The Wilderness Warrior - Douglas Brinkley [327]
President Roosevelt enjoyed stocking his train compartment with only the essentials: toiletries, clean clothes, and a collection of John Burroughs’s books. His life was usually so full of clutter that he seemed to relish the enforced sparseness of train travel; his hectic world was reduced to the bare necessities. Known to tip generously, Roosevelt usually had a couple of porters in attendance outside his compartment, ready to fulfill his every wish. He spent many of his travel hours gazing from his open window. Often, the hamlets he saw resembled what we would recognize as Hollywood back-lot sets or exhibits in Dust Bowl museums. Whenever the train stopped at a depot, admirers swarmed the platform. Roosevelt never rejected a handshake, proud that his star was undimmed. A stenographer sometimes came into his compartment so that he could dictate a rambling letter to an ally or a foe. He did this often. The only time Roosevelt became rude was when he learned that a presidential missive of his hadn’t been delivered speedily. He reacted immediately to communication, and mail delays often triggered a presidential tantrum. One can imagine the joy with which Roosevelt would have used the Internet; his letters about his trips were like high-spirited blogs full of in-the-moment musings.
As a favor to John F. Lacey, his favorite congressman, Roosevelt ordered his Union Pacific train to make a stop in Oskaloosa, Iowa—Lacey’s hometown—on April 28. The previous year, Lacey had been reelected to Congress for the seventh time. Nobody in Washington, not even Roosevelt, had a longer, more distinguished career on behalf of wildlife protection than Lacey. Every aspect of Lacey’s career held special meaning to Roosevelt. He and Lacey walked around Oskaloosa together, with the congressman pointing out the sights; and Roosevelt christened a new YMCA building by giving a ten-minute speech in front of a hastily assembled crowd of 30,000.60 Lacey had urged Roosevelt to save the forestlands of Colorado, and he was now similarly animated about saving prehistoric ruins in New Mexico and Alaskan forest reserves. In terms of his personality, Lacey was what’s known in the Midwest as a “plain John”: nothing about his disposition spoke of a will to power or of narcissism. Yet Oskaloosans knew he was fiercely committed to conservation. As a boy, Lacey had played along the meandering streams of southeastern Iowa; his experiences might have come straight from James Whitcomb Riley’s idyllic poem “The Old Swimmin’ Hole.” But owing to deforestation, coal mining, and oil-natural gas drilling these old streams were virtually dead, except for the occasional plump catfish and thick pockets of minnows. This environmental degradation sickened Lacey. “The trees had been felled and the springs had gone dry,” he complained. “The streams were gravelly beds, as dry as Sahara, except for a few hours after a big rain had converted them into muddy torrents.”61
Hugging Lacey good-bye, Roosevelt headed to Keokuk, in the most southeastern part of Iowa. There he was met by the brother of William Hornaday, Calvin, who lived in that Mississippi River town. As a husbandry expert, Hornaday told the president about a new type of steel-link fence being manufactured by the Page Wire Fence Companion of Adrian, Michigan. The new wire had enough holding capability for bison. Immediately Roosevelt had the fencing acquired for both the New York Zoological Society and the National Zoological Park.62
Although the main event at Keokuk was Roosevelt’s pushing a big button to reopen John C. Hubinger’s factory (known for making starch), the president’s oratory near the tomb of the Sauk chief Keokuk in Rand Park generated the most lasting memory. Roosevelt liked everything about the town of Keokuk, at the confluence of the Mississippi and Des Moines rivers.
From there it was on to the greatest American