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protégé directly upon reaching Europe. By the time Pinchot reached Denmark in April 1910, Roosevelt was agitated about Alaskan forestlands being opened up by the Taft administration to big coal interests. But he was also cautious about publicly entering the Pinchot-Ballinger feud. Worried that his conservation legacy was deteriorating under Taft’s lackadaisical custodianship, Roosevelt nevertheless stayed mum. Perhaps Roosevelt also heeded his sixteen-year-old daughter, Alice, who warned him in a letter that Pinchot was self-serving and an advocate of “practically rank socialism.”59

By telegram, Roosevelt suggested to Pinchot that they meet in Italy in April. Together, without drama or distress, they would calmly consider how best to protect Alaska’s natural resources. Word of this scheduled meeting leaked out to newspapers. “There is no question that this meeting created widespread anxiety among Republicans,” Pinchot’s biographer McGeary noted. “Administration stalwarts, as well as others, primarily interested in party unity, feared the political consequences of having current events presented to Roosevelt from Pinchot’s point of view.”60

When Roosevelt finally appeared in Khartoum for his first press conference after months off the beaten path in the African bush—disheveled from travel, his shirtfront wrinkled, but his face glowing with a deep tan—questions were hurled at him by anxious reporters. Why was Pinchot fired? Will you challenge Taft in 1912 for the Republican nomination? Is conservation still the most pressing issue facing America? Fearful of giving clumsy answers, and not wanting to take on Pinchot’s encumbrances as his own, Roosevelt refused to discuss the controversial matter. He would talk only about his experiences in the African bush. He purposefully made many references to giant elands, but none to American politics.

When Pinchot finally met with Roosevelt in Italy on April 11, they had a lot to talk about. The dapper Pinchot looked as elegant as ever, wearing exactly the right clothes for a daytime walk through vineyards and olive groves. A breeze made it a perfect day for an outing. With regard to American politics, however, Roosevelt was between a rock and a hard place. The nasty fact was that Taft had been Roosevelt’s choice as his successor. If Roosevelt attacked Taft outright, that would cause a deep rift in the Republican Party. So Roosevelt stalled. At a press conference in Porto Maurizio, he refused to talk about U.S. conservation policy until August 27, when he would deliver a major speech in Colorado.61 And Roosevelt’s stalling worked. The pack of European reporters backed off, just walking away en masse to look for a headline elsewhere. Roosevelt’s tactics effectively defused Pinchot as well.62 “One of the best and most satisfactory talks with T.R. I ever had,” Pinchot wrote of their meeting in Italy. “Lasted nearly all day, and till about 10:30 at night.” In Breaking New Ground, published after World War II, Pinchot admitted that he had put his mentor, Roosevelt, “in a very embarrassing position, but that could not be helped.”63

That spring of 1910 Pinchot published his first book, aptly titled The Fight for Conservation. Capitalizing on his feud with Ballinger, Pinchot excoriated “stupidly false” businessmen who were either too greedy or ignorant to comprehend that there was no such thing as inexhaustible resources.64 Echoing George Perkins Marsh, whose work of 1864, Man and Nature, remained a bible to conservationists, Pinchot warned against plagues such as wildfires, dust bowls, famines, and floods that would devastate America unless huge forest reserves were maintained. Playing Cassandra, Pinchot warned that only a fool would think America’s supplies of coal, timber, petroleum, soil, forage plants, and freshwater were infinite.65 These resources belonged to the Americans and were not to be recklessly squandered for the benefit of a single generation. Pinchot ripped into financial titans who demanded special privileges or sought a monopoly with regard to natural resources. The only