Your TR Source
In a cancelled letter, President Roosevelt would like Senator Clark to discuss with J. A. Holmes, from the Geological Survey, certain details of the pending coal lands legislation. Roosevelt would like some definitive legislation on the matter enacted before Congress adjourns.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-01-28
President Roosevelt has given a letter to Charles D. Walcott and J. A. Holmes, both from the U.S. Geological Survey, to present to Senator La Follette to explain why he has chosen to withdraw coal lands from entry. Roosevelt states that there will be great opposition to La Follette’s bill because it will significantly impact the states that are affected. Roosevelt has given Walcott a draft of a bill to show La Follette which supports the essentials of La Follette’s bill and leasing natural resources in the public lands, but leaves some matters up to the discretion of the Secretary of the Interior.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-01-23
Theodore Roosevelt sends Victor Watteyne a book as an expression of appreciation for his work with Carl Meissner, William Henry Grenfell Desborough, and J. A. Holmes studying the coal mining conditions of the United States.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1910-12-23
President Roosevelt tells Senator La Follette that in his view, La Follette’s bill would be less desirable than some alternatives. After speaking with the invested politicians and civil servants, Roosevelt believes that any action on the matter of leasing coal mining rights would be progress, and that they should not be overly selective in their attempt to pass such a bill. It is important that the representatives of the states affected by such a bill support it.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-02-05
E. A. Montgomery extends an invitation to Theodore Roosevelt to go bear hunting with him, Gifford Pinchot, and J. A. Holmes sometime in September when he travels west. Alternatively, he would also be glad to entertain Roosevelt at the Sierra Madre Club, “a social organization of practical mining and oil men.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-02-24
Arthur Desborough thanks Theodore Roosevelt for the letter and is pleased to have African Game Trails. He fondly recalls his tour of the United States two years ago. Regretfully, there have been more fatal coal mining accidents in England recently.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-01-06
Richard Watson Gilder of Century is pleased with what President Roosevelt said about his memoirs, and hopes that he will start writing them after he finishes his articles on big game. He also suggests Roosevelt making a “survey of the globe” and writing for Century. Gilder informs Roosevelt that Robert Underwood Johnson will be attending the conference on conservation on behalf of the magazine.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-05-07
Char Miller charts the long path that led to the passage in 1911 of the Weeks Act which provided for the purchase of forest lands in the eastern and southern United States by the federal government to protect the adjacent navigable rivers. Miller highlights the efforts of John W. Weeks of Massachusetts who pushed for the legislation as a member of Congress. Miller lists some of the provisions of the legislation, and he notes how the preservation of forest lands was extended to the Appalachian Mountain watershed in the South. Miller argues that combining the preservation of forest lands in the Northeast and South gave the legislation more support in Congress, and he describes how Gifford Pinchot and Theodore Roosevelt tried to overcome southern hostility to measures by the federal government to purchase forest land.
Photographs of Pinchot and Weeks, two advertisements from the U.S. Forest Service celebrating the centennial of the Weeks Act, and the text of a speech by Roosevelt supplement the article.