The Wilderness Warrior - Douglas Brinkley [498]
Roosevelt, however, let California’s preservationists down in one profound way. For all of his thoroughness, he didn’t back Muir’s wise opposition to flooding the Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite. Instead, he favored the short-term need for water rather than the long-term aesthetic value of Hetch Hetchy. In contrast to his self-congratulatory boasts during December, Roosevelt’s letter to the Century’s editor, the prominent conservationist Robert Underwood Johnson, exuded self-doubt. Was it smart to have approved a petition by San Francisco to convert Hetch Hetchy into a reservoir, following the earthquake of 1906? Had he let the Sierra Club and John Muir down with regard to this conservation issue? “As for the Hetch Hetchy matter,” Roosevelt explained to Johnson, “it was just one of those cases where I was extremely doubtful; but finally I came to the conclusion that I ought to stand by Garfield and Pinchot’s judgment in the matter.”96 Neither Johnson nor Muir held a noticeable grudge against Roosevelt for his disastrous decision concerning Hetch Hetchy (although they did hold a grudge against both Garfield and Pinchot).
And Roosevelt took his conservationism global that December. At the Joint Conservation Congress he rallied against the disease of global deforestation. Roosevelt invited Canada and Mexico to participate in the North America Conservation Congress on February 18, 1909, in Washington, D.C., for a simple reason: nature didn’t recognize artificial boundaries. If Mexico polluted the Rio Grande River, that would hurt the citizens of Texas. Similarly, if Canada overfished Lake Superior, the effect on Minnesota would be horrific. Roosevelt wanted Arbor Day to be international, because deforestation was a global curse. Also, every country needed tough antipollution laws to regulate the handling of sewage and industrial waste. Migratory birds needed protection like the Lacey Act everywhere from the Arctic to Antarctica, from Lassen Peak to the Himalayas. Roosevelt’s hope was that his conference of February between the United States, Canada, and Mexico might be the precursor to a global conference. “It is evident that natural resources are not limited by the boundary lines which separate nations,” Roosevelt said, “and that the need for conserving them upon this continent is as wide as the area upon which they exist.”97
A final 1908 brouhaha occurred when Roosevelt declared Loch-Katrine in Wyoming a federal bird reservation, to protect a wide range of aquatic fowl as well as nesting bald eagles and peregrine falcons. Congressman Frank W. Mondell protested that Loch-Katrine Federal Bird Reservation was undemocratic. Wyoming had so sparse a population that it had only one congressman—Mondell, who with his long face, pointed eyebrows, and handlebar mustache, served in that capacity for twenty-six years. Mondell was the champion of Wyoming’s oil fields and coal mines. Imposing one of T.R.’s federal bird reservations on his state—not far from Teapot Dome—was, to him, nothing short of an act of war. On February 11, 1909, Mondell, a member of the committee on Public Lands (he would later be its chairman), wrote a scathing letter to Dr. Merriam, which was published in the Congressional Record. “I desire to dissent most emphatically,” he wrote about Loch-Katrine, “and to register my protest against the order in question.”98
By January 1909 Roosevelt felt a great thirst rising in him. The idea of being a lame-duck president, sitting in a chair and letting his paunch expand, when he had nine weeks to achieve American things, was ludicrous. Roosevelt believed that instead of pardoning people, outgoing presidents should compile a list of social