The Wilderness Warrior

by Douglas Brinkley

  With the exception of Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie, and a few others, industrialists of the time were perplexed by Roosevelt’s passion for protecting loons, cormorants, and herons. What would lead a hero of the Spanish-American War to insist that shooting a dark-eyed junco was akin to grand larceny? Didn’t Roosevelt’s infatuation for birds constitute fanaticism? Roosevelt, for example, had shut down prime Florida real estate to make life comfortable for egrets. “I have no command of the English language that enables me to express my feelings regarding Mr. Roosevelt,” the railroad tycoon Henry Flagler said. “He is shit.”33

  Flagler was correct in considering Roosevelt a vicious adversary. As Dwight D. Eisenhower once noted, T.R., despite his disarming toothy smile, “feared nobody” and was a “dangerous antagonist.” And there was a cost to interfering with Roosevelt’s love of pelicans and petrels: T.R. would blast his anticonservationist critics as hopeless “spoilers,” “fools,” “demagogues,” “exploiters,” and “idiots.” The novelist Booth Tarkington, long after Roosevelt died, reflected on how T.R. had subjected people he perceived as anticonservationist to verbal tirades. “The Colonel had his own way of saying ‘swine,’ and it gave that simple Gothic word a peculiarly damning power,” Tarkington wrote. “The swine he had in mind seemed to be incomparably more swinish than the ordinary swine that other people sometimes mention.”34

  Likewise John Burroughs explained in his Journals how Roosevelt could be a cutthroat political adversary when it came to the defense of songbirds. “He was a live wire, if there ever was one, in human form,” Burroughs wrote in his journal. “His sense of right and duty was as inflexible as adamant. His reproof and refusal came quick and sharp. His manner was authoritative and stern. He was as bold as a lion and, at times, as playful as a lamb.”35 Every word Roosevelt uttered on behalf of wildlife protection seemed to have an exclamation point. When it came to squaring-off with politicians he was a specialist at haranguing, never crying uncle, giving his opponents the back of his hand. When challenged about the legality of his national monuments, federal bird reservations, or national forests, he took on that lean, ravenous look of a famished wolf. America had a new conservationist code to promote, thanks to Roosevelt: pummel the exploiters until they were licked.36 He believed that his successor, William Howard Taft, would take just such a line.

  Taft had even promised to keep Pinchot as the head of the Forest Service—a real concession following the dismissal of Garfield. Roosevelt had created his own circle or set of outdoorsmen in government, including Pinchot and Garfield, who agreed with his every sales pitch, plea from the bully pulpit, executive order, sermon about outdoorsmen, and writ concerning wildlife. And the first eight weeks of 1909 were their golden time. These acolytes weren’t Luddites ready to sabotage the cutting blades in defense of nature. Many were evolutionists—such as David Starr Jordan and Henry Fairfield Osborn—who understood the arcane biology of how conjunction took place in colonial protozoa and cared deeply about species recognition marks. Roosevelt had nevertheless kicked down the door of the wildlife protection movement, knocking it off its hinges, by giving evolutionists places of honor at his table in the White House. As an ex-president, Roosevelt would travel to Florida and Louisiana to inspect his revolutionary rookeries, pleased at his accomplishments on behalf of “citizen bird.” “The number and tameness of the big birds showed what protection has done for the bird life of Florida of recent years,” he wrote after inspecting his federal bird reservations in the Gulf of Mexico. “The plumed lesser blue herons, and more rarely the great blue heron and the lovely plumed white egret, perched in the trees or flapped across ahead of the boat.”37

  II

  While Merriam remained Roosevelt’s go-to biologist in early 1909, Pinchot was first among equals in T.R.’s conservationist group. Pinchot, one of the most effective administrators to ever operate within the federal bureaucracy, expanded the U.S. forest reserves from approximately 43 million acres to about 174 million acres from 1901 to 1909. Besides serving on such presidential commissions as the Organization of Government Scientific Work and Public Lands (1903), Department Methods (1905), Inland Waterways (1907), and Country Life and the National Conservation Commission (1908), Pinchot had also led the highly successful governors’ conference of 1908. A tireless worker, he crisscrossed America promoting forestry, and he established the first press bureau ever within a federal agency. Much like Roosevelt—his boss and hero—Pinchot manipulated the press like a puppeteer, knowing exactly which strings to pull. Pinchot’s home on Rhode Island Avenue in Washington, D.C., became a veritable salon where smart journalists could have a drink and talk about the western reserves. Roosevelt noted of Pinchot that “among the many, many public officials who under my administration rendered literally invaluable service to the people of the United States, he, on the whole, stood first.” 38

  On February 18, 1909, Roosevelt convened the North American Conservation Conference at the White House, following Pinchot’s directive that conservation had to go global.39 “The keynote of the conference was that international streams are affected by cutting forests on either side of the boundary line,” the Washington Post wrote, “and that conservation plans, to be the most practical, must be international.”40 The U.S. delegates at the North American Conservation Congress included Chief Forester Pinchot, Secretary of State Bacon, and Secretary of the Interior Garfield (all members of the “tennis cabinet”—the term that reporters had given to Roosevelt’s inner circle at the White House). Ottawa and Mexico City sent their appropriate counterparts. Meetings were held at the White House, at the State Department, and at Pinchot’s home. After first agreeing to some “conservation measures” of “continental good” the statesmen announced a trilateral “Declaration of Principle” aimed at the creation of a World Conservation Congress to meet at The Hague in September 1909 to push Rooseveltian conservationism forward on a global level. Pinchot’s dream, in fact, was for President Taft to go to The Hague and champion issues like international wildlife reserves, parks, and tree planting; the banning of poaching and overfishing of waterways; and forest managing techniques. As Pinchot envisioned it that February, the global conference, to be held while T.R. was in Africa in the fall, would start a conservation revolution around the world.41

  Before Roosevelt left office, fifty-eight nations had, in fact, received invitations from the White House to meet at The Hague. Immediately, Great Britain, France, and Germany accepted. Other nations soon followed suit.42 But after only a few weeks in office, President Taft balked and called off the conference, feeling that Pinchot had overreached himself. The World Conservation Congress never had a chance to succeed. As the historian Paul Russell Cutright put it in Theodore Roosevelt: The Naturalist, “the project died aborning.” 43 The rift between Taft and Pinchot was becoming unbridgeable. “Pinchot, bitterly disappointed, never gave up hope of holding such a conference,” McGeary wrote in Gifford Pinchot, “especially since he later became firmly convinced that conservation of natural resources was a primary means of insuring a permanent peace.”44

  That Taft was uninspired by Pinchot’s idea of a World Conservation Congress disappointed Roosevelt greatly. A breach in policy was starting to manifest itself between the incoming (conservative) and outgoing (progressive) GOP administrations. In December, for example, during a meeting on conservation at the Belasco Theatre in Washington, Pinchot had quite innocently introduced Taft as the “president elect.” “I’m not the President-elect,” Taft had snapped when he stood on the podium. “That is merely the imagination of Mr. Pinchot. I’m just a private citizen.”45

  Determined to keep Roosevelt’s torch lit in public policy, Pinchot and Garfield co-wrote The Fight for Conservation (1910). When the first draft of the book was finished that February, Garfield asked the departing president to write a “foreword.” Basically they were looking for a letter of recommendation, a strong show of support, an embrace (in writing) from their boss. Somehow Roosevelt found time to com
pose a fine summation of the sterling qualities of his chief forestry advocates, giving his colleagues his indelible stamp of approval in glowing language. “Both have stood for absolute honesty, for absolute devotion to the needs of the public,” Roosevelt wrote. “Both have stood no less for entire sanity and for farsighted understanding of the many diverse needs of the Nation. They have been fearless in opposing wrong, whether by a great corporation or by a mob; by a wealthy financier, or by a demagogue.”46

  January to March was a very busy period for the U.S. Forest Service. An eager Pinchot had decided to challenge the anti-Roosevelt forces one last time with many new forest reserves in the West. Pinchot and Garfield had been gathering data on what forestlands were doable. Roosevelt was well past worrying about the political repercussions of any last-minute reserves. “Keep it legal” was his only direction to Pinchot. Echoing Thoreau, Roosevelt planned on leaving the White House promoting forests and meadows and even corn as a sort of ecumenicism.47 Pinchot and Garfield, working with a few like-minded congressmen, made their mentor proud. Starting on January 20 with Humboldt, Nevada, and not stopping until the last hours of the last days of his administration on March 2 with Sequoia, California, Roosevelt declared thirty-seven new national forests: Humboldt, Moapa, Nevada, and Toiyabe (Nevada); Cleveland, Calaveras Bigtree, Modoc, California, Shasta, Trinity, Lassen, Plumas, Tahoe, and Sequoia (California); Klamath (California and Oregon); Mono (California and Nevada); Pecos, Gila, Datil, Lincoln, Alamo, and Carson (New Mexico); Prescott, Tonto, Sitgreaves, and Apache (Arizona); Zuni (Arizona and New Mexico); Dixie (Arizona and Utah); Marquette and Michigan (Michigan); Superior (Minnesota); Black Hills (South Dakota and Wyoming); Sioux (Montana and South Dakota). And for the first time Arkansas, without a battle, was brought into the fold with two new forest reserves: Ozark and Arkansas.48

  III

  By far the biggest new national forests that season, in terms of acreage, were in the Alaska Territory. Since his creation, on August 20, 1902, of the Alexander Archipelago Forest Reserve, Roosevelt had steadily added Alaskan land to the federal government’s holdings. On September 10, 1907, he had created the Tongass National Forest, an immense area in southeastern Alaska with huge strands of western red cedar, Sitka spruce, and western hemlock. The reserve also included thousands of islands and salmon-rich streams. On July 1, 1908, Roosevelt merged the Alexander Archipelago with Tongass to create what is today Tongass National Forest, a monstrous eco-zone of snowcapped peaks, blue glaciers, clear streams, muskeg, forests, and fjords. More than 17 million acres of pristine Alaska was preserved between the two forests, making Tongass National Forest the largest reserve in the United States. The diversity of salmon alone made the Tongass the crown jewel of the USDA’s forest reserves. King (chinook); coho (silver); pink (humpback); sockeye (red); and chum (dog) salmon flourished in these icy waters, as nowhere else on earth except Canada. And where there were salmon, grizzly bears and polar bears came in huge numbers.

  The creation of Tongass National Forest was a tremendous presidential accomplishment. But as Roosevelt’s days in the White House waned during early 1909, he yearned to do even more to both protect and develop the “last frontier.” To Roosevelt the “spell of Alaska” wasn’t gold mining but the rain forests and wildlife breeding areas saved for posterity. Anybody who shot a northern spotted owl, for example, should be arrested. But Roosevelt always wanted smart community development. After all, it was the Roosevelt administration that in 1905 had pushed an act through Congress calling for a first-class road system to be laid out in Alaska.49 The act was an example of how the U.S. government—not railroad titans or oil companies—could help Alaska develop. The enemy in Alaska, as Roosevelt saw it, was huge companies that bought up land tracts to mine, log, or drill. Roosevelt thought the U.S. government instead of the private sector should build and operate a short-line railway to connect Controller Bay with Alaska’s great coalfields.50 And Roosevelt wanted federal protection of sea otters and stringent government regulations on fur seal hunters and fisheries.

  The promotion of the Elkins Act of 1903, the creation of the Bureau of Corporations, and the bills regulating railroad rates all showed Roosevelt’s desire to enhance executive powers. Roosevelt believed that because Seward had purchased Alaska in 1867 with federal funds, the U.S. government should dictate how the territory was developed. “Roosevelt’s belief in the benevolent power of executive action found particularly vivid expressions in his mature conservation program,” Joshua David Hawley wrote in Theodore Roosevelt: Preacher of Righteousness; this statement is especially true regarding U.S. territories like Alaska. “The ruinous overharvesting of the country’s timberlands, severe water shortages in the arid West, the rapid deterioration of the famed open ranges, and the more gradual but steady disappearance of suitable wildlife habitats nationwide—all these developments convinced Roosevelt as president that the United States needed a rational, unified policy to manage the nation’s natural resources. As in the field of economic regulation, Roosevelt concluded here as well that, when it came to conservation policy, Congress was not up to the task.”51

  Roosevelt had received an advance copy of Major-General A. W. Greely’s Handbook of Alaska: Its Resources, Products, and Attractions, published later in the spring of 1909. It had a moose as its frontispiece and was filled with photographs shot by members of Roosevelt’s administration in the Coast and Geologic Survey, the Geological Survey, the Bureau of Fisheries, and the Biological Survey. At the end there was a handsome pull-out map of Alaska. With his stumpy forefinger Roosevelt would trace down the Porcupine River’s course from Yukon Province to Tanana, Alaska, proud that the landmass was part of the United States. Had anybody ever hiked the Kokrines Hills? Or floated down the Kuparuk River from the Chukchi Sea? How exciting—America owned fjords to rival Norway’s, and glaciers larger than England. To Roosevelt, Alaska was the hardiest explorers’ paradise. According to measurements by the Boone and Crockett Club, the vast territory was one-third greater than all the Atlantic states from Maine to Florida. Roosevelt had read a great deal about the southern two-fifths of Alaska, which encompassed the densely wooded Tongass National Forest, but he was somewhat ignorant about the watersheds of the Yukon and the lesser Kuskokwin rivers, and the large upper-fifth (essentially treeless) shores of the arctic coast. The Handbook filled in the blanks for the departing president.52

  IV

  While Roosevelt opened the White House to ornithologists like Job, Chapman, Finley, and Dutcher in February 1909, he also never turned down an opportunity to consult with renowned hunters from around the world. As he prepared for Africa, he found these hunters marvelous company and was almost greedy for their companionship. “He had a great respect for genuine hunters—the kind who endure hardship, exhibit prowess and tell the truth—such men as Selous, Warburton Pike, George Bird Grinnell and Charles Sheldon,” Merriam recalled. “Early in his career in the White House he asked to be notified when out-of-town hunters came to the city. So when the Canadian hunter and sub-arctic explorer Warburton Pike had arrived, Sheldon and I were requested to bring him to dine at the White House. The time happened to be a particularly busy one politically, and we were warned that the President must excuse himself directly after dinner. But instead, he took us upstairs and kept us in his den till midnight. He was several times interrupted by messengers, but declined to see them. Finally his son-in-law (Nicholas Longworth) came with an important telegram. Roosevelt waved him away with the remark that he was not to be interrupted—that for this one night he felt entitled to enjoy himself.”53

  During his last weeks at the White House Roosevelt wrote his old editor at the Boone and Crockett Club, Caspar Whitney, a long letter about hunting and the strenuous life. Roosevelt recounted how over the decades he had effectively compensated for being a poor shot by having great will in stalking prey. “In short, I am not an athlete; I am simply a good, ordinary, out-of-doors man,” Roosevelt wrote; his statement was passed around to fellow club m
embers. “The other day I rode one hundred and four miles. Now this was no feat for any young man in condition to regard as worth speaking about; twice out in the cattle country, on the round-up, when I was young I myself spent thirty-six hours in the saddle, merely dismounting to eat, or change horses; the hundred-mile ride represented what any elderly man in fair trim can do if he chooses. In the summer I often take the smaller boys for what they call a night picnic on the Sound; we row off eight or ten miles, camp out, and row back in the morning. Each of us had a light blanket to sleep in, and the boys are sufficiently deluded to believe that the chicken or beefsteak I fry in bacon fat on these expeditions has a flavor impossible elsewhere to be obtained. Now these expeditions represent just about the kind of things I do. Instead of rowing it may be riding, or chopping, or walking, or playing tennis, or shooting at a target. But is always a pastime which any healthy middle-aged man fond of outdoors life, but not in the least an athlete, can indulge in if he chooses.”54

  Eighteen months after leaving the White House, Roosevelt wrote “The Pioneer Spirit and American Problems,” a piece for Outlook about the American West, praising Cheyenne, Denver, and Omaha. Sounding rather like Walt Whitman, Roosevelt also celebrated ranchmen, miners, cowpunchers, mule skinners, and bull whackers. He boasted about Indians, pioneers, and buffalo herds. Symbolically, Roosevelt was turning his back on the east coast yet again. He called Abraham Lincoln a westerner because Lincoln had the western trait of “undaunted and unwavering resolution.” And again, Roosevelt claimed that the federal government knew what was best for the West with regard to water power, forest reserves, land leasing, grazing rights, and so on. According to Roosevelt, America always had to have a national system of government, and anybody promoting states’-rights or territories’-rights schemes were charlatans.