics today, contestants won't budge. They insist that they must win 100%. Yet they often
forget that times change, the pendulum swings, and soon they will be the losers. Today, the courts of the
United States are clogged by environmental law suits. They are hugely expensive to litigate and treacherously
difficult for judges to handle. After all, judges are not scientists; nor does environmental law provide them
with many options. Usually, they simply have to take educated guesses. Mo and Stewart Udall were great
lawyers, but great lawyers understand the limits of the law. Society has to move ahead; decisions have to be
made, the opposing pressures of growing population and eroding natural resources must be judiciously and
expeditiously mediated.
The Udall Foundation—the federal government's only agency devoted to environmental conflict resolution—always
keeps the lessons Mo and Stewart taught us in mind, and we encourage you, our scholars, to become part of this
ethic.
All of our stories are different, and we have traveled many roads to this evening. But in fundamental ways,
we are one. I used to look back on my career and think it was all a marvelous accident. Indeed, you may think
that your voyage to Tucson and the Udall Scholarship was full of guesses and lucky choices. I have concluded
something else. We are different generations, but we have much in common. Like the Udalls, we share a
fascination with nature and a sense of its limits. We believe that without humor life has no music. We have
curious minds and work hard. We set lofty goals, and have tasted defeat and discouragement. We understand
the frailty of our own nature and our fellow travelers on planet Earth, for even our heroes aren't perfect.
We are curious about other cultures and a larger world. Does that sound like you?
Now it is all in your hands. Now is your moment. Now your service, in whatever way you choose, will make all
the difference. In the words of Robert Kennedy, "Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each
of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of those acts, will be written the history
of this generation."
Thank you and may the wind be at your back.