By Mary Beth Schneider
TheStatehouseFile.com

INDIANAPOLIS— I’ve never believed it true that “you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.”

But it is true that events can give you a keener appreciation of what was lost.

On Nov. 27, we lost William Ruckelshaus, an Indianapolis native who was the first director of the Environmental Protection Agency and who famously resigned rather than carry out President Nixon’s order to fire the independent prosecutor investigating the Watergate scandal.

His death came only a day after the United Nations issued a harrowing report warning that the world is whistling past its own graveyard, with unprecedented cuts in greenhouse gas emissions needed to stave off catastrophic consequences of climate change.

And it came in the midst of impeachment hearings that show President Trump, like President Nixon, has used his office as a political weapon and engaged in a cover-up to hide the truth from the American public.

If ever we needed a man of Mr. Ruckelshaus’s caliber, it’s now.

I will never forget the so-called “Saturday Night Massacre.” I was in college, majoring in journalism while absorbed in the daily nightmare of news stories showing our country led by a criminal. The news that Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General Ruckelshaus had resigned rather than obey Nixon’s order to fire Archibald Cox was shocking and reassuring all at once. You knew the nation was in crisis; you also knew there were still good people who put country over party, principle over politics.

Where are they today? Where is U.S. Rep. Susan Brooks, the Carmel Republican who was an able U.S. attorney and knows evidence when she sees it? Where is Sen. Todd Young, who as a U.S. Marine knows about honor? It’s not that I expect them and others to necessarily support impeachment, but is speaking out against presidential abuse of power too much? Are words of censure out of line when they’re aimed at someone from your own party?

State Sen. John Ruckelshaus, the Indianapolis Republican who is William Ruckelshaus’s nephew, told me that “he never looked at himself as a hero.”

In fact, when Ruckelshaus tried to put together an event honoring his uncle three years ago, he was told: “Bill doesn’t want any awards. He doesn’t want any accolades.”

While I think he defined the word “hero” if the only thing he’d ever done is resign rather than take part in obstruction of justice, John Ruckelshaus said his uncle viewed his role in Watergate “as just something that evolved, and it’s there and it’s a time that he just stood up for principle, which he would have done and I would have done and we all would have done etcetera.”

If only. Too many people then and far too many now aren’t standing up for principle at all. It’s why there was applause when career foreign service diplomats like Maria Yovanovitch and Fiona Hill testified in Trump’s impeachment inquiry about the abuse of power they witnessed and rebutted the false narrative that Ukraine, not Russia, has been meddling in our elections.

William Ruckelshaus seemed to see his resignation as just a day at the office, the work that had to be done. In fact, John Ruckelshaus said, his aunt, Jill Ruckelshaus, recalled him simply coming home and saying: “Well, I just resigned.”

He was proudest not of that, but of his work at the EPA. It’s work he continued throughout his life. He returned to the EPA for a second stint as director under President Reagan to restore trust after Anne Gorsuch, mother of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, was held in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over documents about toxic waste enforcement. Ruckelshaus was greeted by thunderous applause from thousands of EPA employees, The New York Times reported, and a signed that read: “How do you spell relief? Ruckelshaus.”

Saving the environment was a mission Ruckelshaus took so seriously that in 2016 he supported Hillary Clinton for president, saying Trump showed “profound ignorance of science” and calling climate change, which Trump called a hoax, “the singular health and environmental threat to the world today.”

John Ruckelshaus said he consulted his uncle this summer as he weighed running for Congress in the 5th district, being vacated by Brooks. His uncle’s advice that crystallized the choice that led to his decision to stay in Indiana: “If you want to play politics, go to D.C. But if you really want to help people and effect changes in lives stay in your state.”

I’m glad, though, that William Ruckelshaus went to Washington not to play politics and by doing so, made a difference in people’s lives. We need more people who do the same.

Footnote: Mary Beth Schneider is an editor at TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalists.