North Texas Skeptics selectively skeptical?

Since starting this blog I've almost turned researching James Watt quotations into a cottage industry.
I wrapped up investigation of two different bogus quotations here, and I subsequently contacted one of the sites that had posted the bogus information, letting them know that they were perpetuating an error.

That site was the North Texas Skeptics quotation page. I've been in intermittent e-mail contact with John Blanton about the problem since May 24 (that's a week ago if you're keeping track) and thus far there's no change. The Web site still features the following bogus quotation:

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.
James Watt, Secretary of the Interior for Ronald Reagan
Quoted in the Washington Post, May 24, 1981
(ntskeptics.org)
(emphasis in the original)

John asked me about the quotation and context and whatnot--understandably curious as to what the problem is. Apparently he's skeptical enough about there being a problem so that he's delayed making any changes until he checks everything out for himself.

If only that had been the practice when they posted the quotation in the first place, eh?

Just checking the cited source would have revealed the problem. The current holdup, I suppose, is the problem of accessing the original story from the Washington Post (which took the quotation from the Wall Street Journal, as I've documented elsewhere). The news story isn't part of the news archive made available to libraries through Proquest for some reason. You have to go to directly to the Post archive to get it. If you want more than the first paragraph, they want a few dollars for it.

The preview does include the entirety of the Watt quotation in question (minus the second sentence, which is bogus). I sent the URL of the right search page to John.
Let's see how much longer it takes to fix the problem.

It will also be interesting to see if they publish some form of correction notice.

A bit more on James Watt and alleged quotations

The former secretary of the interior under President Reagan, James Watt, continues to draw criticism for things he probably did not say.

I documented here and here, the fact that the quotation attributed to Watt ("We don't have to protect the environment. The Second Coming is at hand") was of dubious origins.
The trail has been followed to its source now, I believe.

The latter half of the following quotation seems to have come from author Austin Miles, who left Christianity temporarily in frustration after his involvement with Jim Bakker's PTL Ministries.

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.
(North Texas Skeptics, claiming the March 24, 1981 Washington Post as their source--scroll almost to the bottom)
(bold emphasis added)

The portion in bold does not occur in the Washington Post story containing the former portion of the quotation.
In an earlier post, I noted that the blog Hellena Handbasket attributed the quotation to a book by Austin Miles. A portion of that blog is worth quoting here (it is a quotation in turn, but HH does not source the quotation):

"We don't have to protect the environment, the Second Coming is at hand." -- interpretation of the above testimony by Austin Miles, Setting the Captives Free
(Hellena Handbasket)

Fantastically, another dubious quotation of Watt also appears to lead to the same book by Austin Miles. Glen Scherer, in an article for Grist magazine, wrote the following:

Odds are it was in 1981, when President Reagan's first secretary of the interior, James Watt, told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. "God gave us these things to use. After the last tree is felled, Christ will come back," Watt said in public testimony that helped get him fired.
(Grist)

Grist responded to criticism of the article, thus the quotation is now found in the midst of a correction notice. The quotation could not be appropriately substantiated. Scherer claimed that he got the quotation from "Setting the Captives Free" by Austin Miles. Where Scherer got the idea that the quotation was said in public testimony is anybody's guess, since Miles apparently never hinted at it.

In fact, Watt did not make such a statement to Congress. The quotation is attributed to Watt in the book Setting the Captives Free by Austin Miles, but Miles does not write that it was made before Congress.
(Grist)

I'm still on the lookout for the book by Miles (I've got one of his books in my collection of skeptical works), but the book probably doesn't sufficiently address the issue. Wikipedia, which has a fairly good account of the quotation controversy, says the quotation is given with no particular context.

Contacting Austin Miles was the next reasonable step, and apparently that's been done (Hat tip to Bartholomew at "Bartholomew's notes on religion" relating information from "Christianity Today").

In a phone interview last week, Miles said the statement was made on televangelist Jim Bakker’s “PTL Club” program in Charlotte, N.C. at some point in the 1970s or 1980s.
(Christianity Today, via Bartholomew's notes on religion)

From Brian Carnell, who looked into the matter:

First, it turns out that August Miles, who is the original source for this quote attributed to Watt, is also extremely careless about attribution. Theron Mann notes,

First, Loren emails to say that he has written to Austin Miles, the earliest published source of Watt's alleged "last tree" quote, and Miles told Loren that he personally remembered Watt making the statement on a PTL broadcast. (Miles was unable to remember the date of the broadcast). I'm still sceptical, but it's hard to prove or disprove without Watt, Bakker or someone else coming forward.

Obviously its difficult to obtain certainty, but we have another clue about whether the quote is genuine or not. Miles claims that, Watt "is a born-again evangelical who sat on the board of directors of the scandalous PTL Club ministry while serving as our Secretary of Interior." That also turns out to be false. Watt was added to the PTL Club board of directors in 1987, about four years after he was forced out as Secretary of the Interior.

(Brian.Carnell.com)

Carnell's right on target. There's no way to responsibly use the quotation without corroboration beyond what Miles has provided.

Original post in the series.

The bogus quotation machine rumbles on ...

I'm still casting about looking for good (and bad) liberal blogs to visit regularly, and in the process I located "Black Wolfs (sic) Blog," where a liberal Canadian howls about conservatives & whatnot.

The post that prompted me to write dealt with the Israel-Hezbollah conflict ("2 simple reasons why no cease fire in Lebanon"). Black Wolf repeated a supposed quotation of Ariel Sharon that he credited to "Kol Yisrael Radio." That station allegedly reported that Sharon, speaking to Shimon Peres, said "I want to tell you something very clear, don't worry about American pressure on Israel, we, the Jewish people control America, and the Americans know it."

Now, it's true enough that the US tends to support Israel, but the "the Jewish people control America" part seemed a bit over the top, so I resolved to double-check the quotation.

I quickly found that I wasn't the first to raise my eyebrows over that alleged utterance.

Michael Miner wrote a story about the quotation, stemming from a related (apparently false) quotation of Sharon in a story by the Chicago Tribune's Georgie Anne Geyer. In a nutshell, neither quotation is properly sourced--the organization behind the original circulation of the quotation was Illinois' own Islamic Association for Palestine.

This appears to be the account that started the rumour mill in motion.

My take is that nobody, certainly not Black Wolf, will be able to confirm the quotation through the attributed source. It is very probably a fabrication.

Something else caught me eye.

In his previous post, Black Wolf noted the Arab states (not counting Iraq, so far as I can tell) who favor the US do not act according to the will of the people: "everytime there is [an] election, [I]slamic parties usually win, making things worse, because populist government[s] usually do what the people want."

Okay, so democracy is bad since it would make things worse in this case.

Then Black Wolf gives us a string of news blurbs with commentary:

Britons want Bush-Blair divorce
Democracy in action, once elected, one mans [sic] direction is the law, instead of a peoples [sic] wishes.

Apparently democracy would be good in this case since it would keep Bush and Blair from snubbing majority opinions.

From what I can see, Black Wolf doesn't so much care that democracy operates but rather wants to see whoever's in power enacting policies that Black Wolf likes. He supplies the talk of democracy in order to effect a patina of higher principle, I think.

The hint of incoherency seen here is, I suspect, merely the tip of the iceberg with respect to Black Wolf's space.

"James Watt & the Puritan Ethic"

On May 24, 1981, the Washington Post published a column by Colman McCarthy titled "James Watt & the Puritan Ethic." Watt had been appointed by President Reagan and confirmed by the Senate in January of that same year.

McCarthy opened his column somewhat sneeringly:

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 call on us to occupy the land until Jesus returns." (the Washington Post, 24 May 1981)

From there, McCarthy fleshed out his portrait of the "pious" Watt in keeping with the title of the piece, comparing Watt's beliefs to those of the Puritans, saying that the Puritans saw themselves as conquerors of the land, "missionaries bent on converting not people but property" as McCarthy put it during one of his more moderate moments.

What did I find when I unearthed the source of the quotation of Watt?

My responsibility is to follow the Scriptures," he says, "which call upon us to occupy the land until Jesus returns." By the same token, part of federal government's mandate, Mr. Watt adds, is to strike a proper balance between preservation and use of the country's vast "natural resources base" to ensure that"people are provided for until He does come." (The Wall Street Journal 5 May 1981)

Okay, so McCarthy's a columnist. He's not bound to the model of journalistic objectivity for purposes of his columns. He's allowed to grind his axe if he chooses (and he does grind his axe to a considerable degree in the column--I'd include more but for my respect for copyright).
My take is that the media subjected Watt to considerable spin. It makes sense to exploit a nation's natural resources, and to exploit them responsibly. People may disagree as to precisely what the right degree of responsibility is, but Watt was attacked primarily by ridicule and caricature.

It continues today:
Liberal take on Watt.
*
Watt has his defenders, on the other hand.
National Review on Watt
Watt interview, 2004.
Watt Op-ed, 2005
(Watt mentions that in addition to an apology from Moyers he also received one from Grist magazine, the first source listed)

*I spent a good deal of time trying to find a serious critique of the environmental policies under Reagan to provide the best possible presentation of the opposing view, but I failed to find anything better than some comments from Ralph Nader that were high in flourish but low on content. I'd be delighted if somebody can forward me something to represent the sane liberal point-of-view.

"We don't have to protect the environment, the Second Coming is at hand."

Who said it?
If you look up the phrase on the Internet, it is typically credited to former Secretary of the Interior James Watt, who served in the Reagan administration.
The source of the quotation--apart from the claim that Watt said it--isn't ordinarily given, but where a source is suggested it is usually claimed to occur in the May 24, 1981 version of the Washington Post. The Post article is available for purchase through the Post's website for $3.95, but don't bother spending the cash. I've purchased the article, and the quotation isn't there.

I found two suggested sources for the quotation other than the Post.

The second was suggested by fellow eblogger Hellena Handbasket, who claims the quotation was a paraphrase of Watt authored by Austin Miles in "Setting the Captives Free." The index, available for viewing through Amazon.com, indicates a James Watt mention on page 229. I've commented on Hellena's post (love that blog name, BTW), so perhaps the account can be confirmed/disconfirmed soon.

The third suggested source I've already mentioned in an earlier post on this topic. It was claimed that Watt uttered the infamous phrase on national television. I find the claim doubtful because I cannot corroborate it in any fashion, because the writer is apparently not from the US (and therefore less likely familiar with US politics), and because the writer stated that Watt served in the Reagan administration from 1991 through 1993 (actually the G. H. W. Bush and W. J. Clinton administrations; the decade is off by 10 years).

Sith blogroller Kele reasonably suggests that Watt could have stated the quotation in question. There are many things that I could have said but didn't, on the other hand, as I'm sure is true for most of us.

Until I see it properly sourced, I will not believe it of Watt. If the quotation is used to attack Christianity or the Reagan administration (or whomever), it should be properly sourced.

Look for a post on the content of the Post article, by the way.

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.

James Watt Said What?

I was looking into some of the atheism materials over at Kele's Journey, another e-blogger blog, and ran across a supposed quotation of James Watt, a former official in President Ronald Reagan's administration.
According to Kele (no citation was offered), Watt said "We don't have to protect the environment, the Second Coming is at hand."
I could remember Watt being accused of something along those lines, but that quotation looked unfamiliar to me. I did a Google search particular to the phrase and returned plenty of hits minus any helpful context. Restricting to .gov sites turned up no results. Restricting to .edu, suprisingly, shrank the number of hits down to two. Just for good measure, I also checked the hits for Google Scholar. Google Scholar generated one hit, and the citation simply referred back to a Gainesville (FL) humanist site.

Of note, I did find an article by Byron York apparently exposing a similar quotation attributed to James Watt (parroted by Bill Moyers, of all people).

Okay, I've got a well-substantiated quotation that falls vaguely along those lines.

Answers.com confirms that Watt said

"That is the delicate balance the Secretary of the Interior must have: to be steward to the natural resources for this generation as well as future generations. I do not know how many future generations we can count on before the Lord returns; whatever it is we need to manage it with a skill to leave the resources needed for future generations."

The same site also confirms the York story to the extent that Watt secured an apology from Bill Moyers over the misquotation issue.
The quotation that Kele is using is suspicious. Given the quotation of Watt here, the presumption probably ought to be that the quotation is inauthentic. In any case, I'll do some follow-up research in order to put the matter to bed. I suspect that the quotation was a paraphrase that got attributed to Watt over time.