The Wizard and the Prophet2

by Charles C. Mann

  Birds come and go: VFN.

  Vogt’s explanation for Guanay movements: Cushman 2014:195; Vogt 1942a (“wholesale destruction,” 521); 1942b:88–89; 1942c:9–12; letter, W. Vogt to A. Leopold, 31 Dec 1941, ALP. Murphy had come to similar conclusions (Murphy 1925a:433). Later Vogt handed plankton analysis to Mary Sears, a pioneering Wellesley College biologist working at Pisco (Vogt 1942c:4–5; letter, W. Vogt to A. Leopold, 15 Dec 1940, ALP).

  Leopold: Meine 2010 (1988) is still the standard biography; also useful is Flader 1994. Cornell actually established a forestry school in 1898, ahead of Yale, but it closed.

  Clements: Botkin 2012:134–37; Worster 1997 (1994):209–20; Clements 1916: esp. 104–7 (climax); 1905 (superorganism). Similar ideas were expressed at about the same time by Henry C. Cowles, another plant biologist. For a classic attack on the “balance of nature,” see Botkin 1992 (1990).

  Biotic potential, environmental resistance: Cushman 2014 (2013):194–97; Vogt 1942b:25. Vogt took the terms from entomologist Royal Chapman (Chapman 1926:143–62).

  Clements, Elton, and ancient ideas of order: Botkin 2016:35–55, 2012:106–14; Simberloff 2014; Egerton 1973; Odum 1953; Elton 1930 (“is remarkable,” 17); Clements and Shelford 1939. As Botkin (2012:135) and Worster (1994:378–87) note, in the 1980s the superorganism was extended to claim that biosphere functions as a kind of entity called Gaia. Elton’s Animal Ecology (1927) provided some of Vogt’s basic concepts, including the ecological niche and the pyramid of numbers (see Vogt 1948b:86–95). See also Worster 1997 (1994):388–420.

  Leopold balances Clements and Elton: Callicott 2002; Meine 2010 (1988):410; Leopold 1949:214–17; 1939 (quotes, 728); A. Leopold, 1941?, “Of Mice and Men: Some Notes on Ecology and Politics,” ALP, Writings: Unpub. Mss, Ms. 110, 1186–92. Leopold’s early Clementsianism: e.g., Leopold 1924, 1979 (written in 1923).

  Leopold and Vogt: Cushman 2006:345–50; Meine 2010 (1988) (colleagues’ uncertainty about his type of ecology, 394–95; discussions with Vogt, 477–80; “for years,” 495); Letters, Leopold to J. Darling, 31 Oct 1944 (“my thought”), ALP; Leopold to E.B. Fred, 27 Jan 1943, GFA.

  Vogt’s recommendations: Cushman 2014:195 (“by Nature”); Vogt 1942b:83–85, 88–89, 118–29 (“from their nests,” 84), 1942c (“birds themselves,” 11); Letter, W. Vogt to A. Leopold, 9 May 1941, ALP (“the throat”).

  Vogt’s decisions: Cushman 2006:345 (early Ph.D. thoughts); see the many Vogt-Leopold letters from 1939–42 in ALP and, for another job possibility, Barrow 2009:197–98.

  Vogt decides to go to Wisconsin: Letters, W. Vogt to A. Leopold, 31 Dec 1941, 4 Feb 1942, 28 Apr 1942; A. Leopold to W. Vogt, 16 March 1942; Vogt, W. 1942. Application for University Fellowship, 30 Jan, ALP.

  Vogt hunts Nazis: Letters, W. Vogt to A. Leopold, 26 March 1942 (“placed Nazis”), 16 May 1942; A. Leopold to E. B. Fred, 22 May 1942; W. Vogt to A. Leopold, 8 Aug 1942, ALP; Recommendation, Major T.L. Crystal, n.d., 1943 Guggenheim application, GFA; “Bird Watchers Back,” Dunkirk (NY) Evening Observer, 13 April 1942.

  Vogt hired by Union: Bowman et al. 2010:241–61; Union Internationale pour la Protection de la Nature 1949:61; “Erosion Is a World Problem,” El Nacional (Caracas), 27 Sep 1947, FF8, Box 6, VDPL (“precisely”); [Vogt] 1946:2. The treaty is the Convention on Nature Protection and Wildlife Preservation in the Western Hemisphere (161 United Nations Treaty Series 193). Vogt also spent a few months as associate director of the Division of Science and Education of the Office of the Coordinator in Inter-American Affairs.

  Vogt sees deforestation, erosion: Williams 2006:371–77; Leopold 1999:76 (“The destruction of soil is the most fundamental kind of economic loss which the human race can suffer”); Vogt 1945; Letter, W. Vogt to J. Vogt, 27 Apr 1945, VDPL; Zon and Sparhawk 1923:2:558–666.

  Vogt in Mexico: McCormick 2005:102–12; [Vogt] 1946:3–6; Vogt 1945a (“hundred years,” 358); Vogt 1944 (conservation guide); W. Vogt, 1945?, “Man and the Land in Latin America,” unpub. ms. Ser. 2, Box 3, FF29, pp. 5–6, VDPL. See also W. Vogt, 1964, “A History of Land-Use in Mexico,” Typescript, Ser. 3, Box 7, FF27, VDPL.

  “lies ahead”: W. Vogt, 1944, Confidential Memorandum, Ser. 2, Box 4, FF29, VDPL.

  Vogt in South, Central America: Vogt 1948a (“skin disease,” “bad situation,” 109); [Vogt] 1946 (“ground for optimism,” 7; “any possible means,” 14); Vogt 1946b (“growing worse,” 28).

  Crisis in El Salvador: Vogt 1946c (“cultivable land,” 1; “at once,” 3); Vogt 1945b:110 (train simile). See also Durham 1979, esp. chap. 2.

  Mexico fertility rate, 1940s: Mendoza García and Tapia Colocia 2010, Chart 2.

  Growth as social goal: Collins 2000:1–32 (“scarcity economics,” 6; “more production,” 22); Vogt 1948b (“must balance,” 110–11). As Collins notes, Leon Keyserling, effective leader of the Council of Economic Advisers, believed that emphasizing growth was “the one really innovating factor” in policy since the New Deal (21). Smith on growth: e.g., Smith 1776:1:85. See also Robertson 2012a:346–56; 2005:26–34. The Employment Act is Public Law 79-304 (“purchasing power,” Sec. 2).

  “Hunger at the Peace Table”: Vogt 1945b (all quotes); letter, W. Vogt to F. Osborn, 19 May 1945, Box 3, FF16, VDPL (senators meeting). Leopold called it “the best job of explaining land ecology so far” (Letter, A. Leopold to W. Vogt, 21 May 1945, ALP).

  Impact of bomb, war: Hartmann 2017; Jundt 2014a:13–17; Allitt 2014:25–23; Robertson 2012a:36–38; Worster 1997 (1994):343–47.

  “Be told otherwise”: Leopold 1993 (1953):165.

  Malthus’s life: Bashford and Chaplin 2016, chap. 2; Mayhew 2014:49–74; Heilbroner 1995 (1953):75–85; James 2006 (1979):5–69 (a classic biography); Chase 1977, esp. 6–12, 74–84 (a sharply negative take); [Malthus] 1798. Six editions appeared in Malthus’s lifetime, the last four with only minor changes from the second. I have adapted several sentences from Mann 2011a:179.

  Franklin: Franklin 1755. Malthus initially hadn’t read Franklin, but took the figures from English political theorist Richard Price’s quotes; later Malthus gave proper attribution (Bashford and Chaplin 2016:43–47, 70–72, 118). See also Zirkle 1957.

  Malthus’s argument: [Malthus] 1798 (farm increase, 22; U.S., 20–21, 185–86; preventive and positive checks, 61–72; “of the world,” 139–40).

  Inevitability of misery: Malthus 1826:2:29 (“laws of nature”); Malthus 1872:412 (“somewhere else”). This quotation is from the posthumous seventh edition of the Essay, but the idea was present from the first (Malthus 1798:15).

  Malthus’s predecessors: The earliest generally noted is Giovanni Botero (2017 [1589], esp. Book 7). Others include Buffon, Franklin, Graunt, Herder, and Smellie. Hong Lianje had a modern anticipation of Malthus in 1793 (Mann 2011a:177–80).

  Essay at bad time: Mayhew 2014:63–65.

  Anti-Malthus invective: Mayhew 2014:86–88 (Southey); Coburn and Christenson 1958–2002:3 (“wretch”), 5:1024 (“defy them!”); Shelley 1920 (1820):51 (“tyrant”); Marx 1906–1909:1:556 (“plagiarism”).

  Malthus inspires Darwin and Wallace: Osprovat 1995 (1981):60–86; Browne 1995:385–90, 542 (“individual against individual”); Bowler 1976. Chapter 3 of The Origin of Species is called “The Struggle for Existence.”

  Impact of Malthus, Darwin: Bashford and Chaplin 2016, chaps. 6, 7; Hartmann 2017, chap. 3; Bashford 2014, part 1; Mayhew 2014; Robertson 2012a; Connelly 2008 (esp. chaps. 1–2); Chase 1977. As for Darwin, Timothy Snyder has noted, interpretations of his ideas “influenced all major forms of politics” (Snyder 2015:2).

  Stoddard: Cox 2015:36–38; Gossett 1997:388–99; Stoddard 1920 (“finally perish,” 303–4 [italics in original]). Modern readers are most likely to encounter Rising Tide as the subject of an approving speech by the wealthy brute Tom Buchanan at the beginning of The Great Gatsby.

  Population books: Grant 1916; Marchant 1917; More 1917 (1916) (arguing that uncontrolled breeding was the chief obstacle to feminism); East 1923; Ross 1927; Thompson 1929; Dennery 1931. Altho
ugh the population movement was international, it was dominated by Anglophone writers (Connelly 2008:10–11). See also Josey 1923.

  Ross fired from Stanford: Mohr 1970; “Warning Against Coolie ‘Natives’ and Japanese,” San Francisco Call, 8 May 1900 (“them to land”). See also Connelly 2008:42.

  Hitler’s biological ideas (footnote): Snyder 2015, esp. 1–10 (“as biology,” 2); Weinberg 2006 (1928), esp. 7–36 (“land…remains,” 21; “land area,” 17). Hitler was not one to cite his sources, but the use of Darwin and Malthus in his “second book” is striking and obvious.

  Left, right, and conservation: Purdy 2015; Allitt 2014:72 (“snow job”); Nixon 2011:250–55; Spiro 2009; Fox 1981:345–51; Chase 1977; Grant 1916:12 (“lower races”). Madison Grant wrote the introduction to Rising Tide of Color. One of my sentences is a reworked version of a Purdy sentence. As late as 1994, the polemical literary theorist Edward Said scoffed at environmentalism as an “indulgence of spoiled tree-huggers” (Nixon 2011:332n). Exceptions existed, notable among them Murray Bookchin’s Our Synthetic Environment (1962). See also Dowie 2009.

  Vogt’s scornful attitudes: Vogt 1948 (“spawning,” 77; “copulation,” 228; “populations,” 47; “codfish,” 227; “abroad,” “despoilers,” 164; “parasites,” 202; “Free Enterprise,” 15; “one blood,” 130). Robertson describes Vogt as “paternalistic but not racist.” He observes that Vogt sneered at Latin America’s scientific expertise, though at the same time insisted that the low level was due not to “lack of intelligence or ability” (2012a:54) but colonialism and elite corruption. As Robertson notes, Vogt wrote in 1952 that “industrial development should be withheld” from poor countries as a form of birth control (ibid., 157), but the argument was not directly based on race—though that would have been little consolation to the people involved, who were overwhelmingly non-white. Powell believes that Vogt and Leopold simply drew weaker connections than their predecessors “between environmental health and the racial vigor of white Americans” (2016:202).

  People as biological units: [Vogt] 1946:48. Like Stoddard (1920 [“must die,” 174]), Vogt stressed human equivalence to other species: “Studying the amoeba, one can forecast much of the behavior of such complex creatures as [famed economist] Rex Tugwell or Albert Einstein” (Vogt 1948:17).

  Marjorie Wallace: Washington Births, 1891–1929. Washington State Department of Health Birth Index: Reel 6. Washington State Archives, Olympia, WA; Enumeration District 46, Sheet 5A, Entry for Marjorie E. Wallace, 1920 U.S. Census, Washington, King County, Union Precinct; Enumeration District 41–35, Sheet No. 3A, Entry for Marjorie Wallace, 1930 U.S. Census, California, San Mateo County, Precinct 14; “S.M. High to Graduate 63 in December,” The Times (San Mateo), 14 Nov 1932; University of California (Berkeley), 1938, The Seventy-Fifth Commencement, Berkeley: University of California, 51; Office of the City Clerk, City of New York. Certificate of Marriage Registration No. 3559. George Devereux and Marjorie Elizabeth Wallace, 27 March 1939; idem., Certificate of Marriage Registration M0222434, 30 March 1939; Devereux 1941 (thesis); Letter, W. Vogt to E. Vollman, 23 Dec 1946, Ser. 1, Box 2, FF21, VDPL (contribution to Vogt’s work).

  Devereux: Laplantine 2014; Murray 2009; Gaillard 2004 (1997):191.

  Vogt divorce and remarriage: Application for Marriage License, Washoe County, NV, No. 209221. William Vogt, 4 Apr; Second Dist. Court, Washoe County, NV, Decree of Divorce No. 99170, Marjorie Devereux vs. George Devereux, 4 Apr 1946, Washoe County (Nevada); “Decrees Granted,” Nevada State Journal, 2 Sep 1945; telegram, W. Vogt to J. A. Vogt, 25 May 1945, Ser. 1, Box 2, FF23, VDPL; letters, J. A. Vogt to W. Vogt, 28 Mar 1946, Ser. 1, Box 2, FF21, VDPL; W. Vogt to H.A. Moe, 12 Jul 1945, 1 Apr 1946, GFA; J. Vogt to H.A. Moe, 12 Sep 1945 GFA. After the divorce, Juana worked as a diplomatic attaché in Mexico City and Paris and a public affairs officer for the U.S. Information Agency in Seville. She retired in the 1960s and moved to Phoenix, where she died in 2003 at the age of 100 (U.S. Dept. of State. 1949. Foreign Service List, Publication 3388. Posts of Assignment, 45; idem. 1951:20; idem. 1953:79; U.S. Social Security Death Index, Juana A. Vogt, 21 July 2003). Vogt seems not to have told any of his friends about Marjorie’s existence before the marriage (see, e.g., letter, A. Leopold to S. Leopold, 22 Aug 1945, ALP). Ingram and Ballard 1935 (Reno as divorce capital).

  “dinner table”: Letter, W. Vogt to WP, 25 Aug 1947, Ser. 1, Box 3, FF24, VDPL.

  Vogt’s movements: Letters, W. Vogt to E. Vollman, 5 Aug, 23 Dec 1946, Ser. 1, Box 2, FF21, VDPL; W. Vogt to J. Vogt, 27 Apr 1945, Ser. 1, Box 3, FF23, VDPL; W. Vogt to A. Leopold, 29 May, 5 Aug, 27 Sep 1946, ALP; A. Leopold to W. Vogt, 5 Jun 1946, ALP.

  Sloane: Letter, W. Vogt to A. Leopold, 5 Aug 1946, ALP (“big advance”); Hutchens 1946; “On Their Own,” Newsweek, 15 Jul 1946; letter, Sloane to G. Loveland, 19 Feb 1948, Box 2, FF11, William Sloane Papers, Princeton University Archives; letter, Sloane to H. Taylor, n.d. [Jan 1948?]. Box 3, FF1, idem.

  Osborn’s life: Cushman 2014:272–74 (Conservation Foundation); Robertson 2005:35–44; Regal 2002 (Osborn Sr.); “Fairfield Osborn, 82, Dies,” Berkshire (Mass.) Eagle, 17 Sep 1969 (sparrow hawk); “Conservation Unit Set Up to Warn U.S.,” NYT, 6 Apr 1948.

  Osborn’s ideas for book: Osborn 1948:vii (“conflict with nature”); letter, F. Osborn to W. Albrecht, 15 Aug 1947, ALP (“processes of nature”).

  Vogt and Osborn credit each other: Osborn 1948:204 (“to the problem”); letters, W. Vogt to F. Osborn, 31 Mar 1948, Ser. 2, Box 3, FF16 (“thought of that”); Osborn to Vogt, 3 Apr and 22 May 1948, Box 2, FF8; telegram, Osborn to Vogt, 12 Feb 1948, idem, all VDPL. Osborn’s description of Latin America (164–75) is drawn from Vogt.

  Reaction to Road to Survival, Our Plundered Planet: Cushman 2014:262–63; Robertson 2012a:56–57, 2005:22 (“present century,” “against the sun”); Desrochers and Hoffbauer 2009:52-55; McCormick 2005:125–27; Linnér 2003:36–38; “Ten Books in Prize Race,” NYT, 8 March 1949; Lord 1948 (“lack of it”); E.A.L. 1948 (“hopeful”); North 1948 (“best written”); Memorandum, William Sloane Associates, 18 November 1948, Ser. 2, Box 2, FF17, VDPL (list of schools).

  Personal congratulations: Letter, R. T. Peterson to Vogt, 30 July 1948, Box 2, FF12, VDPL; letter, G. Murphy to Vogt, n.d. [1948?], Box 2, FF4, VDPL (“new Bible”); Leopold to Vogt, 25 Jan 1946, Box 2, FF1, VDPL (“excellent”); Leopold’s praise is on the dust jacket.

  Criticisms of Vogt, Osborn: Flanner 1949:84 (“crime wave”); Hanson 1949 (“modern problems”); “Eat Hearty,” Time, 8 Nov 1948 (“unprovable”). The Soviet Union officially denounced Vogt in multiple fora (see, e.g., Boletín de Información de la Embajada de la U.R.S.S., Mexico City, 28 May 1949). Vogt’s supporters suspected that the unsigned Time article was written by Charles Kellogg, the pro-industry U.S. secretary of agriculture (letter, D. Wade to J. Hickey, 2 Dec 1948, ALP; letter, J. Hickey to W. Vogt, 23 Nov 1948, ALP).

  Concerned report on the global condition: I paraphrase Warde and Sörlin 2015:38. See also Mahrane et al. 2012:129–30.

  Vogt and Osborn bring population-environment nexus to public: I owe this point to Gregory Cushman (2006:290), whom I paraphrase here. See also Robertson 2005:23–26; Chase 1977:406. Most of the arguments in Road were anticipated in an unpublished Leopold article, “In the Long Run: Some Notes on Ecology and Politics” (Leopold 1991 [1941]). Vogt probably never saw it (Powell 2016:172–74).

  Influence of Road: Of Vogt, Gregory Cushman has written: “No single figure was more influential in framing Malthusian overpopulation of humans as an ecological problem—an idea that became one of the pillars of modern environmental thought” (2014:190). To Matthew Connelly (2008:130), Vogt “helped set an agenda that would persist for thirty years.” John H. Perkins (1997:136) says that Road was “probably of more influence” than Plundered Planet; Mahrane et al. highlight Vogt’s anti-capitalism (2012:130n), seeing it as a precursor to the 1960s. Thomas Robertson (2005:23) gives equal credit to Osborn: “Vogt and Osborn played as big a role as anyone—including Carson—in spu
rring the shift from conservation to environmentalism.” Vogt’s book helped push Carson from natural history to activism (Lear 2009 [1997]:182–83). Ehrlich, Moore, and Vogt: see chapter 7. “educated Americans”: Chase 1977:381.

  Vogt’s rhetoric: Vogt 1948b (“wiped out,” 17; “shot,” 117; “shambles,” 114; “responsibility,” 133).

  “The Land Ethic”: Leopold 1949:201–26 (“tends otherwise,” 224–25).

  Environment determines character: The view that environment causes character is today called environmental determinism. Europeans long believed that, in the words of the sixteenth-century alchemist Richard Eden, “all the inhabitants of the worlde are fourmed and disposed of suche complexion and strength of body, that euery one of them are proportionate to the Climate assigned vnto them” (Chaplin 1995:66). These ideas continued into the twentieth century; the geographer Ellen Churchill Semple’s widely used textbook, Influences of the Geographic Environment, told students that hot climates tend “to relax the mental and moral fiber, induces indolence, [which makes] not only the natives averse to steady work, but start the energetic European immigrant down the same easy descent” (Semple 1911:627). Overviews include Hulme 2011; Fleming 1998:11–32; and Glacken 1976 (1967).

  Inventing the environment: Warde and Sörlin 2015:39–43 (“idea of the environment,” 39); Robin et al. 2013: 157–59, 191–93; Robertson 2012b; Worster 1997 (1994):191–93 (power of naming), 350; Glacken 1976 (1967): esp. chap. 2 (Hippocrates quotes, 87); Vogt 1948b (“world scale,” x). Osborn, too, covered the globe, but portrayed environmental problems more as a collection of local issues. “transform it”: Freire 2014:88.