Going Green Began with Teddy Roosevelt
Conservation in the Early Years of the Twentieth Century
Conservation was a defining element of the eight-year presidential administration of Teddy Roosevelt. As 21st Century Americans seek to conserve and save the environment, it is wise to recall the words and actions of the man who increased the National Forests from 43 million acres to 194 million acres, often in the face of determined criticism from lumber barons and their Congressional defenders. Speaking at the Grand Canyon during his Western Tour, Roosevelt admonished his listeners to, “keep it for your children, you children’s children, and for all who come after you.”
The Legacy of Conservation and the Future Challenge
Roosevelt entered his final year as president hosting what came to be called the Convention of Governors. Acting as chairman in the East Room of the White House, Roosevelt recounted the successes of his administration in matters of conservation and water reclamation but warned that future attitudes would dictate how natural treasures should be safeguarded from unscrupulous “malefactors” of great wealth. According to Roosevelt, “The conservation of our national resources is literally vital for the future of the nation.”
The Role of Gifford Pinchot
Appointed Chief Forester by Roosevelt, Gifford Pinchot was obsessed with the preservation of American forests. Like Roosevelt, he deplored the wanton abuse of water, forest reserves, and minerals by the great trusts that manipulated both state and national government in order to secure federal lands for industrial exploitation. Pinchot, a close friend of Teddy Roosevelt and a member of the president’s inner circle, had managed to save million of acres, often seeing the legislation pass through Congress while its members were preoccupied with other matters.
Pinchot had received a classical education but also spent time in Europe, notably France, observing how Europeans managed their forests, practiced by professional foresters for over 300 years. Europe had lost many of its forests during the first years of pre-industrialization. England, for example, imported lumber for ships, first from the American colonies, and then from Russia where it was abundant. It was Pinchot who devised the term “conservation” to identify administration policy in terms of environmentalism.
Americans, however, were blessed with millions of acres of forest. The vast resources of the land encouraged exploitation. Both Pinchot and Roosevelt knew that unless this attitude changed, a great national treasure could be lost. Pinchot transferred the Forestry Bureau to the Department of Agriculture and ran the new service with trained foresters. Roosevelt, using the force of executive orders, created dozens of new forest reserves when anticonservationist senators blocked legislation or added amendments to pending legislation that would cede federal lands to corporate trusts.
Roosevelt’s Dual Meaning of Conservation
While Roosevelt wanted to preserve the nation’s forests, he also believed that the use of natural resources should be permitted judiciously. According to historian R. Hal Williams, “To Roosevelt, conservation meant the wise use of natural resources, not locking them away…” Roosevelt intimated this during a 1907 Arbor Day speech in which he said, “Any nation which in its youth lives only for the day…must expect the penalty of the prodigal...” Roosevelt reminded his listeners that one cannot reap without sowing. The wise use of natural resources had to be tended and was tied, by Roosevelt, to a sense of morality.
TR as a Contemporary “Green” Hero
Although some critics will disagree, pointing out that Roosevelt’s “conservation” was not full preservation – and did not impair his love of hunting (historian Page Smith writes that, according to Roosevelt, a day without shooting some animal was a “wasted day”), Theodore Roosevelt was the first president to enunciate conservation as a national issue of importance. His actions, by contemporary standards, might not fulfill the notion of “going green,” but they were a first major step toward an attitude and a perception focused on ending the abuse of the nation’s natural treasures.
References:
- Edmund Morris, Theodore Rex (NY: Random House, 2001)
- James Ford Rhodes, The McKinley and Roosevelt Administrations 1897-1909 (NY: The Macmillan Company, 1922)
- Theodore Roosevelt, “Conservation as a National Duty”
- Theodore Roosevelt, 7th Annual Message to Congress December 3, 1907
- Page Smith, America Enters the World: A People’s History of the Progressive Era and World War I, 7th Ed (NY: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1985)
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