Theodore Roosevelt - Essay Example

Theodore Roosevelt: The 1905 Transfer Act Theodore Roosevelt, one of the faces of Mount Rushmore, is known for many things. Though formally a Republican, he was a fiercely independent politician whom very often acted upon his personal convictions and values. Like Thomas Jefferson before, Roosevelt was much more than a politician; more particularly, he was a man of many and varied interests. He was interested in politics, in nature, in the environment, and in all of the social and environmental diversity which constituted his young and growing nation (Fehn, 2005). He is well-known for having been a trust buster for dissolving more than forty business monopolies, for having promoted the regulation of drugs and railroads, for protecting American interests in international affairs, and for promoting a strong and powerful American navy (Brands, 2001). One of his more meaningful and lasting political decisions, however, was based upon his lifelong interest in the preservation and the conservation of the American wilderness. Roosevelt’s advocacy of the 1905 Transfer Act, which transferred the management control of a vast amount of federal forest reserves to the United States Forest Service, was a bold and personally courageous political choice which continues to please and to benefit Americans to this very day. This political decision, and Roosevelt’s subsequent political success, was not without opposition. To be sure, there were powerful business interests which favored short-term financial gains to more long-term aesthetic and environmental gains. In addition, there were other politicians, both within Roosevelt’s party and without, whom were sympathetic or beholden to these powerful and influential business interests (Blum, 1954). This political decision is a microcosm of the courage and the genius that was Theodore Roosevelt; that he was able to break free from powerful interest groups at times, able to engage in analyses of short versus long term implications of different courses of action, characterizes the special characteristics which made him a good leader and a unique political figure in American history. This essay will discuss the origins of this political debate, the nature of the political struggle of the main interest groups, and the particular role that Theodore Roosevelt played in making the 1905 Transfer Act a reality. It will close with a discussion of the relevance of his decision today, some one hundred years later, and the benefits that have accrued to America. 1.1 The Origins of the Transfer Act of 1905 As an initial matter, it is important to note that Theodore Roosevelt did not create the United States Forest Service; quite the contrary, this federal agency was created and given legal powers by virtue of the United States Land Revision Act of 1891 which provided, in relevant part, that the president would thereafter have the authority to "set aside and reserve...any part of the public lands wholly or partly covered with timber or undergrowth, whether of commercial value or not.” At the time, this was a skeletal piece of legislation with little immediate effect. It looked good on paper, it played well at social gatherings, but the reality was that the Act itself was lacking in real substance. This is because this initial legislation, vesting power in the American president, did not provide for any guidelines or mechanisms for using or for developing these set aside lands (Balogh, 2002). Thus, while the lands might be protected from economic exploitation, there was no mention of national parks or development for public use. These lands, in short, were not only placed out of the reach of capitalistic interests but also out of the reach of purely scientific and public interests as well. Nonetheless, it was a piece of legislation, a perogative of presidential power, which Theodre Roosevelt would take advantage of a mere two decades later in order to more firmly entrench public interests, both in terms of research and public benefits more generally, with the Transfer Act of 1905. Upon becoming the twenty-sixth President in 1901, following the assassination of William McKinley, he brought a lifelong interest in the environment to the executive office. Not only had he previously written about the unique beauties of the American West, but he had also lived that rugged lifestyle as an outdoorsman and a rancher. Though Harvard-educated, he was hardly what today might be called a preppy or a cosmopolitan character. In many ways, he was part of a changing legacy, the old American West, whom became president as the new American West began to focus on commerce and development. Already known as opinionated and devoted to causes which touched him deeply, Roosevelt was in many ways a natural to extend and to give real teeth to the Land Revision Act of 1891; indeed, as stated by the presidential historian, Baily, "Roosevelt was a great personality, a great activist, a great preacher of the moralities, a great controversialist, a great showman. He dominated his era as he dominated conversations....the masses loved him; he proved to be a great popular idol and a great vote getter" (1966: 308). At the end of the day, Roosevelt’s love of nature, his romantic association of it as a symbol of America, and his powerful personality would be opposed to many influential business interests whom wanted to exploit the land for short term profits and goals. The stage was thus set for a real battle over federal lands and federal reserves. 1.2 The Political Struggle: Opposing Political Interest Groups The political struggle over the ultimate treatment of federal lands was direct and it was fiercely contested (Strock, 2003). On the one hand, there were allied a diverse array of commercial interests calling for the sale of federal lands for development. These business interests included those whom wanted the land for logging timber, for mining, for the construction of roads and railways, for the establishment of new towns and communities to create political support for their current and future business plans, and land leases for raising livestock and large scale farming ventures. For these interest groups, the greatest good was promoted by development, by developing business and transportation infrastructure, and there was more than enough land to go around. The skeletal and ineffective nature of the Land Revision Act of 1891, in their view, needed to be amended in order to provide for the sale or the setting aside of federal lands for public use. In their political lexicon, public use meant business development. On the other side of the debate was Theodore Roosevelt. He recognized that business development was critical to the larger security of the United States; at the same time, he was absolutely convinced that business development and nature conservation could co-exist peacefully. He decided that all federal lands ought to be transferred to the United States Forest Service. He started small, by choosing political battles which he could win without any substantial opposition. In 1903, for example, he was instrumental in creating the first National Bird Preserve on Pelican Island, Florida. This has since become the origin of the modern-day wildlife Refuge system. He fought political battles that he could win, keeping the larger conservation goals in mind, and began to ally himself with individuals whom shared his interests and his vision. One of these figures was Gifford Pinchot. Pinchot was a wealthy graduate of Yale College in 1889, and he had also studied and graduated from the French National School of Forestry. His father had made a great fortune developing American lands, and later in life the entire family began to regret the stripping of American lands for developmental purposes. Pinchot was instrumental in creating the American conservation movement, at elite levels of American society; to this end, he used part of his family fortune to endow the Yale School of Forestry and he converted his family estate, Grey Towers, into a nursery showpiece to show how lands might be managed for public enjoyment, environmental balance, and conservation purposes (Balogh, 2002). He was sought out by Roosevelt for the coming political struggle, and later became the First Chief of the United States Forest Service. In addition to building political support at elite levels, Roosevelt also turned to the grassroots. He visited and rallied the support of settlers and common people. He took photographs with hunters and with fisherman. He gave speeches extolling the virtues of wildlife, of simple pleasures, and of the proximity of natural purity to national purity. He rallied the media to his side and engaged in an extensive and deliberate campaign to build widespread support to counter his political opposition well in advance of the ultimate battle. In one of his most memorable public relations and political campaigns, Roosevelt left the luxurious trappings of the White House to tour the Yosemite Valley with John Muir, the founder of the Sierra Club, in 1903. In the media, Roosevelt made his political pitch in cautious though firm words. He rejected, in polite terms, John Muir’s vision of nature as totally untouchable and privileged. Roosevelt was careful to phrase his vision as one of balance and as one of harmony between developmental interests and nature conservation. While this balance alienated the extremes of both sides to the debate, it endeared Roosevelt to the public more generally and made it difficult for his critics and opponents to defeat his ultimate support of the Transfer Act of 1905. As a result of his tireless advocacy in support of nature conservation, his ability to build substantial political support among both the elite and the common man, and his political rhetoric which balanced the use of natural resources between conservation and development interests, Congress was unable to resist passing of the Transfer Act of 1905. Roosevelt moved quickly to implement the provisions of the Act, something which most certainly had not happened back in 1891 with the Land Revision Act. He set aside some one hundred and ninety four million acres of federal land for nature preserves and natural parks; this was a staggering amount of land at the time, and it accounted for a larger set aside of federal lands than all of his presidential successors combined. Following these initial transfers, the Roosevelt administration managed to more precisely allocate these lands for conservation purposes. Fifty three national wildlife refuges were established, more than forty million acres were established for national parks, and eighteen land areas, including the Grand Canyon, were designated as special interest lands. Though he was successful in the later years of his administration in transferring more lands, it was the Transfer Act of 1905 which made these political successes possible. The political battle, in the final analysis, was won by Roosevelt long before it was fought. By bringing to the presidential office his personal passions for nature conservation, by building political support among both the elite and the common man, and by phrasing his political rhetoric in firm but reasonable ways, he secured the passage of legislation which remains of tremendous relevance to this day. 1.3 Modern Relevance: President Clinton and the Ongoing Political Debate It is important to note that the scale of Roosevelt’s actions was both unprecedented in his time and remains basically unmatched to this day. The Transfer Act of 1905 set the stage for what today is a vast system of national conservation. There are more than one hundred and fifty-five national parks today, barely a hundred more than Roosevelt created. That is one national park a year whereas Roosevelt created more than forty in a few years time. In addition to the conservation of forests, Roosevelt’s vision has since been extended to areas in Alaska, snow areas, grasslands, and used as a model for conservation efforts around the globe. The political debate, however, has not lessened. Business interests continue to struggle with issues of nature conservation. Bill Clinton, for instance, ordered a moratorium on road construction and associated development in national parks because of concerns that Roosevelt’s legacy and vision were being eroded by business interests. He did this only at the end of his term, when he could no longer be re-elected, and displayed little of the personal courage displayed by Roosevelt nearly a hundred years previously. 1.4 Conclusions In conclusion, presidential greatness or the lack thereof, is most often associated with larger issues of foreign or domestic policy. Issues such as war, health, and social security dominate presidential histories. That said, the political courage and the political acumen displayed by Theodore Roosevelt in securing the passage of the Transfer Act of 1905 ought to be viewed as a great presidential decision. It should be viewed as great because he allowed genuine personal convictions to triumph over concerns about generating political enemies, because he rejected extreme positions that contradicted his particular vision, and because his decision has, in hindsight, been of tremendous public good to Americans and visitors from around the globe. References Baily, T.A. (1966). Presidential Greatness. Balogh, Brian. (2002). "Scientific Forestry and the Roots of the Modern American State: Gifford Pinchot's Path to Progressive Reform" Environmental History 7(2): 198- 225 Blum, J. M. (1954). The Republican Roosevelt. Brands, H.W. (2001) Theodore Roosevelt. Fehn, B. "Theodore Roosevelt and American Masculinity." Magazine of History (2005) 19(2): 52-59 Land Revision Act of 1891. Strock, J. M. (2003). 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