Mount McKinley name change triggers backlash
Obama in Alaska to raise awareness of climate change
LOS ANGELES — He was a U.S. president for another century, another era of American political infighting.
William McKinley spent a little more than four years in the White House before his assassination in 1901 in Buffalo, New York. He also is remembered as a mediocre chief executive, controlled by his cronies and pressured into war with Spain by imperialistic newspapers of his day.
Supporters say McKinley’s subtle brilliance is in the details; a Republican president who faced tough decisions in his policy toward China and declared war with Spain over Cuban independence, who brought the U.S. into a new generation as an emerging world power.
Now, the former president lies in the middle of a controversy over a mountain in a faraway Western state he never visited. On Monday, President Barack Obama officially redesignated Alaska’s Mount McKinley as Denali, the original Native American-inspired name for the tallest mountain in North America.
The name change has inspired some to cry foul, especially those politicians representing Ohio, McKinley’s birth state, with most saying the name-swipe has disrespected America’s 25th president. Starting late Sunday and continuing well into Monday, high-ranking Republicans led by House Speaker John Boehner and Ohio governor and presidential candidate John Kasich, voiced their disapproval.
“McKinley served our country with distinction during the Civil War as a member of the army,” said a statement released by Boehner, who has represented the Cincinnati area for more than two decades. The statement detailed McKinley’s resumé, including serving as governor of Ohio.
“I’m deeply disappointed in this decision,” Boehner’s statement read.
Denali is a native Koyukon Athabaskan word for “the Great One” or “the High One.” The mountain sits in Denali National Park, so named in 1975.
Lisa Murkowski, the Republican senator for Alaska who campaigned for the name change, tweeted Monday that she was honoured to recognize the mountain as Denali.
For others, the move was tantamount to robbing Gen. George Washington of his obeliskshaped monument in the nation’s capital, or having workers with drills and sandblasters scaling Mount Rushmore to efface the memory of one of the four great men memorialized there.
The outcry even breached party lines, with Ohio Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan, whose district includes McKinley’s hometown of Niles, insisting that: “We must retain this national landmark’s name to honour the legacy of this great president and patriot.”
Obama arrived in Alaska on Monday, where he is set to become the first sitting U.S. president to visit the Arctic Circle as part of an effort to thrust climate change to the forefront of the global agenda.
During his three-day tour of Alaska, Obama plans to hike a glacier, converse with fishermen and tape a reality-TV show with survivalist Bear Grylls — all part of a highly orchestrated White House campaign to illustrate how climate change has damaged the state’s stunning landscape.