Theodore Roosevelt: Statements Pertaining to Conservation

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

In his Square Deal reforms, in his foreign policy, and perhaps most of all in his conservation program, Roosevelt believed firmly that he was fulfilling the president's duty to serve as the “steward” of the American people—future generations pointedly included. In his view, the federal government was obligated to promote justice and the common good, and the president had a vital role to play in this process. Consistent with his broad constructionist principles, Roosevelt operated on the theory that the president can and should exercise stewardship by taking action on behalf of the public, except in cases where a law or the Constitution expressly forbids him to take such action. In the area of conservation, Roosevelt pursued a pathbreaking and enormously ambitious policy embodying the two concepts of controlled utilization and preservation.

Controlled utilization was the guiding principle behind the establishment by Roosevelt, empowered by congressional legislation, of forest reserves and irrigation projects in the western states. He created 150 new forest reserves on approximately 150 million acres of land, and he launched the first twenty-four federal irrigation projects. Regarding his thinking on this matter, in 1907 he declared, “Unless we maintain an adequate material basis for our civilization, we can not maintain the institutions in which we take so great and so just a pride; and to waste and destroy our natural resources means to undermine this material basis.” In 1909 he remarked, “If we allow great industrial organizations to exercise unregulated control of the means of production and the necessaries of life, we deprive the Americans of today and of the future of industrial liberty, a right no less precious and vital than political freedom.”

Roosevelt's rapid and extensive creation of forest reserves occurred as a response to what the president perceived as the greed and recklessness of lumber syndicates. These entities reacted by persuading members of Congress over whom they had influence to enact disabling legislation. Early in 1907 an amendment was attached to an agricultural appropriations bill prohibiting the establishment of any additional forest reserves in the six states of Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, Washington, and Oregon. While supporters of the amendment calculated correctly that Roosevelt would have difficulty vetoing this important appropriations bill, he nonetheless outmaneuvered (and infuriated) them.

The Constitution stipulates that the president has ten days to sign or veto an act of Congress. Under the management of Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot, Roosevelt's knowledgeable and dedicated right-hand man in the realm of conservation policy, government employees worked long days behind the scenes to produce comprehensive lists of areas in the affected states that should be designated as forest reserves. On March 2, just before he signed the amended agricultural appropriations bill, Roosevelt shocked his foes by proclaiming the establishment in the six states in question of twenty-one new forest reserves totaling 16 million acres.

Preservation was the other half of Roosevelt's conservation policy. The protection of birds and other wildlife (Roosevelt was among the country's leading wildlife experts) and the permanent safeguarding of the nation's greatest natural wonders were the two primary purposes of his preservation initiatives. Roosevelt inherited congressional authority to create national parks and gained similar authority to create national monuments through the Antiquities Act of 1906, and he was very active on both fronts. For the creation of four national game preserves, Roosevelt was empowered in each instance by a separate act of Congress. Somewhat differently, the president's declarations establishing federal bird reservations, actions not authorized by Congress, manifested his broad constructionist philosophy. Discovering in 1903 that no law prevented such declarations, Roosevelt designated Pelican Island, Florida, the first of these reservations and then proceeded to designate fifty more over the remaining years of his presidency.

Roosevelt's outlook on preservation is well represented in his observations in 1903 on the Grand Canyon, established as both a national monument and a national game preserve in 1908: “In the Grand Canyon, Arizona has a natural wonder which, so far as I know, is in kind absolutely unparalleled throughout the rest of the world.… You can not improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it. What you can do is keep it for your children, your children's children, and for all who come after you.” In 1916 he declared, “With the great majority of our most interesting and important wild birds and beasts the prime need is to protect them, … especially by the creation of sanctuaries and refuges.… The progress made in the United States, of recent years, in creating and policing bird refuges, has been of capital importance.”

Conservation was a matter of the highest priority for Roosevelt. In addition to all the forest reserves, irrigation projects, national parks and monuments, and bird and wildlife sanctuaries for which he was responsible, he appointed four commissions to investigate issues pertinent to his conservation policy and, during the final year of his presidency, convened three major conservation conferences—altogether constituting a truly breathtaking record. Roosevelt stands without question as the foremost environmentalist president in American history. Just as he had intended, his farsighted stewardship of the nation's environment has benefited and will continue to benefit multiple generations of Americans.