Saturday, July 01, 2006

Bringing Light to Bear (increasing the Wattage)

In a previous post, I brought into question the legitimacy of a quotation of former secretary of the interior under President Ronald Reagan, James Watt. Watt has been widely quoted as saying "We don't have to protect the environment, the Second Coming is at hand." The initial trials of locating adequate sourcing for the quotation were documented in that earlier post.
Today, I followed up by returning to the Google hit list to see if source documentation had been provided.
In some cases, it had (see "Rogues Gallery" entry). Note that the quotation has some added context in this case:
My responsibility is to follow the Scriptures which call upon us to occupy the land until Jesus returns. We don't have to protect the environment, the Second Coming is at hand."
--The Washington Post, May 24, 1981
That seemed straightforward enough, so off I went to the Washington Post. I did an archive search for the specific day, and confirmed the existence of an article about Watt on the day in question.
That's where complications set in.
The Washington Post only gives you a peek at their archives. For the day in question, I found the following:
Jesus may or may not be returning any day now, but either way James Gaius Watt, the secretary of interior, is comporting himself in pious watchfulness. He is quoted recently in The Wall Street Journal, saying, that "My responsibility is to follow the Scriptures which all upon us to occupy the land until Jesus returns."
There are two problems, here.
First, the quotation is second-hand. We haven't reached the source.
Second, we only have part of the quotation confirmed (the unimportant part), and the good owners of the Post would like $3.95 (it's less per article if you go in on a bulk deal) in order to share the article with a broader audience for 90 days.
Having the answer potentially at my fingertips, I ignored the first problem and tried to purchase the article for the low, low introductory price of $3.95.
That's when the third problem presented itself.
The Washington Post could not process the transaction at this time (or words to that effect).

I wonder, did the entire quotation originate with the WSJ, or did the Post include both parts of the quotation separately after which they were joined by a redactor?
I tried looking for confirmed portion of the quotation along with WSJ search terms ("Wall" and "Street" and "Journal," in effect). None of the hits surveyed contained the quotations as presented by the North Texas Skeptics. In fact, I did find the quotations in reverse order with only the confirmed (secondhand) portion being credited to the Washington Post.

The hunt continues ... but that's all for now.

Update: Most of the occurrences of the "We don't have to protect the environment ..." quotation list the Washington Post as the source (same date mentioned above), but I found one that offers a different source.

James Watt, Interior Secretary in the Reagan Administration, 1991 to 1993, spoke on national American television, advising them that they shouldn't worry about dwindling natural resources or pollution: "We don't have to protect the environment, the Second Coming is at hand."
Source (see #15)
I'm suspicious of this even without the mistaken claim that the Reagan Administration included the years 1991 through 1993. I'll keep a further eye out for anything that might (to my surprise) corroborate this account of events.



2 comments:

  1. Bah, newspapers should be free!

    ReplyDelete
  2. TANSTAAFL.
    Ever heard of it?

    Newspapers were once a penny (back when a penny was worth something), but that was only after the newspapers discovered advertising revenue.
    Today, most newspapers are experiencing declining circulation, which translates to lower demand (lesser leverage in bargaining power) for their advertising services.
    Four bucks is outrageous for a single archived newspaper article, in a way, but I don't fault newspapers for trying to make a buck for their services.
    In this case, the Post has information that I can't get for a better price.

    ReplyDelete

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