Download - Theodore Roosevelt Historiography
“Leave it as it is”
T. R.:
Nature’s Rock-Star
Quentin Vaterlaus
“You cannot improve on it. The ages have been at work… and man can only
mar it,” Theodore Roosevelt stated whilst looking over the great expansion that is
the Grand Canyon.1 While many can argue his place in history as an American
President, none can deny his importance and his overall affect on the growth of
conservation for the century that followed his presidency. Theodore Roosevelt was
a rock-star president. He transformed the presidency with the media and his use of
unwritten Presidential powers, pushing his conservation agenda. John Allen Gable,
once the foremost authority on Theodore Roosevelt, stated, “It is hard to
overestimate [Roosevelt’s] importance in seeing and setting the course the country
followed in the twentieth century.”2 This aspect of Roosevelt bled into his work
with conservationism. He was not a conservationist by mistake and history has
finally come to realize this.
In the century since Roosevelt’s presidency, many scholars have reviewed
and written on all aspects of his leadership. However, little has been written about
Roosevelt’s conservation work alone as it is considered by some to be a side or ‘pet’
project. To know conservation at the turn of the twentieth century is to know
Roosevelt. His love for the outdoors and wildlife was spawned at a young age.
When he was still under the age of ten, he had created his own Museum of Natural
History in his home. His father often took him on hunting trips, and gave him his
first firearm at the age of 14. His father, and possibly his uncle, fanned the flames of
1 Theodore Roosevelt, Found in Michael L. Collins, That Damned Cowboy: Theodore Roosevelt and the American West, 1883-1898 (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1989), 156-57.
2 John Allen Gable, “Foreward” Found in James G. Barber, Theodore Roosevelt: Icon of the American Century, (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1998), 8.
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conservationism within the young man who later became the public face of the
movement.3
Roosevelt loved to hunt. After his time at Harvard University he travelled to
the Badlands in the Dakota Territory. Here he learned to hunt bigger and wilder
game, including the massive American Buffalo. It was from this experience that
Roosevelt came to realize the value the American West held. Roosevelt soon began
campaigning for regions within the American West, such as Yellowstone, even
forming groups of like-minded individuals, such as the Boone & Crockett Club.
These groups lobbied Congress for protection of national parks and game reserves
and eventually helped in the passage of the Forest Reserve Act in 1891.4
Theodore Roosevelt became President of the United States in 1901 after the
assassination of President McKinley. Roosevelt is considered to be the first “modern
president.”5 He used the transforming media to satisfy his love of and need to be in
the spotlight. He pushed political and conservational issues through his use of the
media to educate the public. In his first term, he pushed Congress to pass the 1902
National Reclamation Act, allowing for water reclamation to begin in the American
West, where water was scarce. Roosevelt also went on a national tour out West to
see first-hand the things the nation had to offer. During this time, he met with the
3 John Milton Cooper Jr., The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983), 79; Paul Russell Cutright, Theodore Roosevelt: The Making of a Conservationist (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1985), 6-8, 474 Cutright, 145-845 University of Virginia, American President Reference Resource: Theodore Roosevelt, Gerald L. Balilies, 2010. http://millercenter.org/academic/americanpresident/roosevelt/essays/biography (accessed 2010 1-November).
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preservationist John Muir and spent time in what later became Yosemite National
Park in California. Roosevelt’s first term, although not planned for, was greatly
beneficial for the conservation movement.6
When it was time for the nation to choose its next President in the 1904
election, Roosevelt was a natural choice, and so began his second term, his own
term, as the nation’s leader. Roosevelt did not allow politics to stop his conservation
push. In his second term, he fought to have Congress combine all the divisions that
held powers to forestry and land management into the Bureau of Forestry in the
Department of Agriculture. He also finally used the word ‘conservation’ in a public
message to Congress in 1906. By 1907, he was fighting a war with those in
Congress: the Agriculture Appropriations Bill for that year was a double-edged
blade, which limited the powers of the Forest Reserve Act from 1891. He had
already side-stepped Congress in using the recently signed Antiquities Act to make
the Grand Canyon a protected monument in 1906 and his skirting around the
Appropriations Bill limitations of the Forest Reserve Act infuriated those in power.
In the last months of Roosevelt’s presidency, his conservation merits trailed off.
Roosevelt, being the public face and biggest political ally for the conservation
movement, knew what he had done was just the beginning.7
Theodore Roosevelt’s conservationism spanned his entire life. Due to the
massive volumes of work on Roosevelt alone, this work will focus solely on the
6 Cooper, 69; Edmund Morris, Theodore Rex (New York, NY: Modern Library, 2001), 115, 231.7 Cooper, 78-9; Kathleen Dalton, Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002), 246-247; Louis Auchincloss, Theodore Roosevelt: The American President Series (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2001), 96-7; Morris, 485-86; Cutright, 221.
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writings concerning his efforts in conservation. Roosevelt is an exciting individual.
Historians, biologists, environmentalists, journalists and more have reviewed his
conservation work. Due to Roosevelt’s work, environmentalism and
conservationism have a strong presence in twenty-first century America.
In 1985, Paul Russell Cutright, biologist and historian who has written twice
on Roosevelt and once on the Lewis and Clark Expedition, wrote that Roosevelt’s
“conservationism wasn’t coincidental,” but rather he had grown up around it.8
Cutright leaned toward the notion that Roosevelt’s uncle, Robert Barnhill Roosevelt,
encouraged the young boy. This seems completely reasonable, given the fact that he
lived next door and also had a large interest in nature and the conservation thereof,
although Roosevelt himself does not hint that his “Uncle Rob” influenced his
conservationist ways.9 Douglas Brinkley, in 2009, offered an explanation for the
lack of acknowledgement and explained that, “For decades the Roosevelt family—
owing to his philandering with chorus girls and trollops—treated him as a black
sheep.”10 Cutright further explained young Roosevelt’s growing conservationism
when he articulated a trip to Egypt with his father. On this trip, Theodore read the
biological notes of several Nile species written by Reverend Alfred Charles Smith.
The biologist within Cutright stated, “If Theodore’s notebook pages are compared
with those of the Reverend Smith’s, one arrives at the conclusion that, of these two
8 Cutright, xi.9 Douglas Brinkley, The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America (New York: HarperCollins, 2009), 77; Cutright, 6-8.10 Brinkley, 78.
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naturalists, the fourteen-year-old was the more advanced.”11 Theodore was quick
becoming a true naturalist.
Many authors wrote that the most significant part of Roosevelt’s
conservationist beginnings came from the time he spent in the Badlands of the
Dakotas. Michael Collins, in his 1989 book That Damned Cowboy, said that his
experiences in this area “greatly influenced his vision of the nation’s future.”12 He
further elaborated when he said Roosevelt’s “conservation policies may also be
traced directly to his experiences and observations on the frontier.”13 Paul Jeffers,
author of the 2003 Roosevelt the Explorer, supported this claim with his assertion
that Roosevelt began to build an interest in water reclamation and concerns for
forestry when he was a rancher and hunter.14
Collins’ assertion that the Badlands had the greatest influence on Roosevelt’s
conservationist life is quite evident within the pages of his work; a sharp contrast to
Cutright’s view of Roosevelt’s conservation beginning far before he ventured to the
Badlands. Cutright specifically stated that the events in the Badlands, which
occurred from 1880-1900, were not as important to his work of analyzing how the
conservationist within Roosevelt was developed.15 Meanwhile, Collins denied this;
“of the many forces that shaped Theodore Roosevelt, none was more enduring, none
more important than the American West.”16 Brinkley supported Collins and even
11 Cutright, 44-48.12 Collins, 153.13 Ibid., 154.14 H. Paul Jeffers, Roosevelt the Explorer: T.R.'s Amazing Adventures as a Naturalist, Conservationist, and Explorer (New York: Taylor Trade Publishing, 2003), 106-7.15 Cutright, 165.16 Collins, 158.
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titled one of the chapters within his book, “Cradle of Conservation: The Elkhorn
Ranch of North Dakota.”17 Cutright appears to offer the only opposing view of
Roosevelt’s beginnings as a conservationist with several others supporting Collins’
findings.
Paul Schullery wrote in 1978, “Roosevelt was the superb naturalist and
conservationist he was because he was a hunter, not in spite of it” [Schullery’s
emphasis] and further explained that his “intense interest in hunting and nature
study led him into the conservation movement.”18 None doubted that his interest
within the studies allowed him to put his passions at work later in life, but the
notion that his hunting played a large part in his conservationism appears to be
flawed. Cutright and Brinkley both offer countering arguments to Schullery’s claim;
Cutright revealed that Roosevelt’s love of both birds and nature spawned long
before he was a hunter and Brinkley dug deep into the young life of Roosevelt and
his self-education of the “zoology on the streets of Manhattan” when he was a
youth.19 While scholars dispute the most influential part of Roosevelt’s
conservationist upbringing, one can see his first combination of both politics and
conservationism with his part in the creation of the Boone and Crockett Club in
1887.20 William Cooke, in 1965, noted, “the American conservation movement
picked up steam…” and cited the Boone and Crockett Club as having “been highly
17 Brinkley, 177.18 Paul Schullery, “A Partnership in Conservation: Roosevelt & Yellowstone” Montana: The Magazine of Western History 28, no. 3 (Summer 1978): 2-15, 3, 6.19 Brinkley, 29; Cutright, 47.20 Wm. Bridge Cooke, “Basic Conservation History.” Ecology 46, no. 1/2 (January 1965): 220-221, 220.
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influential in the development of a conservation program for the United States.”21
Many others echoed this compliment of the Club, including Collins and Cutright,
both of whom verify that the group was influential in having the Forest Reserve Act
passed by Congress in 1891.22 The tipping point came when Roosevelt reached the
apex of his political career: Presidency of the United States.
Roosevelt was not expecting to be President in 1901, but when he had his
opportunity, he never ignored his true passion. James Rhodes, when he wrote of
Roosevelt in 1929, explained how Roosevelt already knew what needed to be done
for conservation when he was inaugurated.23 Meanwhile, Louis Auchincloss, both a
lawyer and a historian, stated that Roosevelt went immediately to a trusted friend
and the chief forester, Gifford Pinchot, when he became President.24 From Pinchot,
he gathered the information he needed about what to do for the nation’s forests and
wildlife. Edmund Morris’ analysis of Roosevelt’s life in 2001, Theodore Rex, stated
that his first formal message to Congress in December of 1901 included ideas of
conservationism; Morris defined his knowledge of the topic as “impressive.”25 From
here, historians tend to point Roosevelt toward one of two paths: leader or follower.
Kathleen Dalton, a historian at Harvard University, wrote that Pinchot is the “Father
of Environmentalism,” alluding to Roosevelt having a lesser role in the
21 Ibid.22 Collins, 124; Cutright, 177. Cutright calls this “An Act to Repeal Timber Culture Laws and for Other Purposes” on pp. 177, but later refers to it as the “Forest Reserve Act” on pp. 216.23 James Ford Rhodes, History of the United States 1850-1909. Vol. 9. 9 vols (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1929), 356.24 Auchincloss, 94.25 Morris, 76.
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conservationism movement and possibly just being a friendly voice for a cause.26
Schullery lightly touched on this topic as well, having stated, “Under the influence
of… Pinchot,… he did more… than had any previous president.”27 Morris argued that
Roosevelt was more of a leader for conservationists. He wrote that, while the
Newlands Reclamation Act was being debated amongst Congressmen in 1902,
Roosevelt wrote to a legislator concerning a specific bill, which he had not done
prior.28 Meanwhile, Dalton countered her own argument and placed Roosevelt as
the leader when she put forth Roosevelt claiming credit for the Reclamation Act as
he had to “fight Congress” for it.29 Auchincloss, unlike the others, took the
journalistic route and wrote as if both Pinchot and Roosevelt had equal parts to play
in the movement.30 Roosevelt was many things, but sheep does not appear in his
repertoire.
The other issue at hand was differentiating between the two growing
factions of conservationism: utilitarianists—to utilize what is being conserved, but
to utilize it effectively for the greatest benefit for both business and nature—and
preservationists—to preserve something for its beauty alone.31 Gifford Pinchot is
considered a utilitarian, wanting “forest management;” contrasting Pinchot would
be John Muir, a well-known preservationist from California.32 Unfortunately,
26 Dalton, 208.27 Schullery, 14.28 Morris, 115.29 Dalton, 245-46.30 Auchincloss, 94.31 Kurkpatrick Dorsey, The Dawn of Conservation Diplomacy: U.S.-Canadian Wildlife Protection Treaties in the Progressive Era (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1998), 11.32 Cutright, 201-2.
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Roosevelt’s place within the factions is highly debated. Cutright and Collins side
together on this issue. Cutright stated that the Roosevelt would often refer to
America’s “use” of forests and how that “use” is dependant on America’s future.33 He
further pushed this notion when he noted Roosevelt as having gone to Pinchot for
advice and ideas on how his conservationism should be implemented.34 Collins
furthered this argument with the concept that Roosevelt assisted in changing
America’s thought process concerning “endless resources” and requiring “effective
use” of said resources.35 Dalton proposed the opposite with her stance that
Roosevelt wanted to be a preservationist on many of the issues at hand, but political
pressures would not allow him to take such a position.36 She did say that not
everything he did was for the preservationism movement and stated, “his
conservation program always had a moral agenda…” and that he always did what
his heart told him was best.37 Brinkley backed Dalton’s proposition and called
Roosevelt a “strenuous preservationist.”38
Roderick Nash, an environmental historian, wrote on the wilderness in 1967
and stated clearly that Roosevelt had not picked a definitive side for the movement.
Nash showed that Roosevelt was inconsistent in his approach to conservation. He
pointed to how Roosevelt’s message to Congress in 1901 appeared more utilitarian
while using the specific word “preserve.”39 Nash explained that this is due to
33 Ibid, 218.34 Ibid., 213.35 Collins, 160.36 Dalton, 241.37 Ibid, 240.38 Brinkley, 1.39 Roderick Nash, Wilderness & the American Mind Fourth Edition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 162.
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Roosevelt’s attempt to keep the two sides in balance during his presidency.40 Morris
backed this claim of inconsistency with several notations of Roosevelt bouncing
between utilitarianism and preservationism. Morris presented Roosevelt as
becoming bored and disliking the preachings of Muir during his Western Tour in
1903. Morris further elaborated on the inconsistency with support from two of
Roosevelt’s speeches, which occurred on May 17th and 19th of the same year, where
Roosevelt alluded to preservationism and then leaned towards utilitarianism,
respectively. Whatever stance Roosevelt took, be it the “flip-flop” stance of a normal
politician or a firm belief in a specific path of conservationism, he continued to work
for his passion throughout his presidency.41
During Theodore’s second term, he further pushed conservationism, with
stark resistance from Congress. Dalton affirmed that “conservation of natural
resources was not a major political issue for elected officials: forests [were] sold to
the highest bidder….”42 The second term was one of educating the public. Roosevelt
continued to use conservation topics in all of his annual messages to Congress.43
Theodore Roosevelt’s most critical biographer, Henry Pringle, wrote in 1931 of
Roosevelt’s conservation work as “part of his campaign against the malefactors of
great wealth.”44 Whether he used it as for political gain or not, Dalton insisted that
he used it as a means of escaping such things, “Roosevelt’s love of nature often
40 Ibid.41 Morris, 231.42 Dalton, 204-5.43 Henry F. Pringle, Theodore Roosevelt: A Biography (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1931), 430.44 Ibid.
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provided a relief from politics.”45 Prior to this, Dalton had stated that Roosevelt
used his 1903 tour as a sort of political campaign due to sitting Presidents not
campaigning on their own behalf.46 David Stradling, an environmental historian,
rejected Dalton’s claim and built upon Pringle’s when he wrote that Roosevelt’s
work with conservationism was both a political and scientific game. He did admit
that the work that Roosevelt did was “a high-water mark in environmental
activism.”47
When it came to educating the public concerning conservation, however, all
the authors tend to agree that Roosevelt was the right man for the job. Cutright
affirmed that Roosevelt knew that he must gain public support for the movement to
grow. He did this by publishing educational propaganda in newspapers across the
nation. John Cooper expounded upon this when he stated that Roosevelt used the
press to his advantage, allowing the press to join him on his hunting trips. For this
reason, Pringle claimed, the American people could see the ‘real’ President, the man
behind the office. Cooper furthered his notion when he asserted, “Roosevelt
enjoyed spectacular success as the first practitioner of the modern public side of the
Presidency of the United States.”48 Education major, Betsy Harvey Kraft, wrote that
Theodore used his skill and success with the public to bring his conservation agenda
to the public’s attention. She emphasized that he used “speeches, books, articles,
conferences, arm twisting in Congress [and] trips with naturalists…” to help in his
45 Dalton, 239.46 Ibid., 241.47 David Stradling, “Introduction” Found in Conservation in the Progressive Era: Classic Texts, 3-15 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2004), 8.48 Cooper, 65.
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educational efforts.49 Much of what Roosevelt did to educate the public on behalf of
conservation was summarized by Cooper early in his book when he wrote that
Roosevelt vastly “expanded three aspects of the office – public dramatization,
education of the people and party leadership.”50 Roosevelt’s education of the people
vaulted ‘conservation’ from an unknown term to a household theme.51
Edmund Morris declared that Roosevelt’s education of the public took longer
than many would like. He explained that it took until mid-1908 for Americans to be
aware of Theodore Roosevelt’s use of power in the conservation arena. This may
have been due to the use of “stealth” powers, as Morris put it.52 Noel F. Busch,
author of several works concerning the history of Japan as well as U.S. history, offers
a differing view of why it may have taken longer for the nation to grasp onto
conservationism: “Theodore Roosevelt was also breaking ground with his ideas and
perceptions.”53 Nevertheless, the end result allowed Kurkpatrick Dorsey,
environmental and U.S. foreign policy historian, to call the conservation movement
of that time a movement by the progressive middle-class.54 Roosevelt was not done
fighting for conservation and Congress was not about to make it easy.
In 1907, persuaded by lumber companies, Congress passed an add-on to the
Agricultural Appropriations Bill that declared no new reserves in Oregon,
Washington, Idaho, Montana, Colorado or Wyoming. Cutright and Busch both stated
49 Betsy Harvey Kraft, Theodore Roosevelt: Champion of the American Spirit (New York: Clarion Books, 2003), 121.50 Cooper, xi.51 Cooper, 65-70; Cutright, 217-18; Pringle, 247.52 Morris, 519.53 Noel F. Busch, T. R.: The Story of Theodore Roosevelt and his influence on our times (New York: Reynal & Company, 1963), 155-56.54 Dorsey, 11.
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that Roosevelt needed to sign this bill or it would cripple the Forest Service.55
Therefore, he had Pinchot and his office work to reserve several million acres within
the aforementioned states, nearly negating the add-on, and then he signed the bill.56
Dalton wrote it best: “he refused to let Congress stop him from saving wildlife.
Roosevelt became the best President wildlife ever had, but he did it by
circumventing Congress.”57
In 1908, Roosevelt made his final push for conservation with the Governors’
Conference, soon to be known as the First Conservation Conference. Morris stated
that Roosevelt headed this conference with a speech titled “Conservation as a
National Duty”.58 This conference, as Morris put it, “empowered” Roosevelt to the
extent that he “promptly created a National Conservation Commission” with hopes
to push his agenda to the international level.59 Pringle, as a counter to many others,
recognized that the conference had another agenda all together; the Governors’
Conference was a ploy to “thwart the will of Congress.”60 Whatever the original
scheme behind the conference, it was the end of Roosevelt’s conservation push
while in office. Prior to Taft’s claim to the Presidency, Roosevelt’s newly created
National Conservation Commission published an inventory of the natural resources
within America in 1909; this was the final act linked to conservationism within his
55 Busch, 197-98; Cutright, 220.56 Morris, 487,57 Dalton, 243.58 Morris, 515-19.59 Ibid.60 Pringle, 485.
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term. Luckily, Roosevelt was able to get the word out and the term ‘conservation’
was being used frequently after his presidency.61
“It is entirely within our power as a nation to preserve large tracts of
wilderness, which are useless for agricultural purposes and unfit for settlement, as
playgrounds for rich and poor alike,” Theodore Roosevelt belted out while he was at
Yellowstone National Park.62 Several authors have looked upon Roosevelt as the
builder of conservationism within the United States. All of them, including his
critics, applauded his efforts within this genre of politics. Brinkley clearly wrote
that the conservation movement “needed an indefatigable champion like Theodore
Roosevelt to put the U.S. Government fully on the side of the bird and game and
forest preserves.”63 John Cooper further developed this when he stated,
“Conservation was the one area in which his succession to the presidency made an
indisputably substantive difference.”64 Kraft called his conservation efforts
“unequalled by any other president” and “perhaps, his greatest legacy” and Collins
eliminated all doubt when he exclaimed, “Roosevelt’s conservation initiatives
remain as his greatest legacy to future generations of Americans.”65 Cutright’s deep
review of Roosevelt’s conservationist life was summarized when he illustrated, “No
other president—before or since—has been so well prepared for the task of
inaugurating and implementing a comprehensive, aggressive, nationwide
61 D.T. Kuzmiak, “The American Environmental Movement,” The Geographic Journal 157, no. 3 (November 1991): 265-278, 269; Stradling, 8-9. 62 Theodore Roosevelt, found in Edmund Morris, Theodore Rex, 221.63 Brinkley, 5.64 Cooper, 78.65 Collins, 155-6; Kraft, 121.
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conservative program.”66 Busch echoed this praised with, “One thing that helped
Theodore Roosevelt to dominate… was that he understood it so thoroughly and
from so many aspects. Intimately acquainted with all sections of the country…, he
was equally familiar with its people on every level of wealth, education and social
status.”67 Scholars debate the essence with which Roosevelt conducted many of his
undertakings, however, every one of them praised his work done on the front of
conservationism.
“Hunter and conservationist, scholar and cowboy, an Easterner who
had adopted many Western attitudes and values, Roosevelt would
remain throughout his live a bundle of contradictions.”68
66 Cutright, 212.67 Busch, 155.68 Collins, 116
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