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By Root 3824 0

limitations had been issued. Roosevelt’s refusal to let Congress inhibit him caused a firestorm against him on Capitol Hill. By contrast, in sleepy Oskaloosa, where he had resumed his law practice on Main Street, Lacey deemed it a great day in the annals of forestry. Roosevelt had delivered a punishing blow to the advocates of states’ rights. He had caught Congress flat-footed. And the lumberman’s axes had been stilled in certain heavily forested regions, particularly in the Pacific Northwest.

The conservationist pronouncement of March 2 was a fine example of Roosevelt’s unappeasable conservationism. Roosevelt issued a long “Memorandum” listing forest reserves either created or enlarged:

Toiyabe Forest Reserve, Nevada

Wenaha Forest Reserve, Oregon and Washington

Las Animas Forest Reserve, Colorado and New Mexico

Colville Forest Reserve, Washington

Siskiyou Forest Reserve, Oregon

Bear Lodge Forest Reserve, Wyoming

Holy Cross Forest Reserve, Colorado

Uncompahgre Forest Reserve, Colorado

Park Range Forest Reserve, Colorado

Imnaha Forest Reserve, Oregon

Big Belt Forest Reserve, Montana

Big Hole Forest Reserve, Idaho and Montana

Otter Forest Reserve, Montana

Lewis and Clark Forest Reserve, Montana

Montezuma Forest Reserve, Colorado

Olympic Forest Reserve, Washington

Little Rockies Forest Reserve, Montana

San Juan Forest Reserve, Colorado

Medicine Bow Forest Reserve, Wyoming, Colorado

Yellowstone Forest Reserve, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming

Port Neuf Forest Reserve, Idaho

Palouse Forest Reserve, Idaho

Weiser Forest Reserve, Idaho

Priest River Forest Reserve, Idaho and Washington

Cabinet Forest Reserve, Montana and Idaho

Rainier Forest Reserve, Washington

Washington Forest Reserve, Washington

Ashland Forest Reserve, Oregon

Coquille Forest Reserve, Oregon

Cascade Forest Reserve, Oregon

Umpqua Forest Reserve, Oregon

Blue Mountain Forest Reserve, Oregon 7

When Fulton heard that huge tracts of Oregon forestlands had been pickpocketed by the federal government before the agriculture bill could be voted on, he was furious. No serious American, he believed, could have designated so many western forest reserves in such a cavalier fashion. It was a gray, grim day, Fulton lamented, for Willamette valley’s businessmen. According to Fulton’s tirade, Roosevelt and Pinchot’s team had sneakily withdrawn 16 million acres, ostensibly to prevent overlogging. And eight of the forest reserves were in Oregon: Wenaha, Siskiyou, Imnaha, Ashland, Coquille, Cascade, Umpqua, and Blue Mountain.8 The whole damn state, Fulton fumed, was becoming a park. The lumber warehouses and industrial storage sheds in his state would be empty if this type of land grab was tolerated. A torrent of accusations followed: Why didn’t Roosevelt burn the Constitution while he was at it? Why didn’t he just declare Oregon a colony and get it over with? Why didn’t he ban sawmills from operating in the West?

Not for a second did Fulton believe that the autocratic Roosevelt was preserving millions of acres for homesteaders or for posterity. The new forest reserves were, to his mind, something the aristocrats of the Boone and Crockett Club and the Audubon Society wanted to have as trophies, at the expense of hardworking, taxpaying citizens. And in general, western interests claimed that this was foul play. Roosevelt, they believed, had acted dishonorably by setting aside the 16 million acres of forest reserves without proper congressional consultation.9

As a result of the land withdrawal of March 2, the executive branch was sued. The plaintiffs’ lawyers said Roosevelt was acting like a tribal chieftain unaccountable to constitutional law. The defense attorneys said the lawsuits were small-minded. At issue was whether the Roosevelt administration had abused executive powers. Eventually, in 1910, the dispute was brought before the courts, first in U.S. v. Grimaud (220 U.S. 506) and then in Light v. U.S. (200 U.S. 523). In both cases the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in T.R.’s favor. Big timber had been stymied. The threat of these court cases served only