Chautauqua: An Astonishing Journey into the Past

Teddy Roosevelt (1858-1919)

THEODORE ROOSEVELT: THE LAND AND CONSERVATION by D. Jerome Tweton, PhD

When asked in 1972 what the greatest accomplishment of her father was, the 88-year-old daughter of Theodore Roosevelt, Alice Roosevelt Longworth, without hesitation responded, "Conservation." She didn't mention charging up Kettle Hill during the Spanish-American War, sending the Navy around the world, "taking" the Panama Canal, or winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Biographers agree with Alice's assessment. "There is little question that one of TR's most important contributions . . . was his vision of conservation," concluded Milton Meltzer in Theodore Roosevelt and His America (1994). Nathan Miller in Theodore Roosevelt, A Life (1991) agrees that conservation "was to be Theodore Roosevelt's great legacy to the American people." Even Henry Pringle, whose 1931 "debunking" biography won a Pulitzer Prize, had to admit, "There can be little controversy regarding Roosevelt's contribution to the cause of conservation."

Two questions rise from these assessments. What did Roosevelt do to warrant such praiseworthy interpretation? And, why did he become the leader of the conservation movement?

Roosevelt's first presidential pronouncements concerning conservation came in his December 3, 1901, message to Congress, a short time after he was catapulted into the presidency after the assassination of President William McKinley. He offered a sharp contrast to those who had preceded him in the White House during the previous generation. Reflecting the progressive spirit of reform that engulfed all levels of the political world, he laid out a reform, albeit cautious, program: railroad regulation, monopoly control, protection for workers, and wiser management of the nation's resources. The federal government, according to the new president, needed to play a more active role in the lives of its people. Roosevelt had promised to carry out McKinley's policies. Conservative Republican political bosses were heard to moan, "Yeah, he is, right to the garbage dump."

In his opening address, TR set forth the agenda that would drive his presidency. He was enthusiastically willing to use the presidency on behalf of the people. And in no area of public policy was he more willing than in conservation, the protection of the land for future generations.

As soon as he took office he became a champion of the Newlands Reclamation Act, which called for revenue from the sale of public land to be used for dams and reclamation projects in sixteen western states and territories. TR wanted to build dams to provide water for farm irrigation and to harness water power for the generation of cheap electricity. The powerful Speaker of the House, Joe Cannon, and other eastern Republican congressmen strongly opposed the measure. Roosevelt used the power of his office "the "bully pulpit" to change their minds. The 1902 law passed and 21 federal irrigation projects were established in 14 states.

This was his first, but not his last, skirmish with a Congress that generally viewed TR's conservation program as not in the best interests of lumber and electric power moguls—business people who contributed heavily to Republican and some Democratic candidates. The next year he vetoed a bill that would have awarded a private investor a power station at Muscle Shoals, Alabama. His opposition to exploitation of water power was based on the idea that this was the property of the people and should benefit the people.

Although TR was immensely concerned about land reclamation and the waterways and established federal commissions to study both, he is best remembered for his policies concerning the nation's forests. For TR, the forests became a special project. In 1891Congress had passed legislation that allowed presidents to place federally-owned properties into "forest reserves." By 1901 about 50 million acres of timberland had been placed in the reserve system. TR was alarmed by the rapidity with which lumber companies were denuding the wooded landscapes.

His remedial approach was two-pronged: First, he established a Bureau of Forestry to manage the forest reserves in a scientific manner. Second, he used the 1891 law to increase those reserves by 150 million acres. The lumber-company barons put up a terrible howl of protest and coerced Congress in 1907 to curtail the president's power to set aside forest reserves. TR would have vetoed the proposition but it was attached to an important agricultural bill. But he had the last laugh. The night before he signed the bill, he placed another 16 million acres of prime timberland into the federal reserve. TR was a conservationist, not a preservationist; those federally-controlled forests could be harvested wisely and under strict federal scientific management.

Roosevelt looked at himself as the chief steward of the nation's resources. "Any nation which in its youth lives only for today, reaps without sowing, and consumes without husbanding, must expect the penalty of the prodigal whose labor could with difficulty find him the bare means of life." Those words were his guiding principle of conservation.

His vision for America went beyond reclaimed land and controlled forests. He pressured Congress into doubling the number of national parks to ten. When ornithologists asked him to save the birds of Pelican Island, a tiny spot in Florida's Indian River, from feather hunters, he acted at once. By executive order he created a federal bird sanctuary, the first of many. Also by executive order TR established several wildlife refuges to protect animals such as elk and buffalo, whose numbers were dwindling.

As important as his actions to protect and conserve America's resources were, his efforts to publicize urgent conservation matters were of substantial merit. In May 1908 he called a National Conservation Congress which most governors and several hundred political leaders and experts attended. TR told the Congress, "As a people we have the right and duty . . . to protect ourselves and our children against the wasteful development of our national resources." Roosevelt and the Congress grabbed headlines across the nation, bringing the message of conservation to the American people. A month later at the White House TR convened a hemispheric conference on conservation. So encouraged was he by the national responses that as he left office in 1909 he was planning a global conservation conference.

The question remains, why did Roosevelt become the leader of the conservation movement? Several factors came together to produce "Roosevelt the Conservationist." First of all, Roosevelt grew up in New York City, but because of his asthmatic condition his family often took him to the countryside. Here he gained a deep interest in the natural world. He collected hundreds of insects and bird specimens on those trips, and when the Roosevelts traveled to Europe and Africa, young TR spent most of his time collecting and cataloging specimens. When he entered Harvard in 1876, he intended to become a naturalist. Although he would follow other avenues, he remained a naturalist at heart all his life.

Second, his ranching days in Dakota during the 1880s enhanced his knowledge of and appreciation for the natural world. W. H. Brands in TR: The Last Romantic goes so far as to conclude that "ranching made Roosevelt into a conservationist." As a result of his Badlands experience, he did realize that the range was being overgrazed , that the arid climate made farming difficult, and that game was becoming scarcer each year. His roles in organizing the Boone and Crockett Club to help preserve wild game and the Little Missouri Stockmen's Association to better manage the range were early indications of his conservation concerns.

Third, Roosevelt associated with and took advice from men who were passionate or scientific in their approaches to the natural world. He slept under the stars and had long conversations with John Muir of the Sierra Club in Yosemite, chatted with famed naturalist and author John Burroughs in Yellowstone; discussed protection of wildlife with George Bird Grinnell, editor of Forest and Stream; and most important of all, took advice his chief forester, Gifford Pinchot. Pinchot and TR were close friends and Roosevelt took no actions concerning the environment without conferring with him.

Last, Roosevelt was a progressive who believed that the government existed to protect the people and their world and that the president must act to ensure that protection. The natural world, the products of the land, belonged to the people who, according to TR, "Must always include the people unborn as well as the people now alive."


QUOTATIONS BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT

"In utilizing and conserving the natural resources of the Nation, the one characteristic more essential than anyother is foresight." (June 10, 1907)

"There can be no greater issue than that of conservation." (August 5, 1912)

"We are prone to speak of the resources of this country as inexhaustible; this is not so." (Dec. 3, 1907)

"I believe that the natural resources must be used for the benefit of all our people." (Aug. 31, 1910).

"There can be no greater issue than that of conservation." (August 5, 1912)

"Conservation is a great moral issue, for it involves the patriotic duty if ensuring the safety and continuance of the nation." (Aug. 31, 1910)