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scholars believe was the birth of the modern environmental movement, reached epic proportions.89 The newspapers built the drama into a feud between two types of conservationists: Gifford Pinchot, a utilitarian conservationist, who was in favor of damming Hetch Hetchy; and John Muir, the wilderness prophet of the Sierra Club, who resembled Saint Francis of Assisi and was vehemently opposed to the dam. The fracas made for good theater. Uncharacteristically, Roosevelt—who on December 8, 1908, had declared Yosemite a “great national playground” where “all wild things should be protected and the scenery kept totally unmarred”—sat on the sidelines of the controversy.90 Defending his Alaskan forest reserves was an easy decision for Roosevelt. They were largely remote and isolated from large population settlements. But San Franciscans, still recovering from the earthquake of 1906 and needing a water reservoir, were a different matter to him. It was Muir, working on Travels in Alaska, who held the moral high ground; his righteous fury on behalf of Yosemite echoed all the way from the snowcapped Sierra Nevada peaks to Alaska’s Brooks Range up to the coastal plain of the Beaufort Sea.

“Dam Hetch Hetchy!” a furious Muir declared. “As well dam for water-tanks the people’s cathedrals and churches, for no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the heart of man.”91

Chapter Four - Bull Moose Crusade

I

When Roosevelt returned from Africa in June 1910, one of the first public events he spoke at was a luncheon of the Camp Fire Club of America (CFCA) held on the roof of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on Park Avenue in New York City. The New York Times treated the stag luncheon as a glitzy convention of the conservation movement, minus Gifford Pinchot. In getting from Oyster Bay to Manhattan, the always competitive Roosevelt decided to race the Long Island train in his Ford car; he beat it by five minutes. Blind in one eye and with blurred vision in the other, Roosevelt was reckless at the steering wheel and heavy-footed on the accelerator—in short, a menace on the road. After talking with reporters in his Outlook office, Roosevelt headed to the Waldorf-Astoria roof, which had been decorated like a rustic camp. There were a lot of pinecones and picnic tables. Large heraldic shields honored the heroes of the CFCA and the conservation movement: Boone, Crockett, Carson, Pike, Frémont, Audubon, Lewis and Clark. Roosevelt arrived with his son Kermit and his publisher, Arthur H. Scribner. Everybody wanted to hear Roosevelt’s African tales. He delivered stories about lions, zebras, and gazelles. And he took “nature fakers” like Jack London to task. According to the New York Times, when he was done with his hourlong talk, the CFCA members “fired their revolvers to punctuate their enthusiasm.”1

The CFCA was the inspiration of the zoologist William Temple Hornaday. Disgruntled with the Boone and Crockett Club’s ethos of trophy hunting, refusing to count dead elk or moose antler points, Hornaday broke ranks with the hunters.* In 1897 he created the CFCA, with an emphasis on sportsmen committed to the preservation of wildlife habitats, the primitive arts of the outdoors life, and the wise use of natural resources. Based in Chappaqua, New York, the CFCA included Ernest Thompson Seton among its early founding members. One of its primary objectives was to keep the Adirondacks forever wild. The CFCA, in fact, had challenged New York state to immediately set aside more than 1 million new acres of forestlands. Entire Adirondack watersheds needed immediate protecting. The club also wanted New York railroads not to use coal and timber companies to stop the destructive practice of clear-cutting.2

Studying the map of the United States—particularly in the territories of Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Alaska—the CFCA members wanted to create more huge federal reserves like the Yukon Delta (known as the Roosevelt Bird Reserve) in Alaska. Later that year, in December, Hornaday held a dinner for about 350 people honoring Colonel C. J. “Buffalo” Jones for