THE COWBOY PRESIDENT

by Michael F. Blake

  One can sit in the shade of the cottonwoods, some of the very same ones he viewed from his porch, and contemplate what this land meant to Theodore. It was here that his birth as a conservationist began. Here is where he learned how important the land, the trees, and the water are, not just to humans but also to wildlife. He learned that the land did not offer an unlimited supply of material, that there would be a price for overuse. Theodore knew that without careful management, the land—and ultimately those that live on it—would suffer greatly.

  In his 1907 message to Congress, Theodore said that “to waste, to destroy, our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed.”10

  Today, the Elkhorn Ranch area is one of the most endangered national parks in the United States. In 2012, the National Trust for Historic Preservation named Elkhorn Ranch a National Treasure, and placed it on their list of America’s Eleven Most Endangered Historic Places.

  What caused the area to gain such an egregious title? The North Dakota Bakken oil boom.

  Known as the Bakken formation, it is a rock unit that is roughly 200 to 350 million years old, covering 200,000 square miles of subsurface that includes western North Dakota, eastern Montana, and southern Saskatchewan and Manitoba in Canada. Oil was first discovered in the region in 1951, but technology to withdraw it was not then available. By 2000, the use of a highly debatable drilling technique—hydraulic fracturing (commonly called “fracking”)—opened the area to a massive oil boom. A US Geological Survey report in 2008 estimated that the Bakken area could produce about 3.65 billion barrels of oil. In April 2013, the USGS revised their survey, stating the Bakken area could yield 7.4 billion barrels of oil.11

  Thanks to the advancement of technology, the area roughly produced 1.2 million barrels of oil as of 2014. Fracking is a well-stimulation technique in which rock (which holds the oil) is broken by using a hydraulically pressurized liquid composed of water, sand, and chemicals. (Some fractures within the rock are natural, such as a vein or a dike.) Injecting this high-pressure fluid into a wellbore creates cracks in the deep-rock formations, allowing natural gas, petroleum, and brine to discharge more freely.12 Supporters of fracking point to the ability to remove oil from areas that otherwise would not yield the material, thereby providing economic benefits to the local community, as well as the nation. Opponents point out environmental impacts ranging from risks of contaminating groundwater, depletion of freshwater, degraded air quality, increased noise and surface pollution, and consequential hazards to public health and the environment. Another impact is an increase in seismic activity. Although it is yet to be established scientifically, many fracking areas are experiencing seismic action that had previously been nonexistent, or extremely limited. Many countries have seriously restricted, or outright banned, the use of fracking. However, in the United States, it continues while controversy swirls around the subject.

  What has happened in the western end of North Dakota has been called a modern-day oil boom. Small towns such as Watford City, which lies ten miles north of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park North Unit, has changed literally within months. What was once a small town has seen an explosion in population and growth. Open fields are now outdoor shopping malls. Housing for the increased population of migrant workers has doubled, in some places tripled, straining local services. New apartment buildings have been quickly erected, and a two-bedroom apartment rents at the unheard-of price (for a town such as Watford City) of $1,200 to $1,400 a month. Workers who bring their own RVs can park in a vacant field for $800 a month. (Oil workers can earn $90,000 a year working an eighty-hour week—which includes the harsh Dakota winters.) Tourists planning a summer visit to western North Dakota are advised to check in advance on hotel availability because many oil workers take over hotel or motel rooms. A local restaurant in Dickinson that had been in business for nearly thirty years was forced to close when employees left to take higher-paying jobs with the oil companies. In one year’s time, the number of oil wells doubled alongside Interstate 94, from Dickinson to Medora. At night, driving to Medora, one sees the flames from the wells burning off natural gas, reminiscent of the burning oil wells in the Gulf War of 1990.

  Farmers and cattle ranchers that surround Elkhorn Ranch have seen portions of their land taken over by oil wells, as well as by large oil trucks throwing up clouds of dust in their wake on the graded dirt roads. Cattle graze within twenty feet of the wells. Yet the farmers and ranchers can do little to stop the drilling. True, they are paid a one-time fee of $10,000 to $15,000 for the “inconvenience,” but they have no rights to stop an oil company from coming onto their land and setting up shop. Why? It is the tangle of ownership rights that dates back to 1909. The Homestead Act of 1862 provided hardy individuals 160 acres as long as they lived and harvested the land for five years. In addition to being given the ownership of the land, they were also assigned the mineral rights. By 1909, the act was enlarged to 320 acres, but Congress came to realize that the mineral rights were far more valuable than the land rights. In 1910, the government sold the land and mineral rights separately, and by 1914, they held most, if not all, the mineral rights. The government auctioned the mineral rights off to the highest bidder, usually oil companies.

  Today, an oil crew can drive up on the land of a farmer or rancher and begin drilling. The landowner cannot stop them. In courts, mineral rights trump land rights. Unless a landowner maintains both, it is impossible for them to stop an oil company from drilling on their land if the company holds the mineral rights. Many of these wells are estimated to be in service for upwards of twenty, possibly thirty, years.13

  The 218-acre Elkhorn Ranch site is surrounded by land that is privately owned. The enveloping area could at any time, and has in many places, been besieged by oil-well crews or other development. Valerie Naylor, the former superintendent of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, was a watchdog for the park, keeping oil wells from destroying the view of this pristine area that has remained almost exactly as it was the first day Theodore chose the land for his new ranch. While driving to the Elkhorn site, one sees numerous oil wells pumping, but, so far, there is only one well, on a ridge, that intrudes into the view from Theodore’s ranch. However, the encompassing ridges could easily become full of pumping oil wells, surrounding the acreage like Custer at the Little Bighorn.

  Jim Arthaud, chairman of the Billings County Board of Supervisors, and owner of a truck company, claimed that a proposed bridge over the Little Missouri River would not be within earshot or view of the Elk-horn site. (Valerie Naylor stated in 2012 that no study had been conducted to support Arthaud’s claims.) The bridge’s main function would be to provide access for oil trucks that make stops at the various wells. It has been estimated that about one thousand trucks would use the bridge every day. Arthaud claims the bridge would be good for visitors wanting to see Elkhorn Ranch. “The whole public would be able to use that place, not just the elite environmentalists. That lousy 50-however-many acres it is—200?—where Teddy sat and rested his head, and found himself,” he stated. (It should be noted that Arthaud’s county receives nearly 100 percent of its revenue from oil and gas businesses.)14

  One battle against the incursion against Elkhorn Ranch appears to have already been lost. Roger Lothspeich, who owns the mineral rights near the Elkhorn Ranch site, wanted to develop a twenty-five-acre gravel pit that was roughly a mile northwest of the Elkhorn on the other side of the Little Missouri River. Both Lothspeich and the US Forest Service had signed an agreement to exchange land, or mineral rights, in another location, leaving the area near the Elkhorn alone. However, the two parties could not come to terms. The Forest Service conducted a draft environmental assessment that found the gravel pit would be of “no significant impact.”15 Unfortunately, the Forest Service ignored the objections raised by the Nationa
l Historic Preservation Trust and others and granted approval of the twenty-five-acre gravel pit in January 2015.16 This was done despite the Forest Service’s lack of complying with the National Historic Preservation Act, and holding an “incompetent discussion of numerous alternatives that would highlight the adverse impacts of the Elkhorn Ranch area.”17

  In February 2012, Tweed Roosevelt, Theodore’s great-grandson, met with President Obama, urging him to use the Antiquities Act of 1906 to designate the 4,400 acres surrounding the Elkhorn as a national monument. (This is the same law Theodore used on many occasions to preserve areas.) After the meeting, Mr. Roosevelt reported that he’d had a courteous hearing with the president, but to date, nothing has happened.

  In a 2012 op-ed piece for the New York Times, Theodore’s biographer, Edmund Morris, keenly noted:

  One thing that distinguishes a great president is the ability to see through such legalistic thickets and discern the moral daylight beyond. That, and the will to do what is right for future generations of Americans. Our current raging thirst for oil, not to mention private appetites for gravel, will one day abate, either because of depletion or new technologies. Long before that, today’s political issues, endlessly droned on the evening news, will become “dust in a windy street,” to use one of Roosevelt’s favorite metaphors. Unless Mr. Obama acts to preserve at least some threatened parts of our inventory of natural resources, he is not likely to be remembered, as Roosevelt is, as somebody who cared about how future generations live and breathe.18

  The irony that a portion of a national park, named for the US president who did so much for our country’s conservation, is now threatened by developers and oil companies is not lost on most people.

  The Romance of His Life

  It was here that the romance of my life began.

  THEODORE ONCE STATED THAT IF HE HADN’T LIVED IN THE DAKOTAS, HE never would have been president. Some think this was an exaggeration on his part; however, the Dakotas, and the American West, did transform Theodore Roosevelt.

  Think of the ancestors of the Native Americans coming across the Bering land bridge onto the North American continent, and consider the conquistadores from Spain, the settlers of Jamestown and Plymouth Rock, and the mountain men. All have had a natural curiosity to see what lies beyond the stand of trees or over the next mountain ridge. The people that made up America were always on the move, whether it was following a trail blazed by others or creating a new one. They sailed down rivers to see where they ended. Land rich in soil and game were not that far away, just through a gap in the mountains, beyond a forest, or across the Mississippi River. Stories, real or fictional, filled an adventurous people with a hopeful dream. The harsh reality would come later; it was the dream that mattered. The chance to see something few others could experience excited many a man and woman to pack up and move west. The land and the elements would transform those who dared to act on their dreams.

  Theodore Roosevelt was one of them.

  What if there had never been a Dakota period in Theodore’s life? It would be absurd for anyone to think a sickly boy could later lead a charge up Kettle Hill without that intervening period in the West. For that matter, would his leadership as police commissioner, assistant naval secretary, and governor have been as effective, or even existed at all, had he not gone to the West? What would have become of his massive push for conservation, by which he created national monuments, federal bird sanctuaries, and a buffalo preserve? One cannot ignore the extensive influence the West had on all of these elements in Theodore’s life. The West was a romantic fantasy to him, from the days of his boyhood. When he arrived in Medora in 1883, it entered his life. The West made him live on its terms and conditions. Unlike others, Theodore thrived in those surroundings. The tougher it was, the better he liked it. Who else would have said, “By Godfrey, but this is fun!” while sitting in several inches of water, soaked to the bone, in the middle of the night? The West dared Theodore, and he happily took up the challenge.

  At first, it may have been a game for him. He was able to become the great hunter of the mighty buffalo, sleeping out in the open in all conditions. That first visit to the Badlands allowed him to live like his heroes, Crockett and Boone. But something happened during that hunt. The West cast its spell on him. The people he met, the land he rode across— they appealed to him greatly. Out in the West he was greeted with an honesty that was lacking in many circles back east, especially in the dismal halls of the New York Assembly. Western people were plainspoken. Their handshake was their contract. You lived up to a deal, or you didn’t.

  One may make an argument that Theodore’s appreciation for conservation began on his first buffalo hunt. In his quest to shoot a buffalo, he saw how few of the shaggy beasts remained, and the image of a once-mighty herd now whittled down to a paltry few began to shape his ideals. Had he not gone to hunt the buffalo, would Theodore have formed the Boone and Crockett Club? Had it not been formed, would the regulations they helped to pass ever have become laws? Would any buffalo still survive in our country? Or would they be limited to paintings and old photographs? The beginning steps Theodore took in his first trip to the Dakotas were the first droplets of water on the seed that blossomed into his strong conservation beliefs. He would learn, albeit the hard way, about resources. The Dakotas proved to be his real education for becoming a leader, a conservationist, and a man to respect.

  In his autobiography, Theodore said, “I owe more than I ever can express to the West, which of course means to the men and women I met in the West.”1 The men and women with whom he came into contact in the West, especially in the Badlands, not only influenced him but also left him with many long-lasting friendships. Bill Sewall and Wilmot Dow. Joe and Sylvane Ferris. Bill Merrifield. Gregor and Lincoln Lang. Later came such men as Seth Bullock, Ben Daniels, and Bat Masterson. They all held a special place in his life, a place that few in Washington (with the exception of his old friend Henry Cabot Lodge) ever occupied.

  John Burroughs recalled the delight Theodore had in sharing memories with his Medora friends during his 1903 trip:

  He was as happy with them as a schoolboy ever was in meeting old chums. He beamed with delight all over. The life which those men represented, and of which he had himself once formed a part, meant so much to him; it had entered into the very marrow of his being, and I could see the joy of it all shining in his face as he sat and lived parts of it over again with those men that day. . . . It all came back to him with a rush when he found himself alone with these heroes of the rope and the stirrup. How much more keen his appreciation was, and how much quicker his memory, than theirs! He was constantly recalling to their minds incidents which they had forgotten, and the names of horses and dogs which had escaped them. His subsequent life, instead of making dim the memory of his ranch days, seemed to have made it more vivid by contrast.2

  In several typed letters to Sylvane or Joe Ferris during his years in the White House, Theodore scribbled in his own hand, “I wish I could see you.” That statement speaks volumes regarding how important their friendship was to him. In few, if any, of his personal letters to others does he share such a sentiment. His Western friends were always welcomed as guests at the White House. He once told the editor of the Saturday Evening Post that his closest friends were the men “I met in the mountains and backwoods and on ranches and the plains.”3 They were the people whom he could count on. When they spoke, they shared memories of times in their lives when they relied on each other in a place where their trust was highly valued. All of them influenced Theodore in some way, and, in turn, he influenced them. Their friendship was a loyalty that never wavered.

  Unlike some politicians who adopted a certain look or hobby to appeal to the public, Theodore was an original. He loved the outdoors, the horses, the mountains and rivers. The public sensed this and adored him for it. When early film cameras photographed him chopping wood at Sagamore Hill, it wasn’t an act; it was the real thing. It was the same with his rid
ing a horse. A photographer set up his camera to capture Theodore jumping a hedge with one of his horses. Not certain he had caught it properly, Theodore happily said he and his horse would jump the hedge again—and did. The people of the Western lands claimed him as “one of our own,” even though he was the first US president born in New York. Despite hailing from the East Coast, Theodore was definitely a man of the West. He naturally looked as though he belonged there, just like a well-worn pair of chaps on a cowboy from Texas. Numerous photographs taken from his various outdoor trips show a man completely at home in his environment. Whether he is on the back of a horse, leading it up a rocky incline, or sitting on the ground talking with other cowboys, Theodore is a man in his element. The outdoors was his drug of choice. It restored his soul, blessed him with peace, and filled him with a never-ending fascination.

  Looking back over all the chapters in his life, he once said that if he could only retain one memory and have all of his other experiences erased, “I would take the memory of my life on the ranch with its experiences close to nature and among the men who lived nearest her.”4

  During a September 1900 campaign swing as the vice presidential candidate, Theodore made whistle-stop after whistle-stop on a train across Western parts of the country. Crowds came out to hear his speech and shake the hand of the man who led the Rough Riders to glory. Theodore was his usual gregarious self, making sure to step out on the train’s rear platform as it crossed the land to wave at small bunches of children wanting to get a brief glimpse of him.