Cosmos Club 01/01/2019 Cosmos Clup - vvikipegia WIKIPEDIA Cosmos Club The Cosmos Club is a 501(c)(7) private Cosmos Club social club in Washington, D.C. that was founded by John Wesley Powell in 1878 as COSMOS a gentlemen's club. [1] Among its stated COSMOS CLUB goals is "The advancement of its members WASHINGTON D.C in science, literature, and art".[1] Cosmos Club members have included three U.S. presidents, two U.S. vice presidents, a dozen Supreme Court justices, 36 Nobel Prize winners, 61 Pulitzer Prize winners, and 55 recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. [2] In 1988 the Club opened to women members. Cosmos Club in February 2010 The club has approximately 3,089 Formation 1878 members in Full, Junior, Senior, and Type Private social club Emeritus categories. Location 2121 Massachusetts Since 1952, the club headquarters have Avenue, NW, Washington, been in the Townsend House on Embassy D.C. Row. Meetings in other communities also Services Hotel (50 rooms), Dining, are held regularly at reciprocating private Athletics, Meetings clubs, such as The Field Estate in Sarasota, Website Florida. cosmosclub.org (http://cos mosclub.org) [1] Contents History Awards Membership See also References -6/8/2049 Cosmos Club > About the Club COSMOS CLUB WASHINGTON D.C. ABOUT THE CLUB About the Club J About the Cosmos Club COSMOS CLUB Club ABOUT THE COSMOS CLUB The Cosmos Club, incorporated in Washington, D.C. in 1878, is a private social club for women and men distinguished in science, literature, the arts, a learned profession or public service. The Club is noted for its camaraderie and atmosphere of warmth, dignity, and elegance. Members who enter the Clubhouse in search of congeniality or intellectual stimulation find both in full measure. Should they seek solitude, privacy is respected. Individuals elected to Club membership come from a wide variety of professions; a common theme is a relation with scholarship, creative genius, or intellectual distinction. Among its members, over the years, have been three Presidents, two Vice Presidents, a dozen Supreme Court justices, 36 Nobel Prize winners, 61 Pulitzer Prize winners, and 55 recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The Club offers an impressive array of intellectual and cultural programs for every member interest. Events range from large lunch or dinner lectures to intimate conversations for a dozen or fewer. There are also monthly musical concerts in the Warne Ballroom and literary conversations in the Library. The Club's social calendar is full and varied: weekly champagne brunches, monthly lobster dinners and prime rib buffets, seasonal dinner dances, and special holiday events. There are chess and bridge tournaments, wine tastings, dancing lessons, and walking tours. Members are kept informed of the activities of the Club through the monthly Cosmos Club Bulletin, the e-mailed weekly newsletter, and this website. The Club's collection of 9,500 volumes (most of which may be borrowed by members) and nearly 140 periodicals is housed in exquisite rooms that offer a quiet haven for reading and contemplating. CREATING ACADIA NATIONAL PARK RONALD H EPP 92 Main Street Prospect Harbor, ME 04669 Karen Mark, Librarian The Cosmos Club 2121 Massachusetts Avenue NW Washington, D.C. 20008 Dear Karen: It was delightful to speak with you on September 9, re the enclosed complimentary, autographed copy of the recently published "Creating Acadia National Park. The Biography of George Bucknam Dorr" by Ronald H. Epp, Ph.D. According to the information that Ronald obtained from Margaret at The Cosmos Club on 9 March 2001, Mr. Dorr was a member of The Cosmos Club from 1921 to 1934. As stated in the book: Page 129: " ...In the years ahead when consultation with the National Park Service officials required extended stays in the nation's capital, Dorr would become a member (from 1921 to 1934) of the most celebrated Washington club for public policy intellectuals, The Cosmos Club." Page 206: "...Dorr was now accustomed to spending mid-winter at the Cosmos Club in Washington, D.C., lobbying for park funding from the congressional appropriations committees." For a complete list of reference to The Cosmos Club, please see attached. Mr. Dorr was instrumental in creating what is now Acadia National Park. He is often referred to as "The Father of Acadia National Park." Dorr, along with other early National Park luminaries including Gifford Pinchot, Stephen Tyng Mather, and Horace M. Albright, were all members of The Cosmos Club. As this is the Centennial Year for the National Park Service and for Acadia National Park, we thought that The Cosmos Club would like to have this information on one of its illustrious, but often unsung, members. Sincerely, Pauline V. Angione for Ronald H. Epp (pangione@gmail.com) Encl: "Creating Acadia National Park" CC: Ronald Epp, 532 Sassafras Dr., Lebanon, PA 17042 Email: eppster2@comcast.net Mentions of The COSMOS CLUB in Creating Acadia National Park. The Biography of George Bucknam Dorr by Ronald H. Epp Page 129: (In Index under "[The] Cosmos Club".) And in the years ahead when consultation with National Park Service officials required extended stays in the nation's capital, Dorr would become a member (from 1921 to 1934) of the most celebrated Washington club for public policy intellectuals, The Cosmos Club. 27 (FOR CONTENT OF ENDNOTE 27, SEE BELOW) Page 170 (Not Indexed) Dorr carefully scrutinized the political techniques of Mather and Albright, comparing and contrasting their strategies, weighing their effectiveness. All three were in Washington in the spring of 1916. Mather sought the company of fellow guests at the Cosmos Club, Mr. Dorr's primary residence in the capitol.23 Page 177 (Not Indexed) Where the historical roots were shallow, Dorr developed alternative historical arguments for a topographic renaming that would be adjudicated by the United States Board on Geographic Names, a federal authority that met not far from Dorr's D.C. lodging at the Cosmos Club.45 Page 180 (Not Indexed) Following this strenuous conference, several days later Mather suffered a nervous breakdown at the Cosmos Club. According to his biographer, "two years of unrelieved high tension had broken Mather down as he had broken down in 1903."4 Page 206 (In Index under "[The] Cosmos Club".) IN DECEMBER 1923, Dorr sent to Rockefeller a lengthy summary of land acquisitions (realized and in process), identifying the linkages needed for the evolving system of roads and pathways. His objective was to acquire properties that would result in "unbroken reservations" of land interconnected systematically from north to south, east to west-with suitable points of road access. Dorr was now accustomed to spending midwinter at the Cosmos Club in Washington, D.C., lobbying for park funding from the congressional appropriations committees. ENDNOTES: Page 348, Note 27: "Wilcomb E. Washburn, A Centennial History 1878-1978: The Cosmos Club of Washington (Washington, DC: Cosmos Club, 1978); Dorr also resided briefly at the University Club-both in Washington and New York City-and the Engineer's Club in Boston. Page 356, Note 23: "Horace Albright reports that while Mrs. Mather lived in Chicago, her husband resided at the Cosmos Club. "He hated being alone. He rarely was. He loved entertaining friends and did so with a lavish hand." Creating the National Park Service, 175 Page 402 INDEX The Cosmos Club, 129, 206 COSMOS CLUB EPP_CC.docx 9/9/16 Page 1/1 9/11/2016 XFINITY Connect: Inbox (17) Hello, Guest Shop/Upgrade My Account Support My XFINITY Sign Out Email usage: Search Mail Search 11% of 10 GB Email Voice Address Book Calendar Text Messaging Preferences Help Re: Wiki common Mailboxes Close New Get Mail Reply Reply to All Forward Delete Move Spam Print Actions Inbox (17) Re: Wiki commons more for us Sent Sent By: Pauline Angione On: Sep 09/11/16 5:43 PM CANP Reviews To: Ronald Epp Drafts October is better for me too. Guess I should have said "..not before end of Sept." Spam Sounds like your schedule is very busy. There is no rush on the Wiki thing and I can poke around re logistics of it while you do want you have to Trash Glad you and Jack like FlexIt, or, as I still call it The Maine Grind." P. Acadia Centennial P. Acadia Copyedit On Sunday, September 11, 2016, Ronald Epp wrote: ANPFindingAid1113 Hi Pauline, Bunny CANP Thank you for your labors with the Cosmos Club. And for your offer to partner CANP Images with me in development of a Wikipedia entry for GBD. You suggest a week or two CANP Cover CANP Final1 for a telephone chat about this but i will need more time until we chat. CANP Final2 CANP Proofs I've got to complete two talks I'm giving in CT and Buffalo between 9/22 and 9/27 CANP Talks Since these are not for Maine audiences familiar with Dorr and the park, I've got t CCC Garden dedica write more-- and ad lib less. We'll set up a time to talk during the first week of Oc DorrBio2008 (31) if that is agreeable. But I also need to outline what this online biographical entry S PROMOTIONS include and I need to see whether I can use many of the images where I obtained permissions for print use, not online applications. All this takes time and since I've PROGRESSIVE returned I've been doing Acadia homework, fulfilling requests for additional You could save an average information for those who heard my talks or interacted with me while I was in of $497 when you switch to Progressive. Hancock County. And by the way, I had a two hour lunch at FlexIt with Jack Russe Get a free quote today! on the 30th just before my departure. Like me, he enjoyed the environment and V © 2015 Comcast Cable Communications Privacy Statement Terms of Service Contact Us Add Comcast Services https://web.mail.comcast.net/zimbra/mail?app=mail#2 1/1 9/11/2016 XFINITY Connect XFINITY Connect eppster2@comcast.net + Font Size - Bingo! From : Pauline Angione Fri, Sep 09, 2016 02:10 PM Subject : Bingo! To : Ron Epp Joanne Puerreoosclu , Membership manager, answered her phone and assure me that they get a lot of books and she was not interested...bu she referred me to the librarian, and Referred me to Karen Mark, Librarian # Karen is VERY interested as she just got an inquiry re members who were involved in Nat Park Service. Bingo! P. Pauline V. Angione 92 Main Street, Prospect Harbor, ME 04669-5005 pangione@gmail.com 207 963 2242 Home/Messages 207 632 4962 Cell/Messages/Texts 800 393 0154 Fax (Private in email) https://web.mail.comcast.net/zimbra/h/printmessage?id=387926&tz=America/New_York&xim=: 1/1 From: Margaret Margaret@cosmosclub.org> To: "'repp@mail.hartford.edu'" Subject: RE: Information Request Date sent: Fri, 9 Mar 2001 18:13:44 -0500 Dear Sir: We have searched our records and are sorry to report that we have nothing on George Bucknam Dorr other than that he was a member from 1921 to 1935. Original Message From: repp@mail.hartford.edu [mailto:repp@mail.hartford.edul Sent: Thursday, March 08, 2001 9:11 AM To: margaret@cosmosclub.org Subject: Information Request To Whom it May Concern: I am presently engaged in research on one of your former members, George Burnham Dorr (1853-1944), the founder of Acadia National Park. I have examined your web site and wonder whether a Cosmos Club library or archives exists with information relative to early members. If it does, could you put me into contact with that person. I will be visiting Washington March 14 and 15th and would welcome the opportunity to pursue this matter further if your organization has information relative to Mr. Dorr. I have exhausted the Acadia National Park Archives where I located correspondance during the first decades of the 20th century to and from Mr. Dorr on Cosmos Club stationary. I would apprecate any assistance you could provide. Ronald H. Epp, Ph.D. Director of Libraries University of Hartford -1-- Mon, 12 Mar 2001 15:13:56 A Plea For the National Parks http://www.cosmos-club.org/journals/1996/frome.html A Plea For the National Parks by Michael Frome National parks have been an important part of my life, continually rewarding, inspiring and challenging. Over the past half-century I've witnessed many changes in the parks, some few for the better, but many highly damaging and cause for serious concern. Simply stated, these precious places are overused, misused, polluted, inadequately protected and unmercifully exploited commercially and politically. Clearly, we need to redefine and reassert the rightful role of national parks in today's high-tech, materialist society. John Muir wrote that wildness is a necessity, that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life. Theodore Roosevelt in 1903, after camping with Muir among the ancient sequoias of Yosemite, listening to the hermit thrush and the waterfalls tumbling down sheer cliffs, wrote that "It was like lying in a great solemn cathedral far vaster and more beautiful than any built by the hand of man." Because I love the national parks and have worked long in their behalf, I feel deep concern and fear for their future, especially with the mindless, destructive plans promoted by the current crop of anti-environmentalists riding high in Congress. They have tried to close many of the parks, declare them surplus like old military bases and turn them over to the states or counties or private entrepreneurs. When parks were closed during the federal shutdown late in 1995, stopgap funding was allocated but solely for visitor services, without regard for protection of the resources that attract visitors in the first place. Another proposal would have required the National Park Service to support itself from entrance and use fees, meaning that park managers would make raising money, instead of park protection, their top priority. Then there was the idea advanced early in 1996 by the governor of Arizona, Fife Symington, that his state assume management of Grand Canyon National Park, not to save this world treasure, but to keep the tourists coming. To some people, a national park is valid or defensible as long as it helps jingle the cash registers of local merchants and tour companies. The traditional formula has been to preserve, protect, enjoy. The first two plainly come last today. The National Park Service, if you ask me, has lost its way, lost the sense of commitment to a long-term goal, and acquiesced to pressures of political expediency in place of principle. When the agency was established in 1916, Congress assigned it the responsibility of conserving scenery, natural objects, historic objects and wildlife for the enjoyment of the people and by such means as to perpetuate these resources for the enjoyment of future generations. That goal doubtless seemed logical and attainable Nthere were fewer Americans and lots of elbow room. While species of wildlife already were threatened with extinction, as yet none of the landforms was, with the exception of certain types of forests. Today, by contrast, everything is threatened Nmarshes, deserts, prairies, the few remaining virgin forests and living creatures dependent on them. Wild animals make a park a park, but wildlife has been crowded out of its habitat in every national park without exception. Animals are not protected from hikers, horseback riders, mountain bikers, snowmobiles, sightseeing airplanes and helicopters, roads, tour buses, 1 of 5 3/7/01 2:37 PM A Plea For the National Parks http://www.cosmos-club.org/journals/1996/frome.html cars, concessionaires or park administrators. Despite Yellowstone's year-round importance as wildlife habitat, each winter it welcomes 75,000-plus snowmobilers who intrude in areas frequented by bison, elk and other animals at the very time of year when they should be at rest and undisturbed. In response to questions or complaints, park officials will respond, "Yes, there could be a problem. We are considering plans to do a study." In any direct conflict, the animal loses. In June 1992 an off-duty ranger called from Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado to tell me that two bears that wandered into a campground looking for food were shot dead on official orders. That didn't sound right. If it's a question of clearing an area of campers or bears, safeguarding the bears or any native species ought to come first. However, Robert M. Baker, regional director of the National Park Service, wrote me that dispatching the two to bear heaven was justified to prevent "an unacceptable risk to human safety and property." I can't agree. Anyone going to a national park or wilderness ought to prepare for risk and be properly advised to do SO. Many of these places are run like ZOOS or popcorn playgrounds where visitors go around in padded comfort. Voyageurs National Park, in Minnesota, actually endorses snowmobile races and would already have built new snowmobile trails across the Kabtogema Peninsula, a wild area sheltering wolf, bear and other wildlife, had it not been for citizen protest. The former superintendent of Voyageurs National Park, Ben Clary, in a 1990 letter set me straight on things. "If you are young, or relatively healthy, and have the time," he wrote, "one can have a tremendously rewarding experience in backpacking or skiing within a park. But who is to say that those not as fortunate have any less of an experience if they use mechanical equipment to access the park? In fact, the vast majority of all use in our national parks relates in some ways to motor vehicles." He's absolutely right, but that doesn't justify the dominance of polluting vehicles and of highways where there should be trails. Keeping people out is not the issue. Adventures in the outdoors are essential to appreciation of the land, but when people come into national parks they find scant emphasis on self-reliance or on the need to respect the natural environment. Urbanites are made to feel comfortable in the back country with treeless, barren camping suburbias. The heart of Yellowstone, our oldest national park, the "flagship," has been reduced to an urban tourist ghetto complete with crime, litter, defacement and vandalism. Yosemite Valley may be even worse. In Virgin Islands National Park a few years ago, I saw beautiful palm trees uprooted to make way for pavement and parking, a hillside bulldozed flat SO that a quiet road meant for leisurely touring could be "upgraded" into a high-speed highway to accommodate cruise-ship passengers on quickie excursions. These examples are not the exception, they are the rule. National parks in our time are being reduced to resource commodities for the benefit of for-profit park concessionaires, tour companies, and business interests in park-bordering communities like Gatlinburg, Tennessee; International Falls, Minnesota; Cody and Jackson, Wyoming; and Moab, Utah. Such groups hold the political clout to get their way. Thus the airport in Grand Teton National Park, the only commercial airport in a national park, keeps growing instead of being phased out and closed. In Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska, where a choice must be 2 of 5 3/7/01 2:37 PM A Plea For the National Parks http://www.cosmos-club.org/journals/1996/frome.html made between protecting whales or increasing the number of large intrusive cruise vessels, the decision comes down in favor of the cruise companies. Thirty years after passage of the Wilderness Act, the National Park Service deliberately has kept classified wilderness small and unprotected. The agency leadership claims its own basic legislation is adequate and effective, but all the evidence points to continuing willingness to back away from preservation, to sacrifice wilderness to construction and development. National parks cannot be all things and still be national parks; we cannot allow them to be reduced to outdoor amusement centers. Prudent and intelligent people must realize that unrestrained pressure on the parks for profit is not progress. Political pressures are not new. Stephen T. Mather, first director of the National Park Service (from 1916 to 1928), showed a willingness to stand up against what he called "desecration of the people's playgrounds for the benefit of a few individuals or corporations," but politics has become a powerful influence, more deadly to wild animals than a poacher's rifle. This is the politics of profit that weakens laws, regulations and the resolve of public administrators. I believe in the political system and that every viewpoint should find the appropriate avenue to express itself. History shows that every national park came into being because private citizens cared and campaigned for it through the political process. Citizen organizations and individuals have provided the enthusiasm and energy to establish and then to guard the integrity of the parks. In more recent times, were it not for caring citizens, the Colorado River would be dammed where it runs through the Grand Canyon, the great forests would be long gone from the Olympic Peninsula, the Great Smoky Mountains would be scarred with a transmountain highway and Civil War battlefields would be covered with shopping malls and subdivisions. The best defense is an alert and involved public. Over the years, I have interviewed many people, of all stations of society, in national parks and in cities removed from the parks, and found that virtually all support protection of park values. The growth of the National Parks and Conservation Association as a major advocate and watchdog, with almost 500,000 members, has been an encouraging development in voicing this feeling. In 1995, NPCA played a key role through its grassroots network in mobilizing public opposition to the park-closure scheme. Many of the best Republicans, in fact, scorned the Contract with America to heed their constituents and take a stand for parks. National parks are nonpartisan by nature and often bring out the best in politicians. Harry F. Byrd, a conservative Democrat, was governor of Virginia in the 1920S when Shenandoah National Park was authorized. Every acre was in private ownership and Byrd played a key role in working with citizen advocates and the legislature to acquire the land for presentation to the federal government. Years later, as a U.S. senator, he would write: "In the tragedies and other strain of our modern world, generations to come will receive peace of mind and new hopes in lifting their eyes to the peaks and canyons of the Shenandoah National Park, and those who made possible its establishment can justly feel that their labors were not in vain." John P. Saylor, on the other hand, was a loyal Republican from western Pennsylvania, who championed national parks in the House of Representatives for more than two decades until his death in office in 1973. "I cannot believe that the American people have become SO crass, SO dollar-minded, SO exploitation-conscious," he once said, "that they must develop 3 of 5 3/7/01 2:37 PM A Plea For the National Parks http://www.cosmos-club.org/journals/1996/frome.html every little bit of wilderness that still exists." Although he received the John Muir Medal from the Sierra Club, he also was given the Distinguished Service Award from the ultraconservative Americans for Constitutional Action, showing that conservation belongs to no party and to no single point of view. National parks are the essence of patriotism. Not just the scenic natural spectacles, but all of the 369 natural, historic and cultural sites and shrines that comprise the National Park System. That was my thought while on a visit to the USS Arizona Memorial, built in Honolulu over the hull of the sunken battleship. I can't imagine anyone, of any nationality (and I toured the site in company with many Japanese), coming away unmoved, or not imbued with new caring and compassion. The Navy established the memorial to protect the final resting place of 1,100 Navy men and Marines who lost their lives on December 7, 1941 and are buried with their ship, but the National Park Service administers the site as a treasure belonging to everyone. National park units like the Arizona Memorial are special places. They may not cover as much space as Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon, but that doesn't diminish their meaning or their message to our generation and generations to come. National parks like these are meant to be forever; they are priceless time capsules to tomorrow that we are privileged to know and enjoy today. In setting the national parks agenda for tomorrow, miracles large and small are within reach. Theodore Roosevelt said at Stanford University in 1903 that "there is nothing more practical than the preservation of beauty, than preservation that appeals to the higher emotions of mankind." That should be the goal and, yea verily, those who safeguard a national park as a sacred cathedral of harmony and hope will be blessed. Another time T.R. called the Grand Canyon "one of the great sights which every American should see," but he didn't say they should all come at once. We Americans love to travel when, where, and however we want. National parks are SO readily accessible to increasing numbers of people who want to enjoy their wonders that only restraints can protect them as national parks. Permit systems and limitation of visitors are likely to be implemented in more and more parks. I hate to moralize, or to advocate strict rules and regulations, or restraints on individual freedom, but with freedom of mobility comes the responsibility to protect the environment and the ability of others to travel freely. I believe that Americans make mistakes in the out-of-doors without malice. When problems are explained properly, they will understand and respond appropriately and, hopefully, influence the body politic that serves us. Overuse and misuse clearly deplete the visible physical resource that people care about, but they do something to the invisible spirit of place as well. Rainbow Bridge, just north of the Arizona-Utah border, curving upward to a height above 300 feet, once was a sacred destination for religious pilgrimage, reached by toil, sweat, endurance and pain, proving to the pilgrim that the great things in life must be earned. That makes sense even to the European mind, for as Jung wrote, "There is no birth of consciousness without pain." Now, by contrast, the impounded waters of Glen Canyon Dam have made painless visits possible via boat on the reservoir called Lake Powell, to the Bridge Canyon landing, then walking about one mile. Surely some element of critical value- 2Dthe sense of connecting with spirit- 4 of 5 3/7/01 2:37 PM A Plea For the National Parks http://www.cosmos-club.org/journals/1996/frome.html 2Dis lost. With reference to consciousness and pain, I cite the experience of Mark Wellman, an accomplished California mountaineer who broke his back in a climbing accident in 1982 and was left without the use of legs. He lost direction in his life until a chance visit to Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco led to enrolling as a volunteer ranger. It was a new beginning, the start of Mark's climb back from pain, loneliness and shattered dreams. He took courses in park management that ultimately led to a summer job as a ranger in Yosemite. He worked at the visitor center and entry stations, and on his own time, absorbing the Yosemite scenery and swimming in chilly, snow-fed waters. Mark pushed himself to see as much of the park as was humanly possible in a wheelchair. But how far could he go? Mark Wellman advanced bit by bit until he made history when he and a partner climbed the 3500-foot granite face of El Capit#n. Then two years later he pulled himself to the summit of Half Dome though it took 13 days to make it. "I've always believed that true adventure involves discovering things about yourself as you edge ever closer toward the boundaries of your personal limits," Mark wrote later, in his book, Climbing Back. "I learned plenty about myself on El Capitáan and Half Dome." National parks are true adventure, places for discovering things about oneself, for edging toward boundaries of personal limits. It doesn't have to be intensely physical, either. Walk only a short distance from the crowded paths. In solitude, allow yourself to encounter and examine flowers, trees, birds, rocks and water 2Dseparately and then collectively. It's astonishing how you can train your eyes, ears and nose to note things most people ignore. Looking at scenery can be a passive experience, but as you explore with the eye and mind, patterns of nature become evident and logical. You can be your own ecologist and enriched in spirit in the process. The more the country becomes developed, the more America needs national parks as sanctuaries, sacred space where Americans can escape cities to look at stars 2Dto touch stars and be touched and empowered by them. National parks open the heart to inner feeling and emotion; they enable the pilgrim to appreciate the sanctity of life, of all life, and to manifest humility and love. That, above all, is what national parks are about. Michael Frome ('68) is a well known author, conservationist and educator. His new book, Chronicling the West 2DThirty Years of Environmental Writing, is scheduled for publication in May 1996. His National Park Guide is in its 29th edition. Other works include Regreening the National Parks, Strangers in High Places: The Story of the Great Smoky Mountains and Conscience of a Conservationist. He lives in Bellingham, Washington. Return to COSMOS 1996 Table of Contents Return to COSMOS Journals Return to COSMOS Home Page 5 of 5 3/7/01 2:37 PM