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Ernest Harold Baynes asks President Roosevelt to support the American Bison Society in its effort to save the American Bison from extinction.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-11-01
Superintendent Young updates William Loeb on recent unlawful activity in Yellowstone National Park. He and Major Henry T. Allen, commander of the troops at Fort Yellowstone, “encouraged” the conviction of a corporal from Tower Falls station for poaching as well as another soldier who vandalized a tree. Young believes he should stay in the park until mid January to prevent poaching and asks what President Roosevelt’s feelings are about a mounted police force to protect the park. Young will attend the wedding of Ellen Dean Child, daughter of a family with concessions in the park, and William Morse Nichols of California.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-11-05
Edward North Buxton sends news to President Roosevelt pertaining to Buxton’s organization, the Association for the Preservation of the Fauna of the Empire, that may be of interest to him. Buxton also requests that Roosevelt write a short contribution for an upcoming symposium, as well as become a regular contributor to the Association’s journal.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-05-31
Brander Matthews writes to President Roosevelt regarding the preservation of Niagara Falls. Matthews mentions his previous correspondence with Frank J. Sprague and Sprague’s belief that if the falls are not saved then they should be sold. Matthews asks Roosevelt to consider the situation and keep Sprague as a possible member of the commission board when the time comes.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-02-01
John Burroughs writes to President Roosevelt regarding a trip and his work on a publication.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-01-18
John Campbell Greenway recommends Judge Walker to represent President Roosevelt in an investigation of the Forest Reserve at Cass Lake, Minnesota. The “justice of the government in dealing with the Indians” is one of the questions being considered.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-11-05
William S. Harvey writes to President Roosevelt to ask if Roosevelt will add his name to a list of supporters of a conservation effort.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-09-18
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt recently signed the bill establishing the Olympic National Park, protecting the trees, glaciers, and wilderness on Washington state’s Olympic peninsula. Although the area of Mount Olympus National Monument, which President Theodore Roosevelt had previously proclaimed, had dwindled over the years, proclaiming it a National Park restores and enlarges the protected area.
1938-06-29
Charles J. Kelly pushes back on Assistant Secretary of the Interior Sweeney’s concerns associated with reducing the size of the Mount Olympus National Monument. Area removed from the monument will nevertheless still be part of Olympic National Forest. Kelly offers to answer any questions Sweeney may still have regarding their argument for the abolition of the national monument and return of all land to the national forest.
1915-04-24
Arno B. Cammerer, acting director of the National Park Service, answers Hamilton M. Higday’s questions regarding water power in National Parks areas by providing a brief overview of relevant legislation. Cammerer states that National Parks have tended to be established “only where natural, primitive conditions can be maintained for all time,” and that the presence of commercial use of lakes and waterways would discourage the area from being considered for inclusion in a National Park.
1926-07-19
Arno B. Cammerer, Acting Director of the National Park Service, responds to Abby Rhoda Hills’ inquiry regarding the establishment of a national park on the Olympic Peninsula. While the area has been noted as a potential site, the government has not yet decided that it meets the criteria for designation as a National Park. He suggests that the best way to preserve timber on the specific parcel of land Hills inquired about would be to get in touch with State park authorities. Cammerer agrees that it would be good if the National Park Service could eventually furnish materials for teachers relative to national parks, but thus far this hasn’t been accomplished.
1932
Representative Hill issues a report on the bill proposing to establish the Mount Olympus National Park. The bill will abolish the existing Mount Olympus National Monument and establish a larger unit containing nearby forests and game habitats which need to be appropriately protected.
1937-08-16
The Emergency Conservation Committee highlights the importance of the Olympic Peninsula as a habitat for wildlife species and forests, including Roosevelt Elk and Douglas fir trees. It urges the expansion of the Olympic Peninsula National Monument to encompass all the terrain originally reserved for it, prior to President Woodrow Wilson reducing its size, and hopes that this expansion may serve as a prelude to further protections and the establishment of a national park.
1934-06
Congressman Monrad C. Wallgren has proposed legislation to establish a national park on the Olympic Peninsula, superseding and expanding the present Olympic National Monument. The Emergency Conservation Committee urges its readers to send letters in support of this measure to Congress.
1935-06
The Emergency Conservation Committee outlines twelve problems that it views of immediate importance, and provides suggestions of who to contact to help encourage action on the various matters.
1935-05
Listing and description of seven commissions, conferences, and congresses convened by President Theodore Roosevelt, five of them in the last year of his presidency. These gatherings dealt with land use and the conservation of natural resources. Each entry notes when the meeting occurred and includes the scope of its mandate. A text box containing contact information for the Theodore Roosevelt Association also appears in this article.
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
1999
Mark W.T. Harvey begins his review of Douglas Brinkley’s The Wilderness Warrior by noting that it is a very large book with much to say, but Harvey asserts that in his zeal to convey the story of Theodore Roosevelt as a conservation crusader, Brinkley tries to cover too much, provides too many details, and overwhelms the reader with his accumulation of facts and anecdotes. Harvey also argues that this barrage of knowledge comes at the expense of analysis and interpretation, and he believes that Brinkley lets his enthusiasm for his subject overtake the need for a critical perspective. Harvey contends that Brinkley does not adequately explore what terms like conservation, preservation, and wilderness meant in Roosevelt’s time and how Roosevelt acted to fulfill the meaning of these designations. Although he faults Brinkley for making Roosevelt too much of “a conservation hero,” Harvey concludes his review with praise for Brinkley for raising the profile of Roosevelt as an unrestrained lover of nature and a bold leader in the fight to conserve the nation’s natural resources.
The front cover illustration of The Wilderness Warrior, one of Roosevelt’s bird lists, two photographs of the Elkhorn Ranch, and seven photographs of Roosevelt accompany the essay.
James G. Lewis explains how deforestation in China became a central part of President Theodore Roosevelt’s last annual message to Congress in December 1908. Lewis notes that Roosevelt’s conservation efforts had been increasingly thwarted by Congress in the last two years of his administration, and Roosevelt decided that he needed to make a strong case to Congress in his last message. Roosevelt used the example of what had happened to China’s soil, rivers, and climate after massive deforestation had rid many of its mountains of trees and vegetation. Roosevelt relied on evidence, eyewitness accounts, and photographs supplied by Frank Nicholas Meyer and Willis Bailey to emphasize the damage done in China. Lewis notes that Roosevelt was the first president to add photographs to his annual message.
Five photographs appear in the article, including three of deforestation in China, a similar scene from Utah, and one of Meyer.
William N. Tilchin provides an introduction to former Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal editor John A. Gable’s last major public address of October 23, 2004. Tilchin notes that Gable’s speech called for a comprehensive study of Theodore Roosevelt and conservation and that Douglas Brinkley has met that need with his 2009 book The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America. The journal reprints Gable’s address in its handwritten version with Gable’s final edits added by Tilchin.
In the speech, Gable asserts that Theodore Roosevelt’s record as a conservationist and an environmentalist has not been adequately explored by historians and biographers, and he notes the work of Tweed Roosevelt in trying to correct this shortcoming. Gable also argues that Roosevelt, a man of many seeming contradictions, was both a use-conservationist and a preservationist when it came to natural resources, and he quotes Theodore Roosevelt and cites examples from his record as president to bolster his argument.
Four photographs of Gable supplement the text. Gable’s address first appeared in volume 26, number 3, 2005 issue of the journal.
Lowell E. Baier describes the importance of Theodore Roosevelt’s Elkhorn Ranch to the formation of Roosevelt’s environmental awareness, and subsequently to the emergence of the nation’s conservation movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Baier provides a brief history of the conservation movement in the United States before Roosevelt’s emergence as its leader, and he argues that the conservation effort stemmed in part from the nation’s desire to preserve parts of its frontier past. Baier quotes Roosevelt biographer Edmund Morris in emphasizing the importance of the Elkhorn to Roosevelt’s environmental beliefs, and he highlights efforts to secure the protection of lands directly across the Little Missouri River from the Elkhorn ranch house.
A photograph of Roosevelt with two of his ranch hands and three historic photographs of the Elkhorn Ranch buildings populate the essay along with two contemporary color photographs of the site. The essay also features illustrations of Roosevelt’s cattle brands, sketches of the Elkhorn ranch buildings by Frederic Remington, and a large map showing the various units of Theodore Roosevelt National Park and surrounding lands.