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  • (Sound of Air Force 1 taxiing)

  • ♪♪(Guitar strumming)♪♪

  • Secretary Salazar: President Obama and his family decided as

  • part of their summer they would actually visit national parks

  • because it is a unifying American idea,

  • fundamentally democratic, and very much a part of our future.

  • President Obama: I have great memories of being here.

  • My grandma, my mom, and my sister, who is with us today,

  • she was two at the time, and we traveled throughout the

  • country the entire summer.

  • Our last stop was our favorite stop.

  • Ken Burns: The national parks, I think, are studies in leadership.

  • How presidents have related to the national parks have been in

  • some ways defining aspects of their larger leadership quality.

  • ♪♪

  • Park Ranger: Well, I think it's always special when a president visits anywhere.

  • Chester A. Arthur was the first to visit Yellowstone in 1883.

  • President Theodore Roosevelt, Roosevelt came in 1903.

  • Then in 1923 Warren Harding.

  • In 1927 silent Calvin Coolidge visited us.

  • Then in 1937 FDR, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, came.

  • ♪♪

  • Newscaster: President Franklin D. Roosevelt, swinging through the west on a

  • campaign tour, took time out for a visit to Yellowstone National Park.

  • An exponent of conservation, Mr. Roosevelt backed many

  • measures aimed at enlarging our national forests and preserving wildlife.

  • This was a moment of relaxation amid the scenes he loved.

  • Former President Ford: This is a moment that I have been looking forward

  • to for a long, long time.

  • To return to Yellowstone where I spent one of the greatest

  • summers of my life.

  • Park Ranger: Gerald Ford was an interesting example of a President,

  • because he had been a park ranger in Yellowstone.

  • Then after Ford, Jimmy Carter came to Yellowstone and was

  • again fishing, was his primary focus.

  • After Carter, George Herbert Walker Bush who came to

  • Yellowstone in 1989.

  • Bill Clinton was here twice.

  • Former President Clinton: Yellowstone is the symbol of our

  • national parks because it's the oldest one and the first one in

  • the history of the world.

  • Park Ranger: And then after Bill Clinton, of course, we had

  • President Barack Obama.

  • President Obama: You know, the thing I remember most was,

  • you know, driving by and seeing -- it was elk.

  • And I remember bison.

  • In fact, I ran up close to a bison and took some pictures of him.

  • (laughter)

  • Park Ranger: It's never a good idea to approach bison closely.

  • Park Ranger: The Recovery Act has been a real boon for us.

  • It's been welcome dollars.

  • The great thing about the way the National Park Service in

  • Yellowstone approached the Recovery Act,

  • the funding with that, was we wind up a variety of projects

  • that we already had in the queue of things that we wanted to do.

  • ♪♪

  • President Obama: The notion that collectively we come together and we say,

  • you know, we're going to preserve some things

  • that last beyond our individual lives,

  • that we're going to pass that on.

  • And we have to do it together.

  • You know, that's part of what is hopefully best about our government.

  • And so every once in a while we need the ability to step back

  • from our personal wants and project something finer and

  • better for future generations.

  • That's what the park district is all about.

  • ♪♪

(Sound of Air Force 1 taxiing)

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