Page:Michael Welsh - Dunes and Dreams, A History of White Sands National Monument (1995).pdf/104

 92 effect before a federal grand jury. The park service, mindful of Reardon's connections to New Mexican politicians Dennis Chavez and John Dempsey, sent Reardon's case file to Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes, who concurred in the judgment of regional NPS officials.

Because of the uniqueness of the New Mexico New Deal, Johnwill Faris had to move cautiously in the election year of 1940. The following June he wrote in his monthly report of the appointment of John Dempsey as undersecretary of the Interior. Dempsey had run against Chavez in the 1940 Democratic primary race for U.S. Senator, only to be defeated. President Roosevelt then named Dempsey to the Interior post, prompting Faris to say: "The Honorable John Dempsey knows well the problems of the west and we can be assured of an understanding representative in Mr. Dempsey." This was unfortunately not the story that Faris conveyed privately to regional director Miller. J.L. Lawson, former owner of the controversial Dog Canyon property, had defied the Otero County Democratic party by supporting Dempsey, and Faris feared a reprisal against White Sands. "Tom Charles is bitterly opposed to Dempsey," said Faris, "and not one but many rumors have it that Dempsey will get Tom out of the picture at White Sands[,] etc." Lawson himself greeted Faris on an Alamogordo street by asking "how I liked my new boss [Dempsey]." The custodian told Miller that he should "look behind the scene" if problems arose at the monument, as people said: "You never can tell about Lawson."

Doubts concerning the sentiments of Interior officials towards White Sands could not deter Johnwill Faris or the regional office in the months preceding U.S. entry into World War II. The lack of staff bothered NPS supervisors, who devoted considerable time to writing an interpretative manual for use in ranger talks. Natt Dodge came to White Sands to observe the operations and maintenance of the museum, which had opened in June 1940. "Undependable electric current," plus a lack of heat in winter, limited the museum's appeal to visitors in its first year, as did the incomplete design of the museum exhibit cases. Then the heavy summer travel brought dozens of visitors at one time through the museum, with no staff available to explain the monument's features. By August 1941, the NPS could send additional employees to the dunes, but had no funds to address the structural problems of electricity and heat.

The strain upon the monument's facilities also reflected problems old and new: the environmental conditions in the arid Tularosa basin, and the experimental nature of New Deal policy. The ecology of the dunes affected the water supply, whose high salt content corroded pipes and clogged drains several years after construction. High winds