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Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School

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Theodore Roosevelt as an Icon inPresidential RhetoricFrank W Solak

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THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

THEODORE ROOSEVELT AS AN

ICON IN PRESIDENTIAL RHETORIC

By

FRANK W SOLAK

A Thesis submitted to the

Department of History

in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts

Degree Awarded:

Summer Semester, 2010

ii

The members of the committee approve the thesis of Frank Solak defended on April 22,

2010.

____________________________

Frederick Davis

Professor Directing Thesis

____________________________

Michael Ruse

Committee Member

____________________________

James Jones

Committee Member

The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members.

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract iv

INTRODUCTION 2

CHAPTER I 8

CHAPTER II 26

CHAPTER III 49

CHAPTER IV 69

CHAPTER V 87

CONCLUSION 107

BIBLIOGRAPHY 120

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 137

iv

ABSTRACT

This thesis is a study of the usage of the name Theodore Roosevelt in Presidential

rhetoric concerning environmental policy. From Roosevelt‟s immediate successors to the

Chief Executives of today, all Presidents have found it convenient to allude to Roosevelt

in order to promote a particular program or policy. Many Presidents have claimed that

they or their party are the true heirs to Roosevelt and his philosophy. On occasion,

competing candidates have both claimed to be representing Theodore Roosevelt‟s legacy

while expounding significantly different policies. This thesis does not attempt to say who

was right, but rather establishes that the legacy of Roosevelt was so complex that

multiple interpretations are both possible and necessary. Each President is addressed with

their use of the Roosevelt name and some possible explanations for why they choose to

use him in that particular rhetorical way. The Presidents are broken down into groups in

the chapters. At the end of each chapter, broader scope explanations are put forth

indicating how scholars and society at large say Roosevelt (and, by extension, viewed the

contemporary polices Roosevelt‟s name was being attached to). Conclusions at the end of

each chapter are tied together at the end to demonstrate that the use of the Roosevelt

name was far from random or solely a matter of short term expediency. Instead, the use

followed the ever changing conception in America of conservation, environmentalism,

and the many-faceted ideas of ecology. The overall theme of the thesis is that the

rhetorical image of Roosevelt evolved over the past century along with the American idea

of the environment, with Roosevelt always representing the consummate conservationist,

simultaneously at one with environmental sensitivity and governmental efficiency.

1

But let a portion of ethereal dew

Fall on my head, and presently unmew

My soul; that I may dare, in wayfaring,

To stammer where old Chaucer used to sing.

-John Keats, Endymion (Lines 131-4)

2

INTRODUCTION

It was no mere poetic fancy which impelled the ancient Greeks to people the firmament with their

mythical heroes. A great National hero, a Washington, a Lincoln, a Roosevelt, does shine like a

star to the people who come after him. In them they find light, and by them they can steer their

course over uncharted and stormy seas… The fame of other men may fear the onslaught of time;

but the fame of Roosevelt need not fear it.

-Calvin Coolidge1

The 19th

Century saw many developments in the field of conservation: the world‟s

first National Park (Yellowstone); introduction of scientific forestry to North America;

organized protection of game animals by hunting clubs; and the birth of Theodore

Roosevelt. Before Theodore Roosevelt (hereafter TR) became President of the United

States, Presidents may have taken actions dealing with the environment, but they had no

specific policy. TR opened a Pandora‟s Box that could never be sealed. He created so

many forest preserves, laid down so many laws, made such an issue of protecting the

nation‟s natural resources, that no successor could ever completely ignore the matter.

Since TR, every President, for good or ill, has had a conservation policy; since the 1970s,

thought of as an environmental policy.

Also, every President has had something that TR did not: the legacy of TR casting

a shadow over them. Sometimes it was a disadvantage, considering that Roosevelt‟s

accomplishments were many, the bar was set high for future efforts. Many times, it was

advantageous: the name of Roosevelt could be invoked for a conservation policy and

automatically imbue the program with the fervor of a crusade. For a century now,

Presidents have been using, misusing, and sometimes even abusing, the name of

Theodore Roosevelt to promote their environmental policy.

1 From the preface to Frederick S. Wood, ed. Roosevelt As We Knew Him. (Philadelphia: The John C.

Winston Co, 1927): vii.

3

What, then, is this thesis about? It is a history of the image created by 20th

Century political figures of the man Theodore Roosevelt. That image promoted National

Parks and industrial parks; justified fisheries and wilderness areas; it was painted as

Muir‟s greatest friend, and a bitter enemy. The image has gone through as many

evolutions in a century as the drosophila fruit fly. This thesis will trace the changes and

the many facets of Roosevelt‟s image; an image that permeated throughout the

conservation efforts of the past century, and extends into this one. It is a history of the

utilization of the name Roosevelt. To this end, this thesis should make clear, that the use

of Roosevelt‟s name has evolved along parallel lines with prevailing societal sentiments

vis-à-vis mankind‟s relationship with the natural world.2

Then it may be wondered why this is being billed as a work of Environmental

History, and not of say political history or biography. In many ways, this is a biography;

but not a biography of a man, but of a myth (or perhaps more accurately, a mythos). It is

not a political history, however. It will address laws and policies, but not in the depth

expected of political history. Instead, it will look at the changing role the Presidents have

found themselves in, reflecting societal demands on and about nature. Just as Presidents

have cited Roosevelt to justify their conservation policies, here I shall cite Roderick Nash

to justify my classification as Environmental History:

Environmental history has the potential for displaying the successes and failures of our

custodianship of the land in such a way that the present can benefit from the experience

of the past… Moreover, in attempting to advance conservation policies today it is

important to know something of the national taste in environment. One of the best places

to acquire such information is from an examination of how it was formed.3

The changing attitudes of the Presidents reflect the changing attitudes of their

constituents, and better understanding of the direction that environmental concern has

2 This thesis addresses not a stagnant myth, nor a cult of personality, so important to previous works.

Rather, it approaches the topic from a change over time perspective. Nevertheless, credit is due to a work

that helped inspire the methodology of this thesis. Darrin M. McMahon, Happiness: A History. (New York:

Grove Press, 2006): traces the evolution of a concept, which keeps the same name (i.e. happiness) but

changes drastically in definition. This thesis adapts the same approach, but fitted to the image of a man

rather than an emotional state. 3 Roderick Frazier Nash, American Environmentalism: Readings in Conservation History. 3

rd ed. (New

York: McGraw-Hill Publishing Co, 1990): 7-8.

4

taken over the past century will help to put the modern environmental movement in wider

historical perspective.

In previous works, close conceptually to this one, the interest has been on the

image of a President at a particular time. The questions asked were: What image did the

President try to project? What legacy do we see today (i.e. current with publication of the

book)? Or, what did the actions of the President mean to society? The commonality

between the questions is that they focus on a single time (or, at best, two: the time the

subject lived and the time the author wrote about it). The other universal aspect of this

work is that the interest focuses on scholarly perception of the times. The changing

historiography is the focus of historians; ignoring to their peril the evolving perceptions

of society at large and political figures in particular.4

One duo of historians came close to a similar approach to this subject matter.

They described the rhetorical strategies of Bill Clinton. They applied an idea to an

individual that I have applied to an entire class (the 20th

Century Presidents), but their

ideas made a significant contribution to this thesis:

Clinton‟s rhetorical maneuver here [in referring to the Progressive Era] is clever.

Drawing historical parallels with a time that most voters would only know through

history and myth as opposed to lived experience [as opposed to Dole‟s references to

World War II], allowed Clinton to shape his rendition of that time nostalgically for

political purposes. As such, he becomes, in this discourse, the successor to Theodore

Roosevelt‟s mythological mantle. He borrowed the crusading ethos of the hero of San

4 For examples of works such as these, see Gary Alan Fine, “Reputational Entrepreneurs and the Memory

of Incompetence: Melting Supporters, Partisan Warriors, and Images of President Harding,” The American

Journal of Sociology Vol. 101, No. 5 (March 1996): 1159-93: which studies the image of a president

generally but not over time. John T. Flynn, The [Franklin] Roosevelt Myth. Revised Ed. (New York: The

Devin-Adair Co, 1956, originally 1948): which is an early attempt at image history. John Orman,

Comparing Presidential Behavior: Carter, Reagan, and the Macho Presidential Style. (New York:

Greenwood Press, 1987): which studies projected images (in this case, machoism). Paul R. Henggeler, The

Kennedy Persuasion: The Politics of Style Since JFK. (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1995): which studies the

politics of style, combined with image construction in the quest for vote-getting. Peter Meyer, James Earl

Carter: The Man and the Myth. (Kansas: Sheed Andrews and McMeal, 1978): which analyzes the mythos

of a president, but not with any sense of change over time; instead, this book just debunks perceived “lies” about Carter; a biased account, by a biased writer. David Greenberg, Nixon’s Shadow: The History of an Image. (New York: W.W. Norton and Co, 2003): introduces psychohistory into the mix, though it

expresses a dubious suspicion of the practice; this work does address the changing conception of Nixon in

the eyes of scholar, but not anyone outside of the academy. Carol L. Stone, “When „Conservation‟ Became

„Ecology‟,” The American Biology Teacher Vol. 47, No. 2 (Feb. 1985): p 85-90; this work tracks the

evolving concept of ecology, a common theme, but fails to add the myth of TR into the analysis due to its

brevity.

5

Juan Hill, fighting big industry to help consumers, working to preserve America‟s natural

heritage. This nostalgic portrait of Theodore Roosevelt also allowed Clinton to avoid

some of TR‟s less savory characteristics- his rather overt racism, sexism, and imperialism

do not figure into Clinton‟s hagiography.5

It is clear what implications this has for a history of myth construction. The advantages of

usurping the name of a famous personage to foster a particular initiative are many and

lucrative. In another passage, the authors write

The U.S. political system has always packaged its presidents; William Henry Harrison

was a war hero with “log-cabin” roots, Abraham Lincoln the backwoods rail-splitter,

Theodore Roosevelt the Rough Rider war hero, and Jimmy Carter the simple southern

peanut farmer. Constructed images of presidents whatever their source, become critical in

the demarcation and evolving articulation of a presidentiality that defines the presidency

and the people who occupy the office. Such depictions also reveal how there really is no

meaningful distinction between image and “reality” for the U.S. political culture, and

how, at bottom, U.S. presidents are the personification of hyperreality.6

To borrow the ideas of one more eminent historian, William Cronon once made

an argument that since there “has been no timeless wilderness in a state of perfect

changelessness, no climax forest in permanent stasis” (the prevailing thought before the

advent of ecological science and environmental history), “ecosystems have histories of

their own.”7 This concept has been taken to heart herein. Historians admit the value of

myth construction to politics; they study the application of those images by specific

subjects; and they see the history inside each ecosystem. This is a history of a tool; a

biography of a man who once lived, but who was immortal as a paragon of conservation;

and a story of evolving definitions for words that changed in every way except spelling.

To highlight this point, I shall close this introduction with an apocryphal quote by Calvin

Coolidge: “All artificial distinctions have fallen from Theodore Roosevelt; he belongs to

all Americans. Reaching beyond our shores, he is the possession of all men, whatever

5 Shawn J. Parry-Giles and Trevor Parry-Giles, Constructing Clinton: Hyperreality & Presidential Image-

Making in Postmodern Politics. (New York: Peter Lang, 2002): 93. 6 Ibid., 187-8.

7 William Cronon, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England. (New York:

Hill and Wang, 1983): 11-2.

6

their race, whatever their color, whatever their creed, who are willing to live by his

principles and follow his example.”8

8 Wood, Roosevelt as We Knew Him, prefatory note, viii.

7

In one moment I‟ve seen what has hitherto been

Enveloped in absolute mystery.

And without extra charge I will give you at large

A lesson in Natural History.

-Lewis Carroll, “The Hunting of the Snarks”

8

CHAPTER I

LITERARY REVIEW:

HISTORY HUNGERS FOR BREAD

The outstanding characteristic of perception is that it entails no consumption and no dilution of

any resource. The swoop of a hawk, for example, is perceived by one as the drama of evolution.

To another it is only a threat to the full frying-pan. The drama may excite a hundred successive

witnesses, the threat only one- for he responds with a shotgun.

-Aldo Leopold, “The Land Ethic”

Explanation

The questions that have been asked in the field of environmental history concern

the changing political face of the Conservation and Preservation Movement over the last

100 years, the place of Theodore Roosevelt within that movement, and the nature of

Conservationism today. Many Environmental Historians have attempted to answer these

questions in the past, but they have never directly addressed the issue of the evolving

image of Theodore Roosevelt from the perspective of federal policy-makers. Histories of

either the conservationists or the preservationists exist, but seldom is a synthesizing thesis

offered of how both interacted with contemporary political figures to effect government

dispositions on the environment and how this synthesis was manifested in rhetorical use

of the name Theodore Roosevelt.

It seems advisable here to make special note that the evolving idea of TR in the

historical literature, as with the popular/political literature (as will be seen in the main

body chapters of this work) do not necessarily insinuate normative judgments. Sometimes

historians or politicians are wrong or even consciously obfuscating the facts. For the most

9

part, however, writers are doing their honest best to portray a theme in the most accurate

way possible. Objectivity, an unattainable ideal, is the mark for which the authors

discussed throughout this chapter hopefully aspire. But just as Peter Novick so admirably

elucidated, objectivity has a tendency to change with the times.9 Therefore, it should not

be seen as condemning to discuss the absence of a theme from one period of literature as

opposed to another; it is not to mean that one period was wrong and the other right, but

that both were different, just as an evolving species may not necessarily be “better” than a

previous one, simply more suited to the conditions in which it finds itself. So too is the

biographic and historical literature on TR best viewed. To understand that the literary

canon on TR evolves along lines parallel to those of the social image of TR helps to

explain how that image changed. Perhaps, then, one opens themselves to the fatal mistake

of presentism in comparing literature of one age to another and expounding on

differences. The best defense is to say that it is not done to criticize the past ages, but to

help to make clear the changes that have occurred and to add a new perspective to the

modern image of Theodore Roosevelt.

Biographic Literature, 1900-1963

It did not take an historian of vision to recognize that in life TR was a singular

force in American history and, thusly, it took very little time for biographies to begin

appearing in the book stores. While TR was alive, none of the biographers had much

interest in his preservationist work and none whatsoever in John Muir; instead, their

interest, such as it was, focused on his conservationist work. For the most part, they were

not even particularly interested in Pinchot, though he was usually at least mentioned as an

advisor to the President. In a broad history of the times, one scholar anointed Pinchot

with great laurels, writing that “to Gifford Pinchot is due the title of “Father of the

Conservation Movement.”10 This indicates that he was certainly seen by scholars to be

some part of the picture. Many authors downplayed conservation, but others already had

the notion that it would be among the most enduring aspect of Roosevelt‟s legacy. One

9 Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The “Objectivity Question” and the American historical Profession.

(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988). 10

Paul L. Haworth, The United States In Our Times, 1865-1924. (New York: Charles Scribner‟s Sons, 1920). This book deals with matters such as National Parks and game preserves, but in the context of

protecting something with economic value.

10

remarked “the greatest of Roosevelt‟s works as a legislator were those which he carried

through in the fields of conservation and reclamation.”11 Few scholars in the era took

note of his National Parks or contributions to preservation; these matters would have to

await scholars of a future day. This forms the basis for observable change. The image of

TR, as created by his biographers, was a substantially more utilitarian person than he

would later be portrayed as being. To say one image is necessarily more accurate than the

other would be ahistorical, it is the subtle change over time that provides insight into the

evolving image of Roosevelt. Exceptions existed, though; one author praised TR for

setting aside park land “to the perpetual happiness and mental and moral benefit of the

people.”12 These rarities at the beginning of the century would see themselves becoming

standard practice by the end of it.

TR, a once living legend, became a subject of endless biographies written in the

period after he became the more immortal kind of legend. For the most part, the story was

highly reminiscent throughout the 1920s and 30s of those written in his life time. Not

surprising, considering the colossal influence his personality had upon those around him

and the proximity scholars enjoyed to TR chronologically. The story of conservation

continued to revolve around utilitarian, wise use policies and was ascribed to Gifford

Pinchot to at least some extent. Overall, however, the conservation policies of TR were

not the principal motif of the scholars. Primarily, they only appeared as an aspect of his

political accomplishments. Studies of his life outside of the White House mostly omitted

any mention to conservation whatsoever, let alone Gifford Pinchot. It was in this era that

John Muir and the preservationist impulses he represented utterly disappeared from the

historiography.13

The same pattern is repeated in the works of broader histories composed

11

Quote from William Roscoe Thayer, Theodore Roosevelt: An Intimate Biography. (New York: Grosset

and Dunlap, 1919): 236; this work does give credit to Pinchot for his contributions. For a biography from

the era that includes no mention of Muir or Pinchot, see Joseph Bucklin Bishop, Theodore Roosevelt and

His Time: Shown In His Own Letters. 2 Vols. (New York: Charles Scribner‟s Sons, 1920). Surprisingly, on the other side of the issue, one work on conservation omitted any mention to even TR, see Albert A.

Hopkins, Our Country and Its Resources. (New York: Munn and Co., 1917). 12

Ferdinand Cowle Iglehart, Theodore Roosevelt: The Man as I Knew Him. (New York: The Christian

Herald, 1919): 218-20. 13

For example, studies that discuss Pinchot but not Muir: Henry F. Pringle, Theodore Roosevelt: A

Biography. (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co, 1931) and James Ford Rhodes, The McKinley and

Roosevelt Administration, 1897-1909. (New York: Macmillan, 1922). This latter work in particular has a

strict definition of conservation as dealing with minerals, the National Forests and reclamation; these are

also the only areas that Pinchot is associated with. For an example of a biography that discusses neither

11

by the scholars of the day.14

In some cases, more credit is given to Pinchot by the

historians, due most likely to the fact that he was still alive in this period, and still an

active political force.15

This period in the literature highlights the side of the spectrum in

historical thought placing TR squarely in the realm of utilitarian conservationists; an

image that would persist, though with some amelioration, for several more decades.

In the 1940s through the early 1960s, the changes in the biographic literature were

subtle but perceptible. Many works, of course, focused on issues of diplomatic history, or

were diatribes composed for some specific political agenda, but controlling for them,

biographies that have a scholarly appraisal of Roosevelt‟s domestic policies contain a

discussion of the impact of Pinchot, and yet utterly exclude Pinchot.16

At least one work

does mention, in passing, the camping trip between Muir and TR in 1903. Interestingly,

this book downplays the importance of Pinchot, a certain social trend, as it only mentions

him in the context of being dismissed by Taft. 17

Historians interested in broader works,

on the other hand, kept a place for Pinchot, one even claiming Pinchot was TR‟s “most

enthusiastic lieutenant” in conservation. Once again, though, Muir was absent from these

pictures.18

This era, therefore, saw a new interest in conservation matters, but had only

intermittent interest in conservation personalities besides TR himself. This indicates a

Muir nor Pinchot, see Earle Looker, Colonel Roosevelt: Private Citizen. (New York: Fleming H. Revell

Co, 1932). 14

For example, see Frederic L. Paxson, Recent History of the United States, 1865-1929. Revised Ed.

(Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co, 1929, originally 1921). 15

Louis M. Hacker and Benjamin B. Kendrick, The United States Since 1865. (New York: F.S. Crafts,

1932): 410-2, all talk of conservation is utilitarian; states “None contributed more to this awakening [concerning resource conservation] than Gifford Pinchot.” The 3rd

edition of this book, which appeared in

1946 is unaltered on these pages. John D. Hicks, The American Nation: A History of the United States

From 1865 to the Present. (Boston: Houston Mifflin, 1945, originally 1941): 397 gives Pinchot all the

credit for convincing TR about the importance of resource conservation. Neither of these books mention

Muir. For an example of a study that shifts credit away from Pinchot in favor of another, see Claude Moore

Fuess, Carl Schurz: Reformer (1829-1906). (New York: Dodd, Mead and Co, 1932). 16

For works that discuss the impact of Pinchot‟s policies but excludes Pinchot himself, see for example, Herman Hagedorn, The Roosevelt Family of Sagamore Hill. (New York: The Macmillan Co, 1954): 162.

George E. Mowry, The Era of Theodore Roosevelt, 1900-1912. (New York: Harper and Row, 1958).

George E. Mowry, Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Movement. (Madison: The University of

Wisconsin Press, 1946). Stefan Lorant, The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt. (Garden City:

Doubleday and Co, 1959). For a diplomatic history that does not discuss Pinchot or Muir, see Howard K.

Beale, Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of America to World Power. (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press,

1956). Muir and his philosophy is absent in all of these works. 17

Edward Wagenknecht, The Seven Worlds of Theodore Roosevelt. (New York: Longmans, Green and Co,

1958): Muir, p 109; Pinchot, p 132. Surprisingly, though, nature is not one of the seven worlds alluded to in

the title. 18

Oscar Theodore Barck, Jr., and Nelson Manfred Blake, Since 1900: A History of the United States in Our

Times. (New York: Macmillan, 1947): 50; this work contains many other mentions of Pinchot as well.

12

significant change in social perception: i.e. a crescendo of interest in the natural

environment that, as with the environmental movement, was only in its infancy in the

1950s.

Juxtaposing strangely to this is a sudden interest of biographers in Pinchot as a

stand alone subject for study. In many ways, this foreshadows the movement of scholars

to divorce the image of TR from Pinchot while simultaneously finding new levels of

interest in their accomplishments (see below). Two biographies of Pinchot in particular

came out in the early 1960s. Both of them focused extensively on the National Forests.

More tellingly, neither mentioned Muir nor the National Parks. Scholars still read an

unbridgeable gulf between the forces of Pinchot-style conservation and the aesthetic

policy of the Muir-style preservationists. 19

This created two incommensurable paradigms

of conservation that could not be resolved in biographic literature; this work would be

undertaken by environmental history.

Early Environmental History

The duality created by the conservation/preservation debate could not be resolved

overnight, but a new field of study would devote itself to understanding and explaining

humanity‟s relation with the natural environment and attempt to formulate an answer.

Launched just as the Environmental Era began, this field of study offered an entirely new

perspective on Theodore Roosevelt that would have significant consequences for the

future image of TR, and would influence future biographic literature.

One thing all Environmental Historians have in common is a connection to the

environmental movement of the early 1960s. In that era of so-called deep ecology, a new

interest in the natural world swept the nation. It did not take long for that interest to

extend to the academy; the result: Environmental History. The scholars that wrote in this

era drew from a pantheon of great figures. The oldest of whom wrote in the middle of the

19th

Century, and was one of America‟s best writers; no less a personage than Henry

David Thoreau, author of Walden. In his magnum opus he wrote “I turned my face more

exclusively than ever to the woods, where I was better known” and he was not far off the

19

M. Nelson McGeary, Gifford Pinchot: Forester-Politician. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960).

Martin L. Fausold, Gifford Pinchot: Bull Moose Progressive. (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1961).

13

mark; for a century after publication, his work was not widely read.20

This was true also

of a man thought to have continued the tradition of Thoreau at the turn of the century:

John Muir, or John of the Mountains as he was sometimes known. Muir wrote

passionately about the wild places of the nation and especially about the National Parks.21

He was instrumental in many early preservationist initiatives in the country, but, like

Thoreau, did not have a wide readership outside a core group of enthusiasts.

Following in the tradition of ill-recognition came Aldo Leopold. More than any

predecessor, Leopold foreshadowed the era of Environmental History in his writings of

the 1930s and 40s. He was prescient to trends in human activity that were more than

simply profound, but indeed prophetic. He observed: “Homo sapiens patters no more

under his own vine and fig tree; he has poured into his gas tank the stored motivity of

countless creatures aspiring through the ages to wiggle their way to pastures new. Ant-

like he swarms the continents… This is Outdoor Recreation, Latest Model.”22 Besides

picking up on trends that would grow from a trickle to a torrent in the 1950s, he also

expounded on a new conception of the very ground on which we stand. When he wrote

that “There is much confusion between land and country” he explained that, “Land is the

place where corn, gullies, and mortgages grow. Country is the personality of land, the

collective harmony of it soil, life, and weather.”23 It was thoughts like these that would

later usher in a renewed interest in the earth and the things that dwell upon it. Besides

presaging the thoughts of the environmental movement, however, he left writings to

inspire the scholars of future years when he challenged “When the logic of history

hungers for bread and we hand out a stone, we are at pains to explain how much the stone

resembles bread.”24 Of course, in the end, Leopold‟s challenge went both unanswered

and unheard for two decades. It was not until the world was shocked into attentiveness by

the eye-opening words of Rachel Carson in Silent Spring.25

20

Henry David Thoreau, Walden. (New York: Barnes and Noble Classics, 2003, originally 1854): 21; see

the editor‟s notes on the work‟s reception during the author‟s life. 21

For example, see John Muir, Our National Parks. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1901). 22

“The Land Ethic, Conservation Esthetic”, from Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, With Essays on

Conservation From Round River. (New York: Ballantine Books, 1966, originally, 1949 (Almanac) and

1953 (Round River)): 281. 23

“A Taste for Country”, from Ibid., 177. 24

“The Land Ethic”, from Ibid., 246. 25

Rachel Carson, Silent Spring. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962).

14

In the world of conservation, there has always been a split between those that

wish to use resources wisely and efficiently for economic benefit, and those that want to

preserve and leave inviolate the wild places for spiritual/cultural benefit. Often, the two

branches find themselves in conflict with one another when a scenic area contains

valuable resources. This conundrum immediately found its way into the newly emergent

branch of Environmental History.

Most Environmental Historians would agree that the most significant work to

come out of the 1950s was The Gospel of Efficiency, written by the incomparable Samuel

P. Hays. A pioneer in more ways than one, Hays described the bitter differences between

conservation and preservation and also offered examples of how TR could be seen not

only as a conservationist but also as a preservationist (when none of his academic

colleagues were doing so). Moreover, he wrote that the Boone and Crocket Club (and

other such organizations) were quite preservationist in their intention to save trees and

wildlife “as objects of beauty, scientific curiosity, and recreation.”26 In the end, TR and

Pinchot moved away from the desires of the Boone and Crocket Club to add land to the

National Parks, particularly Yellowstone, focusing instead on more National Forests. It

was Richard Ballinger, Taft‟s Secretary of the Interior, who Hays identifies as the most

preservationist inclined federal official of the era; justified considering that he actively

supported protecting the Hetch Hetchy, which Pinchot opposed and to which Roosevelt

would not commit. Of course, Hays‟ thesis concerning what conservation was fit nicely

with the predominant definition of the time: a good mix of forestry, resource

management, elimination of wasteful practices, and wise use of available lands.27

Not every work written with an interest in the environment dealt with TR, but

many did.28

More significantly, Muir became just as integral to the historical narrative as

Pinchot. No longer was Roosevelt-style and Pinchot-style conservation synonymous.

Now TR was seen as straddling a line between Pinchot and Muir; although he was still

26

Samuel P. Hays, Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency: The Progressive Movement, 1890-1920.

(New York: Atheneum, 1975, originally, Harvard University Press, 1959): 189. 27

Ibid., 40 and 198. 28

For example, see Leslie Alexander. Lacy, The Soil Soldiers: The Civilian Conservation Corps in the

Great Depression. (Radnor: Chilton, 1976): contains no mention whatsoever to Muir, Pinchot or TR.

15

seen as coming down mostly on the side of Pinchot.29

Historians found a promising new

subject for study in Muir and one scholar went so far as to claim that Roosevelt‟s

strengthened conservation policies were a direct result of spending three days with Muir

in Yosemite National Park.30

Among the most able of the environmental historians of this

era were Roderick Nash and John Reiger; both of whom had divergent views of the

origin of conservation in the United States. Nash, a proponent of the value of wilderness

being the impetus for conservation, played up Roosevelt‟s relation to Muir, and Nash also

highlighted how TR was “not uncomfortable” supporting Muir and preservation, though

he was often siding with conservations out of a sense of duty.31

Reiger, on the other hand,

believed in the power of sport hunters in instigating conservation reforms at the turn of

the century. Therefore, Reiger claimed that, despite the popular notion, TR and Pinchot

did not start conservation. Despite this, Reiger saw TR and Pinchot as two peas in a pod;

joined in a close partnership of political action and philosophic convictions.32

He admits

that TR‟s motives for conservation were both aesthetic and utilitarian, but leaves Muir

separate from Roosevelt. Muir, he also emphasizes, is given too much credit by other

historians.33

Biographic Literature, 1964-Present

In most of the biographic work on TR in the 1960s and 70s, the image persisted of

“The Hunter-President as Conservationist.”34 Pinchot often figured prominently in

29

For example, see Frank Graham, Jr., Man’s Dominion: The Story of Conservation in America. (New

York: M. Evans and Co, 1971). Of course, some placed him more solidly on the use side of the debate.

Hays, for instance wrote that conservation was purely a matter of efficiency and considered TR and Pinchot

the conservationists, not necessarily Muir. These statements were written in 1970 and reprinted in Samuel

P. Hays, American Political History as Social Analysis: Essays by Samuel P. Hays. (Knoxville: The

University of Tennessee Press, 1980): 234-5. 30

Linnie Marsh Wolfe, ed. John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir. (Madison: The

University of Wisconsin Press, 1979): editor‟s note on page 427. 31

Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind. 3rd

ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982,

originally, 1967): quotation from 164; see also 138-9 and 162-3. 32

John F. Reiger, American Sportsmen and the Origins of Conservation. 3rd

ed. (Corvallis: Oregon State

University Press, 2001, originally 1975): 67-9 and 172. 33

Ibid., 143-4 and 159-60. 34

R. L. Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt: Outdoorsmen. (New York: Winchester Press, 1971): 152-71. For

other works that discuss Pinchot and conservation but not Muir, see William Manners, TR and Will: A

Friendship That Split the Republican Party. (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1969). Gilbert Black,

ed. Theodore Roosevelt, 1858-1919: Chronology-Documents-Bibliographic Aids. (Dobbs Ferry: Oceana

Publications, 1969). For an exception which discusses no side of conservation, see John Morton Blum, The

Republican Roosevelt. (New York: Atheneum, 1972).

16

biographies, while Muir was only a footnote mention concerning Roosevelt‟s trip to

Yosemite. One notable work in the historiography came with Edmund Morris‟ Pulitzer

Prize winning biography The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. He gave all due credit to

Pinchot and fully elucidated the great white hunter. He explained many of TR‟s

conservation initiatives in terms of game protection and the need for places in which to

have “manly” adventures, but he also went into the spiritual side of TR, and his

“profound, almost Indian veneration for trees.”35 Like other historians of this and

previous eras, however, Muir was still a marginalized figure; this is explained in great

measure, however, in that the biography only covered the time of TR‟s life before

becoming President. Morris does mention “Crusty John Muir” in the prologue as one of

the many people who learned to love TR.36

Another significant development in the

historical literature of the time is a burgeoning interest in TR and conservation in other

Presidential biographer‟s works. Whether it was movements to build statues to TR or

comparing the conservation record of a modern president to that of Roosevelt, historians

of the era found an area of study rich in material.37

Some historians even fought against

popular notions in the new light of environmentalism.38

More biographies are being produced now than ever before. In the present era, TR

is more popular than he ever was as a subject as his biographers continue to find a man

whose life can still speak to the public after a century of study. In terms of conservation,

the confusion between the image of TR the conservationist and TR the preservationist

persists. Of course, the traditional perception of TR remains the most popular. Most

monographs about TR that discuss conservation keep their focus on forestry, Pinchot,

utilitarianism, efficiency and other traditional ideas of conservation; and no mention of

the influence of John Muir.39

Several recent books have been published which focus on

35

Edmund Morris, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. (New York: The Modern Library, 2001, originally

1979): 389. 36

Ibid., xxx. 37

For examples, see Theodore H. White, The Making of the President, 1968. (New York: Atheneum,

1969): 101 and 115. Tom Wicker, JFK and LBJ: The Influence of Personality Upon Politics. (New York:

William Morrow and Co, 1968): 56. 38

For example, Joan Hoff, Nixon Reconsidered. (New York: Basic Books, 1994): 21, finds praise for the

conservation works of Nixon and his chief environmental advisor, Ehrlichman, is described as the best

environmentalist since Pinchot (who was not really an environmentalist, but the thought is still there). 39

For examples, see any of the following which include no mention of Muir and at least some discussion of

Pinchot-style conservation: Sidney M. Milkis, Theodore Roosevelt, the Progressive Party, and the

17

the violent aspects of Roosevelt‟s life and ignore his love of nature and tireless work on

behalf of conservation.40

Some go even further. One author, believing that the National

Parks were the sole focus of TR‟s conservation efforts, decided that the Parks were

hurting the image of Roosevelt. The author contended, without evidence, that Roosevelt‟s

conservation “schemes actually squandered resources.”41 This sort of interpretation is

certainly the exception as opposed to the rule.

Taking out the traditional idea of TR, and the outliers that either ignore

conservation or see conservation as some sort of evil, this era saw an upswing in a new

interpretation of TR. When the biography focuses on a different part of Roosevelt‟s

career and only a passing reference to conservation is made, it‟s just as likely to be one of

the handful of National Parks he created or defended rather than the millions of acres of

National Forests he created.42

One biographer suggested that TR was reluctant to side

with Pinchot over Muir but did so anyway.43

Many biographers in this era, however,

integrate John Muir and preservationism into the story of Roosevelt‟s life in conjunction

Transformation of American Democracy. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2009). Patricia O‟Toole, When Trumpets Call: Theodore Roosevelt After The White House. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2005).

Paul M. Rego, American Ideal: Theodore Roosevelt’s Search for American Individualism. (Lanham:

Lexington Books, 2008). Richard D. White, Roosevelt the Reformer: Theodore Roosevelt as Civil Service

Commissioner, 1889-1895. (Tuscaloosa: The University Alabama Press, 2003). Nathan Miller, Theodore

Roosevelt: A Life. (New York: William Morrow and Co, 1992). This is also true of broader histories of the

era. See: Steven J. Diner, A Very Different Age: Americans of the Progressive Era. (New York: Hill and

Wang, 1998). Robert M. Crunden, Ministers of Reform: The Progressives’ Achievement in American Civilization, 1889-1920. (New York: Basic Books, 1982). John Morton Blum, The Progressive Presidents:

Roosevelt, Wilson, Roosevelt, Johnson. (New York: W.W. Norton and Co, 1980). James MacGregor Burns,

The American Experiment Volume II: The Workshop of Democracy. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985):

349. Sometimes, Muir is mentioned but not in the context of TR, see Richard H. Stroud, ed. National

Leaders of American Conservation. (Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1985): 274; on 331,

TR and Pinchot are discussed in conjunction. 40

For example, see Sarah Watts, Rough Rider in the White House: Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics of

Desire. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2003): on pages 173-4, there is a fleeting reference to

Pinchot, mentioning that he was a member of the Boone and Crocket Club along with TR, Aldo Leopold,

Henry Fairfield Osborne and Henry Cabot Lodge. An even more preposterous interpretation can be found

in Jim Powell, Bully Boy: The Truth About Theodore Roosevelt’s Legacy. (New York: Crown Forum,

2006). A scholar does not often like to use the term “wrong” when it comes to interpretations, but one could certainly be tempted. 41

Powell, Jim. Bully Boy, 13; see also pages 43, 183 and 260-2. 42

For example, see Kathleen Dalton, Theodore Roosevelt, A Strenuous Life. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,

2002): 247. Naturally, as in previous eras, conservation is not ubiquitous in the biographical literature

dealing with TR. For an example of work that omits any discussion of Roosevelt‟s conservation, see David McCullough, Mornings on Horseback. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981). 43

Paul Russell Cutright, Theodore Roosevelt: The Making of a Conservationist. (Urbana: University of

Illinois Press, 1985): 216. This monograph is significant in itself by its indication of the rising importance

of TR‟s conservation impulses.

18

with Pinchot and his influence.44

Pinchot remained dominant in most studies that focused

on conservation, but Muir‟s presence was not absent.

The best new biography to come out on TR in this era also had a perception of TR

that would have been all but unthinkable before 1960. Edmund Morris, who had written

the excellent biography of TR before being President, wrote a follow up of his time as

Chief Executive. Morris focuses, naturally, on the many conservation activities that TR

pursued with Pinchot and his work in forestry. He also brings Muir into the picture and

remarks that it would be both for his Forests as well as his Parks that TR would be well

remembered. Morris describes in detail the famous 1903 trip to the Yosemite of TR and

Muir and comments that TR did take some new ideas away from the meeting; though he

was not converted to Muir‟s way of thinking. In many ways, this is the fair and balanced

look at Roosevelt‟s ideas on conservation that was missing for most of the 20th Century.

45

Biographies of Muir and Pinchot, a mere trickle in the previous era and

nonexistent before then, had grown into a mighty torrent after 1980. Those that chose

Muir as their subject, one would think, should be quick to highlight the influence he

enjoyed with TR.46

This is occasionally true, more so in earlier eras, but there are many

striking exceptions. One scholar argued that while modern environmentalism most likely

owes more to Muir than Pinchot, Muir enjoyed fairly little influence over TR and the

conservation programs of the day; and in fact Muir consciously led his branch of

44

For examples, see: Natalie A. Naylor, Douglas Brinkley and John Allen Gable, eds. Theodore Roosevelt:

Many-Sided American. (Interlaken: Heart of the Lakes Publishing, 1992). James MacGregor Burns and

Susan Dunn. The Three Roosevelt’s: Patrician Leaders Who Transformed America. (New York: Atlantic

Monthly Press, 2001). H.W. Brands, T.R.: The Last Romantic. (New York: Basic Books, 1997). For an

example in a broader history, see Maureen A. Flanagan, American Reformed: Progressives and

Progressivisms, 1890-1920s. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007): 160-4. Albert Bushnell Hart, and

Herbert Ronald Ferleger, eds. Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia. Revised 2nd

ed. (Westport: Meckler, 1989):

in this work there is one entry on Muir, but without mention of his influence on TR; Pinchot is much more

important, and one of the entries under his name tellingly says only “See Conservation.” (Pages 358 and 430). A more balanced view can be seen in Rachel White Scheuring, Shapers of the Great Debate on

Conservation: A Biographic Dictionary. (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2004): especially 11 and 41. In

another broader study, Pinchot and Muir are highlighted and TR downplayed in terms of conservation, but

this is rare. See, John D. Buenker, and Edward R. Kantowicz, eds. Historical Dictionary of the Progressive

Era, 1890-1920. (New York: Greenwood Press, 1988): 87-8, 294-5 and 367. 45

Edmund Morris, Theodore Rex. (New York: The Modern Library, 2002, originally 2001): see especially

519 and 554; on Muir, see 229-31; on Pinchot, see 486; on preservation, see 225-7; on conservation, see 76

and 115. 46

This approach is very apparent in Thurman Wilkins, John Muir: Apostle of Nature. (Norman: University

of Oklahoma Press, 1995): see especially 214-25 and 253.

19

preservationists away from TR and Pinchot and their utilitarian conservation.47

Another,

more balanced, perspective is seen in Frederick Turner‟s work Rediscovering America in

which he downplays TR but does stress that Muir had significant contact with him. Like

most historians on the topic, he believes that conservation politics was far more Pinchot‟s

realm.48

Michael Cohen trail blazed an interesting theory of the life of John Muir in which

he posits that mountains can be primary source material in a biography and that a socially

constructed John Muir has been built up from secondary material, including the works of

Muir himself; “It is the Muir who has been edited.”49 This author defends the point that

Muir got along well with TR and claimed that Roosevelt‟s appointment of C. Hart

Merriam to the Department of Agriculture‟s Biological Survey demonstrated that TR did

sympathize with Muir and the other preservationists.50

The final assessment, though, is

that TR was “the nationalistic and conservationist enemy” to Muir, as far as

preservationist intentions goes, despite concessions like Petrified Forest National Park.51

Another sign of the times would be the fact that while biographies of Muir

exploded in the modern era, the literature on Pinchot was rather scarce. Works that

address the life of Pinchot still feel compelled to devote space to a discussion of John

Muir. The opinion was that Muir was an integral part of the story of conservation at the

turn of the century and thus cannot be divorced from the work of Gifford Pinchot.52

At

the same time, as Muir was taken to be the standard bearer of environmentalism, Pinchot

was becoming the avatar of an old-fashioned and intrinsically less ecological

conservation. One scholar summarized the personality of Pinchot, and the nature of the

advice he imparted on TR, thusly: “Pinchot typified the new conservationist. Honest,

ambitious, energetic as he was, yet there was a spareness to him more than physical. The

47

Sally M. Miller, ed. John Muir: Life and Work. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1993):

from the editor‟s introduction, pages 6-11. Later in the book, Mark Stoll in “God and John Muir: A Psychological Interpretation of John Muir‟s Journey from the Cambellites to the „Range of Light‟,” does mention that Muir befriended TR and Taft and insinuated some degree of influence over federal policy. 48

Frederick Turner, Rediscovering America: John Muir in His Time and Ours. (New York: Viking, 1985):

331. 49

Michael P. Cohen, The Pathless Way: John Muir and American Wilderness. (Madison: The University of

Wisconsin Press, 1984): 276-7. 50

Ibid., 295 and 303. 51

Ibid., 327. 52

Char Miller, Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism. (Washington: Island Press,

2001).

20

woods were not home to him, and he seems never to have been touched by their

mystery.”53 This appraisal would seem to be in contradistinction to the image of Pinchot

that Muir himself painted as a young man (as discussed in Chapter 2).

Some of the developments in the biographic literature on TR has bled over to the

historiography of the other Presidents, particularly the modern ones. A paradigm shift has

occurred in the assessing of a President‟s legacy by scholars. Before Lyndon Baines

Johnson, no president‟s biography had any mentions of environmental policy; including

books written a hundred years ago as well as last month.54

Presidents after Johnson,

however, have obligatory mentions of environmental policy. It is difficult to find a book

that fails to allude to it in at least some way. The word environment has become a

mainstay of the index in presidential biographies. The champion of conservation, who is

used as a measuring stick by which Presidential subjects are judged in this field, has been

Theodore Roosevelt.55

Recent Environmental Historical Literature

Along with biographic literature, the field of Environmental History amassed a

substantial canon in the last thirty years as well. Also in this field, a paradigm shift had

occurred in the view of Theodore Roosevelt. This is evident in that there was no single

idea of TR that permeated the entire field. Samuel Hays, the champion of efficiency, in

his history of the birth of environmentalism mentioned TR in the context of bird refuges

rather than in forestry or another traditional form of conservation.56

Overall, though,

53

Turner, Rediscovering America, 322-3. 54

These books are representative samples that include plenty on environmental laws, but is hardly an

exhaustive list. Herbert S. Parmet, George Bush: The Life of a Lone Star Yankee. (New York: Scribner,

1997). Collin Campbell and Bert A. Rockman, eds. The Clinton Legacy. (New York: Chatham House

Publishers, 2000). Colin Campbell and Bert A. Rockman, eds. The George W. Bush Presidency: Appraisals

and Prospects. (Washington D.C.: CQ Press, 2004). 55

For a very obvious case, see Karl Boyd Brooks, ed. The Environmental Legacy of Harry S. Truman.

(Kirksville: Truman State University Press, 2009): xxiii, 78-9. For an example outside of environmental

literature, see Burton I. Kaufman and Scott Kaufman. The Presidency of James Earl Carter Jr. 2nd

ed.

(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2006): 215. As an important additional note to this source, this

comparison did not exist in the first edition released in 1993; an indicator of the rising importance in

presidential history of TR as a measuring stick of conservationism. 56

Samuel P. Hays, Beauty, Health, and Permanence: Environmental Politics in the United States, 1955-

1985. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987): 101; Hays does maintain his initial theories

concerning the importance of forestry and efficiency and the rise of conservation, see page 17. For other

views of TR‟s conservation, see Ronald Rainger, An Agenda for Antiquity: Henry Fairfield Osborn and

Vertebrate Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History, 1890-1935. (Tuscaloosa: The

21

Hays proliferates the image of TR the conservationist. More to the point, he highlighted

the relationship that TR had with Pinchot and, in turn, the nature of Pinchotism in relation

to conservation. Pinchot, wrote Hays, was actively hostile to preservationism and the

drive to create parks. Hays summarized the relationship in an essay when he wrote:

The spiritual leader of forest conservation was Gifford Pinchot, who emphasized the

primacy of wood production in forest management, expressed disdain for amenity values

in woodlands, and spawned a host of public lands activities and professionalizing

measures to establish himself firmly as the founding father of the entire forestry

movement. All these ideas moved forward rapidly during the administration of Theodore

Roosevelt.57

At the same time, other historians attributed preservationist intentions to TR even more

so than conservationist. TR, in this era, is remembered by many for being the friend of

Muir and the epitome of the drive to protect wilderness.58

Roderick Nash, among others, wrote that TR and Pinchot teamed up to bring

conservation to politics and publicize it; at the same time he kept the ideology of Muir

and Pinchot at opposite ends of the spectrum.59

The argument is posited that TR led

conservation to victory over preservation and that TR represented the consummate wise

University of Alabama Press, 1991): 117; Rainger here also ascribes ulterior motives to TR, i.e. that TR‟s brand of preservationism was aimed at maintaining a social status quo. Philip Shabecoff, A Fierce Green

Fire: The American Environmental Movement. (New York: Hill and Wang, 1993): 68 highlights the

environmental accomplishments of TR, and lists only National Parks; he also paints his actions in a proto-

environmentalist light. 57

“Three Decades of Environmental Politics: The Historical Context,” Government and Environmental

Politics: Essays on Historical Developments Since World War Two. Ed. by Michael J. Lacey. (Lanham:

The Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1989), reprinted in Samuel P. Hays, Explorations in Environmental

History: Essays by Samuel P. Hays. (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1998): 337-8. On Pinchot

and his relationship with preservationists, see also “The Limits to Growth Issue: A Historical Perspective,” Growth in America. Ed. by Chester L. Cooper. (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1979), also reprinted in Ibid. 58

Carolyn Merchant, “Reinventing Eden: Western Culture as a Recovery Narrative,” page 147 and Kenneth R. Olwig, “Reinventing Common Nature: Yosemite and Mount Rushmore- A Meandering Tale of

a Double Nature,” page 398. Both from William Cronon, ed. Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human

Place in Nature. (New York: W.W. Norton and Co, 1996). A picture of the scientific (proto-ecological)

side of Pinchot is given in Hal K. Rothman, Blazing Heritage: A History of Wildland Fire in the National

Parks. (Oxford: University Press, 2007): see especially page 16. This is yet another side to the debate. 59

Roderick Frazier Nash, The Rights of Nature: A History of Environmental Ethics. (Madison: The

University of Madison Press, 1989): 63 and 41. This theme is also apparent in other works. See: Shepard

Krech III, The Ecological Indian: Myth and History. (New York: W.W. Norton and Co, 1990): 24. Neil M.

Maher, Nature’s New Deal: The Civilian Conservation Corps and the Roots of the American

Environmental Movement. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008): 187.

22

user of resources.60

Some biographers of environmental figures have related their subject

in some way to TR and simultaneously enhanced the significance of their topic and added

another layer to the image of Theodore Roosevelt. In a biography of Francis Newlands,

Roosevelt‟s legacy was said to be comprised in grand part by his devotion to reclamation;

by a different standard, self-reliance and efficiency were the key factors of Roosevelt‟s

personality in a biography of the self-reliant and efficiency-minded George Perkins

Marsh.61

Others are interested in refurbishing Reiger‟s argument concerning the effect

that sportsmanship among hunters had in the genesis of conservation, but focused more

on TR.62

Roderick Nash also gives a view of the preservationist Roosevelt. Subtle

alteration of wise-use from a purely economic idea to an idea of using something to the

best effect (an idea that was hardly foreign to TR himself) allowed Nash to write that,

“For Theodore Roosevelt the idea of preserving wild country in order to retain a remnant

of the frontier was a primary consideration.”63 A collection of readings in environmental

history that Nash edits allows another glimpse into the delicately changing story. The

1990 edition is missing a reading by Pinchot that was present in the first.64

Space

constraints may have forced his hand, and this need not be viewed as a purposeful

attempt to separate Pinchot from the story of TR by Nash, but that effort is obvious in the

work of other writers. Stewart Udall, the Secretary of the Interior for Kennedy and

Johnson, won acclaim with his work The Quiet Crisis, released shortly after the death of

JFK, which details the history of the federal conservation movement. In 1988, he released

a new edition; in it, the new references to Pinchot are completely divorced from those of

TR and Muir. Moreover, the new material contains a great deal more focus on Muir than

did the previous edition. This is clearly a conscious attempt to more deeply integrate the

60

Mark Cioc, The Game of Conservation: International Treaties to Protect the World’s Migratory Animals. (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2009): 7; on page 58 and 83-4, the author does discuss TR‟s bird and animal refuges, but as a part of conservation rather than an expression of preservationist sentiment. 61

William D. Rowley, Reclaiming the Arid West: The Career of Francis G. Newlands. (Bloomington:

Indiana University Press, 1996): 2 and 104. David Lowenthal, George Perkins Marsh: Prophet of

Conservation. (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003, originally, 2000): 184-5 and 416. 62

Tara Kathleen Kelly, The Hunter Elite: Americans, Wilderness, and the Rise of the Big-Game Hunt.

(PhD Diss. The Johns Hopkins University, 2007). 63

See Roderick Frazier Nash, “The American Cult of the Primitive,” American Quarterly, XVIII (1966),

reprinted in Roderick Frazier Nash, American Environmentalism: Readings in Conservation History. 3rd

ed.

(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1990): page 109. 64

Ibid., 1st ed., 1968, 3

rd ed., 1990.

23

image of Muir into that of TR while downplaying the scientific austerity of Gifford

Pinchot.65

It could be argued that the images of TR as conservationist and preservationist

are competing ones, even incommensurable ones, but nothing could be further from the

truth. What in fact is happening is different scholars are focusing upon different aspects

of the multi-faceted personality of a particularly complex figure in American history.

One of the most nuanced presentations of TR can be found in Robert Righter‟s

Battle Over Hetch Hetchy. He describes the preservationist yearnings of TR and his

desire to protect land from needless exploitation; at the same time, he faithfully portrays

Roosevelt‟s‟ utilitarian commitment to do right by the majority of the people. Righter

also gives an insightful analysis of his relationship with Muir, always cordial and friendly

like fans of a common interest, in juxtaposition to Pinchot, more the relationship of

partners in a common cause.66

Of course, this image has emerged as the most popular

notion of TR: both conservationist and preservationist; torn between protecting the land

he loved and safe-guarding the well-being of the American people, whom he vowed to

serve as President.67

Conclusions

What then does this have to do with the image of Theodore Roosevelt? Aldo

Leopold excoriated us all to offer bread to history, rather than explain how a stone can be

like bread. The bread found herein draws from the canon discussed above. This thesis fits

well within the trends of Environmental History and helps to fill a historiographic gap in

the understanding of how society links the image of Theodore Roosevelt with modern

efforts to save the planet. This project will be one of chronological breadth; tracing

changes over time, broad in scope, yet narrow in its concept. Following in the footsteps

of Righter, this thesis will attempt to place decisions and actions of past figures in a wider

context of evolving environmental ideas.

65

Stewart L. Udall, The Quiet Crisis and the Next Generation. (Salt Lake City: Peregrine Smith Books,

1988): see especially, 213-7. 66

Robert W. Righter, The Battle Over Hetch Hetchy: America’s Most Controversial Dam and the Birth of Modern Environmentalism. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005): see for example, 67-8, 72, and

192. 67

For an excellent example of this idea, see Ted Steinberg, Down to Earth: Nature’s Role in American History. 2

nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009): 137.

24

The very fact that enough material existed to write a thesis about the changing

image of Roosevelt the Environmentalist indicates that his legacy reverberates with a

deeper social pathos than his corporeal accomplishments; the idea of TR transcending

time and winning for conservation more than he could in life, and perhaps more than he

even would have dreamed. The trend in Environmental History most impactful on this

work has been the numerous environmental biographies. This work, though not a

biography in the strictest sense (as discussed in the introduction), is a biography of an

image and owes a great debt to those authors who demonstrated that studying the life of

an individual could offer insights into larger socio-political trends.68

Thus, this work

should be the next step in the history of Environmental History and the proverbial bread I

offer to those who hunger for it.

68

For examples, see Frederick Rowe Davis, The Man Who Saved Sea Turtles: Archie Carr and the Origins

of Conservation Biology. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007). Lowenthal, George Perkins Marsh.

Richard Rhodes John James Audubon: The Making of An American. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004).

25

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts

of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die,

discover that I had not lived.

-Thoreau, Walden, p. 86

26

CHAPTER II

THE PROGRESSIVE ERA, 1900-1920

The conservation movement was a direct outgrowth of the forest movement. It was nothing more

than the application to our other natural resources of the principles which had been worked out in

connection with the forests. Without the basis of public sentiment which had been built up for the

protection of the forests, and without the example of public foresight in the protection of this, one

of the great natural resources, the conservation movement would have been impossible.

-Theodore Roosevelt69

When President Roosevelt became fully advised of the necessity for the change in our disposition

of public lands, especially those containing coal, oil, gas, phosphates, or water-power sites, he

began the exercise of the power of withdrawal by executive order… The precedent he set in this

matter was followed by the present administration.

-William Howard Taft70

Introduction

Any discussion of this era must be prefaced with the fact that Theodore Roosevelt

was still alive; he was taking an active role in the formation of his legacy and the

interpretations being formed about him by others. The bullet of crazed anarchist Leon

Czolgosz catapulted TR to the presidency and he quickly became one of the nation‟s

most beloved political figures. He hand picked William Howard Taft to succeed him in

1908. In a very real way, he also was personally responsible for having Woodrow Wilson

elected, since he took so many votes away from Taft running as the prodigal Republican

69

Wayne Andrews, The Autobiography of Theodore Roosevelt: Condensed from the Original Edition,

Supplemented by Letters, Speeches, and Other Writings. (New York: Charles Scribner‟s Sons, 1958): 218. 70

From the First Appendix to the Second Annual Message- Address to the National Conservation Congress

in St. Paul, Minnesota on 5 September 1911 in David H. Burton, General Editor. The Collected Works of

William Howard Taft. (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2002): 84-5.

27

in 1912. Wilson, Taft and all their contemporaries were aware that anything said or

written about TR, he would have the opportunity to comment on, rebut, or even rebuke.

For both Wilson and Taft, TR was at one time a political opponent and a quintessential

element of their rise to the highest office in the land.

This chapter is not a history of an image, but perhaps a study of a cult of

personality, or less grand, a perception of a larger than life yet still contemporary figure.

With TR still alive, he could control to some extent what would be perceived as his

legacy. What he left behind him in the way of writings, speeches and relationships with

others would form the foundation of future perceptions of Roosevelt. This chapter creates

a quintessential base upon which the rest of this argument shall be built. Understanding

TR in his own words, and those of those that knew him, will shed light on the ideas held

by his later successors.

What will come through is an image of TR as a conservationist President, but

perhaps a good bit different from our modern conception of what a good conservationist

is. Bird refuges, National Parks, John Muir; they are all here, but as a separate entity to

conservation from the federal standpoint. The image of TR in this era reflected

Progressive Era ideas of progress and reformism, which were highly technocratic and had

none of the ecological flavor that would be added to conservation in the environmental

era. Ergo, the image of TR reflects a worldview not yet touched by the ideas of ecology,

or the concomitant philosophy. The image of Roosevelt as a conservationist in this time

period is just as real as that of later eras, and yet still radically different. Roosevelt the

Conservationist, in other words, is a constructed idea, and it is with TR himself that that

construction begins.

TR in His Own (Written) Words: Letters and Writings

This thesis, if at all successful, will demonstrate how there can be as many images

of Roosevelt as there are people with pen and paper. Here, however, one more layer shall

be added to the complicated historical figure that is Theodore Roosevelt. In the letters of

Roosevelt, many things shine through: his belief in “the strenuous life,” his affection for

“manliness” of character, even the antics of his cat, Tom Quart. Occasionally, his rather

bizarre sense of humor would be apparent, for example when he was discussing with his

28

son Ted several Dickensian references. He included in a list “some newspaper editor, or

Senator or homicidal rowdy;” not a standard group to be sure.71

For the purposes of this

study, one item that stands above the rest is an affinity for the great outdoors. Even as

President, TR loved to romp around outside in the limited green spaces of Washington

D.C.; Rock Creek being the preferred venue for such an outing. Often he went with a

group of his, and other, children for a “scramble” in which he got all muddy and found

himself being raced up hill. He was later worried that it might be below the dignity of a

President to be thus engaged, but that did not prevent him from loving every minute of

it.72

TR often described conservation issues. As was appropriate for the time, his view

of conservation dealt with “the intention to preserve the timber, the water, and the grass

by using them fully, but wisely and conservatively.” His descriptions of conservation

never strayed from land reclamation, forestry and the occasional protection of specific

animals (usually either delicious animals or birds). Irrigation also often entered the

discussion. Issues such as creation of National Monuments, unlike National Forests, were

categorized elsewhere.73

Even in speeches, TR described conservation solely in terms of

resources, water, land, and often standing as first among equals, forests.74

He defended

his programs by pointing out that forest reserves were important for flood control and as

an economic benefit. He often brought in the need to preserve them for future

generations. In the end, though, he always came back to the standard of financial

incentive: “Such reserves would be a paying investment, not only in protection to many

interests, but in dollars and cents to the government [through the sale of timber].”75

Similarly, in his speeches Roosevelt often described conservation issues purely in

terms of natural resources and their importance to the health of the national economy. In

71

Letter to Ted Roosevelt, 20 May 1906. From Joeseph Bucklin Bishop, ed. Theodore Roosevelt’s Letters

to His Children. (New York: Charles Scribner‟s Sons, 1923): 164-5. 72

Letter to Mr. and Mrs. Emlen Roosevelt, dated 4 January 1905. From Ibid., 112-113. 73

From a letter from TR to Pinchot, 24 August 1906; H.W. Brands, ed. The Selected Letters of Theodore

Roosevelt. (New York: Cooper Square, 2001): 429-33. 74

For example, see a speech of August 1910 reproduced in Theodore Roosevelt, Letters and Speeches. Ed.

by Louis Auchincloss. (New York: Library of America, 2004): 808-9. 75

From an address by TR on 19 October 1905 reprinted in National Geographic Vol. XVI, No. 11 (Nov.

1905): 515-6. Note: many of the most prominent scientists and naturalists of the era published in the

magazine. In addition to this one, Roosevelt wrote five articles, Taft 13, Wilson one and Franklin K. Lane

six more.

29

a Special Message to Congress on 22 January 1909, he sounded the clarion call with such

phrases as “We know now that our mineral resources once exhausted are gone forever.”

He was proud of what his administration had accomplished on conservation matters, and

glad that finally the federal government was working to ensure that those exhaustible

resources would be used wisely and responsibly.76

TR also took a highly utilitarian view

of more abstract resources such as rivers, of which he wrote “our streams should be

considered and conserved as great natural resources.” To this end, he created the Inland

Waterways Commission; a board on which he gave Gifford Pinchot a prominent seat.77

Even on the virgin territory of Alaska, TR struck a use-over-preservation note:

No country has a more valuable possession- in mineral wealth, in fisheries, furs, forests,

and also in land available for certain kinds of farming and stock-growing. It is a territory

of great size and varied resources, well fitted to support a large permanent population…

The forests of Alaska should be protected, and, as a secondary but still important matter,

the game also, and at the same time it is imperative that the settlers should be allowed to

cut timber, under proper regulations, for their own use.78

In this brief passage are many of the tenets of conservation in the language of TR. With a

focus on timber, mineral and agricultural resources, the key issue was regulating use, not

forbidding it. He recapitulated these ideals in his autobiography where he described the

entire conservation movement as an outgrowth of the processes developed for forestry in

that era, applied to other resources across a broad spectrum.79

Naturally, it is also possible to find many instances in the letters in which TR

indicated his sympathy for preservationist issues. After visiting the Grand Canyon in

1903, TR wrote that he “could have sat and looked at it for days.”80 Of the same trip, he

wrote his friend and ally Senator Henry Cabot Lodge that the sights of the Grand Canyon

and other astounding sights of the west “impresses one… with awe and a sense of

76

Theodore Roosevelt, Presidential Addresses and State Papers and European Addresses: Volume VIII:

December 8, 1908, to June 7, 1910. (New York: The Review of Reviews Co, 1910): 2093. 77

From a letter 17 March 1907, in Theodore Roosevelt, Presidential Addresses and State Papers and

European Addresses Volume VI: January 16, 1907, to October 25, 1907. (New York: The Review of

Reviews Co, 1910): 1181-2. 78

Message of the President of the United States Communicated to the Two Houses of Congress at the

Beginning of the Second Session of the Fifty-Seventh Congress, in Theodore Roosevelt, Presidential

Addresses and State Papers and European Addresses Volume II: December 3, 1901, to January 4, 1904.

(New York: The Review of Reviews Co, 1910): 638. 79

Roosevelt, Autobiography: Condensed, 218. 80

Letter to Ethel Roosevelt, 16 April 1903, from Roosevelt, Letters to His Children, 45.

30

grandeur and sublimity, a sense of the majesty of the ages.”81 When he returned to the

east TR would set it aside as a National Monument; setting in motion the events that

allow us still to this day to sit and stare into the vastness. TR, however, did not reserve

his good graces for interesting geological oddities alone. In a letter to Frank Chapman,

the noted scientist, he expressed his sympathy for the work of the Audubon Society and

his wish that more efforts would be made to protect the birds of the country; not just the

useful and beautiful, but also the wild and less known. In a passage that nearly

anticipated Rachel Carson‟s impassioned plea, he wrote that “Spring would not be spring

without song birds, any more than it would be spring without buds and flowers.” He

lamented the destruction of any species and equated it to the loss of the works of a great

poet.82

At the famous Conference of Governors in 1908, most of the talk dealt with

resource conservation. Preservation was brought up more in line with matters of

withdrawing mineral lands, water-power sights, or lands containing coal, phosphate or oil

from public sale; not in perpetuity but to await Congress “to pass wise laws dealing with

their use and disposal.”83 Preservation of aesthetic areas did enter into the conference,

except as nearly a footnote in Roosevelt‟s reminiscences of it. In his autobiography, TR

was glad of his work “to preserve from destruction beautiful and wonderful wild

creatures whose existence was threatened by greed and wantonness.” He considered it

among his great accomplishments that he established five National Parks, four big-game

refuges, 51 bird reserves and wildlife protection laws for Alaska, the District of

Columbia, and National Bird Refuges; a list of actions he considered unparallel excepting

the founding of Yellowstone National Park.84

Among TR‟s many friends, none were more important in terms of the

environment than the two activists, naturalist John Muir and Gifford Pinchot, Chief

Forester of the country. Both men indicated profound affection for TR and that he, in

81

Letter dated 11 May 1903, from No Author, ed. Selections From the Correspondence of Theodore

Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge, 1884-1918. (New York: Charles Scribner‟s Sons, 1925): 13. Of note, this is also the only letter in the collection that John Muir‟s name comes up. TR mentions offhandedly that he will be spending several days with Muir when he reaches the Yosemite. 82

Letter dated 16 February 1899, from Roosevelt, Letters and Speeches, 167. 83

Roosevelt, Autobiography: Condensed, 220. 84

Theodore Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography. (New York: Charles Scribner‟s Sons, 1929, originally 1913): 420-2.

31

turn, tried to be a good friend to both of them. It is hard to read anything written by

Roosevelt in 1903 that fails to mention his memorable time in Yosemite National Park

with John Muir. Shortly after returning to the White House, TR wrote Muir a letter in

which he expressed his appreciation for his company and said: “I shall never forget our

three camps; the first in the solemn temple of the giant sequoias; the next in the

snowstorm among the silver firs near the brink of the cliff; and the third on the floor of

the Yosemite, in the open valley, fronting the stupendous rocky mass of El Capitan, with

the falls thundering in the distance on either hand.”85 Years later, Muir would use his

relationship with TR to garner support for his fight to save the Hetch Hetchy Valley from

being dammed as a water supply for the expanding city of San Francisco. TR sent a letter

in reply to Muir‟s request in which he promised all possible support and said he directed

Pinchot and Secretary of the Interior James Garfield to study the possibility of using a

different water source. He cautioned Muir, however, that the needs and desires of the

people would have to be taken into account in the final reckoning. TR said he must avoid

“seeming to interfere with the development of the State [of California] for the sake of

keeping a valley, which apparently hardly anyone wanted to have kept, under national

control.”86 He does conclude on a more hopeful note when he writes that he wishes he

could see Muir in person; not to discuss the situation, however, but to relive the glory

days “camping out under those great sequoias or in the land under the silver firs.”87

In his autobiography, TR wrote of the days he spent glorying in Yosemite with

Muir. His description of the scenery was full of praise and purple prose for the trunks that

appeared “like the pillars of a mightier cathedral than ever was conceived even by the

fervor of the Middle Ages.” Unlike the scenery, he was not always positive about Muir.

He enjoyed Muir‟s company thoroughly, and warmly regarded Muir as a friend. He was,

on the other hand, disappointed “and a little surprised to find that, unlike John Burroughs

[with whom he had spent time in Yellowstone National Park the same year], John Muir

cared little for birds or bird song, and knew little about them.” Roosevelt determined that

he and Muir did share at least one favored feathered friend (the water-ouzel) but overall

85

Letter to Muir, 19 May 1903 from Brands, Selected Letters, 293. For another description of his visit see a

letter from TR to John Hay, 9 August 1903, in Roosevelt, Letters and Speeches, 275. 86

Letter to Muir, 16 September 1907, from Brands, Selected Letters, 456. 87

Ibid. Ultimately, Muir did lose the fight for Hetch-Hetchy and it was dammed. Controversy still

surrounds the dam and many wish to blow it up and let the river run free once more.

32

“The hermit thrush meant nothing to him, the trees and the flowers and the cliffs

everything.”88 It is a bit surprising to find anyone criticizing John Muir for not loving

nature enough, but for TR, something was lacking in nature without birdsong and that

difference between them stood out in his memory long after their meeting. In one of

Roosevelt‟s other post-Presidential books, Muir found himself listed in odd company

when TR boasted: “I went to the Yellowstone with John Burroughs, and to the Yosemite

with John Muir, and to the Colorado with an assorted collection of Rough Riders, most of

them with homicidal pasts.”89

While TR was a good acquaintance of John Muir, he was an old friend of Gifford

Pinchot. Where he addresses letters to “My dear Mr. Muir,” to the Chief Forrester he

often writes a far less formal “Dear Gifford.” In letters to his subordinate, he usually just

discusses progress made in issues such as forestry reserves or other issues of

conservation. On the other hand, TR could be moved to deeper writing on occasion.

When he learned that Pinchot had been removed from his position by President Taft, TR

wrote him that “I do not know any man in public life who has rendered quite the service

you have rendered.” In this same letter, he related details of his hunt in Africa and asked

about the well being of a whole party of friends and relations; just the sort of filler one

would expect in a letter to an old friend.90

Moreover, in the collections of Roosevelt‟s

letters, only a handful will be from, to, or about Muir; at the same time, dozens will

concern Pinchot. Muir was an acquaintance, while Pinchot was a member of the

administration; it only makes sense that far more official correspondence would pass

between the President and the Chief Forester. 91

Letters between TR and his family reveal more of the friendship as opposed to the

professional relationship between him and Pinchot. In letters to Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.,

88

Roosevelt, Autobiography, 322 contains the previous three quotations. 89

Theodore Roosevelt, Cowboys and Kings: Three Great Letters by Theodore Roosevelt. (Cambridge:

Harvard University Press, 1954): 1-2. It is of particular note that this book is the only book either written by

TR or composed of his personal papers that mentions Muir and not Pinchot. Of course, it does not mention

Secretary of the Interior Garfield or conservation either; generally Pinchot and conservation go together as

one in the same. 90

Letters to Pinchot, 27 November 1905 and 17 January 1910, from Brands, Selected Letters, 401 and 529-

30 respectively. 91

One collection with almost no mention of Muir would be Elting E. Morison, ed. The Letters of Theodore

Roosevelt. 8 Vols. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1954). Collections with no mention whatsoever

to Muir include Anna Roosevelt Cowles, ed. Letters from Theodore Roosevelt to Anna Roosevelt Cowles,

1870-1918. (New York: Charles Scribner‟s Sons, 1924).

33

TR mentioned how what little exercise he can get at the White House usually involves

walking with Pinchot or losing to him on the tennis court. Pinchot, among others, often

joined the President for “a good scramble” followed by dinner. On one playful instance,

TR wrote to his youngest son Kermit how he, Pinchot, and several others took a three

hour walk after a one-inch snow. He wrote “I fell down twice full length, and all the

others from once to six or eight times apiece. None of us were hurt, and we had a lovely

walk.”92 Even when others among Roosevelt‟s allies began to turn on Pinchot, TR

remained steadfast; once commenting to Senator Lodge, “I don‟t agree with you about

not seeing Pinchot. I am delighted to see him… when Pinchot said he wanted to see me I

said I should be more than delighted.”93

Pinchot held a special place in Roosevelt‟s affections. Oftentimes, he would

comment that Pinchot “is the man to whom the nation owes most” for conservation

initiatives.94

On 10 June 1907, TR gave a speech before the National Editorial

Association at Jamestown, Virginia. His praise for Pinchot was both lavish and

unmistakable:

So much for what we are trying to do in utilizing our public lands for the public; in

securing the use of the water, the forage, the coal, and the timber for the public. In all

four movements my chief advisor, and the man first to suggest to me the courses which

have actually proved so beneficial, was Mr. Gifford Pinchot, the chief of the National

Forest Service. Mr. Pinchot also suggested to me a movement supplementary to all of

these movements; one which will itself lead the way in the general movement which he

represents and with which he is actively identified, for the conservation of all our natural

resources. This was the appointment of the Inland Waterways Commission.95

What more could TR say of his beloved forester? The “chief advisor” and instigator of

conservation; this is high praise of a man about whom most school children have never

heard of before. Furthermore, TR grants Pinchot the compliment of not only being

92

See Roosevelt, Letters to His Children, 145-8; Roosevelt, Letters and Speeches, 312, 418-9. Quote from

a letter dated 24 January 1904 from Will Irwin, ed. Letters to Kermit from Theodore Roosevelt, 1902-1908.

(New York: Charles Scribner‟s Sons, 1946): 55; for additional personal letters indicating a good friendship with Pinchot, see pages 24, 73, 124, 186 and 217. 93

Letter from TR to Lodge, 6 April 1910, from No Author, Correspondence, 366. 94

Roosevelt, Autobiography, 394. 95

Roosevelt, State Papers Vol. VI, 1317-1318.

34

“identified” with conservation, but actually its very representative; ergo, to Roosevelt‟s

thinking, Pinchot-style conservation and conservation in general were identical.

Pinchot and Muir

Of all of Roosevelt‟s contemporaries, none has had more impact on the modern

environmental movement than John Muir. Through his writings and actions, he

popularized the wild places of the nations to an unprecedented degree. In The Yosemite,

Muir wrote about the trees and flowers and birds, but his chapter “How Best to Spend

Your Yosemite Time” deals exclusively with geologic sites. It was in this book that Muir

declared “Dam Hetch Hetchy! As well dam for water-tanks the people‟s cathedrals and

churches, for no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the heart of man.”96 This

statement was one of many in a long war of words against the wise-use conservationists

who wanted to build a reservoir for San Francisco. As Muir, the arch-preservationist led

his camp, the opposing camp was led by the arch-conservationist Gifford Pinchot. Both

men relied upon their friendship with Theodore Roosevelt.

“I am now an experienced lobbyist; my political education is complete… And

now that the fight is finished and my education as a politician and lobbyist is finished, I

am almost finished myself.” These were the words of John Muir in a letter to fellow

preservationist Robert Underwood Johnson on the 24th

of February, 1905. Muir was

writing to tell him the story of how in 1903 he had convinced Theodore Roosevelt of the

importance of protecting Yosemite Valley and “won him to our side, and since then the

movement was like Yosemite avalanches.”97 In this, Muir was quite correct; TR did aid

in the successful movement to have the Yosemite Valley ceded to the National Park and

therefore be forever protected. In 1908, Muir wrote a letter direct to TR elucidating the

many reasons why the Hetch Hetchy Valley should be protected just as the Yosemite had

been. He even ended the letter with a Post-Script reading “Oh for a tranquil camp hour

with you like those beneath the sequoias in memorable 1903” to remind the President of

96

John Muir, The Yosemite. (New York: The Century, 1912): 262. 97

Terry Gifford, ed. John Muir: His Life and Letters and Other Writings. (London: Baton Wicks, 1996):

349-50. For his part, TR did not tend to place Muir on so high a pedestal as Muir seemed to think he did. In

his article “Nature Fakers” in Everybody’s Magazine TR lists Muir with a dozen other naturalists as all

people the nation owes for contributions to the natural sciences, but this is one of the very few references to

Muir in the published Roosevelt Papers, see Roosevelt, State Papers, 1336-7.

35

the good times they had shared in the scenic park. 98

As was discussed above, the result

of this letter was less than encouraging. Roosevelt was a good man and did all he could

for Muir and his cause, within reason, but while the Valley was not dammed during

Roosevelt‟s tenure in the White House, little was done to stop the inevitable

transmogrification of the valley into a reservoir.

Surprising to some, John Muir and Gifford Pinchot were once fairly good friends.

Ironically, they were probably better friends than John Muir and Theodore Roosevelt

ever were. In 1893, Muir was a guest of the Pinchots in New York where he was treated

to a meal “in grand style.”99 Afterwards, the two men often found themselves hiking

together, discussing nature and pursuing their common desire to save the nation‟s

resources. In 1896, Pinchot joined Muir for a hiking expedition around Crater Lake in

Oregon. All had an enjoyable time and Muir was quite struck with Pinchot‟s habit of

sleeping outside of the tent at night.100

In 1897, Muir and Pinchot spent time together in

Seattle and in 1899 they travelled through the wilds of California with C. Hart Merriam,

the noted biologist. Pinchot was “Much delighted to see Mr. Muir again” and found Muir

(and Merriam) “Two wonderful men to travel with.” Muir seemed to have a strong

influence on Pinchot for a while, as Pinchot spent time pondering and planning for an

Appalachian National Park in 1900. A few years later, however, he was devoted without

reservation to creating National Forests and nothing but.101

In his writings, Pinchot

occasionally mentioned Muir, as in a study of forest fires where he praised Muir as being

among the first to notice the correlation between fire and the reproduction of a certain

tree.102

Muir and Pinchot had a dropping out over conflicting ideas of what to do with

98

Letter dated 21 April, Gifford, John Muir: Letters, 378-9. This volume also contains a letter from

William Frederic Bade who wrote that on a visit to Sagamore Hill, TR had spoken of his 1903 trip with

Muir and seemed to have been genuinely influenced by it. This does not seem to have effected Roosevelt‟s position on Hetch Hetchy however. 99

From a letter dated 13 June 1893, from Gifford, John Muir: Letters, 310. 100

Entries dated 27 August to 30 September 1896, from Linnie Marsh Wolfe, ed. John of the Mountains:

The Unpublished Journals of John Muir. (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1979, originally

1938): 356-63. 101

Harold K. Steen, ed. The Conservation Diaries of Gifford Pinchot. (Durham: Forest History Society,

2001): entries dated 5 September 1897, 30 September 1897, and 16 April 1900, pages 83, 97, and 99. 102

Gifford Pinchot, “The Relation of Forests and Forest Fires” National Geographic. Vol. X, No. 10 (Oct

1899): 393-403. This article concludes that though one tree may benefit from fire “I hasten to add that those facts do not imply a desirability in the fires which are now devastating the West.” Pinchot‟s views on fire suppression, as they were practiced as standard procedure for decades to come, indicate how long his

conceptions of conservation dominated the field. Also along this vein, Pinchot and the Forest Service led

36

land protected from exploitation and both of them did their best to convince Roosevelt to

side with them. Pinchot would certainly seem to have been the winner in that struggle,

but he was not just a lobbyist for a philosophy, he was also becoming good friends with

TR. In 1902, Pinchot noted in his diary that TR was “getting in [the] habit of calling me

by [my] first name.”103

Roosevelt‟s other friends and his family members also saw the prominence of

Pinchot‟s position in the history of conservation. A long time friend of TR‟s from

Harvard, Owen Wister, though he did not much care for Pinchot, lambasted any historian

that downplayed his importance. He wrote: “Gifford Pinchot was tall and spare, and as

active on the tennis court as in his forestry work. That service to the nation cannot be

wholly obliterated by his subsequent career. This his early career, under the restraining

hand of Roosevelt, had prepared few to expect. As I cannot speak well of it, I will not

speak of it at all.”104 He added that Pinchot “deserves all the greater credit because he

was rich and had no need to work.”105 This “subsequent career” which Wister mentioned,

will be addressed briefly in subsequent chapters. For the moment, what is important is

that Wister recognized that Pinchot‟s work in forestry was of great significance.

More implicit combining of the names of Pinchot and Roosevelt in terms of

conservation came in the writings of Nicholas Roosevelt, Theodore‟s cousin‟s son, who

interacted with the President a great deal in his youth. Of Pinchot, he admits he was

technically “not of cabinet rank.” Nevertheless, Nicholas would not hear of omitting him

from a list of cabinet members since Pinchot was Roosevelt‟s “guide in everything

pertaining to conservation.” The author goes on to say “had it not been for Pinchot,

working through TR, there would be little left today anywhere in the United States of the

nation‟s scenic resources.” In his chapter entitled “Prophet of Conservation” Nicholas

relates the importance TR placed on wild lands such as the Grand Canyon and his desire

to allow others to experience what he had in the unspoiled wilderness. He was also full of

praise for Pinchot (and Garfield) for being the only two men in 1912 to support TR to the

the way in this era in predator control (destruction) that would be the norm for over fifty years. See

“Wolves” National Geographic Vol. XVIII, No. 8 (Aug. 1907): 145-6. 103

Steen, Diaries of Gifford Pinchot, entry dated 6 March 1902, page 99-100. 104

Owen Wister, Roosevelt: The Story of a Friendship, 1880-1919. (New York: Macmillan, 1930): 174-6. 105

Ibid.

37

utmost.106

Wister and Nicholas were hardly alone in their view that on conservation

matters, Pinchot was an integral part of the story, while at the same time there was no

irrefutable evidence they had ever even heard of John Muir, let alone thought he was

having some sort of influence over TR and his policies.107

Roosevelt‟s Military Aide said

it best when he remarked that “there is no doubt of the devotion of President Roosevelt to

Pinchot and his belief in him.”108 Roosevelt himself told an amusing story about the

relationship he and his chief forester enjoyed that was retold later by his Military Aide.

“Now there is Gifford Pinchot,” he [TR] said. “We have literally nothing in common, yet

he has a sort of fetish worship for me. He thinks that if we were cast away somewhere

together and we were both hungry, I would kill him and eat him. AND I WOULD TOO,”

he said, turning to me, grinning and showing his teeth in the semi-humorous yet ferocious

way he had when he wanted to say something seriously, yet in a half Pickwickian vein.109

Different sources recorded different perceptions. A mutual friend, TR was devoted to

Pinchot, and Pinchot returned the courtesy.

Roosevelt and His Contemporaries

Not everyone who lived through the TR days in the White House considered

conservation the end all say all of the era, nor did they see TR as the arch-conservationist.

Enos Mills, the John Muir of the Rocky Mountains, composed an entire book without so

much as a mention of Roosevelt the Conservationist. Emily Newell Blair, a diarist who

had seen and done much in her lifetime from 1877-1951, recorded of TR only that when

people in New York City had seen him standing up in an automobile waving his hat, they

had assumed he was intoxicated.110

That is to say, that while conservation was to become

an essential part of the legacy of TR, it was not always apparent at the time.

106

Nicholas Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt: The Man As I Knew Him. (New York: Dodd, Mead and Co,

1967): 39, 44, 90-91; for Chapter on conservation see 126-37. 107

For an example of a substantial collection by a contemporary which discusses Pinchot but not Muir, see

Hiram Johnson, The Diary of Hiram Johnson. 7 Vols. (New York: Garland Publishing, 1983). 108

From a letter dated 31 December 1909, in Archibald Willingham Butt, ed. Taft and Roosevelt: The

Intimate Letters of Archie Butt, Military Aide. Vol. I. (Garden City: Doubleday, Doran and Co, 1930): 245. 109

TR related this story to his Military Aide, Archibald Butt, who recorded it in a letter 12 June 1912. See,

Ibid., 245. 110

Enos A. Mills, The Rocky Mountain Wonderland. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co, 1915). It is of

significant note that Mills writes that one reason for protecting these mountains is the value they represent

to scientists studying geology; a common argument in the era before ecology. Virginia Jeans Laas, ed.

38

Others had more flattering memories of the man often affectionately referred to as

The Colonel. One friend described Roosevelt‟s colorful career, including being Police

Commissioner of New York City, Governor of New York State, a rancher, and President,

among other things. He concluded the list by pointing out that TR was also “a field

naturalist of rare acquirements.”111 Elihu Root, in a speech to the Rocky Mountain Dinner

Club, told an audience that Roosevelt “loved nature, its beauty, and its grandeur, from the

great spaces of plains and mountains to the bird singing in the thicket, and he loved it

with affectionate companionship, striving for definite knowledge and understanding.”

This description reads almost as ecological; insinuating that TR had a conception of the

interconnection of nature and a desire to protect its every facet. To clarify, Root went on

to describe the nature of the relationship he saw between TR and the wild: “Like Antaeus

of the Greek fable, there he renewed his matchless energy by the touch of Mother

Earth.”112 TR, champion of manliness and a believer in the rejuvenating power of

wilderness knew the value of wilds, and that was what he strove to protect.

One of Roosevelt‟s prominent colleagues underwent an evolution of thought

concerning TR. Robert M. La Follette, was a famed politician from Wisconsin, whose

fight for conservation, though less well known, was no less impassioned than

Roosevelt‟s. When TR was in the White House, La Follette was a great ally, always

ready to aid in the drive for more and better land use laws. In February of 1909, as

America bid farewell to the beloved Roosevelt and said hello to the incoming President

William Howard Taft, La Follette wrote in his eponymous magazine:

The Rooseveltian epoch in American history may have many or few things to make it

memorable, but one alone is sufficient to give it place in history- the inauguration of the

great movement for the conservation of our national resources… Roosevelt and the fine

group of scientists and scholars and engineers who have been given a hearing by him on

these great matters, have made us see our faults and realize our dangers… If the tide of

Bridging Two Eras: The Autobiography of Emily Newell Blair, 1877-1951. (Columbia: University of

Missouri Press, 1999): 270. 111

Chauncey M. Depew, My Memories of Eighty Years. (New York: Charles Scribner‟s Sons, 1924, originally 1921): 169. 112

Previous two quotations from an Address given 27 October 1919, in Robert Bacon and James Brown

Scott, eds. Men and Policies: Addresses by Elihu Root. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1925): 5

and 11.

39

waste and destruction is turned back, and a better era ushered in, it will be the chief glory

of the Roosevelt administration to have set in motion the good work.113

This sort of praise did not last, however. After leaving the White House, TR went on to

do many things. Firstly, he went on to be the living avatar of the Great White Hunter.

Chiefly, though, he came back to embody the question of what to do with a former

President. The falling out with Taft, running for President in 1912 as a Third Party

candidate, and the incessant needling he gave Wilson turned many people‟s heads, and

other‟s stomachs. La Follette felt that TR would have been better off gracefully stepping

into the pages of history, rather than trying to stay in the headlines. By the end of La

Follette‟s career, his opinion on TR was totally different, and it had a profound influence

on his memory of the history of conservation.

In his autobiography, La Follette wrote that not only did his fight for conservation

start before Roosevelt‟s, but that TR too readily agreed to compromise on important

issues, and that he would not go far enough to place resources under federal protection,

thus undermining the movement. La Follette believed that TR was being influenced by

lobbyists out to stop La Follette‟s efforts on behalf of conservation. He recorded that

after a service of seven and one half years as President of the United State, he [TR] left

no great constructive statute as an enduring record of his service. To the credit of his

administration may justly be placed, however, in large measure the more recent progress

of the conservation movement. But conservation did not originate with the Roosevelt

administration.114

This is far more qualified praise than the unrestrained words of 1909; but for all the

change of face toward Roosevelt, La Follette saved the sharp side of his pen for Pinchot.

He believed that TR‟s record was as good as it was “due in large degree to the zeal and

activity of the Chief Forester.” But he believed that he often exceeded his position, and

used sneaky politics to get things done and to get people out of the way. In certain

passages of his book, La Follette portrays Pinchot as a sort of mastermind of nefarious

113

From “La Follette‟s Magazine.” 6 February 1909, in Ellen Torelle, ed. The Political Philosophy of

Robert M. La Follette: As Revealed In His Speeches and Writings. (Madison: The Robert M. La Follette

Co, 1920, reprinted in 1975): 334-335. 114

Robert M. La Follette, La Follette’s Autobiography: A Personal Narrative of Political Experiences.

(Madison: The Robert M. La Follette Co, 1913): 481; see also 380-90.

40

politics. Clearly, La Follette would be the first of many to see TR in an utterly different

light than how they first glimpsed him.115

William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson

La Follette segues well into William Howard Taft. Like La Follette, Taft started

as a great friend and ally to TR but, over time, the relationship soured. Taft and TR did

eventually bury the hatchet, but not until they had bungled the 1912 election, thereby

paving the way to the White House for Woodrow Wilson. TR had made many vicious

attacks on the policies of Taft, and this in turn painted a less than rosy gloss over Taft‟s

view of TR. The animosity that plagued their relation for so long, one would think, would

taint Taft‟s opinions on TR‟s conservation legacy, but in fact, Taft still praised

Roosevelt‟s work and referenced him as precedent for his own work.

Many have accused Taft of betraying the legacy of conservation left to him by

TR; indeed, that was a key point behind the split between him and Roosevelt exemplified

by the Pinchot-Ballinger debacle. Not everyone at the time agreed with that rather harsh

assessment, however. The Senior Senator from Illinois at the time recorded that among

Taft‟s most significant accomplishments were putting the policies of conservation of

natural resources “upon a safe and sane basis.”116 One man close to Taft wrote that the

president was beginning to think that his detractors that accused him of betraying

conservation were part of “a well-organized conspiracy to injure him throughout the

West.” Taft was very upset when Pinchot became a frequent visitor to Roosevelt‟s home

in the months leading up to the 1912 election. In the end, it is hard to say that either Taft

betrayed conservation or that a conspiracy was trying to take him down, but it was

evident that he had no tolerance for Pinchot‟s reformer zealousness; “The President is not

over-indulgent toward reformers,” as one man recorded.117

But, how did Taft see TR in the light of conservation? In the time before he was

President, Taft seems to have given very little thought to conservation matters. In a

115

Ibid., quote from 482; see also 590-600 and 611-3 on Pinchot‟s use of dirty politics and portrayal as a

mastermind. 116

Shelby M. Cullom, Fifty Years of Public Service: Personal Recollections of Shelby M. Cullom, Senior

United States Senator From Illinois. (Chicago: A.C. McChery and Co, 1911): 426. 117

Butt, Letters, conspiracy quote on page 244-5 from a letter dated 31 December, 1909; reformer quote

from 193 in a letter dated 6 September 1909; on Pinchot‟s visits to TR, see page 416 in a letter dated 27 June 1910.

41

speech in 1906, Taft listed an exhaustive number of Roosevelt‟s accomplishments, but

none came even close to conservation.118

But by the time he was living in the White

House, Taft had changed his tune. He acknowledged the role that Pinchot played in

influencing Roosevelt‟s conservation decisions and he believed that TR had a deep

connection to nature; he wrote “he passionately loved a study of nature, a study of fauna

and the excitement of hunting.” 119 As to the specifics of what kind of conservation TR

practiced, in Taft‟s view it was a purely utilitarian, wise-use conservation dealing with

timberlands and mineral resources; a path trail blazed and championed by Pinchot.

Taft was the first man to take the helm of state after Roosevelt and he was the first

to justify his conservation policies invoking the name of Roosevelt; in neither case would

he be the last to do so. When defining conservation, he struck a very Pinchot-esque

rhetorical pose: “Conservation as an economic and political term has come to mean the

preservation of our natural resources for economical use, so as to secure the greatest good

to the greatest number.” He went on in that speech to say,

When President Roosevelt became fully advised of the necessity for the change in our

disposition of public lands, especially those containing coal, oil, gas, phosphates, or

water-power sites, he began the exercise of the power of withdrawal by executive order…

The precedent he set in this matter was followed by the present administration. 120

It is evident that Taft, though at loggerheads with TR ostensibly on conservation matters,

actually justified his actions by claiming to be following the precedent set by Roosevelt

himself.

Woodrow Wilson owes his tenure in the White House to Roosevelt just as much

as Taft does121

; but Wilson, unlike Taft, started out as an opponent of Roosevelt, in

politics at least. The Progressive Democrat could not give too much credit for any

118

Speech given 3 November 1906, from William H. Taft, Present Day Problems: A Collection of

Addresses Delivered on Various Occasions. (Freeport: Books for Libraries, 1908, reprinted 1967): 138-9. 119

Quote from a prefatory essay by Taft in Wm. Draper Lewis, The Life of Theodore Roosevelt. (n.c.: The

United Publishers, 1919): xx. This essay includes other mentions of TR-conservation policies and Pinchot‟s active influence. See also, Burton, Works of Taft, 133. 120

From the First Appendix to the Second Annual Message- Address to the National Conservation

Congress in St. Paul, Minnesota on 5 September 1911 in Burton, Works of Taft, 78, 84-5. 121

Wilson actually remarked on 10 March 1912 in a letter: “Nothing new is happening in politics, except Mr. Roosevelt, who is always new, being unbound by nothing in the heavens above or in the earth below.

He is now rampant and very diligently employed in splitting the [Republican] party wide open; so that we

may get in!” From Donald Day, ed. Woodrow Wilson’s Own Story. (Boston: Little, Brown and Co, 1952):

129-30.

42

initiative to the popular Progressive Republican who was hardly out of the picture for

another Presidential run in 1916. TR was building a litany of complaints against Wilson

as the years went on. Wilson defeated him for President in 1912, ignored his calls for

mobilization in 1915, refused to grant him a commission as a Brigadier General in 1917,

and even forbid him from entering the war as an enlisted man. In turn, Wilson had plenty

to disdain about the busy-bodied former President. Roosevelt questioned every decision,

lambasted the President‟s lack of preparation for war, and criticized his execution of war

when it finally came. Even more so than between Roosevelt and Taft, the relationship

between Roosevelt and Wilson was icy. This was exasperated by the fact that they were

in different political parties and knew that they would likely be electoral opponents in the

future.122

As if things weren‟t bad enough, TR once insulted Wilson‟s looks, saying he

“looked too much like an apothecary‟s clerk to be elected President.”123

In his gubernatorial address on 17 January 1911, Wilson spoke about conservation

and discussed only matters of forests and resources. In a letter of 23 April 1911, Wilson

described conservation as preserving national resources and conserving the health and

energy of the people.124

While running for President in 1912, Wilson occasionally spoke

on conservation issues. He used all the terminology of Pinchot-style conservation (i.e.

natural resources, wise-use). He maintained, though, that he was a true convert to

Progressivism (including conservation) and that TR and Taft were practicing a perverted

variant; he was not following Roosevelt‟s example, therefore, but starting his own

tradition of conservation, so he says.125

TR and Pinchot both were constant thorns in the side of the administration.

Wilson‟s friends often wrote him about Pinchot or TR saying something nasty about him. 122

This sort of animosity is apparent throughout the papers of Wilson. See for example, Volume 45: page

186 is a letter dated 2 December 1917 where Wilson is informed that TR called the Bulgarian Minister a

spy, causing serious worries for those working in the diplomatic corps. Arthur S. Link, The Papers of

Woodrow Wilson. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981). 123

Sigmund Freud and William C. Bullitt. Thomas Woodrow Wilson: Twenty-eighth President of the

United States. A Psychological Study. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1967): 29. These authors made a big deal

of this insult, claiming that Wilson was very sensitive about his looks and that he never forgave TR for this

affront. 124

E. David Cronon, ed. The Political Thought of Woodrow Wilson. (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co,

1965): 155, 168, 199. This collection also includes a statement by Wilson in which he complained that

resources “locked-up” by conservation had not been released to meet the war effort needs; page 368. 125

For the report of Wilson making this attack, see “Indianans Wildly Greet Gov. Wilson” in the New York

Times, 4 October 1912. At this rally, banners in the crowd described TR and Taft as “A Great Bull Loose” and “That Fat Buckeye”.

43

Pinchot in particular often assaulted the Democratic record on conservation. Wilson

recognized the popularity and support of Pinchot on conservation matters and wrote a

friend that legislation on the matter would have to be carefully thought out and skillfully

executed, since the eyes of the nation would not tolerate failure; and Pinchot would not

miss his chance to attack the administration. Wilson, in private, carried on the work of his

predecessor, as did his subordinates. He was known to say that he valued Pinchot‟s

opinion and supported the decision of one of his cabinet members to support an oil

reserve set aside by TR to ensure a safe supply for the Navy facing the prospect of war.

In turn, Pinchot often wrote suggestions to the President and his subordinates and

promised his support if the President acted on the matters. More often than not, though,

these promises of support read more like an ultimatum; support these issues or be

opposed.126

Those around Wilson did not fail to notice the trouble Roosevelt and Pinchot

caused him. One of Wilson‟s aides reported that TR consistently made life difficult by

“clamoring for the undesirable and impossible.”127 Edith Bolling Galt, who would marry

Wilson in office, wrote that after hearing some of Roosevelt‟s remarks about Wilson she

wished she were larger so she could “make him eat his words or his disgusting teeth…

Perhaps both.” In response, Wilson wrote: “About T.R., now, we are entirely and

enthusiastically in accord! But what‟s the use of wasting good serviceable indignation on

him? ... the best way to vanquish him is to take no notice of him.”128 But others took

notice; of TR and Pinchot. Herbert Hoover, involved in efforts to help the victims of

German aggression, wrote that Pinchot had gotten involved and was causing him a grand

nuisance with his “suggestions” and demands. Wilson wrote back to him in sympathy:

126

On Wilson‟s campaign speeches see John Wills Davidson, ed. A Crossroads of Freedom: The 1912

Campaign Speeches of Woodrow Wilson. (New haven: Yale University Press, 1956): 287 and 349. Also see

Link, Papers of Woodrow Wilson: Vol. 37: page 12 and 329 letters dated 10 May and 29 June 1916, on

Wilson‟s friends; Vol. 36, page 360, letter dated 24 March 1916, on Wilson‟s comments on conservation legislation; Vol. 40, pages 116-7 and 420, letters dated 1 December 1916 and 6 January 1917, on valuing

Pinchot‟s opinion and the naval oil reserves; and Vol. 35, pages 231-3 and 261, a letter dated 20 November

1915 and a diary entry by Colonel House dated 28 November 1915 on Pinchot‟s pledge of support. 127

Link, Papers of Woodrow Wilson, Vol. 51, dated 15 October 1918, page 341. 128

Edwin Tribble, ed. A President in Love: The Courtship Letters of Woodrow Wilson and Edith Bolling

Galt. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co, 1981): 162 and 167.

44

“The same thing happens wherever he is involved.”129 Wilson, therefore, did often think

of TR, but seldom in the context of conservation.

Those who surrounded Wilson had different levels of interaction with their

partisan opponents. Wilson‟ wife, Edith, seldom spoke of TR and never wrote about

conservation matters. Secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels, mentioned in writing that

Roosevelt and Pinchot‟s style of conservation had been setting up timber and mineral

reserves, but was more interested in decrying Roosevelt‟s acting “seditiously [sic].”130

Wilson‟s Attorney General, Louis Brandeis, was in contact with Pinchot during the 1912

election; he asked Pinchot what conservation matters he considered to be the most

important and pushed Wilson to make speeches indicating he would be just as good for

conservation as TR. Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane, was a supporter of

damming the Hetch Hetchy Valley and once had been on good terms with Roosevelt.

Nevertheless, as Secretary, he seldom wrote about TR or what he would have done in

similar circumstances.131

Lane did recognize that Roosevelt‟s actions were colored by his

personal feelings. He wrote in a letter that TR “hates Wilson so, that he has just lost his

mind.” Regardless, the two men saw eye to eye on some matters. Lane‟s support of the

Hetch Hetchy project as Interior Secretary was foreshadowed in a letter he wrote to his

brother on 23 February 1912 when he concluded that “you must get water, water, and

water… It is water that makes land valuable in California or anywhere else.”132 It is

evident from the above that while Taft and other federal figures made public use of

Roosevelt‟s name in matters of conservation, Wilson ignored TR whenever possible and

thought of him more in terms of an irritant than a paragon of conservation crusading.

129

Francis William O‟Brien, ed. The Hoover-Wilson Wartime Correspondence: September 24, 1914, to

November 11, 1918. (Ames: The Iowa State University Press, 1974): 103-4. 130

See Edith Bolling Wilson, My Memoir. (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Co, 1938). On Roosevelt‟s policies, see Josephus Daniels, The Wilson Era: Years of Peace – 1910-1917. (Chapel Hill: The University

of North Carolina Press, 1944): 369. Quotation from E. David Cronon, ed. The Cabinet Diaries of Josephus

Daniels, 1913-1921. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1963): 216, dated 4 October 1917. 131

For letters dealing with Pinchot and Brandeis, see Melvin I. Urofsky and David W. Levy, eds. Letters of

Louis D. Brandeis: Volume II (1907-1912): People’s Attorney. (Albany: State University of New York

Press, 1972): esp. 654, 660, 685. Worth noting, Brandeis was Pinchot‟s attorney during the Ballinger affair, and got to know him well during that time. For Lane‟s thoughts, see Anne Wintermute Lane and Louise

Herrick Well, eds. The Letters of Franklin K. Lane: Personal and Political. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co,

1922): esp. 41-2, 272-3. 132

Lane, Letters of Franklin Lane, first letter dated 8 December 1915 from page 188; second letter from

page 90.

45

Conclusions

Roosevelt‟s contemporaries saw him as many things. A man whose strength was

rejuvenated by the wilds, a man interested only in conserving natural resources, a man

passionate about protecting the National Parks, a friend of Muir, or Pinchot, of birds, and

hunters; a great man, the once and future king, a fallen idol, a conservationist, and on

occasion a preservationist. In short, there was a nuanced view of a complicated figure.

So, was Theodore Roosevelt a conservationist or a preservationist? Utilitarianism

marked Pinchot‟s style; aesthetics marked Muir‟s. Placing TR within that spectrum is

tricky to say the least. Throughout this work, it will be made clear that different eras

placed TR in a different place upon this spectrum. In this era, setting aside the writings of

Muir, it would seem apparent that TR-style conservation was defined by wise-use of

resources; but Roosevelt‟s love of nature, friendship with John Muir, and his efforts on

behalf of Parks and animal refuges were certainly a part of the story.

As it would be for a century, the image of Roosevelt was as much a product of the

times as the actual facts of his life. The Progressive Era is aptly named, giving so many

of the modern conceptions we now take for granted to posterity. Among them is an

appreciation of the wild places in our country. In that era, however, the lofty ideals of

Muir were uncommon. More common, was the opinion that money “spent on national

parks may be considered an investment which is likely to bring in a very satisfactory

return upon money invested.” Commercial value was never omitted from the

conservation ethic; indeed, even the most utilitarian driven had to admit that sometimes

the best use of land is for its scenic value. Game preserves are an obvious example of

economic interests taking on the guise of ecologic concern; more subtle are reserves for

non-delicious animals. Scholars defended them, saying “The conservation of wildlife is a

feature not to be despised.” The argument ran that the animals would draw “teachers and

students of animal life” for “investigation and study.” Large Parks could even be used as

breeding grounds to provide “wild” animals to zoos and smaller parks.133

When describing their natural lands, politicians tended to think in terms of rivers

full of “edible fish,” “valuable” forests and millions of acres of land that could be made

133

All quotes are from Albert A. Hopkins, Our Country and Its Resources. (New York: Munn and Co,

1917): 97-9.

46

arable with irrigation. Tall trees were impressive, but so were the board-feet they would

produce at the lumber mill.134

In this chapter, it has been made clear that in life, TR was seen as favoring

Pinchot and his ways, but was open to aesthetic arguments for protecting land. Taft

continued this legacy and often cited Roosevelt in his work, despite differences between

the men. Wilson, in many ways, continued Roosevelt‟s work, often inspired by Pinchot

through Louis Brandeis; but Wilson kept Roosevelt‟s name out of the discussion unless

he had something derogatory to say. This is hardly surprising, considering Roosevelt‟s

asperity towards Wilson. TR being alive clearly had a large impact on these men and

their contemporaries, but so did Muir and Pinchot being alive. The debate on

conservation was fresh and vibrant and had many charismatic and well-organized leaders.

By the end of 1920, Wilson was a lame-duck and a very sick man. Taft, though he

would still be a force through the Supreme Court, had his Presidential days behind him.

Muir, the Prometheus who brought what Leopold would later call fierce green fire down

from the mountains for all to partake in, was dead. Most dramatically, Roosevelt himself

was also dead, leaving bereft the pantheon of conservationist crusaders. In the 1920s he

lived on as a legend, and legends have a tendency, since they cannot speak for

themselves, of being used for any purpose deemed convenient. Much of the glamour of

conservationism died with Roosevelt, and with Muir gone as well, the new era would be

a highly utilitarian one.

Elihu Root, a close associate of Roosevelt‟s, exclaimed once that: No one ever misunderstood what Theodore Roosevelt said. No one ever doubted what

Theodore Roosevelt meant. No one ever doubted that what he said, he believed, he

intended, and he would do. He was a man, not of sentiment or expression, but of feeling

and of action. … What we are here for is to perpetuate that teaching, lift it up, striking the

imagination, enlisting the interest of the country and the world, by signally perpetuating

the memory of our friend, the great teacher… Oh, that we might have him with us

now!135

134

For this argument, see Senator John H. Mitchell, “Oregon: Its History, Geography, and Resources,” National Geographic. Vol. VI, (April 1895): 239-84. 135

From an address to The Rocky Mountain Dinner Club, 27 October 1919, in Bacon, Addresses by Elihu

Root, 14-5.

47

The memory of his friend he wanted to perpetuate would capture the imagination of

future generations. Indeed, his teachings thrived through the years; but, as it turned out,

there was to be more than a little doubt about “what Theodore Roosevelt meant.”

48

Nature‟s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf‟s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

-Robert Frost

49

CHAPTER III

CONSERVATION AS POLICY, 1920-1945

[Conservation] is the bottom round of the ladder on our upward progress toward a condition in

which the Nation as a whole, and its citizens as individuals, will set national efficiency and the

public welfare before personal profit.

-Theodore Roosevelt136

[Y]ou can even use what I said up in New York as quotation from T.R. I would say, to so manage

the physical land use in the United States that we will not only maintain soil fertility, but we will

hand back to the next generation a country with better productive power and a greater

permanency for land use than the one we inherited from the previous generation. That is the

broad objective.

-Franklin Roosevelt137

Introduction

As Woodrow Wilson passed from the White House, so passed The Progressive

Era in American History. In the course of a few decades, Washington had seen the great

academic Wilson, the trust-busting Taft, and Teddy Roosevelt the great outdoorsmen.

Without the charismatic figures of John Muir and Theodore Roosevelt, the nature of the

debate concerning the outdoors was starkly transformed. For the period between 1920

and 1960, Conservation would henceforth be conservation; what was once a movement

had become a policy. As was suggested in the previous chapter, the passing of John Muir

and the defeat at Hetch Hetchy lead to the decline of preservationism and the triumph of

Pinchot-style Conservation as the Progressive Conservation ideology. The body of this

136

From a Special Message to Both Houses of Congress, 22 January 1909, in Theodore Roosevelt,

Presidential Addresses and State Papers and European Addresses. Vol. VIII. (New York: The Review of

Reviews Co, 1910): 2093. 137

From a press conference on 24 January 1936, in No Author, Complete Presidential Press Conferences of

Franklin D. Roosevelt. Vol. VII: 1936. (New York: Da Capo Press, 1972): 93.

50

chapter will make clear that something hinted at before clearly became the gospel truth

for an entire generation of Washington policy makers.

Worth noting of interest to the sources on this era is the relation they had with

Roosevelt the man. TR may have been dead before Warren G. Harding was elected, but

his mighty personality still reverberated through the capitol and the nation. Anyone in

power in the 1920s had been rising through the ranks in the Progressive Era and had

some contact with Roosevelt. Gifford Pinchot, moreover, was still alive at this time; the

living representative of Roosevelt and his policies. Therefore, the leaders of this era were

getting a highly biased account of Roosevelt from the viewpoint of Pinchot. Already, TR

had passed into legend, and that means that anything perceived as his policy was nearly

sacrosanct. This value attached to Roosevelt‟s memory, and Pinchot‟s ability to utilize

(one is tempted to say exploit) that value, colored this era with a very particular hue.

One final note, it may be wondered why this chapter covers the era incorporating

the administrations of Harding, Coolidge, Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The

Progressive Era is an easy time period to define in Environmental History, as is the

Environmental Era, to a lesser extent, that began in the mid-1960s. The period between

Conservation and Environmentalism is harder to nail down. This delineation was chosen

on the grounds that it leads up through the Presidency of the second Roosevelt under

whom large scale projects were started in the field of conservation. The fervor and sense

of immediacy that laced the conservation projects at the turn of the century was lacking

in the New Deal (except in the sense of providing relief to the people), but in many ways

the dreams of TR were realized: men living the strenuous life, land being used for the

betterment of the people, park lands being made accessible and usable by a wide swath of

the population. The three predecessors to FDR also followed a line laid out expressly by

TR, or at least, so they said. Therefore, this era represents the quiet continuation of the

ideas of conservation laid out in the Theodore Roosevelt administration and brought into

practice by the Franklin Roosevelt administration. It will be left to future chapters to

explain how those policies evolved in the era after the New Deal.

51

Harding, Coolidge and Hoover

The new era that was being ushered in would be marked by many things; a

concern for the natural environment would not be one of them. Few at the time cared, and

few that recorded those loves and studied them in the future cared as an extension of

that.138

When it comes to Warren G. Harding, few historians are very kind. He is often

ranked as the worst, or at best one of the worst, presidents in history. As far as his record

with the environment goes, it is not hard to see why.139

During the infrequent instances

when he did have something to say about conservation, however, he invoked the memory

of the great 20th

Century Republican Theodore Roosevelt. While still campaigning,

Harding praised Roosevelt‟s work in reclamation legislation in the west and vowed to

continue it if elected. In the same speech, he indicated a desire to combine the efforts of

reclamation and conservation in the west; it would seem he combined them into the same

category of neglect.140

Of course, as the bitingly sardonic social commentator H.L.

Mencken observed of the man he referred to only as Gamamil141

that both Harding and

TR had similar platforms since both “resembles words scrawled on a wall by

feebleminded children.”142

An untimely death meant two things for Warren Harding: firstly, it meant he

would not have time to compile memoirs and other recollections of his presidency that

may have shed more light on his ideas concerning conservation; secondly, it brought his

Vice-President, Calvin Coolidge, to the highest office in the land and Silent Cal certainly

138

In many general studies of the era, conservation is used to mean ideas as disparate as coal protection to

race conservation. Politically, the issue was fringe at best. See David Pietrusza, 1920: The Year of the Six

Presidents. (New York: Carroll and Graf, 2007) and John D. Hicks, Republican Ascendancy, 1921-1933.

(New York: Harper and Brothers, 1960). 139

When it comes to conservation and resource policy, historians tend to focus on Teapot Dome and other

resource scandals. For a sampling of the literature on Harding, see: Eugene P. Trani and David L. Wilson,

The Presidency of Warren G. Harding. (Lawrence: The Regent Press of Kansas, 1977). Burl Noggle,

Teapot Dome: Oil and Politics in the 1920s. (n.c.: Louisiana State university Press, 1962). John W. Dean,

Warren G. Harding. (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2004). For the papers of Harding see, Andrea

D. Lentz, ed. The Warren G. Harding Papers: An Inventory to the Microfilm Edition. (Columbus: Ohio

Historical Society, 1970): in these, conservation policy is lumped in a catch-all category alongside

Immigration Law and perennial Socialist candidate Eugene V. Debs. Even a published bibliography on

Harding chose to focus on Teapot Dome and other Land Scandals as the focus of his conservation

contributions; see Richard G. Frederick, ed. Warren G. Harding: A Bibliography. (Westport, CN:

Greenwood Press, 1992). 140

New York Times, 1 September 1920, “Harding Promises State Recognition”. 141

A bastardization of Harding‟s actual middle name, Gamaliel. 142

Entry dated 2 April 1923, from H.L. Mencken, On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe. Ed. by Malcolm

Moos. (New York: Vintage Books, 1960, originally 1956): 56.

52

managed to live up to his name when it came to the environment. The first thing that can

be said for his administration is that it was free of any major federal scandals concerning

the land or resources (unlike his predecessor).143

One historian argues that at least the

National Parks enjoyed a duel advantage in the Coolidge years. The aftermath of the

Teapot Dome Scandal put the eyes of the nation upon land policy and a state of salutary

neglect from the main office combined to allow the National Park Service (hereafter,

NPS) to enhance its budget and bring in more efficient (and hopefully honest) people.

This particular book is written from a radical right standpoint and denounces Wilson as a

destroyer of an era of conservation and that it took the scandals of the Harding Era to

bring the public consciousness back to the issue.144

Calvin Coolidge often spoke about Roosevelt, but seldom in the vein of

conservation issues. Nevertheless, Coolidge‟s definition of conservation in 1924 was

extremely reminiscent of the utilitarian ethos practiced by Pinchot and company:

The viciousness of waste and the value of thrift must continue to be learned and

understood. Civilization rests on conservation. To these there must be added religion,

education, and obedience to law. These are the foundation of all character in the

individual and all hope in the nation.145

These words certainly seem to give conservation a post of some distinction, alongside

religion and education. But on the other hand, this definition of conservation would

hardly be pleasing to the likes of Muir, or even Roosevelt. Fighting waste and promoting

thrift were large parts of conservation, but hardly the whole story. In his inaugural

address of 4 March 1925, Coolidge spelled out his conservation views. For starters, he

defined it as “the economy in public expenditure with reduction and reform of taxation.”

Waste neither resources nor money was the mantra. He went on to say: “The very

stability of our society rests upon production and conservation. For individuals or for

143

This background on his Presidency is taken sporadically from: William Allen White, A Puritan in

Babylon: The Story of Calvin Coolidge. (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1938). Donald R. McCoy,

Calvin Coolidge: The Quiet President. (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1967). Robert Sobel,

Coolidge, An American Enigma. (Washington D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 1998). 144

John Earl Haynes, Calvin Coolidge and the Coolidge Era. (Washington D.C.: Library of Congress,

1998): especially pages 24, 30 and 31. 145

Quote from Calvin Coolidge, The Price of Freedom: Speeches and Addresses. (New York: Charles

Scribner‟s Sons, 1924): 346-7. For an example of Coolidge discussing TR with reference to his relations

with business, but not conservation, see his Address before the Women‟s Roosevelt Memorial Association, New York City, 23 January 1921, in Ibid.

53

governments to waste and squander their resources is to deny these rights and disregard

these obligations. The result of economic dissipation to a nation is always moral

decay.”146 Naturally, the course of action Coolidge felt was the best method to enact this

policy was to enforce efficient use of tax revenue in the government; ergo, the thing

being conserved is money.

For those wondering where Roosevelt fit into this policy of conservation,

Coolidge explained that Roosevelt‟s conservation was an inevitable process by which

natural resources were brought under federal regulation and used not selfishly “but for

the generous purpose of serving the public welfare.” This sounds closer to what TR

wanted, but Coolidge added that TR carried his ideals too far, and others not far enough,

and that it is still in an “experimental stage.” He went on to say: “But the principle that

the resources both of men and materials of the country must be conducted for the public

welfare, and that there is no power which is above the authority of law, is absolutely

sound. The government of the people must always remain supreme.”147

Coolidge, like any good Republican of the era, had the utmost faith that business

was falling into this system without the need of government interference. The US

economy, Coolidge wrote, was becoming much more efficient and eliminating waste,

building prosperity in its wake. This new conservation, dealing with industrial materials

and conservation of energy in industry, promoted an ever more efficient and profitable

economy. “All this,” Coolidge said, “represents a movement as important as that of

twenty years ago for the regulation of corporations and conservation of natural

resources.”148 TR had gotten the ball rolling, in other words, and Coolidge was just taking

the next logical step as he saw it. So, it is clear what Coolidge meant when TR-style

conservation was discussed: wise and utilitarian use of natural resources for economic

benefit; and like most President‟s of the first half of the century, Coolidge was personally

146

Inaugural Address reprinted in Calvin Coolidge, Foundations of the Republic: Speeches and Addresses.

(Freeport: Books for Libraries Press, 1926): quotes from 200-1. 147

Coolidge, The Price of Freedom, 343. 148

Coolidge, Foundations of the Republic, 324-5. Outside of these writings for public consumption,

Coolidge did not often speak of TR, or conservation for that matter. This opinion of his biographers would

seem to be reinforced by the published material available on his private correspondence, see Howard Quint

and Robert H. Ferrell, eds. The Talkative President: The Off-The-Record Press Conferences of Calvin

Coolidge. (Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1964) and Edward Conney Lathem, ed. Your

Son, Calvin Coolidge: A Selection of Letters From Calvin Coolidge To His Father. (Montpelier: Vermont

Historical Society, 1968).

54

acquainted with Pinchot, who naturally approved of this approach.149

A hint of recreation

did fit into the definition according to Coolidge. In 1924, Coolidge began a project which

generated headlines such as: “Cooperation of Many Agencies Will Be Sought in Favor of

Out-of-Door Life for All” and “President Holds Out Hope of Greater Opportunities to

Enjoy American Forests and Waterways.” This plan, was originally the brainchild of

Roosevelt, but no effort had ever been made to enact it until Coolidge took it upon

himself to push it.150

It came to little, but is one of very few examples of Roosevelt‟s

name being associated with recreation and conservation in an era mostly interested in

Roosevelt‟s legacy vis-à-vis utilitarianism.

As the 1920s roared on, the third Republican President in a row was elected. The

people of the country were prosperous, except the farmers who were foreshadowing

tragedy to come. With the voting majority doing so well, the electorate was reluctant to

alter the status quo. Thus did Herbert Hoover, the renowned humanitarian, accede to the

greatest office in the land. It would be easy to associate Herbert Hoover with the Hoover

Dam when thinking about his environmental legacy. Unfortunately for him, his

contemporaries would rather focus on HooverVilles when assessing his impact on the

country. Naturally, there is some interest among scholars of Hoover for projects like the

Hoover Dam, but his legacy is likely to be forever eclipsed by the collapsing economy.151

Despite this, Hoover actually was a great deal friendlier towards the National

Parks then his last two predecessors, and a better friend to conservation initiatives in

general. Hoover supported expansion of the Parks and called conferences to discuss both

resource conservation and acquisition of new land for Parks; a total of three million acres

149

For instance, during an anthracite coal strike, Coolidge asked Pinchot to take charge of the situation.

Pinchot was delighted to be given the chance and a little surprised. Thomas Stokes, a member of the press,

was on hand, and mused that Pinchot must not have known Coolidge so well after all because Coolidge was

a master of delegating responsibility. Thomas L. Stokes, Chip Off My Shoulder. (Princeton: Princeton

University Press, 1940): 218-9. 150

New York Times, 14 April 1924, “Nation Will Adept Recreation Policy.” On the other hand, Coolidge also had to deal with accusations that good land was being “locked up” in forest reserves, a question about utilitarianism that TR also had to deal with. See New York Times, 12 April 1925, “Railway Claims Part of National Forests” by Nixon S. Plummer. 151

William Starr Myers, ed. The State Papers and Other Writings of Herbert Hoover. 2 vols. (Garden City,

NY: Doubleday, Doran and Company, 1934). A sampling of the literature on Hoover includes: Eugene

Lyons, Herbert Hoover, A Biography. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, 1948). Wilton Eckley,

Herbert Hoover. (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1980). Martin L. Fausold, The Presidency of Herbert C.

Hoover. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1985). For a book that does devote space to his resource

conservation, see David Hinshaw, Herbert Hoover: American Quaker. (New York: Farrar, Straus and

Company, 1950).

55

were added to the NPS during the Hoover administration. Hoover was also a frequent

visitor of the National Parks and got the ball rolling on several projects that would be

completed under the New Deal policies of FDR (including the major Civilian

Conservation Corps project, the Skyline Drive between Virginia and Tennessee

connecting Shenandoah and Great Smokey Mountains National Parks). Some of

Hoover‟s initiatives had to wait, according to one biographer, because of opposition in

Congress. Despite deficiencies in his state papers, Hoover‟s memoirs indicate that he was

proud of his work with the Parks and of his efforts to preserve Niagara Falls from

development and exploitation. In the end, for those that took the time to go beyond the

politics of the Great Depression, “Hoover‟s views on conservation and environmental

problems in general were advanced for the period.” 152 Hoover was in fact an

outdoorsmen and was among the first (with Roosevelt) that made an effort to protect

endangered species along with places of specific national beauty, he even went so far as

to support a movement to stop the construction of a dam that would ruin the Cumberland

Falls in Kentucky.153

Like most political figures of the early 20th

Century, Hoover knew Roosevelt

personally. Hoover had been a guest of Roosevelt at his home and was struck by the

warm reception. Roosevelt had kept him long into the afternoon “making havoc of

several appointments” and “continued as my warm supporter to his death.” They did not

specifically discuss conservation, but TR did promise him protection from any

troublesome Democrats.154

Hoover did display a good sense of Roosevelt‟s connection to

the wilds. When former Secretary of the Interior James R. Garfield presented Hoover

with Analostan Island as a memorial to Roosevelt on behalf of the Roosevelt Memorial

152

Ray Lyman Wilbur and Arthur Mastick Hyde. The Hoover Policies. (New York: Charles Scribner‟s Sons, 1937): 234. 153

Edgar Eugene Robinson and Vaughn Davis Bornet, Herbert Hoover: President of the United States.

(Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1975): 64-5. Hoover Herbert, The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover: The

Cabinet and the Presidency, 1920-1933. (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1951): 235-42. Quote from

Jean Hoff Wilson, Herbert Hoover: Forgotten Progressive. (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1975.

Reissued 1992): 114. On Hoover‟s efforts to protect endangered species and the Cumberland Falls see

David Burner, Herbert Hoover: A Public Life. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979): 228. Richard D. Burns,

Herbert Hoover: A Bibliography of His Times and Presidency. (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 1991):

92-95. 154

Herbert Hoover, The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover: Years of Adventure, 1874-1920. (New York:

Macmillan, 1951): 201-2.

56

Association, Hoover felt that a wooded island on the Potomac was a very apropos

memorial. On the occasion, Hoover gave a speech in which he said Roosevelt

”lived much in the open; he loved the mountains, the woods, the streams and the sea.

From them he gained a spaciousness of outlook which permanently endears him to his

countrymen.”155 Evidently, Hoover knew the value that TR placed in the wild places of

the land. Surprisingly, though, this speech included no mention of Roosevelt‟s

accomplishments in the field of conservation; either aesthetic or utilitarian. While a fan of

Roosevelt, it is worth mentioning that no love was lost between him and Pinchot. Pinchot

was a nuisance to him on several occasions. In one instance, Pinchot (who became

Governor of Pennsylvania in the 1920s) was the only Governor who refused to cooperate

in a federal plan during Hoover‟s administration intended to ameliorate the effects of the

Great Depression. The insurrection on Pinchot‟s part caused “pseudo liberals,” as Hoover

called them, to rally around Pinchot‟s demands for more comprehensive action. Hoover

took it in stride and wrote in his memoirs that it was not much of a bother, but it certainly

was no great help either.156

For his own part, Hoover‟s policies specifically under the heading of conservation

were matters such as grazing, water and mineral resources. Reclamation also was a

matter of importance Hoover considered part of his conservation policies.157

Perhaps

because he did not want more interference from Pinchot, but unlike Harding and

Coolidge, Hoover did not bother to invoke the name Roosevelt in reference to his

conservation programs. Nevertheless, his policies did fit into a very Rooseveltian

paradigm in at least one case. Before being elected President, Hoover gave an address to

the Izaak Walton League on 9 April 1927. The speech focused on the need to stock rivers

with fish and support the efforts of sports clubs to make fishing more accessible to the

modern American. The speech included such sound bites as “fishing is good for the soul

of man” and “Fishermen are not liars.” He went even further by claiming that “There

were lots of people who committed crimes during the year who would not have done so if

155

Myers, State Papers of Hoover, 545. 156

Herbert Hoover, The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover: The Great Depression, 1929-1941. (New York:

Macmillan, 1952): 152. Hoover also mentions being bothered by Pinchot in Myers, State Papers of Hoover,

285. 157

This list is compiled from Hoover‟s First Annual Message to Congress, 3 December 1929 in Myers, State Papers of Hoover, 157. Also, this list is once again evident in a Press Conference Statement of 18

October 1929 also in Myers, State Papers of Hoover, 109-11.

57

they had been fishing.” He wanted a massive river stocking program and a call for

financial support from private clubs; he also called for control of pollution on certain

rivers that could be protected without undue interference on business. Why protect more

fish and protect them from pollution, he asked rhetorically. Hoover answered his own

question by saying “the reasons for all this are some of them economic in their nature,

some moral, and some spiritual.” Ironically, in this speech, Hoover touched upon a side

of conservation that had disappeared since the hey-day of TR. Conserving not just for the

economic benefit of using a resource wisely, but for the deeper philosophic implications.

The rejuvenating effect of nature; the morality associated with the sportsmen that inspired

boys to become men, and good men at that. The irony enters in that even though this

approach to conservation was far more Roosevelt than that of Hoover‟s two predecessors,

and even though Hoover enjoyed a personal relationship with Roosevelt, he was the only

one of the three presidents of the 1920s to not claim that his conservation programs were

following the tradition set down by Roosevelt. Hoover even hit upon a note of big

stickism in the speech when he exalted “I have no sympathy with attempts at

disarmament of the gigantic army which every year marches against fish… I am for

force, more force, and more fish.”158

To get a better look at the thoughts of Hoover it is necessary to analyze the

writings of his Secretary of the Interior, Ray Lyman Wilbur. Wilbur was a great admirer

of TR and was not shy in praising him for the great conservation programs he started;

although, interestingly, for examples he referred only to programs dealing with the

protection of children. Tellingly, he then favorably compared Hoover‟s efforts on behalf

of children to that of TR.159

Wilbur wrote a book about the policies and activities of the

Interior Department during his tenure in which he wrote “The watchword of the

Roosevelt administration… was conservation.” Still, Wilbur pointed out that in this case,

conservation dealt with matters of oil and coal lands, as well as forestry. On the chapter

158

Address reproduced in full in Herbert Hoover, Hoover After Dinner: Addresses Delivered by Herbert

Hoover Before the Gridiron Club of Washington D.C. with Other Informal Speeches. (New York: Charles

Scribner‟s Sons, 1933): quotes from pages 93, 96, 98, and 110. 159

Ray Lyman Wilbur, The Memoirs of Ray Lyman Wilbur, 1875-1949. Ed. by Edgar Eugene Robinson

and Paul Carroll Edwards. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1960): see 103, 152-3, and 241 for his

meeting with TR and the abiding respect he had for him; see 522 and 533 on conservation of children.

58

dealing with wilderness and the National Parks, TR is absent.160

Most often, the

comparison of the policies of Hoover and TR was more tacit and subtle than an explicit

link. For instance, Wilbur made a great show about how on Hoover‟s insistence, the

Republican Party Platform on June 1932 stated “The national welfare plainly can be

served by the acquisition of submarginal lands for water shed protection, grazing,

forestry, pubic parks, and game reserves… We favor such acquisitions.” Hoover, by

presidential order, called for more protection of the National Forests and publicly

declared “The most vital question [concerning public lands] is the preservation of their

most important value- that is grazing.” To aid in these endeavors, James Garfield,

Roosevelt‟s Secretary of the Interior, was made Chairman of a Committee concerning the

public lands.161

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

The story of the second Roosevelt presidency begins with the collapse of the

American and global economy at the tail end of the Roaring Twenties. Desperate

Americans turned their hopes to Franklin Delano Roosevelt who wasted no time in

ushering in a battery of reforms and relief programs, some so revolutionary that he was

suspected of everything from Fascism to Communism. One of the most ambitious

programs called for employing millions of young men as day laborers in public works

projects across the country. This was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and one of

the primary recipients of the largesse was the National Parks and myriad smaller parks

around the nation. Likely, any hiking enthusiast has trod upon trails blazed and built by

CCC labor. The significance of these improvements can hardly be stressed enough, but

this alone is not enough to classify FDR as a conservation president. In the era before

environmentalism, no one considered themselves an environmentalist, though some

would assign the title retroactively to FDR; the majority of both contemporary figures

and later scholars, however, were more comfortable viewing FDR‟s conservation

initiatives in the context of economic exegesis than a proto-environmental impulse. This

160

Ray Lyman Wilbur and William Atherton DuPuy, Conservation in the Department of the Interior.

(Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1932): 31; see also Ch. 3 (p.31-48) for the context TR was

placed in. 161

Wilbur, The Hoover Policies, for the Party Platform, see page 162; on National Forests and grazing

quote, see 233-4 and 230; on Garfield, see 232.

59

proliferation of the idea of wise use, in its latest incarnation (i.e. nature parks as a source

of employment) followed the tradition of utilitarian philosophy in vogue since the 1920s,

and would be reflected in the image of Theodore Roosevelt that was cast in the age of

Franklin Roosevelt.162

Roosevelt‟s Secretary of the Interior, Harold Ickes, was a champion of increasing

the National Parks. He had a complicated relationship with the president and they did not

always agree, but the secret diary the Secretary left behind did indicate that FDR was far

more involved in Park decisions than most of those that had come before him. For good

or ill, FDR was far from the detached president that Harding or Taft had been. The diary

also made clear that FDR took an interest in the Everglades and in increasing the size of

select National Forests. Ickes was not the only one to notice this. FDR‟s sympathy for

preservationist initiatives was clear, for example, when he refused to appear at the

dedication of the dam built at Hetch Hetchy. Of course, there were others that overlooked

these aspects of his admittedly complex administration.163

Ultimately, though, his

policies in their barest forms were a continuation of the conservation programs stemming

from the start of the century. In a message to a Joint Session of Congress, FDR

highlighted one of these issues in saying: “through carefully planned flood control, power

development and land use policies, in the Tennessee Valley and in other great

watersheds, we are seeking the elimination of waste, the removal of poor lands from

162

Almost any biography about FDR will include the fact that the CCC was employed by the NPS; the

theme of conservation usually also revolves around the work of New Deal agencies. Some good samples

include Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Age of Roosevelt: The Coming of the New Deal. (Boston: Houghton

Mifflin, 1958). Herbert D. Rosenbaum and Elizabeth Bartelme, eds. Franklin D. Roosevelt: The Man, the

Myth, the Era, 1882-1945. (New York: Greenwood Press, 1987). Conrad Black, Franklin Delano

Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom. (New York: Public Affairs, 2003). Some scholars choose to differentiate

New Deal work from conservation issues; see, Mario Einaudi, The Roosevelt Revolution. (New York:

Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1959). See also George McJimsey, The Presidency of Franklin Delano

Roosevelt. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000). For a specific environmental work see Neil M.

Maher, Nature’s New Deal: The Civilian Conservation Corps and the Roots of the American Environmental Movement. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). 163

Harold L. Ickes, The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes. Volume I: The First Thousand Days, 1933-1936.

(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1953). This and the other two volumes display a wide range of interaction

by FDR when it came to the NPs; sometimes he strong handed opponents to Park expansion and other

times Ickes bewailed FDR‟s total ambivalence to the NPS. FDR refused to attend the dam ceremony on the advice of Ickes, see Robert W. Righter, The Battle Over Hetch Hetchy: America’s Most Controversial

Dam and the Birth of Modern Environmentalism. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005): 165. For

more on FDR‟s involvement in NPS politics see William E. Leuchtenburg, The FDR Years: On Roosevelt

and His Legacy. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995): 167-75. For a contemporary that failed to

write about the CCC or the NPS see Basil Maine, Franklin Roosevelt: His Life and Achievement. (London:

Butler and Tannor, 1938).

60

agriculture and the encouragement of small local industries, thus furthering this principle

of a better balanced national life.”164

Obviously, FDR enjoyed a deeper connection to Roosevelt than most of the other

Presidents. FDR had voted for his relation, compared him favorably with Jackson,

Lincoln and Wilson, and even married another Roosevelt (Eleanor). In his public

addresses, he was not reticent about praising the other Roosevelt. In one of his famed

Fireside Chats, he said that “Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson were attempting

to correct abuses in our national life.”165 In writing, he claimed that along with Benjamin

Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, TR was one of the three great Americans looking out for

the little guy. “All three,” said FDR, “knew at first hand every cross current of national

and of international life. All three were possessed of a profound culture in the best sense

of the word, and yet all three understood the yearnings and the lack of opportunity- the

hopes and fears of millions of their fellow beings. All true culture finally comes down to

an appreciation of just that.” The President went on to say that when “the cry was raised

against the great corporations,” it was TR who responded with his trust-busting campaign

and his public denouncing of the “malefactors of great wealth.”166

It is clear that FDR had respect for TR, it is also clear that he was inspired by him

in terms of conservation; or to be more succinct, it would seem that he was inspired by

Pinchot in terms of conservation. Pinchot‟s diaries indicate prolonged contact with FDR

and that the President often took his advice on conservation matters. Ickes and Pinchot

were often at each other‟s throats, on the other hand, and much animosity was bred every

time FDR went with a suggestion of Pinchot‟s.167 Pinchot was not always in accord with

FDR, however, and his natural abrasiveness was not lost on those around the President.

Still, FDR was a great advocate of scientific forestry (which he practiced on his own

164

Message delivered 3 January 1934, reprinted in Franklin D. Roosevelt, On Our Way. (New York: The

John Day Co, 1934): 205. 165

Fireside Chat of 30 September 1934, in Russell D. Buhite and David W. Levy. FDR’s Fireside Chats.

(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992): 62. On FDR‟s affinity for TR, see also B.D. Zevin, ed. Nothing to Fear: The Selected Addresses of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1932-1945. (Freeport: Books for

Libraries, 1946): 126-9. 166

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Looking Forward. (New York: The John Day Co, 1933): 11-2 and 26.

Interesting note, this book has no mention of TR in the chapter entitled “State Planning for Land Utilization,” Ch. 3 (pages 55-68). 167

Harold K. Steen, ed. The Conservation Diaries of Gifford Pinchot. (Durham: Forest History Society,

2001): on advising FDR, see 179 and 203; on conflict with Ickes, see 189.

61

land) and one of his aides once commented “F.D.R. is the man who has created the CCC

body and soul, and even Gifford Pinchot, who differs from the Boss in many things, must

concede that F.D.R. is the No. 1 advocate and exemplar of conservation of his time.” 168

This same aide also compared FDR to TR in terms of their common loves of bird

watching and the writings of John Burroughs.

The root of his involvement with Pinchot-style conservation came in 1911, when

he was a young Senator and made Chairman of the Forest, Fish and Game Committee.

He organized a meeting of Congressmen to see Pinchot speak (on FDR‟s invitation).

Pinchot used his famous before and after pictures of a Chinese town, ruined by over

logging. As FDR recalls it: “Well, that picture in those days sold conservation and

forestry to the Legislature and we were enabled to get through the first important

legislation for conservation.” By 27 March 1928, FDR believed that “preservation of

national resources” should be a federal priority, especially public ownership of water

power sites.169

As President, FDR did not demure from using the name of Roosevelt in

the fight for his conservation policies. In 1934, he said that a bill he supported to create

new silver reserves is nothing new; similar reserves were created during both the

McKinley and the TR administrations. In 1936, in a discussion with reporters over his

definition of conservation, FDR cited TR and then described a process by which the land

is used wisely and thus improved in such a way that the current generation should leave it

better than they found it and allow the future generations to inherit “a country with better

productive power and a greater permanency for land use.”170

In demeanor as well as words did FDR resemble TR. In the words of FDR‟s son,

James, as a boy “[v]irtually an only child, Franklin found friendship in the creatures of

the forest. He requested and received a rifle so he could kill one of each kind and he

amassed the most complete collection of stuffed and mounted birds in the country.”171

168

William Hassett, Off the Record with F.D.R., 1942-1945. (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press,

1958): quote from 114; see also, 45 and 172. 169

Franklin D. Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Own Story: Told in His Own Words From His Private and Public Papers. Ed. by Donald Day. (Boston: Little, Brown and Co, 1951): first quote from pages 14-5;

second from page 100. 170

No Author, Press Conferences of FDR, on silver reserves, press conference of 9 May 1934, page 322;

on conservation, press conference of 24 January 1936, page 93. 171

James Roosevelt, My Parents: A Differing View. (Chicago: Playboy Press, 1976): 7.

62

Ignoring the implications of killing and stuffing one‟s only friends, this is a way of life

that was old hat to the older Roosevelt. Both men had a deep connection to nature, and

neither saw any kind of disconnect in expressing that love with hot lead. Both went on

from this nature-filled boyhood to be Governor of New York where they first got to put

into practice some of their ideas on nature‟s resources. In James‟ words again: “He

[FDR] pushed for the building of powerhouses along the St Lawrence River to provide

cheap electrical power for the farmers. He created conservation laws, and in fact was one

of the early conservationists on the national battleground, though of course Teddy was

there first.”172 Both loved nature, both shot at nature, both supported public power

initiatives, both were in the forefront of the conservation movement; the only difference

is that TR was always first. James Roosevelt does not directly say so, but the implication

is here and elsewhere that FDR was following in his illustrious relative‟s footsteps; both

in conservation philosophy and in career path.

The image of conservation that FDR projected on his Cabinet and advisors also

reflected these traditional notions of the Pinchot era. Eleanor Roosevelt, easily the most

involved First Lady in history, had a very traditional understanding of conservation,

dealing with reforestation in logging areas and protecting the “life-supporting

resources.”173 Like so many others, Eleanor‟s ideas on conservation had been first fixed

in her mind by Pinchot. She had seen him give a talk on trees and express his support for

TR during the 1912 election, and the talk had apparently made some impression upon

her.174

Of course, no member of the FDR team was more immersed in conservation issues

that Secretary of the Interior Ickes, the consummate curmudgeon. When he first took the

office, Ickes and Pinchot were on good terms and Ickes often asked him for advice on

office policies and other goals. It was not until around 1937 when the two men had a

172

Ibid., 128. For more on the policies of FDR, which highlights (albeit not explicitly) their similarities to

those of TR, see Harold L. Ickes, The New Democracy. (New York: W.W. Norton and Co, 1934), which is

a propaganda piece painting FDR as a crusader fighting the clutching grasp of evil corporations that want to

waste and exploit resources. 173

From a column dated 14 November 1949, in David Emblidge, ed. Eleanor Roosevelt’s My Day. Volume II: The Post-War Years. Her Acclaimed Columns, 1945-1952. (New York: Pharos Books, 1990): 186. ER

did not often write of TR in terms of conservation. Though TR plays a major role in her autobiography, she

never once mentions him in tandem with conservation issues; see, Eleanor Roosevelt, The Autobiography

of Eleanor Roosevelt. (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1961). 174

On this talk, see the letter dated 7 March 1912 in Kristie Miller and Robert H. McGinnis, eds. A Volume

of Friendship: The Letters of Eleanor Roosevelt and Isabella Greenway, 1904-1953. (Tucson: The Arizona

Historical Society, 2009): 42.

63

falling out concerning a transfer of the National Forests from the Department of

Agriculture to that of Interior. It shows the level of respect FDR had for Pinchot and his

ways that ultimately Pinchot triumphed and the National Forests stayed put in

Agriculture. Ickes had been a supporter and acquaintance of TR back in the day, and

despite his rocky relation with Pinchot, he still associated the Forester heavily with the

entire nature of conservation.175

Eventually, Pinchot and Ickes got back on good terms, so

much so that Ickes asked Pinchot to sit on a committee to advise on conservation issues.

FDR nixed the appointment however, since he knew the character of Pinchot well enough

to suspect he may “take the bit into his teeth and raise hell as he has on other

occasions.”176

Besides Eleanor, who was closest to FDR, and Ickes, who was closest to

conservation, other advisors contributed to FDR‟s perception of TR and his policies. For

the most part, though, they did not much concern themselves with the conservation

politics surrounding TR, instead focusing on other aspects of the first Roosevelt‟s

administration; such as his Big Stick policy in the Caribbean, or his view of

monopolies.177

Two exceptions to that rule would be Henry L. Stimson, FDR‟s Secretary

175

Ickes, Diary: 1933-1936, on asking Pinchot‟s advice, see entry dated 6 April 1933, page 17. Harold L. Ickes, The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes. Volume II: The Inside Struggle, 1936-1939. (New York: Simon

and Schuster, 1954): on row with GP, see entries dated 2 May 1937 (p 131), 4 November 1937 (p 238), 18

January 1938 (p 293-4); on linking Pinchot and conservation, see entry dated 21 August 1938 (p 450); on

Ickes support of TR, see entry dated 27 August 1938 (p 455). For more on Ickes‟ relation to TR and his meetings with him, see Harold L. Ickes, The Autobiography of a Curmudgeon. (New York: Reynal and

Hitchcock, 1943): 169 and 176. 176

Ickes, Diary: 1936-39, on making up with Pinchot, see entry dated 29 January 1939 (p 565); on the

committee, see entry dated 2 September 1939 (p 711). By 1940, Pinchot was on the outs with FDR and

Ickes once again. The issue of transferring Forestry to another department had come back up and Pinchot

said he would only support FDR in the upcoming election if promises were made to not move it. Despite

these conflicts of personality, it is still obvious that Pinchot‟s ideas concerning conservation were dominant

in the era; see, Harold L. Ickes, The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes. Volume III: The Lowering Clouds,

1939-1941. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1954): entry dated 22 September 1940 (p 328). 177

None of these sources include references to the conservation policy of TR, but can be said to represent

an influence on FDR‟s perception of TR: Henry A. Wallace, Democracy Reborn: Selected from the Public

Papers and Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Russell Lord. (New York: Reynal and Hitchcock,

1944): though on page 112, he talks about conservation in very Pinchot-style terminology. Cordell Hull,

The Memoirs of Cordell Hull. Vol. I. (New York: Macmillan, 1948): Secretary of State who believed that

TR was more talk than action. Grace Tully, F.D.R. My Boss. (New York: Charles Scribner‟s Sons, 1949): on page 109 the author, who was FDR‟s secretary for 17 years until the President‟s death, wrote that FDR had great respect for TR and gave special consideration towards Ickes and La Follette‟s son since they had known TR. Samuel I. Rosenman, Working with Roosevelt. 2 Vols. (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1952):

this author was one of FDR‟s speech writers; on page 463, the author does mention meetings between FDR and Pinchot, but just in the context of party politics and coalition building. Frances Perkins, The Roosevelt I

Knew. (New York: Viking, 1946): Perkins was a federal inspector and all around woman activist; on page

64

of War, 1940-1945, and Raymond Moley, who had been an original member of the

Brain‟s Trust, chief advisors to FDR. Stimson, who had also been a Secretary of War for

Taft and Secretary of State for Hoover, was a lifelong friend of Gifford Pinchot and sided

with him in the Ballinger affair during the Taft administration. Like Pinchot, Stimson

stayed interested in water power and public utilities issues for his entire life. Considering

how many people did not like Pinchot, Stimson‟s must have been a lone voice in the

wilderness speaking well of him to Franklin. Moley, despite his hand in the New Deal,

went on to become a harsh critic of FDR and his policies. He did give out some credit,

however, and praised Franklin Roosevelt‟s water power policy, but with the caveat that it

was hardly original. In his precise words the policy was “the inalienable property right of

all the people in the sources of water power (this, of course, was part of TR‟s

conservation policy).”178

Even those outside of the FDR administration were an important part of the story.

They also had opinions on TR and his conservation policies, they had the opportunity to

impress upon the contemporary Presidents these opinions, and those Presidents in turn

could impress upon them their thoughts on the matter. The last written words of Teddy

Roosevelt were scrawled on a scrap of paper at his death bed, not discovered until after

his passing. The paper was for William Hays and was instructions for the man who would

become the Republican National Chairman for most of the era between the World Wars.

Hays, therefore, was considered something of an expert on the will of TR. He described

him as “author, historian, naturalist, hunter, sportsman, husband, father, citizen” and a

President of great accomplishments; although among them were not conservation, an

104 she discusses the good relations between Pinchot and FDR when they were the Governors of

Pennsylvania and New York respectively (they teamed up to fight unemployment in the early days of the

Great Depression). One observer reported that FDR loved to do anything that TR had not; such as be the

first President to fly in a plane while in office; see George McKee Elsey, An Unplanned Life: A Memoir.

(Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2005): 27. Also fitting into this category, with no mentions of

TR‟s conservation policies or Pinchot, are most of the writings of Eleanor Roosevelt, including David

Emblidge, ed. My Day: The Best of Eleanor Roosevelt’s Acclaimed Newspaper Columns, 1936-1962. (n.c.:

Da Capo Press, 2001) and Eleanor Roosevelt, This I Remember. (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1949). 178

Henry L. Stimson, and McGeorge Bundy, On Active Service in Peace and War. (New York: Harper and

Brothers, 1947): 19-21 and 43. Raymond Moley, After Seven Years. (New York: Harper and Brothers,

1939): quote from page 12.

65

issue that had mostly fallen out of vogue for Republicans after Franklin Delano Roosevelt

grabbed the reigns of state.179

Of course, not everyone in the era from 1920 to 1945 remembered TR with any

combination of admiration and respect. H.L. Mencken for one seemed to have nothing

but disdain for the Rough Riding Colonel; of course, he seemed to hate everybody. In

1920, Mencken declared “Roosevelt, the bogus Progressive… Wilson, the bogus

Liberal.” He summed up Theodore Roosevelt‟s programs as “the vast hodgepodge of

innovations, some idiotic but some sound enough, that went by the name of

Progressivism.” And these, Roosevelt did not take up until after he had begun “losing

hold upon his cunning at last.”180 Outlying critiques such as these notwithstanding, those

public figures of the era that knew Roosevelt, or even just knew of him, were full of

praise; though not always totally aware of the side of TR embracing conservation.

Conclusions

The question may fairly be asked, What happened to preservationism and John

Muir? They certainly seemed to be an important, if far from dominant, theme in the

previous era. A point evident in the writings of some of the contemporaries is the impact

that Pinchot had on the collective memory of conservation. A Senator of the era, Paul

Douglas, remembered how similar he had found Pinchot and Franklin Roosevelt

especially in their willingness to “accept dubious allies to gain his ends.” Despite this, he

befriended Pinchot and spent many hours with him. In his words:

Pinchot, in his sixties, was still an outdoorsman and a forester. He loved to tell of his

partnership with Teddy Roosevelt, how they had fought to conserve our natural resources

and of their battles with Secretary of the Interior Richard A. Ballinger and President

William Howard Taft. Teddy was his idol, and working with him had been the great

179

Will H. Hays, The Memoirs of Will H. Hays. (Garden City: Doubleday and Co, 1955): quote from page

240, see also pages 238 and 244-5. 180

Mencken, On Politics, first quote dated 18 October 1920, page 33; second quote dated 26 July 1920,

page 19. Mencken may have leveled his greatest insult against Roosevelt on 1 November 1920 when he

sarcastically referred to him as “the late Major-General;” TR went to his grave lamenting that Wilson denied him that rank and his chance to fight in The Great War.

66

experience in Pinchot‟s life. Mrs. Pinchot, a striking redhead and a giant hearted woman,

became my fast friend and remained so until her death nearly thirty years later.181

This is quite a boon for Pinchot. He was alive to tell his tale of “battles” and adventures

in the realm of conservation with the great Theodore Roosevelt. No wonder that Muir, his

story telling days behind him, is utterly unknown by political figures of this era.

In a broader sense, one could claim that the sea change in conservation was a

matter of the times. America emerged onto the world scene after the Spanish-American

War, but after The Great War, its position as a world power was far more certain. In the

post-war era, America enjoyed unprecedented prosperity as speakeasies proliferated and

millionaires were made over night. After the market crash, the people of the country had

other, more pressing, things to consider than resource protection and the revitalizing

effects of nature. Ultimately, when it came to seeking out wilderness and nature‟s

bounties, the 1920s was an era of unwillingness, and the 1930s was an era of inability.

Concomitant with these attitudes was the attitude toward Theodore Roosevelt. After the

corruption and poor planning of Wall Street became evident on Black Tuesday, the

people became more interested in his efforts to protect the people from the predatory

interests of wealth; and politicians have a tendency to blow with the wind.

Historian Donald Worster also offers an insight into the era relevant to the

question as to why the image of TR would be so stiffly utilitarian. In bald terms, the era

was a dark age for ecology (even in a proto-ecological context). Worster argues that in

the 1920s and onwards, even the natural sciences took on the character of Progressive

Conservation in its focus on efficiency and applicability. Buzz words of the era included

productivity, efficiency, yield and crop.182

At the time, one professor defined

conservation as “the division of economics that deals with production.”183 Programs that

had begun under TR were carried on and gradually lost their revolutionary implications.

Predator control, for instance, was a program of destroying predator species to let more

“desirable” species thrive that became a major focus of federal policy under TR and

181

Paul H. Douglas, In the Fullness of Time: The Memoirs of Paul H. Douglas. (New York: Harcourt Brace

Jovanovich, 1971): block quote from page 72; other quote from 71; see also, page 155. 182

Donald Worster, Nature’s Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas. 2nd

ed. (New York: Cambridge

University Press, 1994, originally 1977 by Sierra Club Books): 312. 183

From Richard Ely, “Conservation and Economic Theory.” The Foundations of National Prosperity.

(New York: n.p., 1917), quoted in Worster, Nature’s Economy, 312.

67

Pinchot. In federal institutions, the policy went almost unquestioned until the 1940s; even

then, it remained policy until the early 1950s in certain bureaus.184

With the federal

programs focused on “use” over protection, it is no wonder that political and popular

understanding of TR would be biased by these visible aspects of his legacy.

In spite of the lack of interest in society on the whole, due to an excess of wealth

or a wealth of poverty, some scholars were taking a critical look at the state of resource

management in the country. In 1925, one writer defined conservation while

simultaneously casting a warning on his readers:

If we become selfish and indifferent and neglect to care for the treasures which Nature

has placed in our hands, very serious things will happen to us, as they have happened to

other people. How to use the storehouse of Nature without wasting or destroying these

treasures is what we mean by conservation.185

Another writer interested in the wise use of nature struck a more haunting, and sadly

more prophetic, note, when he wrote in 1928: “As the resources disappear the struggle for

markets and raw materials will become more intense. Wars of extermination and

annihilation will supersede wars of conquest.”186 In the days when Hitler was still a

relatively unknown politician, the specter of wars of extermination would have seemed

like simple scare-mongering, but it would not be many decades before warfare would

take on a whole new level of barbarity, as it was raised up by the wonders of modern

civilization‟s invention and industry. Digressing, the aforementioned author also

discussed Roosevelt‟s place in the venue. He wrote of conservation in terms of reducing

waste, reforestation, efficient use of resources, and so on. He warned that ignoring them

will doom the future of the economy. To him, conservation was wholly an economical

matter. He concluded his chapter on “Conservation of Natural Resources, National and

International Problems” by saying that when it came to the need to safeguard our

economy through conservation, “Theodore Roosevelt was right.”187

184

Worster, Nature’s Economy, 270-80. 185

Harold W. Fairbanks, Conservation Reader. (Yonkers-On-Hudson: World Book Co, 1925): 8. 186

Scoville Hamlin, Waste Not- Want Not: Stabilize Production and Control Expansion. (Philadelphia:

Dorrance and Co, 1928): 80. 187

Ibid., 76.

68

No important change in ethics was ever accomplished without an internal change in our

intellectual emphasis, loyalties, affections, and convictions. The proof that conservation

has not yet touched these foundations of conduct lies in the fact that philosophy and

religion have not yet heard of it. In our attempt to make conservation easy, we have made

it trivial.

-Aldo Leopold, “The Land Ethic”

69

CHAPTER IV

TOWARDS THE ENVIRONMENTAL PRESIDENCY, 1945-1963

We now know that our mineral resources once exhausted are gone forever.

-Theodore Roosevelt188

The crisis may be quiet, but it is urgent. We must do in our own day what Theodore Roosevelt

did sixty years ago and Franklin Roosevelt did thirty years ago: we must expand the concept of

conservation to meet the imperious problems of the new age. We must develop new instruments

of foresight and protection and nurture in order to recover the relationship between man and

nature and to make sure that the national estate we pass on to our multiplying descendents is

green and flourishing.

-John F. Kennedy189

Introduction

The middle of the 20th

century was an important crossroads for the environment in

many significant ways. The New Deal programs under Franklin Delano Roosevelt

improved and expanded the conservation programs with the Civilian Conservation Corps,

which also introduced a generation of young men to the natural treasures awaiting future

vacations. The post-War economic boom provided millions of Americans with a stable

job and more disposable income than ever before. Eisenhower brought the Interstate

System idea home with him from Europe and shortly the continent was being

crisscrossed by concrete superhighways. For the first time in history, Americans had the

188

Theodore Roosevelt, Presidential Addresses and State Papers and European Addresses. Volume VIII.

(New York: The Review of Reviews Co, 1910): 2093. 189

From the Introduction to Stewart L. Udall, The Quiet Crisis. (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,

1963): xiii.

70

money to travel, the infrastructure to go any where they wanted and knowledge of

recently improved parklands. The stage was set.

This chapter covers the era that led from the end of the Second World War to the

beginning of the Environmental Era. All three of the Presidents in this time period (1945-

63) made significant strides towards the Environmental Era. Truman ushered in a new

epoch by proclaiming Everglades National Park, the first Park that featured neither

geological oddities nor the traditional view of the sublimity of nature. Eisenhower built

the aforementioned Interstate System which connected Americans with each other and

their natural environment like never before. Kennedy, arguably the first Environmental

President, read Silent Spring and helped to catapult the book and its dire message to

national prominence. Nevertheless, with the concept of Environmentalism still awaiting

invention, the era of the 1940s and 50s can hardly be said to truly be environmental. JFK,

despite the many programs that got their start under his aegis, was killed before they

could be sufficiently developed. This era was the period during which progress was made

in a new direction, but it was more a journey than a destination; that must await the next

chapter. This transitional condition of being is reflected in the image of TR in this era.

As a child, Truman saw TR come through his home town, but otherwise none of

the post New Deal Presidents had any interaction with TR personally.190

A complete

generation then separated the life of TR from his successors in the White House; this too

affected the image of TR that pervaded the era. Of course, from out in the wilderness, the

voice of Aldo Leopold was just beginning to have an effect, and it was being carried on a

tidal wave called ecology.

Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower

Roosevelt‟s administration ended prematurely and Harry S. Truman became

Commander-in-Chief. When he got the job it came with a world at war, knowledge of a

secret weapon guaranteed to destroy millions and the job of rebuilding a shattered world

with his country the first true Super Power. That is a hefty responsibility and it is

190

Truman saw TR in 1904 when TR came though town to make a speech. Truman was disappointed that

TR was so short. See Harry S. Truman, Memoirs, Volume II: Years of Trial and Hope. (Garden City:

Doubleday and Co, 1956): 201. Later in life, Truman would boast that “I‟m taller… than Teddy Roosevelt.” See, Margaret Truman, ed. Where the Buck Stops: The Personal and Private Writings of Harry

S. Truman. (New York: Warner Books, 1989): 78.

71

forgivable that conservation did not rank particularly high on his to-do list. With the Cold

War replacing the World War, and the H-Bomb raising the ante from the A-Bomb, the

country‟s natural bounties apparently never had the chance to move up the list and

Truman‟s administration passed over them mostly unnoticed. Interestingly, one of the

most significant moments in National Park history occurred during this time: the

founding of Everglades National Park. The Everglades were neither mountain, nor

canyon, nor glacier. Geologically, they were dull; from the standpoint of sublimity, they

were barren; no sequoias, towering cathedral-like, were to be found here. By embracing

this place as a National Park, the country was taking an important step forward in

recognizing unique ecosystems as opposed to unique scenery.

Judging from Truman‟s speech on the occasion, and his personal recollections of

his times as president, this significance was lost on him. The speech goes so far as to say

that many unique animals will be protected and that the Park is beautiful in spite of not

having any mountains, but Truman tries to promote the Park as “sublime” in its own way

and mostly focuses on the importance of resource conservation. In his memoirs, Truman

felt that his conservation efforts were praiseworthy, but he had not a word to say about

the Everglades.191

His contemporaries, both historians and those that worked closely with

him, were similarly silent on the issue; no doubt not out of any kind of antipathy, but

simply because none of them saw it as a significant matter. Some historians interpreted

this disinterest as damning, and one recent study posits that the Truman legacy is “a

visible heritage of concrete and steel throughout the nation” supplemented with laws that

permit the destruction of environments. That author goes so far as to say that Truman‟s

policies were so terrible that “[f]rustrated, even horrified by the scale and speed of

nature‟s manipulation, citizens provoked political reform that triggered a revolution in

legal thought” and therefore the Truman legacy is paradoxical: “permanent ecosystem

191

For the text of Truman‟s speech see Richard S. Kirkendall, ed. Harry’s Farewell: Interpreting and Teaching the Truman Presidency. (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2004): 320-3. For Truman‟s personal recollections see Harry S. Truman, The Autobiography of Harry S. Truman. Ed. by Robert H.

Ferrell. (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1980). Truman, Memoirs. Vol. II, 262-3. Harry Truman,

Off The Record: The Private Papers of Harry S. Truman. Ed. by Robert H. Ferrell. (New York: Harper and

Row, 1980). The background information, including the impression that the Everglades was more of a duty

as President than an accomplishment are taken from the biographic literature. See Barton J. Bernstein and

Allen J. Matusow, eds. The Truman Administration: A Documentary History. (New York: Harper and Row,

1966). Roy Jenkins, Truman. (London: Collins, 1986). Steve Neal, ed. HST: Memories of the Truman

Years. (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2003).

72

disruptions matched profound shifts in American thought caused by those very

disruptions.”192 This may be overstating the matter a bit, although it does mesh well with

the hypothesis concerning Harding‟s scandals stimulating renewed interest in the

environment. More recent historians believe that Truman connected to TR more than he

let on. In some cases, the connection is not particularly flattering. One historian believed

that Truman pushed a legacy of dominion over nature, which he posited was in

contradistinction to the conservation policy of TR. Another wrote that Truman endorsed

the work of Pinchot.193

What is certain is that while there was a fairly substantial range of

interpretations of FDR‟s conservation policies, Truman‟s are seen as only tangentially

interesting. This will be borne out in the contemporary opinion of conservation which

was the stage upon which a fringe interest in the environment entered in this era.

In most situations, Truman tended to ignore TR: a famous Republican with the

same last name as the great Democrat who cast a shadow over Truman even in death. In

many of his private correspondences and his personal recollections of the major issues of

his administration, TR is either mentioned only in the context of something utterly

unrelated to conservation, or omitted altogether.194

In other cases, the only mention of TR

was in a pejorative sense. Truman blamed both Roosevelt and Coolidge for not doing

better jobs with their respective renovations of the White House, which forced Truman to

receive Winston Churchill in nearby Blair-Lee House, the temporary residence of the

President while the White House under went a thorough reconstruction. In his private

papers, he wrote that TR‟s work fixing up the Executive Mansion was a “botch job” and

hypothesized that “Teddy was evidently using his Big Stick somewhere else.”195 Truman

also considered TR a good exemplar on occasion of what not to do. In a case of libel,

where he considered suing someone, Truman recalled that in a similar situation when TR

192

Kirkendall, Harry’s Farewell, 300. 193

From “Los Alamos to the Everglades- Harry S Truman‟s Environmental Legacy” by Karl Boyd Brooks (p. xxiii and xxvi) and “Conservation After World War II: The Truman Administration, Foreign Aid, and

The „Greatest Good‟,” by Thomas Robertson (p 35); both from Karl Boyd Brooks, ed. The Environmental

Legacy of Harry S. Truman. (Kirksville: Truman State University Press, 2009). 194

For examples, see Ralph E. Weber, ed. Talking with Harry: Candid Conversations with President Harry

S. Truman. (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 2001). Robert H. Ferrell, ed. Dear Bess: The Letters From

Harry to Bess Truman, 1910-1959. (New York: W.W. Norton and Co, 1983). 195

Quote from Truman‟s diary, entry dated 2 March 1952, from Ferrell, Off the Record, 242. On Churchill,

see also diary entry dated 24 March 1949 from Monte M. Poen, ed. Strictly Personal and Confidential: The

Letters Harry Truman Never Mailed. (Boston: Little, Brown and Co, 1982): 61.

73

had sued for libel, he had received only one penny in damages and though he won the

case “he made himself ridiculous.”196 In the secrecy of his diary, he attacked his opponent

in the 1948 election, saying “[Thomas] Dewey synthetically milks cows and pitches hay

for the cameras just as that other fakier, Teddy Roosevelt, did.”197

In discussing his own conservation policies, Truman used rhetoric and standards

that smack of Pinchot and Roosevelt, but seldom is the connection made. In his State of

the Union on 77 January 1948, Truman talked about developing resources, stock piles,

mineral wealth, reclamation and combating soil erosion. Later, he spoke of forestry,

public power, multiple purpose dams, and “wise use” of resources. All these old

standards were launched onto the federal stage by TR, but by 1948, they were simply

conservation, not the legacy of an individual; or even a small oligarchic collection of

visionaries.198

This point is reinforced in a speech given 5 December 1947, on the

occasion of the founding of Everglades National Park when Truman declared his

conservation policies. A program of resource protection and a system of scientific

forestry identical to that pioneered by Pinchot; nevertheless, no mention is made of

Pinchot or TR.199

On 21 September 1948, Truman went one step further and claimed that

programs of wildlife, grazing land and forest protection in the West were begun with

FDR.200

Truman did not utterly ignore TR, however, when it came to conservation he just

remembered him in very generic terms. In his memoirs, Truman wrote: “One outstanding

Republican President, Theodore Roosevelt, contributed to the perpetuation of

progressivism in American life… Under his administration the country made great

strides, particularly in the conservation of natural resources.”201 Nevertheless, Truman

recorded that TR “missed being a great president, though only by a narrow margin…

though he was the president who finally awakened to the fact that the welfare of the

country was wrapped up in its physical assets- that is, in the forests and the mines and the

196

From a letter dated 9 July 1947, in Ferrell, Off the Record, 113. 197

Entry dated 16 July 1948, from Ibid., 144. 198

Harry S. Truman, The Truman Administration: Its Principles and Practices. Ed. by Louis W. Koenig.

(Washington Square: New York University Press, 1956): 133-4. 199

From M.B. Schnapper, ed. The Truman Program: Addresses and Messages by President Harry S.

Truman. (Washington D.C.: Public Affairs Press, 1949): 219-20. 200

Ibid., 215. 201

Truman, Memoirs. Volume II, 173; on page 201, Truman repeats the sentiment when he writes that TR

“put into effect a lot of liberal ideas such as the conservation of natural resources.”

74

other things the country owned- and he tried to conserve the situation as best he could, he

had troubles… and he didn‟t get a heck of a lot done.202

“So Theodore Roosevelt doesn‟t get on my list of great presidents” Truman summarized.

Of course, Truman brought many of his predecessors under fire, so TR did make it onto

one auspicious list: the list of presidents Truman berated. He did grudgingly grant that

TR occasionally did what he had to do, but was often far from praising. In Truman‟s final

assessment, “Teddy Roosevelt was often more bull, without the moose, than

substance.”203

Vowing to go to Korea, the popular Supreme Allied Commander Ike Eisenhower

succeeded Harry Truman after the 1952 election. His Interstate System would become an

important gateway for people visiting the wild places of the country in the latter half of

the century, but his direct involvement in conservation was negligible. Since he fails to

mention any interest in most of his personal writings, including not a single mention of

Muir, Pinchot, or TR in his diary, he is generally a tertiary player in broad studies of the

early environmental movement; a characterization that few scholars challenge.204

This

could easily be interpreted as a denigration of the administration of Eisenhower, but it

most be kept in mind that Ike was the last President to serve out his full term in office

before the widespread popularization of ecology and, moreover, Eisenhower was a

popular general and not a career politician. He was accustomed to dealing with problems

through well-orchestrated campaigns; thus did the old-style Pinchot approach to nature

resonate well with Eisenhower and left little need for any alteration to existing policies

and procedures.

202

Truman, Where the Buck Stops: 14. 203

Ibid., first quote from page 15; second from page 348. On the other presidents, Truman commented that

Taft also missed his list of greats despite being “a fat, jolly, likable, mediocre man” (p. 15). He also commented on the jowls of Richard Nixon and Harding being “our worst president” (p. 313 and 78, respectively). 204

For Ike‟s own none-recollections see Dwight D. Eisenhower, The Eisenhower Diaries. Ed. by Robert H.

Ferrell. (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1981): these recollections contain no mention of either

conservation or environmentalism. See also, Dwight D. Eisenhower, At Ease: Stories I Tell To Friends.

(Garden City: Doubleday and Co, 1967): which also contains no mention of TR, Muir or Pinchot; it only

mentions conservation in the context of “human resource” conservation. See also, Louis Galambos and Daun Van Ee, eds. The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower. 17 Vols. (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins

University Press, 1996). The background is derived from William Bragg Ewald, Jr., Eisenhower the

President: Crucial Days, 1951-1960. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1981). Tom Wicker, Dwight

D. Eisenhower. (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2002).

75

Like his predecessor, when Ike thought about conservation, he thought about

programs such as subsidizing farmers to leave land for forage and trees and other ideas

concerning “wise land use” and a program called “conservation-reserve.”205 In rare

instances, he did call to mind TR and occasionally Pinchot; though never did he think of

Muir.206

Mostly, he took TR as a source of guidance in other fields. The debacle that

followed in the wake of Roosevelt‟s third party try at the Presidency in 1912 convinced

Ike to forego a third party run of his own. The Eisenhower Administration did usurp both

the image of Roosevelt and conservation as part of a program originally entitled

“Adjustment to Work.” After one of Ike‟s advisers “discovered that TR was interested in

the Conservation of Human and Natural Resources” the program was renamed the

“Conservation of Human Resources.”207 This is a telling matter in the image of TR in the

1950s that a member of Ike‟s inner circle had to take it upon himself to “discover”

something everyone had always known before; i.e. that TR was associated with

conservation.

There was a change of focus after Ike‟s first term. In the Republican Party

Platform, it was stated:

Policies of sound conservation and wise development- originally advanced half a century

ago under that pre-eminent Republican conservation team of President Theodore

Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot and amplified by succeeding Republican Administrations-

have been pursued by the Eisenhower Administration. While meeting the essential

development needs of the people, this Administration has conserved and safeguarded our

natural resources for the greatest good of all, now and in the future.

The greatest good to the greatest number is a Pinchot axiom as old as the laws that

protect the hills. As the quality of life represented by the natural environment became

more important, so too did the image of TR gain added significance for Republicans

205

Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mandate For Change, 1953-1956. (Garden City: Doubleday and Co, 1963):

558. TR is only mentioned in this book in the context of the White House renovation. 206

For example, in the course of his Presidency, Ike gave 12 speeches on TR, 10 on conservation, 1 on

Pinchot and zero on Muir. See Ralph J. Shoemaker, ed. The President’s Words. 7 Vols. (n.c.: Elsie DeGraff

Shoemaker, 1954). 207

Travis Beal Jacobs, Eisenhower at Columbia. (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2001): 141-2.

The advisor who made the “discovery” was Eli Ginzberg, a Professor at Columbia. On not starting a third party, see Robert J. Donovan, Eisenhower: The Inside Story. (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1956): 152.

For more on the third party issue, see Herbert Brownell, with John P. Burke. Advising Ike: The Memoirs of

Attorney General Herbert Brownell. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993).

76

looking for votes. The aspects of conservation that TR supposedly started, according to

the Platform, included all the old standards of forest reserves, mineral protection,

fisheries, and recreational parks and even wildlife management.208

This new concern may also have been a direct answer to the accusations of Ike‟s

perennial opponent, Adlai Stevenson, who declared that Ike represented a threat to

federal protection “of our great national assets- the forests, the grazing lands, the water,

and the minerals.” Neither Stevenson nor Eisenhower saw the nation‟s wild places or the

sublime beauty of nature itself as a factor in this debate. They did, however, become the

first set of political rivals to both use the name of Theodore Roosevelt to justify their own

divergent views on conservation (though they diverged little in word). Stevenson wrote:

I hope we don‟t forget that the public domain belongs to Democrats and Republicans

alike, and, as Theodore Roosevelt warned us long ago, the descendants of both will pay

the price if we do not preserve their heritage. And I confidently expect that the Democrats

in Congress will be the Public‟s guardians of our forests and our parks; our grazing lands

and our minerals; guardians, too, of our great reclamation programs and our family-sized

farms; and of low-cost power for all the people.209

We see here how both parties claimed to be the ones best able to preserve the legacy of

Theodore Roosevelt, and thereby most fitted to determine what that legacy was. An

interesting development in the political climate as America prepared to enter Camelot.

John F Kennedy

All those who fish and hunt, who build industrial centers, who need electricity to light

their homes and lighten their burdens, who require water for home, industrial, and

recreational purposes- in short, every citizen in every State of the Union- all have a stake

in a sound resources program under the Progressive principles of national leadership first

forged by Pinchot and Theodore Roosevelt, and backed by the essential cooperation of

State and local governments.210

208

“Text of the Republican Platform Adopted by the Party‟s National Convention,” New York Times, 22

August 1956. 209

Walter Johnson, ed. The Papers of Adlai E. Stevenson: Volume IV: “Let’s Talk Sense to the American People,” 1952-1955. (Boston: Little, Brown and Co, 1974): 256. 210

Reprinted in Frank E. Smith, General Editor. Conservation in the United States: A Documentary

History, Vol. 3: Land and Water, 1900-1970. (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1971): 691.

77

Thus did JFK speak in his First Message to Congress on 23 February 1961. When

Kennedy entered the White House, resource protection was the focus of conservation and

all that most Americans wanted in a federal conservation policy. That was all about to

change.

When Silent Spring hit the bookshelves it caused quite a stir. People were

confronted with several chilling facts. 1) Corporations are poisoning the earth with

deadly chemicals. 2) The wildlife of the planet is being killed off by those chemicals,

which will soon result in a world without bird song (a Silent Spring, if you will). And 3)

As the chemicals pass through the plants and animals, they ultimately reach us. This was

the cutting edge of ecosystem theory, the concept that all life is bound together in

complicated webs of connectivity and places Rachel Carson among the ranks of Harriet

Beecher Stowe and Upton Sinclair. Of the many people Carson reached, none were more

important than John F. Kennedy, President of the United States. Just as Teddy Roosevelt

had ordered investigations into the meat industry after reading The Jungle, so did JFK set

to work after his own literary revelation. Thus was the Ecological Era launched. Still, the

era was young and JFK was no TR when it came to the great outdoors. He was a city boy,

and it would take a Texan to make the environment a Texas-sized federal issue.211

The eco-conscious American was still nonexistent when Kennedy took office, and

concern for the environment did not extend much beyond the possibility that people may

be eating poison. The debate is open as to how far Kennedy may have taken

environmentalism, but his time in the White House was brought to a tragic close. The

entire concept of environmentalism and its inherent implications were very new and was

not to become a major national issue until Johnson‟s administration. Moreover, Kennedy

himself was not enthusiastic about it.212

JFK did help the inchoate environmental

movement by setting it upon a sound path, however. Among other things, he helped a

211

The argument that ecology was not an important issue yet is a common one. For an example of a general

presidential history of the era that demonstrates that ecology was still not an issue, see Theodore Otto

Windt, Jr., Presidents and Protesters: Political Rhetoric in the 1960s. (Tuscaloosa: The University of

Alabama, 1990). 212

See Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House. (Boston:

Houghton Mifflin Company, 1965). Ralph G. Martin, A Hero For Our Time: An Intimate Story of the

Kennedy Years. (New York: Macmillan, 1983). James N. Giglio, The Presidency of John F. Kennedy. 2nd

ed., revised. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2006).

78

water pollution bill make its way through Congress.213

Not all of his staff acknowledged

his contributions to the environment, but at least his Secretary of the Interior appreciated

them, claiming the administration “may mark a turning point in conservation.”214

Kennedy may have been moved by Carson‟s lyrical pleas to stop the chemical

annihilation of life on earth, but ecosystem theory was still as mysterious as the moon

when Kennedy took office. He found it difficult to enthrall audiences with talk of

conservation and had little personal interest in the nation‟s wild places. While on a tour to

promote conservation, “his rhetoric was smooth as usual, but his heart was not in it.” As

an urbanite he had to admit to a confidant he had “never given these matters any real

consideration” and conservation was simply not the “sexy” issue it would become for

politicians in the 1970s. By the end of the tour, he was quite bored and often strayed to

other topics, both to his and the crowds relief.215

Much like his predecessor, JFK did not take much interest in the conservation

legacy of TR. When TR comes up in the writings of those around JFK, it is usually in the

context of election reform or the bully pulpit. One popular event that became infamous

with some staff members is when JFK discovered an old letter written by TR in which he

challenged Marines to hike 50 miles in 20 hours. As part of Kennedy‟s health initiative,

he decided to not only send the letter to a nearby Marine base, but also to try to force

members of his staff to make the attempt. Pierre Salinger, JFK‟s rotund press secretary

was quick to volunteer… someone else! As the fattest member of the team, Kennedy

wanted him to do it, but he eventually got out of it.216

One member of the staff, however,

thought of TR in terms more than the bully pulpit and the strenuous life.

While he was not to be the eco-friendly president that some of his successors

would become, Kennedy did leave a positive legacy in a few meaningful ways; doubly

213

Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963. (Boston: Little, Brown and Company,

2003): 319-20 and 379. 214

For a staff member that did not see Kennedy in the context of the environment, see Pierre Salinger, With

Kennedy. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, 1966). Quote is from Udall, The Quiet Crisis, 181. 215

Theodore C. Sorensen, ed. “Let The Word Go Forth”: The Speeches, Statements, and Writings of John

F. Kennedy. (New York: Delacorte Press, 1988). Quotes from Lewis J. Paper, The Promise and the

Performance: The Leadership of John F. Kennedy. (New York: Crown Publishers, 1975): 239-40. For

more on the Conservation Tour and JFK‟s lack of interest in it, see Richard Reeves, President Kennedy:

Profile in Power. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993): 605-6. 216

Pierre Salinger, P.S. A Memoir. (New York: St. Martin‟s Press, 1995): 128. See also Harold W. Chase and Allen H. Herman, eds. Kennedy and the Press: The News Conferences. (New York: Thomas Y.

Crowell Co, 1965).

79

impressive considering that ecology was still in its infancy. Among the greatest succor he

offered the movement was done mostly to appease the rising tide of conservationists in

the Democratic Party: he appointed Stewart Udall Secretary of the Interior. Udall would

(under JFK and LBJ) do many things for the environment and federal conservation

programs. Udall was very well aware of the legacy that had been handed down to him

from the time of TR. The name of Gifford Pinchot had been absent in politics for a

decade, but Udall brought it back with a vengeance in his epochal book The Quiet Crisis.

He wrote that Pinchot “had the clear eye of a scientist, a naturalist‟s love of woods and

open spaces, the moral fervor of an evangelist, and a politician‟s intuition.”217 Udall

credited Pinchot with being a close accomplice in Roosevelt‟s conservation policies, even

as the writer of the portions dealing with that topic in his speeches. Pinchot was described

as a “fighter,” “a magnificent bureaucrat,” a man who used sustain-yield methods,

brought law and order to the forests, the only bureau chief who was the first counselor to

a President, and was “firm and fair and spoke for the future.” Pinchot coined the word

conservation, and framed it in the mind of TR; that being, frugality, efficiency, and

protection of public resources. Udall concluded: “He was the composer, and also played

first violin while the redoubtable Roosevelt conducted.”218

This praise for Pinchot had been absent among politicians since TR was alive and

writing. But the more significant thing about his book was the reemergence of John Muir

after a hiatus of nearly five decades. Utterly absent from the records of JFK‟s past six

predecessors, Secretary Udall brought him back to national prominence. He did believe

that TR was primarily anti-waste and that Pinchot had no use for wilderness, bringing

him to loggerheads with Muir. Just as he had praised Pinchot, Udall praises Muir. He

writes that the 1903 trip to Yosemite of TR and Muir was a turning point in the life of

Roosevelt in which he did the listening and Muir the talking. Udall writes that Pinchot

and Muir were constantly divided between use and aesthetics (now defined as

conservation and preservation), but that both played a role in influencing TR.219

The foreword for Udall‟s book was written by JFK. From the scant words, it is

hard to completely grasp how he saw TR. He wrote that TR had expanded the concept of

217

Udall, The Quiet Crisis, 102. 218

Ibid., 103-6. 219

Ibid., 108-12, 118-23.

80

conservation “to meet the imperious problems of a new age” and said his generation must

do the same. He also wanted to emulate TR in the goal of leaving for posterity a richer

land than we had originally inherited from those before us.220

These sound a great deal

like the traditional values, focused on conservation, that had permeated the image of

Roosevelt for more than a quarter of a century. Kennedy‟s Interior Secretary, on the other

hand, had a new (or rather, a very old) image of TR: a man who‟s accomplishments

subsumed not only National Forests, but also National Parks, wildlife refuges and bird

sanctuaries; a man who derived his opinions from the Boone and Crocket Club and the

tradition of sportsmanship, to protect wildlife and prosecute poachers.221

Udall summed

up his image of TR thusly,

Wildlife and big game were his first love, and in his early years he had published three

books on his experiences as a hunter, naturalist, and rancher. His conservation interests

did not range as far as Pinchot‟s, and the subtleties that fascinated Muir eluded him, but

he was acquainted with the grass and water and soil of the Great Plains, and had

sharpened his larger insights by writing a frontier history, The Winning of the West.222

Contemporary Scholars

In the time period under consideration, Stewart Udall was not the only one with

John Muir on his mind, but he was one of the few. He was also one of the few to combine

the ideas of conservation and preservation in the persona of TR.223

At the time, TR was

only being seen as a conservation President. Udall‟s work helped to usher in a change in

that perception, but there was still a long way to go. More common was the traditional

view of TR and conservation that the concern was solely issues of grazing land and

forestry. Even those with a passion for protecting the earth struck a highly utilitarian

chord; Gifford Pinchot may have been pushed into the background after his death, but he

was still a poignant image to certain politicians. Adlai E. Stevenson, for instance, credited

Pinchot, along with TR, for pioneering conservation in the United States and warned:

220

Ibid., xiii. 221

Ibid., 130-3, and 149. 222

ibid., 128. 223

Rachel Carson references Muir in some of her private letters. See Martha Freeman, ed. Always, Rachel:

The Letters of Rachel Carson and Dorothy Freeman, 1952-1964. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995). For an

example of a contemporary who was familiar with Muir Woods NM, but did not take any interest in Muir

himself, see Sol Bloom, The Autobiography of Sol Bloom. (New York: G.P. Putnam‟s Sons, 1948): 48.

81

“This land, these rivers, these forests and mountains- they were not put there for us to

despoil… They were put here for us to use wisely, and to leave in better estate for our

children and our children‟s children.”224 Theologians and metaphysicists may argue with

why exactly the mountains were put here, and later environmentalists would vehemently

argue that they certainly were not put here just to be used, with any intentions. But at the

time, this was a progressive and flattering sentiment ascribed by Stevenson onto TR and

Pinchot.

In the era after World War II, interest in the natural environment intensified. This

interest would eventually coalesce into environmentalism, but in the immediate post-War

era, the focus of concern was a refamiliarization of resource protection that had gone by

the wayside during the needful period of global war, following on the heels of a global

depression. One book, called Conservation in the United States, went through three

editions and eight printings in the years between 1949 and 1963. In the 1963 edition, it

defined conservation as “efficient and continuing use of existing supplies for the benefit

of both present and future generation, the avoidance of destruction and waste.”225 This

book, written by professors in the sciences, does address protection of National Parks and

other wild areas, but does not discuss any impact by John Muir. It does highlight the

many contributions of TR and that Pinchot‟s “influence on the conservation movement in

general was probably greater than that of any other man.”226 Similar books begun slightly

later in this period have an increased interest in the preservation work of TR, such as his

work with bird refuges, but no interest in John Muir.227

One area where the legacy of preservation entered into the image of TR sooner

than other fields was in popular literature. The story of Roosevelt refusing to shoot a

224

From a speech of 9 October 1956 on “conservation and full development of our natural resources.” From Walter Johnson, ed. The Papers of Adlai E. Stevenson. Volume VI: Toward a New America, 1955-

1957. (Boston: Little, Brown and Co, 1976): quote from page 270; see also pages 265. Other examples of

traditional perceptions of TR can be found in Edwin O. Guthman and C. Richard Allen, eds. RFK:

Collected Speeches. (New York: Viking, 1993): 40. 225

A.F. Gustafson, C.H. Guise, W.J. Hamilton, Jr., H. Ries. Conservation in the United States. 3rd

ed.

(Ithaca: Comstock Publishing, 1949, eighth printing 1963): 1. 226

Ibid., 17. Authors were Professors of Soil Technology, Forestry, Zoology and Geology. Another, very

similar book, contains almost identical arguments, including praise for Pinchot and omission of Muir, and a

focuses on forests and mineral wealth; see, Mary I. Curtis, Conservation in America. (Chicago: Lyons and

Carnahan, 1947): esp. p 1 and 110-6. 227

See Charles H. Callison, ed. America’s Natural Resources: Edited for the Natural Resources Council of America. (New York: The Ronald Press, 1967, originally 1957): see especially page 120.

82

small bear (resulting in the birth of the Teddy Bear after a cartoon depicted the event)

came up. In this literature, the wanderings with Burroughs in Yellowstone and Muir in

Yosemite were also seen to have had a great significance. In one article, non-preservation

conservation is not mentioned at all (neither is Pinchot) and conservation is clearly used

synonymously with what was previously always segregated into the category of

preservation.228

When His Royal Highness, The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh,

announced the forming of the World Wildlife Fund to protect critically endangered

animals in 1962, he invoked the memory and words of TR about treating natural

resources as assets to be protected and improved for future generations.229

Conclusions

In this era, a President recognized the importance of a swamp, two political

bigwigs both used the name of Roosevelt to highlight their commitment to the

environment, and scholars began to rediscover John Muir. Still, for the most part, focus

stayed on the old-fashioned conservation practices of TR and Pinchot, but change was in

the air. Even the predator control programs that had been the standard operating

procedure of the federal government for forty years were fading into memory.230

Hays

was the first ripple of what would become a tsunami of environmental literature, and the

name of TR, as far as an environmental policy goes, was about to explode in importance.

The question is, why?

The reasons are two-fold. First, there was a societal movement towards a cleaner

natural habitat. Utilizing the prosperity of the post-war era, and the highways built by Ike,

the people were beginning to discover the America outside the concrete jungles some call

228

Bart McDowell, “Theodore Roosevelt” National Geographic Vol. 114 No. 4 (Oct. 1958): 572-90, see

especially 580. 229

HRH The Prince Philip,. “Man‟s Wildlife Heritage Faces Extinction” National Geographic Vol. 122,

No. 5 (Nov. 1962): 700-3. 230

To cite an example of popular literature on this point, an article about the dying off of grizzles includes

many different sources of their demise in the recent decades, but no mention was made of predator control

even though they were often victims of it. See “Knocking Out Grizzly Bears For Their Own Good,” by Frank and John Craighead. National Geographic Vol. 118 No. 2 (Aug. 1960): p 276-291. This article also

raises the provocative and cutting edge question (p 279), “Do we possess the right to annihilate a fellow creature?” Only as far back as 1957, did the policy of predator destruction figure into articles in this

magazine. It took only three years to become a memory, in other words. See, Mason Sutherland,

“Californians Escape to the Desert” National Geographic Vol. 112 No. 5 (Nov. 1957): 675-724.

83

cities.231

The argument that a renewed interest in the environment is a matter of

prosperous voters seeking out a habitat more conducive to their happiness has been

expounded by historian Samuel Hays in Beauty, Health, and Permanence.232

Secondly

was the other side of the issue, which lay just beneath the surface. A movement was

building up in the fringes of society, starting in the 1940s but building to a powder-keg

by 1963. This side of the issue was new scientific understanding of the environment, and

the deeper connections that exist between humanity and its natural home. One obvious

facet of this was the abandonment of the predator control programs that had been carried

on for decades without question.

Aldo Leopold‟s description of when he realized the significance of the predator-

prey relationship in nature reads like a poem by one of the classic masters. The revelation

went that he gave up a young-man‟s dream of a “hunter‟s paradise” in a wolf-free world

when he realized in the 1920s that it would cost that “fierce green fire” burning in the

eyes of the predator, a part of the mountain and the environment in a way not before

dreamed.233

Leopold was a man ahead of his time, and science would be playing catch-up

for years to come. It was not until 1935 when a scientist, Alfred George Tansley,

introduced the word “ecosystem.” He had been building up to the event, and had attended

a Phytogeographic Excursion in Yosemite National Park in 1913; already in the new

century the Parks were playing a new scientific role.234

At this point it was just a word,

however, and it would take several decades to begin truly constructing a unified

conception of what it meant.

A significant moment in this era was the founding of Everglades National Park. It

broke the cycle of mountains and canyons and so in many ways marks the end of the

early Parks. The Everglades attracted biologists since the 1890s and since 1909 it had

been hailed in print as a “biological treasure trove.” People in the biological sciences had

231

Ample evidence of this can be read in articles such as the following, written by the Director of the NPS,

which indicates the broad-based societal interest in these areas: Conrad L. Wirth, “Heritage of Beauty and History” National Geographic Vol. CXIII No. 5 (May 1958): see especially 593, 617 and 635 on the

lingering interest of hunters in predator destruction. 232

Samuel P. Hays, Beauty, Health, and Permanence: Environmental Politics in the United States, 1955-

1985. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987). 233

Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac: With Essays on Conservation from Round River. (New York:

Ballantine Books, 1966, originally 1953): 138. 234

Frank Benjamin Golley, A History of the Ecosystem Concept in Ecology: More Than The Sum of the

Parts. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993): 8 and 14-15.

84

been calling for a National Park since the 1920s.235

In the late 1940s they got their wish,

but the true significance of the gesture was lost on Washington. The “broad agenda we

now call environmentalism” was still foreign to the federal government.236

In his

dedication speech, Truman admitted that this was not like any Park before it, “Here are

no lofty peaks seeking the sky, no mighty glaciers or rushing streams wearing away the

uplifted land. Here is land, tranquil in its quiet beauty.” He also spoke of animals being

protected, but it is clear that the land itself was still the key thing being put aside for

protection. Truman brought in a classic sublimity justification by claiming that the

Everglades were a place “where we can be more keenly aware of our Creator‟s infinitely

varied, infinitely beautiful, and infinitely bountiful handiwork”.237

It would be remiss of a scholar to explain changing societal interpretations of

nature without further mention of Aldo Leopold in at least a modicum of detail; and it

may make a better segue into the next chapter dealing with the Environmental Era.

Writing before the Second World War and for a short period after it, until his early death,

Leopold‟s ideas were wafting past the desks of a few interested souls, priming the pump.

Leopold‟s writings are laced with poetic purple prose and chilling warnings. For

example:

For the first time in the history of the human species two changes are now impending.

One is the exhaustion of wilderness in the more habitable portions of the globe. The other

is the world-wide hybridization of cultures through modern transport and

industrialization. Neither can be prevented, and perhaps should not be, but the question

arises whether, by some slight amelioration of the impending changes, certain values can

be preserved that would otherwise be lost.238

What makes Leopold‟s words transcend his time are their universality. He could have

written those words yesterday and they would be just as applicable, just as incisive.

Besides a warning to mind the future, Leopold also helped to spell out a new Land Ethic,

a way of interacting with the natural world. An ethic perhaps crucial to our very survival

in the light of the fact that, “Wilderness is the raw material out of which man has

235

Charlton W. Tebeau, Man In The Everglades: 2000 Years of Human History in the Everglades National

Park. (Coral Gables: University of Miami Press, 1968): 167-75. 236

On environmentalism being ignored in the 1930-50s, see Philip Shabecoff, A Fierce Green Fire: The

American Environmental Movement. (New York: Hill and Wang, 1993): 91. 237

For the text of Truman‟s speech, see Kirkendall, Harry’s Farewell, 320-2. 238

Leopold, “The Land Ethic,” page 264.

85

hammered the artifact called civilization.”239 Leopold‟s words fell mostly on deaf ears in

the 1940s and 50s. But as the 1960s wore on, more people were willing to listen; and as

blows the winds of the times, so blows the opinions of the politicians. Ergo, the image of

Theodore Roosevelt got carried along into realms new and beautiful.

This was an era of changing ideas; a transitional time between conservation and

environmentalism. Visionaries like Aldo Leopold and certain scientists were beginning to

understand the interconnectedness of the earth. Writers like Rachel Carson were doing

their best to popularize these ideas in society and by 1961 these impulses had found

expression in the early efforts of JFK. This era saw a dearth of use of the name of

Theodore Roosevelt, but also the first time that two political parties both utilized his

name to promote their programs. This was the beginning of a confusing time for the

meaning of Roosevelt. With the changing times, came a changing perception of TR, and

when the Eco-Age dawned, a new Theodore Roosevelt was born.

239

Ibid.

86

Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchers of the fathers. It writes biographies,

histories, and criticism. The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face;

we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe?

Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a

religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs? Emblosomed for a season in

nature, whose floods of life stream around and through us, and invite us, by the powers

they supply, to action proportioned to nature, why should we grope among the dry bones

of the past, or put the living generation into masquerade out of its faded wardrobe? The

sun shines to-day also. There is more wool and flax in the fields. There are new lands,

new men, new thoughts. Let us demand our own works and laws and worship.

Undoubtedly we have no questions to ask which are unanswerable. We must trust the

perfection of the creation so far as to believe that whatever curiosity the order of things

has awakened in our minds, the order of things can satisfy.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Nature”

87

CHAPTER V

THE ENVIRONMENTAL ERA, 1964-1980

I want to-day here in California to make a special appeal to all of you and to California as a

whole, for work along a certain line- the line of preserving your great natural advantages alike

from the standpoint of use and from the standpoint of beauty. If the students of this institution

have not by the mere fact of their surroundings learned to appreciate beauty, then the fault is in

you and not in the surroundings. Here in California you have some of the great wonders of the

world. You have a singularly beautiful and singularly majestic scenery, and it should certainly be

your aim to try to preserve for those who are to come after you that beauty, to try to keep

unmarred that majesty. Closely entwined with keeping unmarred the beauty of your scenery, of

your great natural attractions, is the question of making use of, not for the moment merely, but for

future time, your great natural products. Yesterday I saw for the first time a grove of your tress, a

grove which it has taken the ages several thousands of years to build up; and I feel most

emphatically that we should not turn into shingles a tree which was old when the first Egyptian

conqueror penetrated to the valley of the Euphrates, which it has taken so many thousands of

years to build up, and which can be put to better use. That you may say is not looking at the

matter from the practical standpoint. There is nothing more practical in the end than the

preservation of beauty, than the preservation of anything that appeals to the higher emotions in

mankind. But furthermore I appeal to you from the standpoint of use. A few big trees, of unusual

size and beauty, should be preserved for their own sake; but the forests as a whole should be used

for business purposes, only they should be used in a way that will preserve them as permanent

sources of national wealth.

-Theodore Roosevelt240

I wanted to continue the good work begun by Theodore Roosevelt, who broke through the barrier

characterized by Speaker Joe Cannon‟s immortal words: „Not one cent for scenery.‟

-Lyndon Baines Johnson241

240

Excerpt from an Address to Leland Stanford, Jr, University, in Theodore Roosevelt, Addresses and

Presidential Messages of Theodore Roosevelt, 1902-1904. (New York: G.P. Putnams‟s Sons, 1904): 193. 241

Lyndon Baines Johnson, The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963-1969. (New York:

Holt, Rinenart and Winston, 1971): 336.

88

Introduction

As the lengthy quotation by TR above indicates, Roosevelt was a man who

believed in both preservation of certain wild things “for their own sake,” and the wise use

of most other objects. Even those special items to be protected he described as “natural

attractions.” What this speech makes clear, however, is that there was far more to TR

than just wise-use/Pinchot-style conservation. There was a deeper side to the

conservation policies of Roosevelt. That side was all but forgotten in the 1920s through

the mid 1940s. A small minority of scholars and fringe public figures rediscovered this

side in the era discussed in the previous chapter. In the era discussed in this chapter,

however, that side exploded back onto the national stage. TR the preservationist was born

again; and to some extent, born for the first time. The new versatility in the image of TR

was instantly exploited. In 1964 conservation was a hot button issue in a political

campaign for the first time and the stakes, as in all campaigns, were high. “Teddy‟s ghost

itself was conjured up by both sides of several questions in 1964.”242 It was not the first

time it happened, not even by both sides concurrently, but what was once an exception

was about to become a rule.

The 1960s and 70s were a turbulent era, remembered for their radical ideologies

and a world beset with great changes (at least, remembered by those that were not having

too much fun at the time). It was a time of controversial events and equally controversial

figures. Historians and the public would tend to agree that overall Lincoln, Washington

and Kennedy were among our good Presidents and Buchanan, Fillmore, and Harding

were among our bad ones. Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Jimmy Carter have been

called great and terrible; they have been reviled and vilified, and portrayed as great

heroes and master statesmen. Gerald Ford, less controversial as a man, was even more

controversial than the others as President; considering that he became both Vice-

President and President without ever receiving a single vote, and then pardoned Richard

Nixon.

242

George F. Gilder and Bruce K. Chapman, The Party That Lost Its Head. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,

1966): 41. This particular book was referring more to TR‟s significance in terms of winning intellectuals

over; the several questions referred to, however, included conservation.

89

Perhaps the Vietnam War, escalating concerns of thermonuclear war, the Civil

Rights Movement or Watergate would be thought of as the seminal event in this period,

but forgetting vanity, let it be said that a different upheaval was occurring at this time that

in many ways encompassed thoughts and actions that would transcend the era and impact

the earth itself more than any previous revolution: the Environmental Revolution. The

science of ecology had been born some years earlier, and Rachel Carson had already

begun to popularize it with her impassioned writings. Kennedy had begun a few of the

programs that would evolve into a federal environmental policy. But it was for

Kennedy‟s successors to truly bring ecology and environmentalism to the White House.

In 1944, Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace wrote that “No one worries about

conserving the air. Why should anyone give a thought to saving the land when there is

plenty of if?”243 He was not being anti-conservationist; in fact, he advocated many

important conservation reforms. At the time, predating environmentalism, air literally

seemed infinite and inviolate by the hand of man. This era saw a revolution in thinking as

to what was a resource and how conservation was bound up in the quality of life for the

average American.

With these green sciences came a fresh new image of Theodore Roosevelt. The

emergent popularity of Carson and the late-Leopold had spurred a renewed interest in the

almost forgotten works of John Muir, and this in turn led to a reawakening of the

friendship between Muir and Roosevelt. As Presidents faced new challenges in their

administrations in the realm of environmental protection, they turned once again to

Roosevelt. Now that the word environmentalist had been invented, it seemed, there was

finally a word worthy of describing Theodore Roosevelt.

Lyndon Baines Johnson

What Kennedy started in his administration came to full flower under Johnson.

Ecological concern was rising and for the first time the historiography includes numerous

mentions of the word “environmentalism.” The movement was still young, however, and

the concern for the esoteric aspects of nature remain superfluous to Johnson‟s other

243

Henry A. Wallace, Democracy Reborn: Selected from the Public Papers and Edited with an

Introduction and Notes by Russell Lord. (New York: Reynal and Hitchcock, 1944): 112.

90

accomplishments.244

One historian‟s only mention of Johnson‟s interaction with the NPS,

for example, is a cynical crack that LBJ donated his home to the Parks; not for the benefit

of the people, but as a tax write off.245

Johnson himself may not have fully realized the

importance of the rise of ecology, but by the end of his administration he understood that

the National Parks represented an opportunity for immortalizing his contributions to the

country and the Great Society he wanted to build. 246

In his recollections of his days as

president, he is his own greatest admirer for his work with the environment in general and

the Parks in particular. History has been slightly more critical and some question whether

or not he can truly be considered an environmental president. In fairness, however, the

ecological movement was the beneficiary of several environmental bills signed by

Johnson and he did create a significant amount of new National Park land in general; in

addition, he made an honest fight for Redwoods National Park specifically.247

The significant thing here is that LBJ represents a paradigm shift in conservation

history. Johnson was very proud of his Parks, celebrated creating new park land during

his last days in office and (for the first time with the only exception of Teddy Roosevelt)

the historiography acknowledges these efforts. For the first time, having established

National Parks was important to a president‟s legacy, and also for the first time was a

president‟s environmental record becoming a measuring stick for assessing the

244

The background information on LBJ is taken from Alfred Steinberg, Sam Johnson’s Boy: A Close-Up of

the President From Texas. (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1968). Ronnie Dugger, The Politician:

The Life and Times of Lyndon Johnson. (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1982). Mitchell Lerner,

ed. Looking Back at LBJ: White House Politics in a New Light. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas,

2005). Philip Reed Rulon, The Compassionate Samaritan: The Life of Lyndon Baines Johnson. (Chicago:

Nelson-Hall, 1981). 245

Robert Dallek, Lyndon B. Johnson: Portrait of a President. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004):

366. 246

For his initial lack of interest see Lyndon B. Johnson, A Time for Action. (New York: Atheneum, 1964).

Sam Houston Johnson, My Brother Lyndon. Ed. by Enrique Hank Lopez. (New York: Cowles Book

Company, 1969). For his own recollection of his work with the NPs, see Johnson, The Vantage Point, 325-

339, 551 and 562. 247

For balanced histories of LBJ that place his conservation accomplishments within the context of his

political strategy, see, Paul K. Conkin, Big Daddy From the Pedernales: Lyndon Baines Johnson. (Boston:

Twayne, 1986): 209, 213, 234-5. Joseph A. Califano, Jr., The Triumph and Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson:

The White House Years. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991): 330 and 338. At the invitation of Nixon,

LBJ later visited Redwoods NP and then went to hear Nixon and family sing him Happy Birthday

accompanied with a mariachi band. This must have been a confusing trip for the former president, but the

author does indicate that both Johnson and Nixon appreciated what the Park meant to Johnson‟s legacy. Irwin Unger and Debi Unger, LBJ: A Life. (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1999): 510-1.

91

administration as a whole.248

Even more than this, it was at this point that monographs

became available specifically linking the president to the environment (once again, TR is

an exception to this rule, but it was only after Johnson that the practice remained

common).249

Johnson‟s efforts on behalf of the environment were part of the larger whole of

his Great Society reforms. This was a series of ambitious government programs that

Johnson would devote a substantial amount of energy endorsing. Like so many before

him, LBJ did not shirk away from using TR to bolster the credentials of his plan. In a

press conference on 27 August 1966, LBJ said many of his programs had their origins

under one of the two Roosevelts. As far as TR went, he said “I am a great admirer of the

contributions he made to the Nation as you can see reflected in our conservation

program.”250 Here, LBJ claimed that his work was both a continuation of, and homage to,

the work of Theodore Roosevelt. Those that knew LBJ knew that he considered TR a

personal hero (both for being a conservationist and a cowboy). Sometimes, those around

LBJ wondered if he was getting as much respect for nature as he claimed and not more of

the militarism of TR. One of LBJ‟s contemporaries claimed that he was trying to Rough

Ride over Vietnam more than he was trying to be like Roosevelt the conservationist.251

In his memoirs, LBJ wrote that he was confident he would be remembered as a

conservation President. He lamented not being able to do more, and recorded that “if

none of the problems had existed that absorbed so much of the time and attention of my

administration” then

I would have been content to be simply a conservation President. My deepest attitudes

and beliefs were shaped by a closeness to the land, and it was only natural for me to think

of preserving it. I wanted to continue the good work begun by Theodore Roosevelt, who

broke through the barrier characterized by Speaker Joe Cannon‟s immortal words: „Not

one cent for scenery.‟ I wanted, as I once expressed it, to leave to future generations “a

248

The University Press of Kansas has a series of books profiling every president; in LBJ‟s edition are the first mentions of National Parks or environmentalism. Vaughn Davis Bornet, The Presidency of Lyndon B.

Johnson. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1983): 137 and 323. 249

This holds true also for those around the President, for an example, see Lewis L. Gould, Lady Bird

Johnson: Our Environmental First Lady. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1988). 250

From George W. Johnson, ed. The Johnson Presidential Press Conferences Volume I. (New York: Earl

M. Coleman Enterprises, 1978): 538. 251

Ronnie Dugger, The Politician: The Life and Times of Lyndon Johnson, The Drive for Power, from the

Frontier to Master of the Senate. (New York: W.W. Norton and Co, 1982): 133-5.

92

glimpse of the world as God really made it, not as it looked when we got through with

it.”252

But, LBJ noted, the world of conservation is different than in Roosevelt‟s day. It “could

no longer be approached in the manner it had been in the time of Teddy Roosevelt.”253 To

Johnson‟s way of thinking, “By the 1960s conservation embraced more than the

preservation of land and the beautification of the countryside.”254 This is extremely

interesting, since it implies that in the era of TR, conservation was a matter concerned

with beautification efforts and land preservation.

In a message to Congress, LBJ declared “A clear stream, a long horizon, a forest

wilderness and open sky- these are man‟s most ancient possessions… In a modern

society, they are his most priceless.”255 These possessions were the legacy of all

Americans, and Johnson applauded “men of vision” like TR and Pinchot for having the

foresight to protect them for future generations.256

Aesthetics and land protection were

indeed part of conservation, but it was hardly the only part; and until Johnson, a marginal

aspect of TR-style conservation in the minds of other Presidents. This is not to say that

Johnson‟s definition of Roosevelt was wrong, but it certainly was different. This

difference is accounted for in the changing times in society that was making a holistic

approach to nature paramount, and downplaying the significance of efficiency for its

sterile and dominating implications.

This was the beginning of the Environmental Era, and LBJ was making an effort

to be remembered as an Environmental President, but there were limits. Whatever

Johnson felt about Theodore Roosevelt, it was not impressed upon many around him.

Lady Bird Johnson, herself well remembered for her work in beautifying the nation,

made no mention of TR‟s conservation work in her memoirs. Neither did Johnson‟s

major advisors feel that TR was an important part of his mindset.257

252

Johnson, Vantage Point, 336. 253

Ibid., 336-7 254

Ibid. 255

Presidential Message to Congress, 8 March 1968, reprinted in Frank, E. Smith, General Editor.

Conservation in the United States: A Documentary History. Vol. III: Land and Water, 1900-1970. (New

York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1971): 758. Interestingly, on page 746, the editor notes that this speech

marked a “shift in emphasis” in conservation thinking in the 20th century.

256 Ibid.

257 Lady Bird. Johnson, A White House Diary. (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970). Goldman,

Tragedy of LBJ: lots of references to TR, but none relevant to conservation; author is the special consultant

93

Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford

In the Nixon administration so began the era in which environmental policy was

ubiquitous in politics. Presidents were judged by how well they treated the environment

and passions ran high on every side of the issue. This is all not to say that Nixon was

fully convinced of the importance to his legacy of conservation matters.258

Vietnam and

Watergate hung heavily like the Sword of Damocles over Nixon and his legacy. Nixon

did in fact seem to sense this and made speeches about the environment a recurring

theme, if not the motif, of his pubic addresses, hoping that a positive environmental

record may leave a more favorable impression of his administration in the history books.

For instance, he gave a speech about the value of the National Parks to society during the

1968 campaign season. In the final assessment, Nixon was a friend of the environment,

though perhaps not environmentalists.259

Nixon is also the focus of environmental history

and even his major critics are forced to include the many accomplishments including

fighting to protect Everglades National Park, enlarging the nation‟s wilderness lands and

signing a great deal of environmental protection legislation.260

The historiography takes on a few interesting twists in the Nixon era. These

matters came up in earlier biographies, but it was after JFK that they became the rule as

to LBJ. George Christian, The President Steps Down: A Personal Memoir of the Transfer of Power. (New

York: Macmillan, 1970): among others, this author questioned how genuine he was in these efforts. George

Christian, an advisor to LBJ, suggested that Johnson set aside very few acres compared to the millions

suggested as a result of friction between him and Secretary Udall, which in turn was a result of Udall

releasing press information on new parklands before Johnson had made an official decision, see pages 241-

2. In his memoirs, Johnson boasted of the land he set aside for permanent protection. He said he could have

set aside 7 million acres, but that he thought it would be too much without the consent of Congress so he

set aside 300,000 acres instead; see, Johnson, Vantage Point, 562. This does not detract from the good deed

that Johnson did in setting aside the 300,000 acres, but does rather fly in the face of his declaration that he

was taking after TR, since the Rough Rider President often flew in the face of Congress to put aside land,

and never considered anything too much. 258

For some of Nixon‟s writings with nothing on the environment, see Richard Nixon, Leaders. (New

York: Warner Books, 1982). For a sign of his uncertainty on the matter, see also Richard Nixon, RN: The

Memoirs of Richard Nixon. (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1978): 533. 259

For Nixon‟s speech, see Richard Nixon, Nixon Speaks Out: Major Speeches and Statements by Richard

M. Nixon in the Presidential Campaign of 1968. (New York: Nixon-Agnew Campaign Committee, 1968):

210-16. On his environmental policy, see Michael A. Genovese, The Nixon Presidency: Power and Politics

in Turbulent Times. (New York: Greenwood Press, 1990). The background of his environmental

accomplishments is derived from Jonathan Aiken, Nixon: A Life. (Washington D.C.: Regnery Publishing,

1993): 395 and 398. 260

James Rathlesberger, ed. Nixon and the Environment: The Politics of Devastation. (New York: A

Village Voice Book, 1972): 118-21.

94

opposed to the exception; naturally, these deal with environmental policies. For one, a

fascinating little trick crops up in the literature about Richard Nixon. The strategy was

omitting any discussion of the environmental legacy of the man to build a straw man

opponent to attack at every level. Unbalanced histories are common, but this habit of

completely ignoring the environmental politics of a president simply to further an attack

became standard operating procedure in the Nixon era when passions were especially

high. In truth, it did happen at least once to Johnson, but examples pile up for Nixon. The

Watergate President also suffered the indignity of having his motives questioned at every

turn.261

One historian suggests that although Nixon did not fight for environmental laws,

he did at least understand their importance and the popularity it would gain him if he took

credit for it. Another author postulates that Nixon‟s “motives were far from pure” but

allows that he “was arguably the greenest president ever to occupy the White House.”262

It seems that the right thing done for the wrong reason is still the right thing.

Richard Nixon happened to be a huge fan of Theodore Roosevelt. He enjoyed

drawing parallels between himself and TR and loved quoting him. In a speech of 8

August 1968, he told a crowd that the majority of Americans “Like Theodore Roosevelt,

they know that this country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless it is a

good place for all of us to live in.”263 Thus, he committed himself to pursuing Roosevelt‟s

goal to make this a good country for everyone to live in. This is not to say that he always

admired everything Roosevelt. Certainly, Nixon was not one who would be comfortable

tramping through the woods with the hearty likes of a John Muir, but he still admired the

first Roosevelt and emulated him in his style as Commander- in-Chief. Most commonly,

Nixon expressed his feelings in his liberal use of Roosevelt as a source of quotations. “In

the Arena” were perhaps Nixon‟s favorite three words in the English language when in

that order. The quotation about the man in the arena, taking his licks while others look on

and criticize, occurred twice in his memoirs and in several of Nixon‟s other published

261

Marvin E. Gettleman and David Mermelstein, eds. The Great Society Reader: The Failure of American

Liberalism. (New York: Random House, 1967). 262

Frederick Rowe Davis, The Man Who Saved Sea Turtles: Archie Carr and the Origins of Conservation

Biology. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007): 295. Quote from Ted Steinberg, Down To Earth:

Nature’s Role in American History. 2nd

ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009): 251. 263

Rick Perlstein, ed. Richard Nixon: Speeches, Writings, Documents. (Princeton: Princeton University

Press, 2008): 146-7.

95

books.264

Nixon was among our most prolific ex-Presidents and left behind him a wealth

of increasingly rambling works of literature; each a blend of autobiography and political

philosophy. He often expressed a kinship with TR on many issues, although seldom on

conservation. Similarly, he frequently held TR up as a paragon of one virtue or another,

but usually not on conservation.265

He did not always think of him in terms of conservation, but when he did, it

reflected both the times and the man. Nixon was originally concerned that environmental

activism may have been a passing fad, but he ultimately decided to pursue it with “the

strenuous slogans of Theodore Roosevelt.”266 In a campaign speech in 1968, Nixon

commented that

Today, more than ever, the words “natural resources” have a double meaning. They refer

not only to the riches with which we have been so abundantly blessed for our economic

and technologic advantage, but to these resources as they exist for our psychological and

spiritual advantage…. At the turn of the century, President Theodore Roosevelt inspired

the American people to support public programs to protect and wisely use the resources

of this country. These programs directed the nation to plan and look forward to future

needs and future generations…. This is the time for a new commitment.267

A new commitment, Nixon said, to the principles of wise use and spiritual advantage,

laid out by Theodore Roosevelt six decades earlier. This speech reflected a new,

hybridized, image of Roosevelt that would persist to the present day; a mix of Pinchot-

264

For example, the last section of his collection of campaign speeches was titled “In the Arena,” see Nixon, Nixon Speaks Out. Other obvious examples abound in Richard Nixon, In the Arena: A Memoir of

Victory, Defeat, and Renewal. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990). 265

Nixon, Memoirs, 109, 806, 1086 are all good examples of Nixon expressing a connection to TR. TR is

held as a paragon of leadership and widely quoted in Nixon, Leaders, 345. Roosevelt figures prominently

also in Nixon, In The Arena. Roosevelt is also quoted, again, not on conservation, in Richard Nixon, Seize

the Moment: America’s Challenge in a One-Superpower World. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992):

288. Almost in all of Nixon‟s works is TR figured, or at least quoted. Two exceptions to this would be Richard Nixon, 1999: Victory Without War. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988). And Richard Nixon,

Beyond Peace. (New York: Random House, 1994). Surprisingly, the only mention of TR in the published

Nixon press conferences is as a VP that became a great president; like Nixon himself, he would seem to

suggest. See, George W. Johnson, ed. The Nixon Presidential Press Conferences. (New York: Earl M.

Coleman Enterprises, 1978): 279. 266

William Safire, Before the Fall: An Inside View of the Pre-Watergate White House. (Garden City:

Doubleday and Co, 1975): 553. 267

Originally published in Conservation News, 15 October 1968, reprinted in Richard Nixon, Nixon on the

Issues. (New York: Nixon-Agnew Campaign Committee, 1968): 164-5. Interestingly, this book has an

entire chapter devoted to Conservation issues. Again, Nixon was not the first in this respect to make

conservation a key campaign issue, but he set a standard that became customary even after he was cast

aside in disgrace.

96

style resource utilization and Muir-style reverence for nature. Johnson had come close,

but Nixon was the first President to paint TR in this way in his public rhetoric. Strange,

perhaps, that a man thought of so poorly by history would be the first to restore a

historical balance to the conservation legacy of Roosevelt.268

In an address on CBS Radio on 18 October 1968, Nixon in many ways ushered in

the height of the environmental era and the modern image of Theodore Roosevelt the

Conservationist. Nixon said to his listeners that “We need lumber to build up our homes;

but we also need untouched forest to refresh our spirit…. We need rivers for commerce

and trade; but we also need clean rivers to fish in and sit by.” This combination of

conservation and preservation was, by Nixon‟s word, going to become federal policy.

And from where did the impetus for this start? With none other than Theodore Roosevelt,

who “called upon the American people to preserve the natural heritage.” In the address,

Nixon declared that he was the man to continue the great works of TR and “renew that

call to bring to programs of conservation the techniques of the seventies.” Like so many

before him, Nixon claimed that his policies would be in line with the desires of

Roosevelt; but unlike his forbears, he was combining utilitarianism and aesthetics from

the beginning of the argument, as though they were one and the same. The policies he

was advocating (that derived he said, from TR) were a blend of traditional resource

protection with new National Parks and enhanced funding for the creation and upkeep of

urban green spaces.269

Nixon also impressed upon those around him how he felt about TR

and the image he believed TR had, and which he wanted to emulate. One of Nixon‟s

speech writers recalled that Nixon had great admiration for TR, which ultimately helped

him decide to add conservation issues to his campaign.270

268

For a monograph which focuses on a similar theme, see Rathlesberger, Nixon and the Environment. 269

Reprinted in Nixon, Nixon Speaks Out, 210-2; Nixon‟s environmental policies are laid out on 212-6. 270

Safire, Before the Fall, 104. On page 688, the author writes that once Nixon was wondering which

Presidents would be remembered. Nixon guessed it would be the ones who did something. Nixon had said,

“Jackson fought the banks. Lincoln fought the war. Cleveland fought the Congress, and Teddy Roosevelt

fought everything… What they all did mattered to history.” As an historian, its nice to know that the Great Men of which we write take the time to think about us. It was not universal that those around Nixon sensed

any kind of connection between Nixon, TR and conservation however. Nixon‟s Chief of Staff, H.R. Haldeman recorded in his diary several conversations with Nixon where TR is mentioned in relation to

topics such as public relations or the Nobel Peace Prize, but never conservation. See, H.R. Haldeman, The

Haldeman Diaries: Inside the Nixon White House. (New York: G.P. Putnam‟s Sons, 1994): 125, 151, 168, 576. There is no mention of TR whatsoever in Kissinger‟s memoirs, not surprising considering that

Kissinger‟s focus was foreign policy, but worth noting since he was such a close associate of the President.

97

More significantly than just painting a picture of TR to help to sell his policies,

Nixon painted a picture of TR that had something past Presidents lacked: a touch of

reality. To say that any President‟s image of TR was a lie, would itself be a lie; but Nixon

gave a more rounded and nuanced account of the goals of Roosevelt. On 29 May 1969,

Nixon announced the creation of the Environmental Quality Council and Citizens‟

Advisory Committee on Environmental Quality. The cumbersome names lacked

creativity, but the thought was there. In the statement, Nixon quoted TR when he wrote:

“The conservation of our natural resources and their proper use constitute the

fundamental problem which underlies almost every other problem of our national life,”

Theodore Roosevelt said in 1907. When men talked about conservation in his time, they

usually singled out the wildlands, plant and animal life, and valuable minerals, for in

these areas they saw the threat of scarcity. Resources such as the air or the water or the

countryside itself were of less concern, for the supply and the quality of such things

seemed invulnerable.271

Nixon believed that TR started important work, but that it was horse and buggy thinking

by then. Surprisingly, the inclusion of concern for wildlands, first on Nixon‟s list of TR-

style conservation, was omitted from the legacy of TR by Presidents from Taft to

Eisenhower. Nixon, then, in essence was trying to place himself as the TR of the 1970s.

He claimed that TR and associates “would be most surprised” by the modern threats to

the environment. Nixon concluded the speech with a very Progressive Era endorsement

of the soothing, paradoxical balm of technology that could have come straight from the

mouth of TR:

The deterioration of the environment is in large measure the result of our inability to keep

pace with progress. We have become victims of our own technological genius. But I am

confident that the same energy and skill which gave rise to these problems can also be

marshaled for the purpose of conquering them. Together we have damaged the

environment and together we can improve it.272

See, Henry Kissinger, White House Years. (Boston: Little, Brown and Co, 1979). Fun note, in his

resignation speech, Nixon quoted TR which historian Edmund Morris wrote was “Apropos of absolutely nothing” but it did inspire the historian to pursue writing a teleplay of TR. See, Edmund Morris, Dutch: A

Memoir of Ronald Reagan. (New York: Random House, 1999): 388-9. 271

Nelson Poynter, ed. Nixon: The First Year of His Presidency. (Washington D.C.: Congressional

Quarterly, 1970): 106-A. The EQC was to be a Cabinet level body; the CZCEQ would be chaired by

Laurance S. Rockefeller, famed philanthropist and conservationist. 272

Ibid., 107-A.

98

Richard Nixon‟s successor was Gerald Ford, the lovable Speaker of the House-

cum-Vice President-cum-President. Ford is a short and rather bland caveat in between

Nixon and Carter in terms of environmental history. In many ways, his policies and

practices are more reminiscent of those in the Eisenhower era than in the Post-Nixon

era.273

Ford, having a better sense of humor than most in his office, did comment about

1976 that if TR would be remembered for carrying a big stick then Carter would be for

carrying a flyswatter; otherwise, he seldom invoked the name of Roosevelt.274

In one

biography, the only mention of nature is the comment that during the Ford years

“Environmental policy received short shrift.”275 It would seem that this could also be said

of the practice of using Roosevelt‟s name to further an environmental policy.

James “Jimmy” Carter

As the Environmental Movement reached full speed, the issue of the environment

became a central theme for national politics and Carter was among the great champions.

More land was put aside for National Parks during Jimmy Carter‟s administration than

during every other administration combined; legislative efforts reached new heights from

the White House to enact far-reaching environmental legislation. 276

In his own written

accounts, he knew that what he had done for preserving the nation‟s remaining wild

places in particular would be looked upon favorably by future generations and he was

deservedly proud of what he had accomplished. Carter was liberal with the praise and had

kind things to say for Grant, TR and Nixon for what they had done for the Parks and the

environment, although he has nothing but contempt for George W. Bush‟s attitude

towards nature. When all was said and done, Carter believed that his efforts in Alaska

(where the majority of his park land was created) would go down as “one of the great

273

The background on Ford, as well as the impression that Ford was not overly concerning himself with

conservationist matters comes from John Robert Greene, Gerald R. Ford: A Bibliography. (Westport:

Greenwood Press, 1994): 78. See also, Yanek Mieczkowski, Gerald Ford and the Challenges of the 1970s.

(Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2005). For Ford‟s assessment, which follows this line as well, see Gerald R. Ford, A Time to Heal: The Autobiography of Gerald R. Ford. (New York: Harper and

Row, 1979). 274

Ford, A Time To Heal, 428. 275

John Robert Greene, The Presidency of Gerald R. Ford. (Lawrence, University Press of Kansas, 1995):

85. 276

On these issues, see Peter G. Bourne, Jimmy Carter: A Comprehensive Biography from Plains to

Postpresidency. (New York: Scribner, 1997). Burton I. Kaufman and Scott Kaufman, The Presidency of

James Earl Carter. 2nd

revised ed. (Lawrence: University of Kansas, 2006).

99

conservation laws of all time,” and he was glad to have gotten it through before the

advent of anti-environmental administrations like Reagan and Bush II.277

Carter, along with Johnson and Nixon are identified as environmental presidents.

This was a considerable rarity in the White House and was a godsend considering that the

wild places of the country were about to enter quite a dry spell when Carter left office.278

Unlike Nixon, who did it often, Carter did not compare himself to TR very frequently. He

believed that TR was a good example to follow as President: what one should do with the

Bully Pulpit, and what one should not do in Panama.279

One important aspect of the

written works of Carter is that he is the first President to ever write about John Muir

outside of the context of TR. Muir was all but forgotten by Presidents for most of the 20th

Century, but Carter noted that he enjoyed reading the writings of Muir (and Thoreau) as a

young boy.280

There is at least one instance, however, in which Carter places his work

squarely in line with the work Roosevelt would have wanted him to do. In a book,

Endangered Values, Carter wrote about his great contribution to conservation in America

by setting aside millions of acres for National Parks in Alaska (creating the first NPs

there since what is now Denali was created under Woodrow Wilson). The struggle

entailed and the values intertwined in that fight had a venerable pedigree. “The first

national park, Yellowstone, was established during the administration of Ulysses S.

Grant. Theodore Roosevelt and his successors expanded the system, and Richard Nixon

signed legislation setting high purity standards for air and water.”281 This was the

progression Carter followed right up to his own contribution.

277

Jimmy Carter, Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis. (New York: Simon and Schuster,

2005): 164 and 168-9. Jimmy Carter, An Outdoor Journal: Adventures and Reflection. New Ed.

(Fayetteville: The University of Arkansas Press, 1994). Quote from Douglas Brinkley, The Unfinished

Presidency: Jimmy Carter’s Journey Beyond The White House. (New York: Viking, 1998: 26). 278

Samuel P. Hays, Explorations in Environmental History. (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press,

1998): 383. 279

On Panama, see Jimmy Carter, Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President. (Toronto: Bantam Books, 1982).

On the Bully Pulpit, see Wesley G. Pippert, ed. The Spiritual Journey of Jimmy Carter: In His Own Words.

(New York: Macmillan, 1978): 102. For a case of Carter not mentioning TR in any capacity, a rarity in this

era, see Jimmy Carter, Turning Point: A Candidate, a State, and a Nation Come of Age. (New York: Times

Books, 1992). 280

Carter, Outdoor Journal, 8. 281

Carter, Our Endangered Values, 164.

100

Contemporaries

The era under consideration here was, like the previous one, a time of great

transition. The Environmental Era may have been in full swing, but not every one was

hopping on the band wagon. Many still held to traditional definitions of conservation and

concomitant views of Theodore Roosevelt. One US Senator described conservation as the

program undertaken by Roosevelt and Pinchot to protect forest resources against the

exploiting grasp of the timber barons.282

This definition, accurate albeit wrought with

omissions, would be expected to be found in any era. No discussions of spiritual

rejuvenation or ecologic responsibility hint that it was muttered after the beginning of the

Ecological Era. There were still many who preferred to see the past as utterly distinct

from the present. This is, of course, not to say that these people were necessarily wrong,

it is simply that they preferred to take a traditional view of the legacy of Theodore

Roosevelt and continued to view him as a Pinchot-style conservationist, omitting the

Muir-esque side of his history. Senator Albert Gore, father of the later Vice-President,

wrote that, “We have come a long way in our thinking about national natural resources

since the days of Theodore Roosevelt.”283 And indeed we had. These traditionalists

carried on the vision of a President concerned with resource conservation and forestry

that had persisted for decades, while others slowly began to change that image.

For one thing, not everyone‟s ideas of conservation in the Environmental Era

included TR at all. In Barry Goldwater‟s highly partisan account of “Saving the Earth” in

a chapter of a book on the environment, he heaps praise upon Nixon and other

contemporary Republicans for their legislative efforts. At the same time, he derides

Democrats for being all rhetoric and no action. The twist is, even though TR was a

Republican, he goes entirely unmentioned in these pages.284

This would seem to be more

the exception as opposed to the rule, however. Robert Kennedy, the other Kennedy

282

Mark O. Hatfield, Not Quite So Simple. (New York: Harper and Row, 1968): 128. 283

Albert Gore, The Eye of the Storm: A People’s Politics for the Seventies. (New York: Herder and

Herder, 1970): 105; though it should be noted that on page 90 he uses the terms conservation and

preservation interchangeably, so even this may be a sign of changing perceptions of TR. Other traditional

interpretations of TR include Smith, Conservation in the US, Vol 3: a collection of documents that includes

notes on the relationship of TR and Pinchot, but no mention of Muir whatsoever. An image of TR as

reclamationist, rather than anything more, can also be seen in the recollections of another US Senator, see

Clinton P. Anderson, Outsider in the Senate: Senator Clinton Anderson’s Memoirs. (New York: World

Publishing, 1970): 238. 284

Barry Goldwater, The Conscience of a Majority. (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1970): 216-22.

101

dynamo cut down before his time, associated TR with Thoreau: hardly a stretch today,

but quite a surprise after so many decades of Thoreau being a nonentity outside of certain

literary circles.285

A future Senator, who was a delegate at the 1964 Republican National

Convention, displayed a shifting ethic when he declared that the ideology of certain right-

wing extremists in the party included a “contempt for our environment [that] would have

disgusted Theodore Roosevelt.”286

As in the previous era, scholars produced works on the natural resources of the

country. Unlike in the previous era, John Muir became an important part of the story. One

documentary history of conservation included three entries by Muir while only one each

from Roosevelt and Pinchot.287

Other scholars were rediscovering Muir but keeping his

work and legacy separate from that of TR. In most ways, Pinchot and TR were still a

team and Muir was emerging as a separate entity to the story. Still, the influence was

unmistakable. TR was being seen as a preservationist driven to stop degradation, who

would be saddened by the destruction of nature going on in the modern era.288

285

Jack Newfield, Robert Kennedy: A Memoir. (New York: E.P. Dutton and Co, 1969): 48. The author was

a journalist and friend of RFK. 286

Edward W. Brooke, Bridging the Divide: My Life. (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2007):

107-8. This blend of old and new perceptions of Roosevelt extended into the popular realm in this era as

well. In three different articles in National Geographic, Pinchot was described as TR‟s partner in conservation, Muir was marked as the inspiration for Roosevelt‟s conservation work and Muir and Pinchot

were placed at opposite ends of the debate. All three articles, though seemingly a paradox, are all quite

correct, but each reflected a markedly different view of the conservationist ideas of TR. See, Peter White,

T. “This Land of Ours- How Are We Using It?” Vol. 150, no. 1 (July 1976): 20-67. John J. Putnam,

“Timber: How Much is Enough” Vol. 145, no. 4 (April 1974): 485-511. Harvey Arden, “John Muir‟s Wild America” Vol. 143, no. 4 (April 1973): 457. 287

Robert McHenry, with Charles van Duren, eds. A Documentary History of Conservation in America.

(New York: Praeger, 1972). 288

This argument is made explicitly in Ann Sutton and Myron Sutton, The Wilderness World of the Grand

Canyon: “Leave it as it is.” (Philadelphia, J.B. Lippincott, 1971): 51, 173 and 200. On Pinchot and TR still

being seen as a natural team and Muir being a distinct entity, see Henry Clepper, ed. Origins of American

Conservation: Edited for the Natural Resources Council of America. (New York: Ronald Press, 1966): 26,

39, 146-63 and 172. See also, Henry Clepper, ed. Leaders of American Conservation. (New York: The

Ronald Press, 1971): 230-1 and 259. And Philip O. Foss, Conservation in the United States: A

Documentary History: Recreation. (New York: Chelsea House, 1976): 159 and 255. For a book that

integrates Muir into TR‟s conservation policies in a marginal way, see Peter Wild, Pioneer

Conservationists of Western America. (Missoula: Mountain Press, 1979): 37 and 42. TR also saw his fame

rise in the context of the National Parks, as he was often the only political figure mentioned in books about

them. For an example, see William Matthews III, A Guide to the National Parks: Their Landscape and

Geology. (Garden City: Doubleday, 1973): 332. In broader histories, Muir was still a non-entity, and

Pinchot was being pushed into the background as his era receded into the past. For an example of a book

with no mention of Muir and passing mention of Pinchot (despite significant focus on TR), see Forrest

McDonald, The United States in the Twentieth Century: Volume I: 1900-1920. (Reading: Addison-Wesley,

102

What Was Happening At This Time?

The 1960s were a revolutionary time. Perhaps the most significant transformation

of the way society looked at the world was ecosystem theory coming to the masses. For

the interested few, texts were available with complicated scientific explanations of

ecosystem theory with a focus on its impact on biological management and

conservation.289

If the formulas did not stump them, the totally unhelpful graphs usually

would. Someone had to get the idea to the masses, even if in a watered down form. Over

the course of the 1960s and 70s the experiments went from mostly practical to ever more

theoretical and by the 1980s a grand ecosystem theory had emerged.290

All the while,

with each little step forward, the implications of the ecosystem were filtering out to

society.

Environmentalists were becoming more powerful as the 1960s started. John F.

Kennedy appointed Stewart Udall Secretary of the Interior mostly to appease the vocal

minority of conservationists in the Democratic Party. Nevertheless, the movement was

still very young. As discussed in the previous chapter, in 1963, President Kennedy went

on a tour “to stress the value of the conservation ethic… often invoking the spirit of

Theodore Roosevelt…” but it did not draw the crowds or cheers JFK was accustomed to.

JFK got sick of that and began adding other issues into his speeches on the tour.291

Within a few years, though, the relatively unknown field of ecology would become one

of the provocative issues that Presidents would flock to. The change had started under

Kennedy, but the full shift in the societal position would not occur until Lyndon Baines

Johnson was in the Oval Office.

The change was a chilling, yet beautifully lyrical, glimpse at a dystopian future in

which the Earth has been transmogrified into a nightmarish hell-scape, devoid of life and

1968). Also, see Oscar Theodore Barck, Jr. and Nelson Manfred Blake. Since 1900: A History of the United

States in Our Times. 4th

ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1965, originally, 1947). 289

For example, see M.B. Usher, Biological Management and Conservation Ecology: Ecological Theory,

Application and Planning. (London: Chapman and Hall, 1973). 290

Stephen Bocking, Ecologists and Environmental Politics: A History of Contemporary Ecology. (New

Haven: Yale University Press, 1997): 200-05. 291

Lewis J. Paper, The Promise and the Performance: The Leadership of John F. Kennedy. (New York:

Crown Publishers, 1975): 239-40. On Udall‟s appointment, see Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life: John F.

Kennedy, 1917-1963. (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2003): 319-20.

103

populated by the damned, condemned to loneliness and inevitable extinction. Rachel

Carson‟s Silent Spring was the Uncle Tom’s Cabin of ecology, and it opened the eyes of

the nation. In combination with scientific specialists, Rachel Carson contributed to what

Stewart Udall would call the “Era of Ecology.” A similar book actually came out several

months ahead of Carson‟s, but it was full of cutting edge scientific information and

inaccessible aspects of the as-yet-not-fully-formulated ecosystem theory. The book was

too complicated and it flopped.292

It was the majesty of Carson‟s words in conjunction

with the validity of her argument that won over the masses.

Though Kennedy was, perhaps, the most famous man to read Carson‟s magnum

opus, it was Lyndon Baines Johnson that first made a major step forward in acting upon

it.293

Johnson may not have been the ally that the environmentalists wanted, but he did

sign a fair amount of legislation in support of the cause and one historian claimed that

besides the space program, the main legacy of the LBJ years was “the first critical

turnaround in attitudes toward the environment.”294 LBJ went further and made adding to

the National Parks one of the focuses of his last days in office and took an extreme

amount of pride in what he had done for the environment by the end of his

administration, even going so far as to call the Redwoods National Park legislation “the

capstone bill of the 1960s.”295

Richard Nixon was the President at the height of the Environmental Movement

and in many ways he embodied the best aspects of it. His efforts came on the heels of the

ecological revolution, which was the social outcry to act on what scientists had

discovered about the interconnectivity and interdependency of life on Earth. Historians,

at least those without a vendetta, record Nixon as a great friend to the environment who

292

For a discussion of this theme, see G. Calvin Mackenzie and Robert Weisbrot, The Liberal Hour:

Washington and the Politics of Change in the 1960s. (New York: The Penguin Press, 2008): 198-203. 293

Some historians tend to critically under evaluate the political aspects of this movement. For an example

of an otherwise excellent account of the environmental movement that gives too little of the political

dimension, see Roderick Frazier Nash, The Rights of Nature: A History of Environmental Ethics. (Madison:

The University of Wisconsin Press, 1989). Others place the origins of the movement too early, see for

example Neil M. Maher, Nature’s New Deal: The Civilian Conservation Corps and the Roots of the

American Environmental Movement. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). For an insider

perspective on the impact of Silent Spring on the era and JFK especially, see Stewart C. Udall, The Quit

Crisis and the Next Generation. (Salt Lake City: Peregrine Smith Books, 1985): 200-11. 294

Conkin, Big Daddy From the Pedernales, 234-5. 295

Joseph A. Califano, Jr., The Triumph and Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson: The White House Years. (New

York: Simon and Schuster, 1991): 338. For Johnson‟s self-assessment, see Johnson, The Vantage Point,

551 (for quote), 325, 336-9 and 562-3.

104

was ahead of his time in his sincere desire to protect the health of America‟s citizens and

the natural world on which they relied.296

Nixon was a master at seeing the environment

in terms of cost-benefit analysis and the rise of ecological science was “evolving toward

an economic outlook” where scientific theory concerning the environment would

recapitulate “the old agronomic conservation.”297 Ecosystem theory taught us that we

simply could not afford not to spend money on the environment.

It was this awakening that made the first Earth Day such a rousing success on 22

April 1970. Twenty million Americans took part and gave voice to a movement that had

finally coagulated into a visible force. Thanks to Carson, the people were beginning to

demand more of their leaders than simply resource conservation. The Environmental

Movement has many founders, and different historians rank Johnson and Nixon

differently when assessing them from an environmental standpoint; but it cannot be

denied that Silent Spring opened Pandora‟s Box and that the people would never be able

to live in total ignorance of their environment again. The consequence was wildlife

protection programs built upon the foundation of ecosystem theory rather than on

disjointed efforts to save individual species, and this had far ranging implications on the

National Parks. As the idea of the wider environment began to take hold, concern

cropped up for matters like insulation in the Parks, undreamt of mere years earlier.298

Slowly but surely, biology and ecology, like an invasive species, was starting to establish

itself in the National Park concept. Guides that once would have had nothing more than

geology under the title Science suddenly had a few paragraphs on life sciences, and not

just a list of threatened or unique individual species, and this was just for the already

established Parks. Future Parks would have a whole new theoretical conception behind

their justification.299

296

Jonathan Aikens, Nixon: A Life. (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 1993): 398. For a critical

appraisal of Nixon and the environment, see Rathlesberger, Nixon and the Environment. 297

Donald Worster, Nature’s Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas. 2nd

ed. (New York: Cambridge

University Press, 1994, originally 1977 by Sierra Club Books): 290. 298

For a general history of the changes in environmental laws in this time period, see Samuel P. Hays,

Beauty, Health, and Permanence: Environmental Politics in the United States, 1955-1985. (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1987). 299

For an example, see Matthews III, A Guide To The National Parks, 39-45.

105

Conclusions

So what? That is the question in the forefront of the issue. Ecosystem theory had

come to the masses. Presidents were acting upon it for their political lives. Historians

were bringing the environment into their methodology. Muir was back. What it all means

is that society had undergone a rapid and profound change (what Kuhn would

undoubtedly call a paradigm shift) and the image of Roosevelt was taken along for the

ride. Whole new fields of science were created in this era and new opinions were formed

about how society should interact with the environment.300

As the great conservationist,

TR was a natural choice for poster boy for this movement. The image of TR that had

been for decades focused on wise-use methods of conservation was now returning to the

hybridization of utilitarianism and aestheticism that TR had tried to maintain in his

lifetime. Perhaps some were playing fast and loose with the whole truth of the matter, but

it would seem that a more complete picture of TR had come to light in this more than in

any previous era.

Now, a reader may want to accuse this scholar of writing a progressivist history in

which incremental changes in an image lead irrevocably up to a modern idea. If this

paper ended in 1980, then little defense could be offered to this accusation, but

fortunately, time marches on. In the next era, ideas that had emerged (or reemerged) in

this era, were taken to new levels and Roosevelt‟s image underwent yet another period of

flux in which, more than ever before, he would be a validation for environmental polices

used by politicians; this image also falling within the parameters proscribed by the

scholars of the day.

300

Environmental Geology, for example, did not even exist before the 1970s, but in three years from

invention was a full-fledged field with textbooks and journals. See the preface in Ronald W. Tank, Focus

on Environmental Geology: A Collection of Case Histories and Readings from Original Sources. 2nd

ed.

(New York: Oxford University Press, 1976).

106

The great challenge of the twenty-first century is to raise people everywhere to a decent

standard of living while preserving as much of the rest of life as possible. Science has

provided this part of the argument for the ethic: the more we learn about the biosphere,

the more complex and beautiful it turns out to be. Knowledge of it is a magic well; the

more you draw from it, the more there is to draw. Earth, and especially the razor-thin film

of life enveloping it, is our home, our wellspring, our physical and much of our spiritual

sustenance.

-E.O. Wilson, The Creation

A thing of beauty is a joy forever:

Its loveliness increases; it will never

Pass into nothingness; but still will keep

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

-John Keats, Opening Lines From Book 1 of Endymion

107

CONCLUSION

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE MODERN ERA

I need hardly say how heartily I sympathize with the purposes of the Audubon Society. I would

like to see all the harmless wild things, but especially all birds protected in every way… Spring

would not be spring without bird song, any more than it would be spring without buds and

flowers, and I only wish that besides protecting the songsters, the birds of the grove, the orchard,

the garden and the meadow, we could also protect the birds of the seashore and the wilderness…

The destruction of the wild pigeon and the Carolina paraquet [sic] has meant a loss as severe as if

the Catskills or the Palisades were taken away. When I hear of the destruction of a species I feel

just as if all the works of some great writer had perished; as if we had lost all instead of only part

of Polybius or Livy.

-Theodore Roosevelt301

So history is basically kind to American Presidents. A model, I think… would be Teddy

Roosevelt. He comes out of the same elitist background that I do. And he had the same

commitment to the environment that I did, although the rules on hunting have changed

dramatically since he used to shoot with no limits out there in South Dakota, or North Dakota.

-George H.W. Bush302

Introduction

In 1980, Theodore Roosevelt had been dead for over sixty years, and yet his fame

was hardly diminished. Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and two George Bush‟s have passed

through the halls of the Executive Mansion and now a fifth modern president, Barack

Obama, has had his own inauguration parade. These have been the leaders entrusted with

301

Theodore Roosevelt, Letters and Speeches. Ed. by Louis Auchincloss. (New York: New York: Library

of America, 2004): 167. 302

From an interview during a White House Luncheon for Journalists, 31 March 1989 in Jim McGrath, ed.

Heartbeat: George Bush In His Own Words. (New York: Scribner, 2001): 57.

108

making the decisions that guide our society; they have been tasked with managing the

environment in an era where ecology has gone from revolution to science, and they are

the heirs to the name of Theodore Roosevelt in Presidential rhetoric. These five

Presidents, are the next chapter in the history of the image of Theodore Roosevelt, and

they paint a most fascinating picture.

This chapter will analyze how Roosevelt is seen in the context of the modern

environmental concern of the country and the exigencies of the modern Presidents.

Fellow politicians and contemporary scholars play an important part in this story and

form an integral part of the larger whole in understanding the differences between the

image of Roosevelt in the 70s and that which came to predominance in the 1980s and

90s. This epilogue will also provide the opportunity to demonstrate that this thesis is not a

progressivist flow through history arriving at a single unchallenged image that can be

retrospectively applied backwards through time. Measuring past images against today

reveals the differing levels of importance associated with a given issue in conservation

history, but only as far as it can be acknowledged that the modern image itself is forever

in flux.

The Modern Presidents

Ronald Reagan is usually flatly dismissed as “staunchly anti-environmental” and

that is the end of that.303

Reagan, for his part considered himself an environmentalist, but

the evidence is starkly lacking, even in his own memoirs.304

What more can you expect of

a man quoted as saying “trees cause pollution”?305 One thing, however, is certain when it

303 Hal K. Rothman, Blazing Heritage: A History of Wildland Fire in the National Parks. (New York:

Oxford University Press, 2007): 146. Some other works that criticize his environmental policies include

Robin W. Winks, Laurence S. Rockefeller: Catalyst for Conservation. (Washington D.C.: Island Press,

1997): 94. W. Elliot Brownlee and Hugh Davis Graham, eds. The Reagan Presidency: Pragmatic

Conservatism and Its Legacies. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2003): 236-46. It should be pointed

out, however, that the purpose of this thesis is not to criticize the policy choices of Reagan pursuant to

conservation. Indeed, the point is not to assign any value judgment as to whether Reagan was right or

wrong in what he did; or if he perhaps did the wrong thing for the right reason. Rather, the point is to

discuss the manner in which the image of Theodore Roosevelt was utilized by Reagan, and those around

them, and how they defined the cowboy President. 304

On being an environmentalist see Kiron K. Skinner, Annelise Anderson and Martin Anderson., eds.

Reagan: A Life in Letters. (New York: The Free Press, 2003): 350-5. To see the lack of evidence see

Ronald Reagan, The Reagan Diaries. Ed. by Douglas Brinkley. (New York: Harpers Collins, 2007). 305

Quote from Dinesh D‟Souza, Ronald Reagan: How an Ordinary Man Became an Extraordinary Leader.

(New York: The Free Press, 1997): 14. For a book that conveniently ignores his environmental record see

109

comes to Ronald Reagan: he looked to TR as a figure to emulate. TR, the tough-guy

cowboy who thumbed his nose at elites, was exactly the image Reagan went for in his

political life. He often quoted TR and was quick to point out that he held a deep

admiration for him as well.306

Reagan also had something in common with TR that no

other President can boast: they both had the eminent Edmund Morris as a biographer. In

his diary, Reagan noted that he was very pleased to have Morris as his official

biographer, since he loved his book on TR; he only lamented that “I can‟t charge up San

Juan Hill.”307 He wanted to take after TR, and in many ways he did (few brandished a big

stick in foreign policy like Reagan could). Supporters made every effort to legitimize the

link between TR and Reagan, most logical but some far-fetched; one went so far as to

make the ludicrous claim that not only did TR want Hetch Hetchy to be a reservoir, but

that he was a life long enemy of John Muir and his Sierra Club.308

This was a thinly

veiled attempt to justify Reagan‟s incessant problems with the Sierra Club as excused by

presidential precedent. Reagan did take pains to divorce the image of TR the Cowboy

from TR the Conservationist. Whenever Reagan was called upon to give a speech

concerning environmentalism, of which some were quite admirable, Roosevelt‟s name is

completely absent. In an earlier era, Reagan may have been more free to use the name of

TR, since his policies revolved far more around use than protection, but as was made

clear in the previous chapter, there was now a substantial groundswell of support for the

image of TR the Consummate Preservationist; a policy antithetical to Reagan doctrine.309

Despite official silence on the topic, those around Reagan were quick to favorably

compare the current President with TR in terms of conservation. James Watt, the

Peter J. Wallison, Ronald Reagan: The Power of Conviction and the Success of his Presidency.

(Cambridge: Westview Press, 2003). 306

For example, see a letter dated 1972 in Skinner, Reagan: A Life in Letters, 266-7. One historian

suggested that Reagan admired TR since he was the other cowboy President (besides himself). See, Anne

Edwards, The Reagans: Portrait of A Marriage. (New York: St. Martins‟ Press, 2003): 276. 307

Entry dated 5 Nov 1985 in Reagan, The Reagan Diaries, 366. For the finished product, see Edmund

Morris, Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan. (New York: Random House, 1999). 308

Garry Wills, Reagan’s America: Innocents at Home. (Garden City: Doubleday and Co, 1987): 317.

Other historians took a similar, but less idiotic, approach to modifying history. For example, one historian

praised TR for inventing the modern photo-op on his trip to Yosemite NP in 1903 to “dramatize” his commitment to conservation. See, Jane Mayer and Doyle McManus, Landslide: The Unmaking of the

President, 1984-1988. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988): 34. 309

For a speech about environmentalism that stresses the importance of use and the dangers of “locking up” resources, and includes no mention of TR, see Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan Talks to America. (Old

Greenwich: The Devin Adair Co, 1983): 142-51.

110

controversial Secretary of the Interior, contended that the Reagan administration followed

the conservation traditions of Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot. That tradition, he said was

using natural resources wisely for the betterment of the people.310

Watts was not alone in

trying to trace modern Republican conservation to TR; some compared TR and Reagan

as “kindred spirits” who shared a love of the outdoors and rugged individualism.311 At

least one author took it a step further to claim that Reagan admired the “pro-environment

policies” of Theodore Roosevelt and was inspired while Governor of California to follow

in this tradition and pass anti-smog and pollution laws. The author noted, however, that

Reagan opposed any move that would have protected wilderness at the expense of

economic development.312

When Reagan passed the mantle of leadership, it meant succeeding to both his

office and his legacy of new Republican conservatism. This mantle was taken up by a

surprisingly able individual. For George H. W. Bush‟s part, when he was asked about his

role model as President, he responded: “So history is basically kind to American

Presidents.”

A model, I think… would be Teddy Roosevelt. He comes out of the same elitist

background that I do. [Laughter] And he had the same commitment to the environment

that I did, although the rules on hunting have changed dramatically since he used to shoot

with no limits out there in South Dakota, or North Dakota.313

This quote emphasizes a multifaceted view of TR‟s presidency. It is apparent that TR has

lost none of his glamour when it comes to bringing prestige to a President; but, more than

the bully pulpit or the big stick,314

what George Bush associates first and foremost with

TR is the environment. The quip about hunting indicates that Bush understands that there

310

Despite trying to make this connection, Watt‟s policies quickly earned him the ire of environmentalists and caused a great many problems for Reagan. See, William E. Pemberton, Exit with Honor: The Life and

Presidency of Ronald Reagan. (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 1997): 120-1. 311

It was a friend and high ranking member of Reagan‟s administration that compared him and TR. He also noted that Reagan enjoyed reading about TR more than any other President. See, Michael K. Deaver,

Behind the Scenes: In Which the Author Talks About Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan… and Himself. (New York: William Morrow, 1987): 46. For an attempt to claim Pinchot as the origin of modern

Republican conservation, see Lou Cannon, Reagan. (New York: G.P. Putnam‟s Sons, 1982): 369. 312

Part of the argument from Lee Edwards, The Essential Ronald Reagan: A Profile in Courage, Justice,

and Wisdom. (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005). 313

From an interview during a White House Luncheon for Journalists, 31 March 1989 in McGrath,

Heartbeat, 57. 314

These clichés are the focus of Bush‟s Vice-President‟s image of TR. See, Dan Quayle, Standing Firm: A

Vice-Presidential Memoir. (Zondervan: Harper Collins, 1994): 94 and 165.

111

is a difference between the commitments both men felt for nature, but those can be

dismissed as trifling details.

Of course, it‟s important to not overstate the matter. TR meant many things to

many people and Bush did not pigeon hole him into a singular role as conservationist.

Also, unlike Richard Nixon, Bush did not feel compelled to mention TR in every thing he

ever wrote. In Nixon‟s day, TR was the most famous/recent Republican President

(second only to Lincoln) so it was to be expected that he would bring up his illustrious

predecessor often. Bush had Ronald Reagan to bring up (a man whose fame and

popularity among the masses arguably matched Lincoln‟s and easily surpassed

Roosevelt‟s). This, in some ways, adds significance to Bush‟s reference to TR, but it also

explains the occasional dearth.315

This detracts not at all from the dual facts that Bush

hoped to turn out like TR in terms of presidential legacy and that he saw both himself and

TR as environmental and activist Presidents.316

Not many Presidents in the 20th

Century failed to be reelected for a second term,

but George Bush was one of the inauspicious few. He was succeeded by William “Bill”

Clinton, the saxophone-playing come back kid from Arkansas. His Vice-President was Al

Gore, a man whose name has become synonymous with the Global Warming debate. It

would seem that, since George Bush had taken such a hold on TR, that Clinton and Gore

kept a respectful distance during the campaign. Even on the topic of the environment, in

which Bush had gotten so much mileage, Clinton refrained from using the name of TR to

promote his policies.317

After reelection, Clinton repurposed the image of TR and began

315

For examples, TR is not a significant entity in George Bush and Brent Scowcroft. A World Transformed.

(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998). Or, Jeffrey A. Engel, ed. The China Diary of George H. W. Bush: The

Making of a Global President. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008). In another collection, the only

mention of TR is that Bush is reading and enjoying the memoirs of TR. See, George Bush, All the Best, Gg

Bush: My Life in Letters and Other Writings. (New York: Scribner, 1999): 423. Despite her husband‟s interest in TR, Barbara Bush displayed no particular feelings on TR in any context. See, Barbara Bush,

Barbara Bush: A Memoir. (New York: Lisa Drew Book, 1994). And Barbara Bush, Reflections: Life After

the White House. (New York: Lisa Drew Book, 2003). 316

On turning out like TR, see Michael Duffy and Dan Goodgame, Marching in Place: The Status Quo

Presidency of George Bush. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992): 136. On Bush seeing TR as an

environmental President, see Charles Kolb, White House Daze: The Unmaking of Domestic Policy in the

Bush Years. (New York: The Free Press, 1994): 338. 317

For example, see the section on the environment in Bill Clinton and Al Gore, Putting People First: How

We Can All Change America. (New York: Times Books, 1992): 93-9. For a parallel image of Clinton and

TR outside the context of conservation, see James MacGregor Burns and Georgia J. Sorenson, Dead

Center: Clinton-Gore Leadership and the Perils of Moderation. (New York: Lisa Drew Book, 1999). See

112

actively comparing himself to Roosevelt. He hoped others would follow suit as he sought

a promising place in the annals of history.318

To an extent, it worked. One of the White

House correspondents wrote that among Clinton‟s most important accomplishments was

“the greatest conservation of natural resources and public lands since Theodore

Roosevelt.”319

After his term was over, Clinton liked to compare his work to Roosevelt‟s, but he

did not extend his definition of Roosevelt-style conservation much beyond the creation of

National Monuments and protected land. He was proud that he had created three new

National Monuments and placed so much land under federal protection, and in so doing

did his best “to be faithful to Roosevelt‟s conservation ethic and to his admonition that

we should always be taking what he called „the long look ahead‟.”320 This indicates some

small confusion on Clinton‟s part concerning the difference between conservation and

preservation, and is a surprising reversion of Roosevelt‟s image. This sort of confusion

would become common practice throughout this era. It should be stressed that Clinton‟s

image of TR was not wrong. The significant point is that it is starkly different from the

image of TR created by George Bush (which itself was not necessarily wrong). These

two men chose to focus on different aspects of Roosevelt‟s personality and in so doing

created two divergent images of the same man.

Al Gore‟s estimation of Roosevelt was similar to Clinton‟s. Gore once opined that

Roosevelt‟s conservation ethic was “combining the use of needed resources in the short

term with conservation for future generations.”321 Gore claimed that the Clinton

administration followed this ethic and boasted that they had protected as much land as TR

also, John D. Gartner, In Search of Bill Clinton: A Psychological Biography. (New York: St. Martin‟s, 2008). 318

John F. Harris, The Survivor: Bill Clinton in the White House. (New York: Random House, 2005): 242-

3; although this author is not convinced of the parallels. Clinton was not alone in this drive. Newt Gingrich,

particularly in the early years of his career, called himself a “Teddy Roosevelt Republican” and he pursued several conservation initiatives including joining with environmental groups calling for the resignation of

James Watt and supporting legislation to ban oil prospecting on protecting lands in Alaska. See, Steven M.

Gillon, The Pact: Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, and the Rivalry That Defined a Generation. (New York:

Oxford University Press, 2008): 56. 319

Sidney Blumenthal, The Clinton Wars. (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003): 789. 320

Bill Clinton, My Life. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004): 888 and 948; conservation and preservation

are also confused on page 728. 321

Al Gore, The Assault on Reason. (New York: The Penguin Press, 2007): 198. Hillary Clinton, closer to

politics than most First Ladies, did not share the enthusiasm for TR, at least concerning conservation, as no

mention is made of it in Hillary Rodham Clinton, Living History. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003).

113

had. This creates another interesting difference between Bush and Clinton. Whereas Bush

had wanted to be like TR, emulating his conservation work, Clinton and Gore seemed to

be in competition with TR; they were interested in surpassing him, not idolizing him.

The grand confusion outlined above illustrates a sudden uncertainty as to what

precisely Roosevelt‟s legacy was. As has been made apparent in the last several chapters,

the important aspect of TR-style conservation has been perceived to be a commitment to

wise-use of resources and, after 1960, a concern for the protection of certain aesthetically

pleasing scenery. But after the 1980s, the utilitarian aspect of TR was beginning to be

forgotten altogether and what had heretofore been a footnote or, at best, portion, of TR-

style conservation suddenly became the entirety. US Senator Paul Simon wrote a letter,

ostensibly to Clinton, in which he mentioned that TR had led the charge to create the

National Park System.322

Another author of the 1990s defined conservation as the effort

which “pits any human activity, however benign in its ecological effect, against the

natural, non-human world.” Moreover, he claimed that TR and Pinchot championed this

program of defending all public lands from any sort of use or incursion by “private,

human incursion.”323 Even scholars of the time occasionally gaffed. One writer

mentioned the “Grand Canyon and other national parks” that TR created, where in truth

TR made the Grand Canyon a National Monument, which later became a National

Park.324

Like several Presidents before them, both George W. Bush and Barack Obama

described TR as one of their heroes and among their favorite Presidents. Also, like many

322

Paul Simon, We Can Do Better: How to Save America’s Future- An Open Letter to President Clinton.

(Bethesda: National Press, 1994): 235. The idea that TR was the main impetus behind the NPS (actually

created in 1916 under Woodrow Wilson) was a new idea in this era and relatively widespread; it also

became dominant in the image of TR in works not focusing on conservation. For example, see Clyde

Prestowitz, Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions. (New York: Basic

Books, 2003): 114. One author describes TR‟s most enduring accomplishments as the Panama Canal and

the National Park System in Bob Zelnick, Gore: A Political Life. (Washington D.C.: Regnery Publishing,

1999): 342. 323

Richard Caplan and John Feffer, ed. State of the Union 1994: The Clinton Administration and the

Nation in Profile. (Boulder: Westview, 1994): “Achieving Sustainability” by Barry Commoner, 139. Commoner also “explains” that environmentalism keeps in mind the good that human activity can do for the land. In essence, his definitions are the exact opposite of everyone else‟s. To back up his claims about TR and Pinchot, he cites a book he wrote himself. 324

Gail Sheehy, Hillary’s Choice. (New York: Random House, 1999): 273.

114

before him, Bush utilized Roosevelt‟s name in support of his environmental policies.325

Bush, in the days before his inauguration, read a book of quotes by TR and told those

around him that he looked to TR and Reagan as the two role models he would emulate in

the White House.326

Some social commentators were convinced that Bush was inspired

by the Big Stick policy of TR, especially in terms of diplomacy, after reading Edmund

Morris‟ biography of the Cowboy President.327 Following Bush into the White House,

Barack Obama, in his book, referenced TR quite often dealing with issues such as trust-

busting and enforcement of the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. He does not

make any mention of conservation relevant to TR, however.328

TR was a role model for others in this era, such as Senator Al D‟Amato, who

respected TR for being weak in childhood and overcoming that adversity to grow up “to

become a big-game hunter and one of our most outstanding presidents.”329 Joseph

Lieberman also described TR as a hero for his Bull-Moose approach to politics and for

his honesty and integrity.330

On the other hand, other politicians were taking full

advantage of the prestige TR could lend to a candidate‟s environmental credentials. Mitt

Romney once said that one of the greatest Presidents was TR because of “his love for the

land, his conservation.”331 Senator Bill Bradley praised Roosevelt‟s tireless efforts to

protect forests from miners, cattlemen, and timber cutters, and vowed to follow in those

325

Eric Alterman and Mark Green. The Book on Bush: How George W (Mis)leads America. (New York:

Viking, 2004): 5 and 24. These authors feel that Bush‟s actions do not match his deeds when it comes to a TR-like environmental policy. Other authors, on their own, decided that Bush and those in his Cabinet,

were betraying the legacy of TR and Nixon in terms of Republican environmentalism. See, Laura Flanders,

Bushwomen: Tales of a Cynical Species. (London: Verso, 2004): 243. 326

Jacob Weisburg, The Bush Tragedy. (New York: Random House, 2008): 228-9. Karl Rove, an important

figure in the Bush administration, was also said to have considered TR his “patron saint.” See, James Moore and Wayne Slater, The Architect: Karl Rove and The Master Plan For Absolute Power. (New York:

Crown, 2006): 96. 327

Or at least skimming it, added the author. See, Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack. (New York: Simon and

Schuster, 2004): 52. 328

Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream. (New York:

Crown, 2006): 153, 282 and 293. 329

Al D‟Amato, Power, Pasta & Politics: The World According to Senator Al D’Amato. (New York:

Hyperion, 1995): 37. In the Foreword (p.xii) Bob Dole says D‟Amato emulates TR‟s quest for what is right. 330

Joseph I. Lieberman, with Michael D‟Orso. In Praise of Public Life. (New York: Simon and Schuster,

2000): 40 and 52. 331

Quoted in Hugh Hewitt, A Mormon in the White House? (Washington D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 2007):

37-8.

115

fearless footsteps that had created new National Forests in the face of Congressional

opposition.332

In 2000 John McCain was asked why a conservative might act like a liberal. He

responded that it was necessary when it was the right thing to do. He was quoted as

saying “Theodore Roosevelt thought there was a need for national parks; I believe there‟s

a need for campaign finance reform.”333 It should be noted that McCain did not claim that

he believed in national parks, just that TR did (it could also be noted that TR was more a

champion of National Forests than of National Parks); but McCain was using the image

of TR the conservationist to promote his image as a politician concerned with doing what

was right. McCain did often work in favor of the environment, however, and loved to

identify himself with TR. He often called TR his hero and was quoted as saying

“Roosevelt was the Great Reformer, the Great Environmentalist. I think that I adhere

closer to these principles than some of my colleagues.”334 Like the first George Bush,

McCain stuck to an image of TR as preservationist and wanted to emulate that image in

his own political career.

Epilogue

The image of TR used in presidential rhetoric, has undergone many dramatic

changes. It should not require argument to say that TR was a great conservationist; he

was also a great preservationist. His contributions to resource protection, the extension of

the National Forests, Parks, and Monuments, creation of federal animal refuges and

reserves, new laws for protecting resources, and not least his successful efforts (some

without even trying) to popularize the great outdoors; this was what he left to posterity.

332

Bill Bradley, Time Present, Time Past: A Memoir. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996): 220-1. It should

be noted that Bradley conflates TR, Muir, Pinchot and Leopold as all simply conservationists; another sign

of the times and the widespread confusion concerning nuances in conservation philosophy. One shocking

exception to modern politicians using TR to further their environmental credentials is a biography of

Russell E. Train which references TR but not in conservation terms. See, J. Brooks Flippen, Conservative

Conservationist: Russell E. Train and the Emergence of American Environmentalism. (Baton Rouge:

Louisiana State University Press, 2006). 333

Quoted in Roger Simon, Divided We Stand: How Al Gore Beat George Bush and Lost the Presidency.

(New York: Crown Publishers, 2001): 88. 334

Quotation from Paul Alexander, Man of the People: The Life of John McCain. (Hoboken: John Wiley

and Sons, 2003): 347, see also 305. See also, Elizabeth Drew, Citizen McCain. (New York: Simon and

Schuster, 2002): 71. A slightly different interpretation of McCain‟s feelings about TR can be found in Matt Welch, McCain: The Myth of a Maverick. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007): xvi. xix, and 135-52.

116

Those that worked alongside him acknowledged these accomplishments; indeed, they too

had fought hard for these initiatives. The millions of acres put aside from sale and placed

under permanent protection of the federal government was obviously going to become a

significant part of his legacy. His legendary personality, reveling in the wild places of the

continent, was certain to inspire future Americans.

It is evident that TR was a catalyst. Pinchot may have been the master of wise-use

planning, and Muir was many times the spiritualist TR was, but Roosevelt was the idol of

the American people; he inspired generations in a way matched only by the likes of JFK.

TR occupied the highest office in the land and, perched upon his “bully pulpit,”

expounded his philosophies to the public. Additionally, TR was instrumental in

safeguarding the progress of conservation. The federal programs and institutions created

in his tenure insured the future efforts of the government in perpetuating these hard won

reforms. These facts are not in dispute. The question that has been addressed here has

been: What has the image of TR meant to conservation for the last century? What role, in

other words, has TR played in conservation from beyond the grave? How has his name

carried on the fight for the natural resources of our country even now that his tongue has

been silenced?

The image was an indefatigable warrior, ready for mobilization to any cause,

under any commander, heedless of partisanship. It has been demonstrated how that image

has been used in different eras by different figures for different reasons. In the 1920s and

1930s, the excesses of the first decade and exegeses of the second, turned the populace

away from the esoteric attractions of the wilds and highlighted the importance of

resources (both for economic expansion and economic salvation). In this era, TR the

Resource Conservationist shone through: a man devoted to better stocked fisheries, more

protected coal lands, and even predator control to ensure plenty of delicious deer. At the

same time, TR the Preservationist, the man who passed time with John Muir and filled

the wilds with exclamations of “Bully” in a lusty baritone, that image passed through a

nadir, forgotten by all but a precious few. In the post-World War II years, the prosperous

and victorious Americans were looking for a new life, replete with new, higher standards

of living; this meant an interest in the land around them. In that time before ecology, it

meant that the focus of society was still on the protection of resources, but now scenery

117

was seen as a resource unto itself (known, in fact, by TR). Thus rose TR the Defender of

Scenery. After the advent of environmentalism, TR the Environmentalist was born; the

inchoate image of past decades completed by the science of ecology. As Americans

found new things to concern themselves with in relation to their environment, so did

Roosevelt‟s image find new applications.

This led to confusion as to whether TR was a conservationist or a preservationist,

and moreover, what the difference was between the two. As recently as the 1990s, a

scholar commented that “Historically the word „conservation‟ had meant the preservation

of America‟s natural treasures in national parks, national forests, and wilderness. Its

heroes were John Muir, Theodore Roosevelt, Gifford Pinchot...”335 This author subsumes

Muir and Pinchot both into the category of conservationist. Indeed, wilderness and

National Parks were an aspect of Roosevelt‟s policies in the White House, but his efforts

on their behalf certainly paled in comparison compared to those for the National Forests.

This notwithstanding, we have seen that “historically” the concept of conservation was

focused not on wilderness or even parklands, but resource protection, the wise use of

land, and a thrifty utilitarianism. Aesthetics has been an important side issue and fringe to

the central theme of conservation for decades. This idea, though, has in turn been

relegated to the dust-bin of history. The above quoted scholar is quite correct in his

definition; what has been made clear in the preceding chapters is that it took society a

century to arrive at this conclusion, and this conclusion is no more likely to stay stable

than those of previous eras.

Over eighty years ago, a contemporary of TR, Senator Chauncey Depew,

observed that it would be difficult to determine how history would record the personality

of Roosevelt on account of “the idealization which sometimes though rarely occurs in

regard to public men.”336 Has this idealization occurred with Theodore Roosevelt in

political discursive methods? Perhaps it has, but the point should not be so much

overstated as to obscure an important truth. The image of Roosevelt that exists today did

not spontaneously appear from a historical void; it is an image created with the serious

335

Irving Bernstein, Guns or Butter: The Presidency of Lyndon Johnson. (New York: Oxford University

Press, 1996): 265. 336

Chauncey M. Depew, My Memories of Eighty Years. (New York: Charles Scribner‟s Sons, 1924, originally 1921): 158.

118

efforts of scholars and laced by the expectations and necessities of the people and the

leaders they elect. The image of TR that exists today is a hybrid of the image of the wise-

use conservationist that existed throughout the century, and the image of TR as an

environmentalist before environmentalism that has been constructed over the past couple

decades by public and scholarly figures retrospectively assigning to TR ecological

motives for his actions. Finding a hero figure in TR, the image of him has shed certain

unpleasant aspects, such as predator control, in favor of a more earth friendly ideal. 337

It should be stressed again that it is in no way being suggested that the image we

have of TR is just a myth, or wrong, or ahistorical. This thesis suggests only that the

image of TR in various eras, including the present, is a socially constructed idea derived

from focusing on the aspects of Roosevelt‟s life that best resonate with concerns relevant

to contemporary society. The Modern Roosevelt, as it were, is the Roosevelt that

exemplifies our beliefs in how the earth should be treated. Roosevelt stood for predator

control in the 1930s just as he now does for protection of our Redwood forests in

California. TR was not asked how he felt about these issues in these times, since he was

dead, but those that use his image have believed that TR would be the first to grasp onto a

philosophy at the cutting-edge of conservation.

Gifford Pinchot is often quoted as saying “Conservation means the greatest good

to the greatest number for the longest time.” This philosophy TR ascribed to and tried to

apply it to the nation‟s resources to the best of his ability. Over the past century there

have been many questions: What is the greatest good land can be put to: oil production or

parkland? Who is the greatest good: the millions of impoverished of today or the millions

yet unborn that could be impoverished by careless use of resources? When is the longest

time we should plan for: a program to see returns this decade or this century or even

longer? Herbert Hoover had his answers; so did Richard Nixon; and right now Barack

Obama does as well. Which are right and which are wrong is difficult to say. What can be

said with confidence, however, is that the very embodiment of these questions is

337

For a look at this image of TR in the popular literature of this era that discusses TR as a game

preservationist but divorces him from matters of predator control, see Robert M. Poole, “Hunters: For Love of the Land,” National Geographic Vol. 212, No. 5 (Nov. 2007): 112-39; especially 130. An even more

blatant presentation of TR as a preservationist, can be found in an essay by conservationist Michael Fay: J.

Michael Fay, “The Redwoods Point the Way,” National Geographic Vol. 216, No. 4 (Oct. 2009): 60-3;

especially 63.

119

Theodore Roosevelt. And so long as there are citizens who remember his name, and so

long as there is an environment to protect, his name will continue to play a role in the

rhetorical strategies of the conservation policy-makers of our nation and our world.

120

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Frank W Solak

FrankwSolak was born in Fort Myers, Florida, in 1985. As an undergraduate at

Florida State University, he double majored in Political Science and History, graduating

with Honors and completing an Undergraduate Thesis under the direction of Dr. Edward

Wynot, Jr. in 2008. He remained at FSU to complete his Master of Arts degree under the

direction of Dr. Frederick Davis in 2010.

FrankwSolak prefers to focus his research on the connection between humanity

and its environment, with a particular focus on the way in which politics and

environmentalism interact. FrankwSolak is an avid traveler and hiking enthusiast,

especially in America‟s National Parks.