1 00:00:01,480 --> 00:00:05,760 Speaker 1: Along with Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt was the American president 2 00:00:05,880 --> 00:00:10,200 Speaker 1: most fascinated with nature and with the American West, and 3 00:00:10,360 --> 00:00:16,040 Speaker 1: like Jefferson, Roosevelt transformed the region he loved. I'm dan Flores, 4 00:00:16,400 --> 00:00:20,120 Speaker 1: and this is the American West, brought to you by 5 00:00:20,239 --> 00:00:23,959 Speaker 1: Velvet Buck Wine, where the hunt meets the harvest. A 6 00:00:24,040 --> 00:00:28,080 Speaker 1: portion of each bottle goes to support backcountry hunters and anglers. 7 00:00:28,440 --> 00:00:50,200 Speaker 1: Limited supply available at Velvetbuckvineyards dot com. Enjoy responsible how 8 00:00:50,280 --> 00:01:00,240 Speaker 1: you create a new West and a new America. He 9 00:01:00,280 --> 00:01:03,680 Speaker 1: was a former President of the United States and might 10 00:01:03,720 --> 00:01:08,039 Speaker 1: hold that office again. He was also an internationally known 11 00:01:08,120 --> 00:01:12,560 Speaker 1: sportsman and advocate of adventurous living whose demise would have 12 00:01:12,640 --> 00:01:18,800 Speaker 1: caused shockwaves. But descending the unexplored Rio da Duvida the 13 00:01:18,959 --> 00:01:23,760 Speaker 1: River of Doubt in early nineteen fourteen, Teddy Roosevelt was 14 00:01:23,920 --> 00:01:27,560 Speaker 1: injured and ill, and had watched his Great South American 15 00:01:27,640 --> 00:01:33,760 Speaker 1: adventure with legendary explorer Candido Rondon almost disintegrate in the 16 00:01:33,800 --> 00:01:37,920 Speaker 1: Brazilian jungle. No novelists could have written the scene better 17 00:01:38,000 --> 00:01:41,320 Speaker 1: for him. We've reached a point where some of us 18 00:01:41,440 --> 00:01:45,319 Speaker 1: must stop, he told his son Kermit. I feel I 19 00:01:45,360 --> 00:01:49,760 Speaker 1: am only a burden to the party. It was classic 20 00:01:49,800 --> 00:01:54,480 Speaker 1: Theodore Roosevelt, a romantic hero who, despite his fame, was 21 00:01:54,560 --> 00:01:58,800 Speaker 1: willing to sacrifice himself for his companions. The Party had 22 00:01:58,840 --> 00:02:01,320 Speaker 1: none of it, of course, but the incident is a 23 00:02:01,360 --> 00:02:04,760 Speaker 1: window on the characteristics that led Theodore Roosevelt to the 24 00:02:04,840 --> 00:02:10,919 Speaker 1: life of accomplishment and adventure. He created. Few things Teddy 25 00:02:11,000 --> 00:02:15,040 Speaker 1: Roosevelt ever did, were easy. Maybe that is why he 26 00:02:15,200 --> 00:02:19,840 Speaker 1: gloried so and challenge. By sheer force of will, he 27 00:02:19,960 --> 00:02:24,400 Speaker 1: turned himself from a weak, sickly adolescent into a hearty 28 00:02:24,480 --> 00:02:29,519 Speaker 1: and robust Harvard undergraduate who boxed and hunted, and eventually 29 00:02:29,600 --> 00:02:35,040 Speaker 1: into a lifelong advocate of what he called the strenuous life. 30 00:02:35,080 --> 00:02:39,239 Speaker 1: That same determination marked his administrations as President of the 31 00:02:39,360 --> 00:02:44,480 Speaker 1: United States, enabling him to enact major progressive social policies, 32 00:02:44,919 --> 00:02:49,520 Speaker 1: central to which was the first comprehensive environmental program in 33 00:02:49,560 --> 00:02:55,040 Speaker 1: American history. Roosevelt's ideal image of an American was someone 34 00:02:55,080 --> 00:02:58,960 Speaker 1: who knew the natural world, which was why conservation of 35 00:02:58,960 --> 00:03:03,919 Speaker 1: an endangered nation was central to his accomplishments. As with 36 00:03:04,040 --> 00:03:08,280 Speaker 1: Thomas Jefferson, whose goals for the West enabled Americans to 37 00:03:08,400 --> 00:03:12,120 Speaker 1: grasp its outlines, we shouldn't be surprised to discover a 38 00:03:12,240 --> 00:03:16,560 Speaker 1: similar fascination with nature in the president who laid down 39 00:03:16,720 --> 00:03:22,919 Speaker 1: America's and the West's environmental foundation. But in contrast to Jefferson, 40 00:03:23,200 --> 00:03:27,240 Speaker 1: who sat on his mountain in Virginia and imagined the West, 41 00:03:27,800 --> 00:03:34,000 Speaker 1: Roosevelt experienced the West and the world firsthand. Roosevelt was 42 00:03:34,120 --> 00:03:38,160 Speaker 1: from one of the Eastern families of patrician elites so 43 00:03:38,440 --> 00:03:42,400 Speaker 1: visible in the history of the West. His birth in 44 00:03:42,520 --> 00:03:46,080 Speaker 1: eighteen fifty eight almost made him a Civil War baby, 45 00:03:46,640 --> 00:03:49,920 Speaker 1: but as his mother was a Southerner, the Civil War 46 00:03:50,200 --> 00:03:57,000 Speaker 1: and reconstruction were always forbidden topics. Nature, wild animals, and 47 00:03:57,040 --> 00:03:59,720 Speaker 1: the West, on the other hand, were the focus of 48 00:03:59,800 --> 00:04:03,840 Speaker 1: law long discussions between Roosevelt's father, who was an early 49 00:04:03,920 --> 00:04:07,440 Speaker 1: disciple of Darwin and a founder of the American Museum 50 00:04:07,480 --> 00:04:11,080 Speaker 1: of Natural History, and an uncle who was a nationalist. 51 00:04:11,760 --> 00:04:15,680 Speaker 1: When he was only ten, Roosevelt's family toured Europe, and 52 00:04:15,720 --> 00:04:19,440 Speaker 1: despite young Teddy's frequent attacks of asthma, he and his 53 00:04:19,480 --> 00:04:23,919 Speaker 1: father climbed Mount Vesuvius. Three years later, they were on 54 00:04:24,000 --> 00:04:27,440 Speaker 1: a boat descending the Nile in Egypt, where, with a 55 00:04:27,480 --> 00:04:31,400 Speaker 1: new shotgun, Teddy shot and collected more than one hundred 56 00:04:31,440 --> 00:04:36,039 Speaker 1: birds for his own museum, as he called it. In 57 00:04:36,080 --> 00:04:39,200 Speaker 1: a situation of many options, Teddy did not surprise his 58 00:04:39,279 --> 00:04:42,400 Speaker 1: family when he announced that he wanted to train as 59 00:04:42,440 --> 00:04:46,599 Speaker 1: a naturalist. Like a significant number though not all of 60 00:04:46,760 --> 00:04:51,359 Speaker 1: nature obsessed Americans, Audubon was one, so were George Bird 61 00:04:51,400 --> 00:04:56,159 Speaker 1: Grennell and Aldo Leopold Teddy. Roosevelt and his interest in 62 00:04:56,279 --> 00:05:00,880 Speaker 1: nature began in a boyhood of observing, pursu pursuing, and 63 00:05:01,040 --> 00:05:06,840 Speaker 1: hunting wild animals in wild country. His yearning to make 64 00:05:06,920 --> 00:05:11,440 Speaker 1: natural history a profession was officially abandoned at Harvard. Though 65 00:05:12,200 --> 00:05:15,560 Speaker 1: Teddy wanted a natural history career after the fashion of 66 00:05:15,600 --> 00:05:20,200 Speaker 1: the great naturalists like Alexander von Humboldt or John James Ottoman, 67 00:05:20,880 --> 00:05:24,240 Speaker 1: he wanted to explore exotic locales and hunt and collect 68 00:05:24,240 --> 00:05:28,600 Speaker 1: new species. By his time at Harvard, natural history had 69 00:05:28,640 --> 00:05:34,240 Speaker 1: become a Darwinian exercise of laboratory work. Teddy and a 70 00:05:34,279 --> 00:05:38,880 Speaker 1: fellow ornithology enthusiast, instead worked on and published The Summer 71 00:05:38,960 --> 00:05:43,320 Speaker 1: Birds of the Adirondacks, and by his junior year, Roosevelt 72 00:05:43,320 --> 00:05:47,840 Speaker 1: had decided that the professional natural sciences was not going 73 00:05:47,920 --> 00:05:52,320 Speaker 1: to be his career. Long interested in history, and in 74 00:05:52,360 --> 00:05:55,480 Speaker 1: writing interest that turned out to be a way to 75 00:05:55,640 --> 00:05:59,719 Speaker 1: explore and hunt and collect in the imagination. With a 76 00:05:59,760 --> 00:06:03,120 Speaker 1: heart over degree in hand, Roosevelt turned to a book 77 00:06:03,160 --> 00:06:07,560 Speaker 1: project about how the American frontier had advanced from the 78 00:06:07,680 --> 00:06:11,960 Speaker 1: Eastern seaboard westward. Although much of his story was set 79 00:06:12,160 --> 00:06:15,400 Speaker 1: east of the Mississippi, with men like Daniel Boone and 80 00:06:15,600 --> 00:06:20,560 Speaker 1: Davy Crockett as its heroes. Roosevelt called the book The 81 00:06:20,600 --> 00:06:25,240 Speaker 1: Winning of the West. By this time in his life, 82 00:06:25,320 --> 00:06:28,880 Speaker 1: Roosevelt had made a series of trips to outback Maine, 83 00:06:29,240 --> 00:06:32,360 Speaker 1: and in eighteen eighty he and his younger brother Elliott 84 00:06:32,760 --> 00:06:36,400 Speaker 1: journeyed to Iowa and Minnesota, where, as was common at 85 00:06:36,440 --> 00:06:40,120 Speaker 1: the time, they killed more than four hundred birds and animals, 86 00:06:40,360 --> 00:06:44,320 Speaker 1: yet were disappointed with their take. To this point in 87 00:06:44,360 --> 00:06:48,200 Speaker 1: his life, Roosevelt had not yet been to the actual West, 88 00:06:48,720 --> 00:06:52,200 Speaker 1: where in his imagination it was still possible to experience 89 00:06:52,240 --> 00:06:56,320 Speaker 1: the world of the frontier hunters he was writing about. 90 00:06:56,480 --> 00:07:00,640 Speaker 1: But in September eighteen eighty three, after running his first 91 00:07:00,680 --> 00:07:04,560 Speaker 1: political campaign and getting elected as an assemblyman to the 92 00:07:04,600 --> 00:07:08,600 Speaker 1: New York Legislature, he finally boarded a train with connections 93 00:07:08,720 --> 00:07:15,040 Speaker 1: to the real West to Roosevelt. Cultured men looked to Europe, 94 00:07:15,400 --> 00:07:18,800 Speaker 1: but manly men looked to the West for their inspiration. 95 00:07:19,520 --> 00:07:23,320 Speaker 1: So his destination was as far in the Dakota territory 96 00:07:23,600 --> 00:07:27,240 Speaker 1: as trains would take him, and his mission was specific. 97 00:07:27,760 --> 00:07:31,920 Speaker 1: Roosevelt wanted to engage in that most western of acts, 98 00:07:32,400 --> 00:07:36,320 Speaker 1: shooting a buffalo, before such a thing was no longer possible. 99 00:07:37,200 --> 00:07:40,720 Speaker 1: His younger brother, by then was hunting tigers in India 100 00:07:41,040 --> 00:07:44,920 Speaker 1: and had faced a stampeding buffalo herd in West Texas. 101 00:07:45,800 --> 00:07:49,360 Speaker 1: Everyone knew buffalo were almost gone by then, but there 102 00:07:49,360 --> 00:07:51,920 Speaker 1: were a few, and a buffalo had on the wall 103 00:07:51,920 --> 00:07:57,200 Speaker 1: of your study would convey where your sympathies lay. Until 104 00:07:57,200 --> 00:08:01,240 Speaker 1: the late eighteen eighties, however, Roosevelt else seems not to 105 00:08:01,280 --> 00:08:06,200 Speaker 1: effaced the issue of declining animal populations with much awareness. 106 00:08:07,120 --> 00:08:10,400 Speaker 1: His soon to be friend in the conservation field, journalist 107 00:08:10,520 --> 00:08:14,920 Speaker 1: George Bird Grenelle, was already developing a much more progressive 108 00:08:15,000 --> 00:08:20,120 Speaker 1: credo Roosevelt's, and hints the country's ideas about the natural 109 00:08:20,160 --> 00:08:23,760 Speaker 1: world we'd inherited were about to be shaped into a 110 00:08:23,880 --> 00:08:31,080 Speaker 1: modern form. By this Western experience, buffalo had become the 111 00:08:31,120 --> 00:08:34,800 Speaker 1: mammalian representative of America for all the world in the 112 00:08:34,880 --> 00:08:38,160 Speaker 1: nineteenth century, but their story had now taken a much 113 00:08:38,320 --> 00:08:42,360 Speaker 1: darker tone. Everyone knew that American market hunters were killing 114 00:08:42,400 --> 00:08:46,160 Speaker 1: buffalo by the thousands on a daily basis. The Last 115 00:08:46,240 --> 00:08:49,559 Speaker 1: of the Buffalo became a phrase that defined the eighteen 116 00:08:49,600 --> 00:08:53,680 Speaker 1: eighties the way the Roaring Twenties would define a decade 117 00:08:53,720 --> 00:08:57,600 Speaker 1: forty years later. It was the decade when William Hornaday 118 00:08:57,640 --> 00:09:01,920 Speaker 1: collected bison specimens for the Nash Museum's diorama, in the 119 00:09:01,960 --> 00:09:04,960 Speaker 1: belief that this might be the only way future Americans 120 00:09:05,000 --> 00:09:09,080 Speaker 1: would get to see buffalo. The painter Albert Berstott finished 121 00:09:09,120 --> 00:09:13,440 Speaker 1: his grand oil The Last of the Buffalo in eighteen ninety. 122 00:09:13,760 --> 00:09:17,600 Speaker 1: The same year, a band of Lakota's was massacred by 123 00:09:17,640 --> 00:09:21,760 Speaker 1: the Seventh Cavalry at Wounded Need for performing a dance 124 00:09:21,840 --> 00:09:26,240 Speaker 1: to return Buffalo to the West. Grinnell also chose The 125 00:09:26,400 --> 00:09:29,720 Speaker 1: Last of the Buffalo as the title for his widely 126 00:09:29,800 --> 00:09:34,080 Speaker 1: read book From Scribners and Sons. The demise of America's 127 00:09:34,120 --> 00:09:38,199 Speaker 1: most iconic animal was in the air, and many wondered 128 00:09:38,200 --> 00:09:43,520 Speaker 1: what that meant. In eighteen eighty three, though for Roosevelt, 129 00:09:43,559 --> 00:09:49,160 Speaker 1: a buffalo trophy represented America's ultimate prize. Stepping off the 130 00:09:49,200 --> 00:09:53,680 Speaker 1: train in North Dakota, he hired a guide named Joe Ferris, who, 131 00:09:53,720 --> 00:09:58,120 Speaker 1: in perfect symmetry for that decade, was from eastern Canada 132 00:09:58,480 --> 00:10:01,200 Speaker 1: and had himself only been on the scene in the 133 00:10:01,240 --> 00:10:05,120 Speaker 1: West for a year. They made the Maltese Cross Ranch 134 00:10:05,240 --> 00:10:08,640 Speaker 1: their headquarters and set out on horseback on what turned 135 00:10:08,679 --> 00:10:14,319 Speaker 1: into a fifteen day quest. The days of Audubon describing 136 00:10:14,360 --> 00:10:17,520 Speaker 1: the sound of the vast herds in this same country 137 00:10:17,840 --> 00:10:23,840 Speaker 1: as resembling continuous rolling thunder were now gone forever. That 138 00:10:23,960 --> 00:10:27,160 Speaker 1: year of Roosevelt's hunt, the Fort Benton shipper I. G. 139 00:10:27,360 --> 00:10:31,360 Speaker 1: Baker sent a grand total of five thousand buffalo hides 140 00:10:31,640 --> 00:10:35,760 Speaker 1: down the Missouri River. The next year he shipped none 141 00:10:35,920 --> 00:10:40,679 Speaker 1: at all. The bison story was already exemplifying that in 142 00:10:40,720 --> 00:10:44,520 Speaker 1: the scope of world history, the United States had engaged 143 00:10:44,559 --> 00:10:47,560 Speaker 1: in a more complete destruction of wild animals and a 144 00:10:47,600 --> 00:10:51,640 Speaker 1: wider diversity of them than any modern country in existence. 145 00:10:53,120 --> 00:10:57,320 Speaker 1: Roosevelt's bison hunt was a revelation to him. Initially, he 146 00:10:57,400 --> 00:11:01,160 Speaker 1: wrote his wife Alice, that buffalo are too rare for 147 00:11:01,200 --> 00:11:04,200 Speaker 1: me to hope to get one. Over the course of 148 00:11:04,280 --> 00:11:08,400 Speaker 1: two weeks of horseback travel that took them into Montana territory. 149 00:11:08,559 --> 00:11:13,160 Speaker 1: They found a handful. Roosevelt wounded one bison he never found, 150 00:11:13,400 --> 00:11:17,600 Speaker 1: and missed shots at another pair before finally downing an 151 00:11:17,720 --> 00:11:23,280 Speaker 1: unsuspecting bull barely fifty yards distant, a handsome animal whose 152 00:11:23,480 --> 00:11:27,120 Speaker 1: glossy fall coat was in fine trim and shone in 153 00:11:27,160 --> 00:11:31,360 Speaker 1: the rays of the sun. He said, the celebration became 154 00:11:31,400 --> 00:11:35,319 Speaker 1: the stuff of Western romance. Teddy did a freestyle Indian 155 00:11:35,440 --> 00:11:38,800 Speaker 1: dance and paid Ferris one hundred dollars on the spot, 156 00:11:39,880 --> 00:11:43,360 Speaker 1: hooked on the curious, fantastic beauty of the bad lands, 157 00:11:43,720 --> 00:11:46,920 Speaker 1: before he departed, he bought an interest in his first 158 00:11:47,000 --> 00:11:50,920 Speaker 1: ranch there, the Maltese Cross. On a return trip the 159 00:11:50,960 --> 00:11:54,559 Speaker 1: next year, eighteen eighty four, he bought a second property, 160 00:11:54,840 --> 00:11:59,320 Speaker 1: he called the Elkhorn, along the Little Missouri, the nearest 161 00:11:59,360 --> 00:12:05,080 Speaker 1: neighbor twelve miles away. These Western experiences were pivotal in 162 00:12:05,160 --> 00:12:09,000 Speaker 1: Roosevelt's life. They gave him a base of operations in 163 00:12:09,040 --> 00:12:12,640 Speaker 1: the West and put him in contact with individuals whose 164 00:12:12,760 --> 00:12:17,240 Speaker 1: characters stood naked in that setting. He later commented that 165 00:12:17,360 --> 00:12:21,000 Speaker 1: he learned how to evaluate people in those years, an 166 00:12:21,080 --> 00:12:25,280 Speaker 1: affirmation of his evolving belief and strength directness and the 167 00:12:25,320 --> 00:12:30,120 Speaker 1: will to make things happen. He also learned much more 168 00:12:30,160 --> 00:12:35,040 Speaker 1: now about the Western animals he had read about from Elkhorn. 169 00:12:35,200 --> 00:12:38,760 Speaker 1: He hunted deer and pronghorns, and farther west in the 170 00:12:38,760 --> 00:12:42,480 Speaker 1: Big Horns and the Bitter Roots, grizzlies, elk and moose. 171 00:12:43,240 --> 00:12:46,600 Speaker 1: He hunted mountain goats in the Curdelanes, and caribou in 172 00:12:46,640 --> 00:12:50,640 Speaker 1: the Selkirk Range. Working on the grand history that became 173 00:12:50,720 --> 00:12:54,120 Speaker 1: the Winning of the West, Roosevelt concluded that this kind 174 00:12:54,120 --> 00:12:57,960 Speaker 1: of life, a life roaming the wilderness and hunting, was 175 00:12:58,040 --> 00:13:02,280 Speaker 1: the very path that had allowed Europeans to become Americans. 176 00:13:03,000 --> 00:13:07,319 Speaker 1: Living it, he felt, as he put it, absolutely free 177 00:13:07,440 --> 00:13:12,000 Speaker 1: as a man could feel. But experiencing the West of 178 00:13:12,040 --> 00:13:17,640 Speaker 1: the eighteen eighties was accompanied by a sadder realization. In 179 00:13:17,679 --> 00:13:21,880 Speaker 1: a violation of his Western fantasies, Roosevelt was discovering that, 180 00:13:21,920 --> 00:13:26,679 Speaker 1: in fact, there is not much game. Buffalo were gone, 181 00:13:27,000 --> 00:13:30,360 Speaker 1: elk and deer, and grizzlies weren't far behind. When it 182 00:13:30,480 --> 00:13:33,520 Speaker 1: shot his buffalo, he knew full well that it was, 183 00:13:33,600 --> 00:13:36,680 Speaker 1: as he put it, part of the last remnant of 184 00:13:36,760 --> 00:13:40,840 Speaker 1: a doomed and nearly vanished race. Yet he had still 185 00:13:41,000 --> 00:13:44,200 Speaker 1: shot his bull. That had to have been on his 186 00:13:44,360 --> 00:13:47,760 Speaker 1: mind when he began to realize that, in fact, everything 187 00:13:47,840 --> 00:13:52,200 Speaker 1: seemed to be disappearing. This onslaught on Western nature was 188 00:13:52,240 --> 00:13:56,320 Speaker 1: being delivered by what Roosevelt now referred to as skin 189 00:13:56,520 --> 00:14:01,240 Speaker 1: hunters and greasy nimrods, all of them products of greed 190 00:14:01,400 --> 00:14:07,120 Speaker 1: and self interest. The wild, wild West afforded remarkable freedom 191 00:14:07,360 --> 00:14:12,360 Speaker 1: that was evident, but frontier anarchy without restraint was devouring 192 00:14:12,400 --> 00:14:16,720 Speaker 1: the world with no regard whatsoever, either for its perpetuation 193 00:14:17,200 --> 00:14:23,440 Speaker 1: or for future generations. This was unexpected and depressing, so 194 00:14:23,760 --> 00:14:28,640 Speaker 1: was losing both his wife and his mother almost simultaneously 195 00:14:28,720 --> 00:14:33,720 Speaker 1: that decade, which set him into an emotional spiral, calling 196 00:14:33,760 --> 00:14:37,280 Speaker 1: on the sunshine and champagne air of the West. To 197 00:14:37,360 --> 00:14:41,040 Speaker 1: help overcome these tragedies. Roosevelt turned to writing articles for 198 00:14:41,080 --> 00:14:44,280 Speaker 1: a magazine called Outing, and working on a book he 199 00:14:44,320 --> 00:14:47,880 Speaker 1: would title Hunting Trips of a Ranchman, which appeared in 200 00:14:47,960 --> 00:14:51,720 Speaker 1: print in eighteen eighty five. By the time the Winner 201 00:14:51,760 --> 00:14:55,720 Speaker 1: of eighteen eighty six eighty seven ruined his ranching operation, 202 00:14:56,200 --> 00:14:59,440 Speaker 1: he had enough material for another pair of hunting books, 203 00:15:00,280 --> 00:15:03,720 Speaker 1: Life and the Hunting Trail in eighteen eighty eight and 204 00:15:03,800 --> 00:15:08,440 Speaker 1: The Wilderness Hunter in eighteen ninety three. These were the 205 00:15:08,440 --> 00:15:11,880 Speaker 1: books that established Roosevelt's reputation as someone who knew the 206 00:15:11,920 --> 00:15:16,120 Speaker 1: West and understood what was happening to it. They also 207 00:15:16,200 --> 00:15:18,960 Speaker 1: brought him into contact with people who were about to 208 00:15:19,000 --> 00:15:23,520 Speaker 1: push him much farther along the road to environmental thinking. 209 00:15:25,120 --> 00:15:30,280 Speaker 1: Roosevelt met Grennell, editor of a famous conservation themed magazine 210 00:15:30,320 --> 00:15:35,840 Speaker 1: called Forest and Stream, following Grennell's quite critical review of 211 00:15:35,960 --> 00:15:40,560 Speaker 1: hunting Trips of a Ranchman, bursting into Grenell's office demanding 212 00:15:40,560 --> 00:15:44,200 Speaker 1: to know why the journalists had been underwhelmed, Roosevelt ended 213 00:15:44,280 --> 00:15:47,920 Speaker 1: up impressed with his fellow ivy leaguer's knowledge of the 214 00:15:48,000 --> 00:15:52,280 Speaker 1: state of the West and its fast declining wildlife. With 215 00:15:52,440 --> 00:15:55,920 Speaker 1: Grennell's coaching and friendship over the next fifteen years of 216 00:15:55,920 --> 00:16:00,880 Speaker 1: his career, Roosevelt launched the intellectual journey that was ultimately 217 00:16:00,960 --> 00:16:05,240 Speaker 1: transform America and bring it into the twentieth century. Their 218 00:16:05,400 --> 00:16:09,760 Speaker 1: organization of elite hunters, the Boone and Crocket Club, along 219 00:16:09,800 --> 00:16:14,880 Speaker 1: with Grennell's automn Society, provided platforms that translated their Western 220 00:16:14,960 --> 00:16:22,280 Speaker 1: experiences into a rethinking about freedom and nature. The particular 221 00:16:22,480 --> 00:16:27,160 Speaker 1: epiphany that became the foundation for this rethinking wasn't an 222 00:16:27,200 --> 00:16:31,200 Speaker 1: easy one, but for those who loved American nature, the 223 00:16:31,360 --> 00:16:36,280 Speaker 1: evidence for it was everywhere. Pure self interests of the 224 00:16:36,400 --> 00:16:40,440 Speaker 1: Adam Smith sort, which had driven capitalism for most of 225 00:16:40,480 --> 00:16:44,680 Speaker 1: American history, was growing close to leaving nothing for the future. 226 00:16:45,800 --> 00:16:49,320 Speaker 1: Largely through witnessing the loss of the wild animals he loved, 227 00:16:49,600 --> 00:16:53,920 Speaker 1: Roosevelt was coming to an undergirding principle for the political 228 00:16:54,000 --> 00:17:01,040 Speaker 1: revolution known as progressivism. Capitalism's excesses, it turned out, we're 229 00:17:01,080 --> 00:17:05,040 Speaker 1: going to have to be curbed and regulated, and the 230 00:17:05,200 --> 00:17:09,560 Speaker 1: lesson then being offered by railroad and oil company domination 231 00:17:09,720 --> 00:17:14,000 Speaker 1: of state governments meant to Roosevelt and progressives that the 232 00:17:14,080 --> 00:17:18,800 Speaker 1: only entity truly powerful enough to regulate capitalism was the 233 00:17:18,840 --> 00:17:22,840 Speaker 1: federal government. In search of a word that might symbolize 234 00:17:22,840 --> 00:17:27,080 Speaker 1: what he had in mind, Roosevelt borrowed the term conservation 235 00:17:27,480 --> 00:17:32,720 Speaker 1: from British governance of India. To conserve something meant to 236 00:17:32,920 --> 00:17:38,800 Speaker 1: save it, to ensure its perpetuation. As an American, Roosevelt 237 00:17:38,840 --> 00:17:43,960 Speaker 1: saw conservation in democratic terms. He would develop programs wherein 238 00:17:44,000 --> 00:17:47,840 Speaker 1: the federal government would conserve American nature for what he 239 00:17:47,960 --> 00:17:52,119 Speaker 1: called the greatest good, for the greatest number, and for 240 00:17:52,200 --> 00:17:56,080 Speaker 1: the longest period of time a great country and a 241 00:17:56,119 --> 00:18:02,520 Speaker 1: great civilization, Roosevelt believed needed to understand Danned itself. The 242 00:18:02,560 --> 00:18:06,600 Speaker 1: first step involved taking some sort of action to curb 243 00:18:06,680 --> 00:18:09,960 Speaker 1: the market hunt for wildlife that for three centuries had 244 00:18:10,000 --> 00:18:15,160 Speaker 1: systematically destroyed everything from deer, turkey, great auks, passenger pigeons, 245 00:18:15,200 --> 00:18:18,679 Speaker 1: and plume birds like snowy egrets in the East, to 246 00:18:18,800 --> 00:18:24,680 Speaker 1: a near obliteration of Western wildlife, most shamefully America's iconic animal, 247 00:18:24,720 --> 00:18:28,879 Speaker 1: the bison. Until nineteen hundred, the US federal government had 248 00:18:28,920 --> 00:18:33,000 Speaker 1: stood by and allowed unregulated capitalism to have its way 249 00:18:33,000 --> 00:18:37,040 Speaker 1: with wildlife. But in that year an Iowa congressman named 250 00:18:37,119 --> 00:18:41,640 Speaker 1: John Lacy stepped forward with a plan to engage Washington 251 00:18:42,000 --> 00:18:47,679 Speaker 1: in halting these abominations. Lacey acquired his status with the 252 00:18:47,760 --> 00:18:52,600 Speaker 1: new wildlife activists following a series of celebrated incidents in 253 00:18:52,720 --> 00:18:57,879 Speaker 1: Yellowstone Park in the early eighteen nineties. US Army game 254 00:18:57,960 --> 00:19:02,400 Speaker 1: warden Ed Wilson had tested a notorious park poacher, whom 255 00:19:02,480 --> 00:19:06,480 Speaker 1: a local judge promptly released, citing a lack of any 256 00:19:06,640 --> 00:19:10,840 Speaker 1: law to prosecute him. A few weeks later, Wilson vanished 257 00:19:10,840 --> 00:19:15,919 Speaker 1: without a trace. Other wardens found Wilson's hidden remains. A 258 00:19:16,000 --> 00:19:20,440 Speaker 1: year later, that story brought a forest and Stream reporter 259 00:19:20,560 --> 00:19:24,560 Speaker 1: to Yellowstone, who soon elicited from another poacher that his 260 00:19:24,760 --> 00:19:29,440 Speaker 1: own arrest and release had involved the massacre of eighty buffalo, 261 00:19:30,000 --> 00:19:33,480 Speaker 1: most of the bison still left in the park at 262 00:19:33,480 --> 00:19:37,239 Speaker 1: that point, Lacey introduced and secured passage in Congress of 263 00:19:37,280 --> 00:19:42,160 Speaker 1: the eighteen ninety four Yellowstone Park Protection Act with one 264 00:19:42,160 --> 00:19:47,800 Speaker 1: thousand dollars fines for killing wildlife. Six years later, Lacey 265 00:19:47,880 --> 00:19:51,000 Speaker 1: decided to take on the biggest monster of them all, 266 00:19:51,480 --> 00:19:55,440 Speaker 1: a practice that since colonial days, could have made fair progress, 267 00:19:55,520 --> 00:19:58,480 Speaker 1: filling the Grand Canyon with the bodies of all the 268 00:19:58,560 --> 00:20:04,000 Speaker 1: American birds and animals killed for money. White haired, bearded slender. 269 00:20:04,520 --> 00:20:08,239 Speaker 1: Lacey was about to turn sixty in history and in 270 00:20:08,280 --> 00:20:12,680 Speaker 1: his career. The time had come calling on the federal 271 00:20:12,720 --> 00:20:18,119 Speaker 1: government's constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce. Lacey drew up 272 00:20:18,160 --> 00:20:22,600 Speaker 1: an act he called the wild Birds and Game Preservation 273 00:20:22,720 --> 00:20:26,600 Speaker 1: Act that at last landed a body blow on the 274 00:20:26,640 --> 00:20:31,920 Speaker 1: wild animal's economy. At long last, a federal law stopped 275 00:20:31,960 --> 00:20:35,679 Speaker 1: the shipping of slain birds, animals, and their body parts 276 00:20:35,880 --> 00:20:39,639 Speaker 1: from states where market hunting was still legal to states 277 00:20:39,680 --> 00:20:44,280 Speaker 1: where it wasn't. It was already too late for passenger 278 00:20:44,320 --> 00:20:48,399 Speaker 1: pigeons and wild bison. It verged on too late for 279 00:20:48,560 --> 00:20:53,359 Speaker 1: snowy egrets, Carolina parakeets, and a lengthening list of others. 280 00:20:54,240 --> 00:20:57,640 Speaker 1: But the Lacy Act finally put a long hesitant US 281 00:20:57,720 --> 00:21:02,359 Speaker 1: federal government in play. His speech describing the bill before Congress, 282 00:21:02,680 --> 00:21:06,879 Speaker 1: Lacey referenced both passenger pigeons and bison, but he proclaimed 283 00:21:07,000 --> 00:21:11,160 Speaker 1: that all was not lost, that there still remains much 284 00:21:11,240 --> 00:21:15,000 Speaker 1: to preserve. As he put it in truth, the Laciact 285 00:21:15,000 --> 00:21:19,120 Speaker 1: put the burden for enlightened laws on the states. Following 286 00:21:19,119 --> 00:21:22,720 Speaker 1: a Supreme Court case that ruled that wildlife was the 287 00:21:22,760 --> 00:21:27,440 Speaker 1: property of the states where the animals resided. States now 288 00:21:27,520 --> 00:21:32,359 Speaker 1: began creating what they called game departments and enacting policies 289 00:21:32,400 --> 00:21:35,960 Speaker 1: on behalf of at least some of their wild animals. 290 00:21:36,600 --> 00:21:39,760 Speaker 1: For guidance in that endeavor, they looked to the New 291 00:21:40,160 --> 00:21:45,560 Speaker 1: US Biological Survey, headed up by another Ivy leaguer, C. 292 00:21:46,040 --> 00:21:55,159 Speaker 1: Heart Miriam. In nineteen oh one, when an assassin's bullet 293 00:21:55,200 --> 00:21:59,399 Speaker 1: cut down President William McKinley early in his second term, 294 00:21:59,640 --> 00:22:03,760 Speaker 1: his vice president was a forty two year old former 295 00:22:03,880 --> 00:22:08,480 Speaker 1: New York congressman and city mayor who Republican Party operatives 296 00:22:08,520 --> 00:22:14,200 Speaker 1: referred to as that damned cowboy. Teddy Roosevelt, the youngest 297 00:22:14,240 --> 00:22:18,080 Speaker 1: man ever to serve as president, with a prodigious, manic, 298 00:22:18,119 --> 00:22:23,639 Speaker 1: depressive personality, had the chance to transform America fall into 299 00:22:23,720 --> 00:22:27,760 Speaker 1: his lap. Here was a stunning opportunity to take on 300 00:22:27,800 --> 00:22:32,800 Speaker 1: the issues that had dominated his life since childhood. If celebrated, 301 00:22:32,800 --> 00:22:36,159 Speaker 1: individual freedom was the very cause of the destruction of 302 00:22:36,160 --> 00:22:41,000 Speaker 1: America's animals, not to mention its forest, its grasslands, its fisheries, 303 00:22:41,080 --> 00:22:46,040 Speaker 1: its archaeological sites. Then expanding government power to regulate such 304 00:22:46,080 --> 00:22:49,880 Speaker 1: freedom was the only course that could preserve the country. 305 00:22:51,040 --> 00:22:56,200 Speaker 1: What he and his policymakers called conservation became his personal 306 00:22:56,320 --> 00:23:01,240 Speaker 1: campaign to save the animals and landscapes he believed had 307 00:23:01,320 --> 00:23:07,640 Speaker 1: created Homo Americanus in the first place. The whole standpoint 308 00:23:07,720 --> 00:23:11,400 Speaker 1: of the people toward the proper aim of government, Roosevelt 309 00:23:11,400 --> 00:23:15,920 Speaker 1: would write, were brought out first by this conservation work. 310 00:23:16,800 --> 00:23:19,800 Speaker 1: The proper aim of government, he was now convinced, was 311 00:23:19,880 --> 00:23:24,879 Speaker 1: to moderate the selfishness and thoughtlessness inherent in human nature. 312 00:23:26,880 --> 00:23:30,679 Speaker 1: What conservation and progressivism would do was set America on 313 00:23:30,760 --> 00:23:34,600 Speaker 1: a different path a sharp detour from the three century 314 00:23:34,640 --> 00:23:37,560 Speaker 1: attempt to make the US a clone of the countries 315 00:23:37,560 --> 00:23:40,760 Speaker 1: of Western Europe. The idea was to create a nation 316 00:23:40,880 --> 00:23:45,880 Speaker 1: that stood separate and new. Nothing in Roosevelt's programs said that, 317 00:23:46,119 --> 00:23:51,000 Speaker 1: quite like his enthusiastic endorsement once he became president of 318 00:23:51,080 --> 00:23:56,800 Speaker 1: the existing public land system, Roosevelt's massive additions to this 319 00:23:57,000 --> 00:24:01,800 Speaker 1: distinctly American form of land ownership and public access, in 320 00:24:01,880 --> 00:24:06,000 Speaker 1: the form of new national parks, national forests, wildlife and 321 00:24:06,080 --> 00:24:11,200 Speaker 1: bird refuges, and national monuments amounted to a wholesale reset. 322 00:24:12,080 --> 00:24:14,200 Speaker 1: I'll have more to say in the next episode about 323 00:24:14,240 --> 00:24:17,600 Speaker 1: the origins and direction of America's public lands. One of 324 00:24:17,680 --> 00:24:21,280 Speaker 1: our very best contributions to world ideas and policy. But 325 00:24:21,359 --> 00:24:25,080 Speaker 1: it was Teddy Roosevelt who took that embryonic system and 326 00:24:25,200 --> 00:24:30,159 Speaker 1: made it a badge of American uniqueness. Histories of the 327 00:24:30,240 --> 00:24:34,960 Speaker 1: presidency tend to label Roosevelt's conservation programs as one of 328 00:24:34,960 --> 00:24:39,720 Speaker 1: the nation's grand transformative policy triumphs, and that claim is 329 00:24:39,760 --> 00:24:47,200 Speaker 1: no exaggeration. Conservation's successes were breathtaking. To begin, Roosevelt oversaw 330 00:24:47,240 --> 00:24:51,480 Speaker 1: the creation of six new national parks, a form of 331 00:24:51,560 --> 00:24:57,480 Speaker 1: preserved wildlands America had invented with Yellowstone and Yosemite three 332 00:24:57,560 --> 00:25:03,280 Speaker 1: decades earlier, with Pelican Island in Florida, which he designated 333 00:25:03,320 --> 00:25:06,960 Speaker 1: by executive order in nineteen o three as a reserve 334 00:25:07,040 --> 00:25:10,439 Speaker 1: and breeding ground for native birds, and continuing with a 335 00:25:10,480 --> 00:25:15,040 Speaker 1: pair of National Bison Ranges in Oklahoma and Montana to 336 00:25:15,200 --> 00:25:19,840 Speaker 1: rescue our iconic mammal. Then on through his Lame Duck period, 337 00:25:19,960 --> 00:25:23,600 Speaker 1: when new bird reservations, a total of fifty one of them, 338 00:25:23,800 --> 00:25:27,480 Speaker 1: seemed to precipitate like rain from the heavens, Roosevelt created 339 00:25:27,520 --> 00:25:32,280 Speaker 1: a national wildlife refuge system that preserved millions of acres 340 00:25:32,320 --> 00:25:37,040 Speaker 1: of prize bird and mammal habitat. The forest reserves that 341 00:25:37,119 --> 00:25:40,440 Speaker 1: he and Grenell celebrated in the eighteen nineties were at 342 00:25:40,600 --> 00:25:45,719 Speaker 1: forty two million acres when Roosevelt assumed the presidency. Renamed 343 00:25:46,000 --> 00:25:51,160 Speaker 1: National Forests by Roosevelt's Chief forester, Gifford Pinchot, they swelled 344 00:25:51,280 --> 00:25:56,120 Speaker 1: to one hundred and seventy two million acres, including Tongas 345 00:25:56,560 --> 00:26:00,480 Speaker 1: a seventeen million acre monster in Alaska by the time 346 00:26:00,560 --> 00:26:05,640 Speaker 1: Roosevelt left office. Using the New Antiquities Act of nineteen 347 00:26:05,640 --> 00:26:10,040 Speaker 1: oh six to protect America's archaeological sites, and to set 348 00:26:10,040 --> 00:26:15,240 Speaker 1: aside landscapes of unique geological importance. He proclaimed another extensive 349 00:26:15,320 --> 00:26:18,760 Speaker 1: body of preserves from the public lands in the form 350 00:26:18,920 --> 00:26:25,639 Speaker 1: of eighteen National monuments, a new conservation category. Devil's Tower 351 00:26:25,720 --> 00:26:29,920 Speaker 1: in Wyoming, one of many scores of nature spots Christian 352 00:26:29,960 --> 00:26:34,760 Speaker 1: Americans had assigned a Satanic association, became the first of these, 353 00:26:35,240 --> 00:26:38,480 Speaker 1: but the Grand Canyon itself was another of those early 354 00:26:38,560 --> 00:26:44,600 Speaker 1: national monuments. In just eight years, Roosevelt removed more than 355 00:26:44,720 --> 00:26:48,720 Speaker 1: two hundred and thirty million acres of General Land Office 356 00:26:48,760 --> 00:26:53,760 Speaker 1: holdings from private entry, retaining them in public ownership, setting 357 00:26:53,760 --> 00:26:57,879 Speaker 1: aside more public lands than any other president, and transforming 358 00:26:57,920 --> 00:27:01,720 Speaker 1: the future of the country in the process. Us Providing 359 00:27:01,760 --> 00:27:05,160 Speaker 1: refuges for America's big mammals and birds was a primary 360 00:27:05,200 --> 00:27:10,680 Speaker 1: reason he did almost all of it. Douglas Brinkley's Wilderness Warrior, 361 00:27:11,119 --> 00:27:15,280 Speaker 1: probably the best recent biography of him, lays that triumphant 362 00:27:15,359 --> 00:27:22,200 Speaker 1: story out in point by point detail. But Roosevelt was human, and, 363 00:27:22,480 --> 00:27:26,439 Speaker 1: as are we all, a product of his time and place. 364 00:27:27,480 --> 00:27:31,199 Speaker 1: While he could explain the tragedy of wildlife loss with 365 00:27:31,400 --> 00:27:36,000 Speaker 1: lovely analogies, the destruction of the wild pigeon and the 366 00:27:36,000 --> 00:27:40,400 Speaker 1: Carolina parakeet has meant a loss as severe as if 367 00:27:40,440 --> 00:27:44,520 Speaker 1: the catskills or the palisades were taken away. He wrote, 368 00:27:44,960 --> 00:27:45,800 Speaker 1: when I hear of. 369 00:27:45,760 --> 00:27:49,080 Speaker 2: The destruction of a species, I feel just as if 370 00:27:49,240 --> 00:27:53,800 Speaker 2: all the works of some great writer had perished. But 371 00:27:53,920 --> 00:27:58,960 Speaker 2: despite that, he resisted drawing the conclusions from Darwin that 372 00:27:59,040 --> 00:28:04,359 Speaker 2: many disciples thought the great naturalists intended. Roosevelt had grown 373 00:28:04,440 --> 00:28:07,560 Speaker 2: up verse in Darwin read Darwin himself when he was 374 00:28:07,600 --> 00:28:11,080 Speaker 2: a young teenager floating the Nile, believed from that point 375 00:28:11,119 --> 00:28:14,960 Speaker 2: onward that humans were indeed primates that had evolved from 376 00:28:15,040 --> 00:28:20,480 Speaker 2: earlier forms. Nonetheless, the animals he hunted did not, perhaps 377 00:28:20,600 --> 00:28:26,400 Speaker 2: for him, simply could not become evolutionary near ken of humans. 378 00:28:27,640 --> 00:28:32,600 Speaker 2: While Roosevelt was president, his writer friend John Burrows precipitated 379 00:28:32,600 --> 00:28:37,520 Speaker 2: a public controversy about the accuracy of a popular new genre, 380 00:28:38,000 --> 00:28:41,840 Speaker 2: a form of literary natural history that attempted to provide 381 00:28:42,160 --> 00:28:46,360 Speaker 2: insight into the lives of wild animals. Most of the 382 00:28:46,400 --> 00:28:50,400 Speaker 2: new authors of animal stories were not scientists, but many 383 00:28:50,480 --> 00:28:54,880 Speaker 2: of them, notably John Mure, Jack London, and Canadian writer 384 00:28:55,080 --> 00:29:03,000 Speaker 2: Ernest Thompson Seaton, had extensive outdoor experience and employed scientific methodology. Setan, 385 00:29:03,160 --> 00:29:08,120 Speaker 2: ironically enough, won the John Burrows Medal for his Comprehensive 386 00:29:08,400 --> 00:29:10,440 Speaker 2: Lives of Game Animals book. 387 00:29:11,200 --> 00:29:16,920 Speaker 1: William T. Horneby praised Setan's work. Looking back on this 388 00:29:17,360 --> 00:29:22,840 Speaker 1: nature Faker controversy, labeled so by Roosevelt from today's vantage, 389 00:29:23,080 --> 00:29:26,920 Speaker 1: what seems apparent is that its practitioners were trying to 390 00:29:27,000 --> 00:29:31,080 Speaker 1: take on the big implications of Darwinism in the world 391 00:29:31,120 --> 00:29:34,960 Speaker 1: around them. Theirs was a response, and it strongly appealed 392 00:29:35,000 --> 00:29:38,560 Speaker 1: to the reading public to the bleak nature read in 393 00:29:38,640 --> 00:29:43,680 Speaker 1: Tooth and Claw conclusions that Thomas Huxley, Herbert Spencer, and 394 00:29:43,880 --> 00:29:49,560 Speaker 1: Alfred Lord Tennyson drew from evolution. Instead of finding humans 395 00:29:49,680 --> 00:29:54,040 Speaker 1: condemned because we'd turned out to be mere animals, nature 396 00:29:54,080 --> 00:29:57,840 Speaker 1: writers like Seaton looked for examples among birds and mammals 397 00:29:57,840 --> 00:30:04,480 Speaker 1: of traits Humans admired compassion, cooperation, loyalty, and ability to 398 00:30:04,560 --> 00:30:10,000 Speaker 1: reason and to transfer cultural learning across generations, and most 399 00:30:10,040 --> 00:30:15,160 Speaker 1: of all, self awareness and individuality. In one of Setan's 400 00:30:15,240 --> 00:30:19,640 Speaker 1: stories and Scribner's in nineteen hundred, a captured female coyote 401 00:30:19,720 --> 00:30:23,920 Speaker 1: named Tito Sits chained in a ranchyard observing the technique 402 00:30:23,920 --> 00:30:28,000 Speaker 1: Stockmann are using to wipe out the coyote kind. When 403 00:30:28,040 --> 00:30:31,000 Speaker 1: she escapes and has litters of her own, she passes 404 00:30:31,080 --> 00:30:34,560 Speaker 1: on her knowledge about how to avoid traps in poison, which, 405 00:30:34,840 --> 00:30:39,320 Speaker 1: in Seatan's telling, was why coyotes were surviving when so 406 00:30:39,440 --> 00:30:43,840 Speaker 1: many other creatures were not. In his famous wolf story 407 00:30:44,240 --> 00:30:48,200 Speaker 1: Lobo King of Corompa, Seatan wrote about a canny New 408 00:30:48,240 --> 00:30:53,800 Speaker 1: Mexico wolf with one fatal flaw his fidelity to his mate. 409 00:30:54,560 --> 00:30:58,120 Speaker 1: As he put the matter in Wild Animals I have known. 410 00:30:58,760 --> 00:31:03,120 Speaker 1: Seatan's theme will use we and the beasts are ken 411 00:31:04,960 --> 00:31:08,400 Speaker 1: given the perspective of contemporary twenty first century bird and 412 00:31:08,480 --> 00:31:13,120 Speaker 1: mammal research, with its emphasis on self awareness, tool use, 413 00:31:13,320 --> 00:31:18,680 Speaker 1: theory of mind, perceptions of fairness, cultural transmission, grief over 414 00:31:18,720 --> 00:31:22,840 Speaker 1: the loss of mates, and individuality, all those things these 415 00:31:22,880 --> 00:31:26,000 Speaker 1: writers seemed to be working with all that seemed to 416 00:31:26,000 --> 00:31:29,040 Speaker 1: be lacking In the best writings of the Seaton London 417 00:31:29,200 --> 00:31:35,240 Speaker 1: your genre were double blind, replicable experiments. But at the 418 00:31:35,360 --> 00:31:39,360 Speaker 1: time the well respected Burrows, furious at what he saw 419 00:31:39,400 --> 00:31:45,720 Speaker 1: as chicanery, went on the attack. Non human animals, Burrows thundered, 420 00:31:46,120 --> 00:31:52,320 Speaker 1: were purely creatures of instinct, nothing more. That drew Roosevelt 421 00:31:52,320 --> 00:31:56,720 Speaker 1: into the fray. Simply enough, the nature fakers were misleading 422 00:31:56,760 --> 00:32:00,720 Speaker 1: their readers, he told the public. In a private communication 423 00:32:00,880 --> 00:32:05,600 Speaker 1: to the editor of Collier's magazine, Roosevelt went further. He 424 00:32:05,760 --> 00:32:09,640 Speaker 1: echoed the lines in Darwin's The Descent of Man when 425 00:32:09,680 --> 00:32:13,080 Speaker 1: he wrote the editor, I believe that the higher mammals 426 00:32:13,080 --> 00:32:17,160 Speaker 1: and birds have reasoning powers which differ in degree rather 427 00:32:17,200 --> 00:32:20,920 Speaker 1: than kind, from those of humans. But he continued, he 428 00:32:21,040 --> 00:32:25,200 Speaker 1: meant different in degree from the lower reasoning powers of, 429 00:32:25,520 --> 00:32:29,960 Speaker 1: for instance, the lower savages. In other words, if we 430 00:32:30,000 --> 00:32:35,120 Speaker 1: can take this astonishing comment literally, Roosevelt believed the resonances 431 00:32:35,160 --> 00:32:39,360 Speaker 1: and parallels between animals and humanity did not really apply 432 00:32:39,600 --> 00:32:44,440 Speaker 1: to modern first world humans, only to tribal indigenous peoples 433 00:32:44,680 --> 00:32:51,200 Speaker 1: who were lower in their evolutionary progress. Obviously, Roosevelt had 434 00:32:51,200 --> 00:32:55,840 Speaker 1: not absorbed the lessons of Colombian anthropologist Franz Boaz, who 435 00:32:55,920 --> 00:33:01,200 Speaker 1: was already arguing against Western ethnocentrism by positing that all 436 00:33:01,280 --> 00:33:06,240 Speaker 1: humans were equally evolved, but with cultures that followed very 437 00:33:06,280 --> 00:33:10,959 Speaker 1: different trajectories. Jack London at least would eventually get a 438 00:33:11,040 --> 00:33:16,040 Speaker 1: measure of revenge, telling Colliers readers that the truth was 439 00:33:16,360 --> 00:33:20,560 Speaker 1: that President Roosevelt does not understand evolution, and he does 440 00:33:20,640 --> 00:33:23,760 Speaker 1: not seem to have made much of an attempt to 441 00:33:23,920 --> 00:33:30,000 Speaker 1: understand evolution. That sentiment surfaced in a particularly troubling way 442 00:33:30,440 --> 00:33:34,440 Speaker 1: in Roosevelt's public endorsement of a book by fellow Ivy 443 00:33:34,520 --> 00:33:40,040 Speaker 1: leaguer and conservationist Madison Grant Grants. The passing of the 444 00:33:40,040 --> 00:33:44,040 Speaker 1: Great Race, with its advocacy of eugenics, made enough of 445 00:33:44,080 --> 00:33:48,280 Speaker 1: a white nationalist case to impress Adolf Hitler while getting 446 00:33:48,360 --> 00:33:53,600 Speaker 1: ridiculed in f. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. The first 447 00:33:53,600 --> 00:33:57,200 Speaker 1: time I visited the American Museum of Natural History, I'll 448 00:33:57,240 --> 00:34:00,560 Speaker 1: confess to doing a double take of the staff of 449 00:34:00,640 --> 00:34:05,760 Speaker 1: Teddy outside the main entrance. It presented Roosevelt as the 450 00:34:05,840 --> 00:34:10,760 Speaker 1: classic great man on horseback looking out over Manhattan Central Park, 451 00:34:11,560 --> 00:34:15,719 Speaker 1: innocent enough until you realize that he was being flanked 452 00:34:16,000 --> 00:34:21,280 Speaker 1: and escorted by both Native and African Americans on foot 453 00:34:21,440 --> 00:34:24,920 Speaker 1: on either side of him. The effect in modern New 454 00:34:24,960 --> 00:34:28,399 Speaker 1: York was jarring enough that in January of twenty twenty two, 455 00:34:28,719 --> 00:34:32,800 Speaker 1: the statue was taken down. John Muir got in a 456 00:34:32,880 --> 00:34:36,560 Speaker 1: twist of the knife two, making a case for protecting 457 00:34:36,640 --> 00:34:41,040 Speaker 1: a much bigger piece of Yosemite, including the Twoalomy Canyon, 458 00:34:41,360 --> 00:34:44,080 Speaker 1: soon to be the target of a dam Muir, and 459 00:34:44,160 --> 00:34:48,960 Speaker 1: the President spent three nights camping in Yosemite without bodyguards. 460 00:34:49,800 --> 00:34:54,719 Speaker 1: That gave the legendary writer activists No Shrinking Violet himself 461 00:34:55,160 --> 00:35:00,600 Speaker 1: a chance to confront Roosevelt around their campfire. Question was 462 00:35:00,640 --> 00:35:05,279 Speaker 1: something many had wondered about, but only the Scottish Poetico 463 00:35:05,440 --> 00:35:10,840 Speaker 1: Trampo was willing to broach. Mister Roosevelt, when are you 464 00:35:11,040 --> 00:35:16,600 Speaker 1: going to get beyond the boyishness of killing things? Author 465 00:35:16,640 --> 00:35:20,719 Speaker 1: of numerous books and magazine articles on hunting, probably already 466 00:35:20,800 --> 00:35:24,040 Speaker 1: planning the African safari he would take as soon as 467 00:35:24,040 --> 00:35:28,400 Speaker 1: he was out of office. Roosevelt's response was an evasive mure, 468 00:35:28,920 --> 00:35:33,040 Speaker 1: I guess you're right. Roosevelt then went on to support 469 00:35:33,080 --> 00:35:36,959 Speaker 1: the O'Shaughnessy doawm in Yosemite Park, and in an eight 470 00:35:37,040 --> 00:35:41,040 Speaker 1: month expedition to Africa in nineteen oh nine, proceeded to 471 00:35:41,080 --> 00:35:46,520 Speaker 1: shoot five thirteen mammals, four hundred and forty three birds, 472 00:35:46,560 --> 00:35:50,760 Speaker 1: and two three hundred and twenty two reptiles and amphibians, 473 00:35:50,800 --> 00:35:56,960 Speaker 1: all for science and the Smithsonian's cabinets. Of course, so then, 474 00:35:57,280 --> 00:36:00,880 Speaker 1: like everyone else who lived in the past, roosevelt worldview 475 00:36:00,960 --> 00:36:04,400 Speaker 1: did not always conform to our sense of right and 476 00:36:04,440 --> 00:36:08,480 Speaker 1: wrong in the present. But Teddy Roosevelt still works for 477 00:36:08,600 --> 00:36:12,920 Speaker 1: me as an American hero. The country lost something of 478 00:36:13,000 --> 00:36:17,400 Speaker 1: incalculable value when, as the author of yet another book 479 00:36:17,520 --> 00:36:22,160 Speaker 1: he titled The Strenuous Life, Teddy Roosevelt stepped away from 480 00:36:22,200 --> 00:36:26,439 Speaker 1: the presidency in nineteen o nine after serving only one 481 00:36:26,520 --> 00:36:30,680 Speaker 1: full term, then went on his safari in Africa, followed 482 00:36:30,680 --> 00:36:35,200 Speaker 1: by his exploration and mapping of the least known remaining 483 00:36:35,320 --> 00:36:41,080 Speaker 1: source tributary of the Great Amazon River. Back home, the 484 00:36:41,120 --> 00:36:45,799 Speaker 1: most nature obsessed president since Thomas Jefferson had turned the 485 00:36:45,880 --> 00:36:51,520 Speaker 1: country over to his successor, portly William Howard Taft, whose 486 00:36:51,600 --> 00:36:55,920 Speaker 1: passion about outdoor endeavor was for the rugged and manly 487 00:36:56,000 --> 00:36:58,400 Speaker 1: sport of golf. 488 00:37:07,920 --> 00:37:11,520 Speaker 3: Dan At the beginning of this episode, as I was 489 00:37:11,560 --> 00:37:16,360 Speaker 3: reading through the script, one thing really struck me, and 490 00:37:16,400 --> 00:37:21,000 Speaker 3: I think, when all the real famous anecdotes about Teddy 491 00:37:21,080 --> 00:37:23,400 Speaker 3: Roosevelt come to mind, he sort of has this boyish 492 00:37:23,480 --> 00:37:30,040 Speaker 3: quality to him, And as I'm reading this script, you 493 00:37:30,120 --> 00:37:33,000 Speaker 3: realize just how young he was when he's doing a 494 00:37:33,040 --> 00:37:35,479 Speaker 3: lot of this stuff. Like he goes when he goes 495 00:37:35,520 --> 00:37:37,880 Speaker 3: to hunt the Last Buffalo, he's twenty five. 496 00:37:38,000 --> 00:37:38,719 Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. 497 00:37:38,760 --> 00:37:41,000 Speaker 3: And you think about when he bursts into George Bird 498 00:37:41,000 --> 00:37:43,720 Speaker 3: Grenell's office to argue with him. He's still in his twenties, 499 00:37:43,760 --> 00:37:45,880 Speaker 3: that's right, and that sort of behavior all of a 500 00:37:45,920 --> 00:37:49,239 Speaker 3: sudden starts to make a little more sense. Obviously he 501 00:37:49,280 --> 00:37:53,120 Speaker 3: carried that with him, but even the Boone and Crockett Club, 502 00:37:53,160 --> 00:37:56,600 Speaker 3: he's less than thirty years old when he establishes that. 503 00:37:56,719 --> 00:37:58,759 Speaker 3: And that really struck me in the first part of 504 00:37:58,800 --> 00:38:03,759 Speaker 3: this episode was how active he was from finishing at 505 00:38:03,800 --> 00:38:07,160 Speaker 3: Harvard up until you know, his early thirties. 506 00:38:08,320 --> 00:38:11,200 Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean he becomes president when he's forty two, 507 00:38:11,440 --> 00:38:15,640 Speaker 1: and that's in nineteen oh one. So those those scenes 508 00:38:15,680 --> 00:38:21,960 Speaker 1: in the beginning of this particular episode happened in the eighties, 509 00:38:22,239 --> 00:38:25,480 Speaker 1: you know, and so it's like he, as you said, 510 00:38:25,560 --> 00:38:29,560 Speaker 1: he's in his twenties, and so he's a very young man. 511 00:38:29,680 --> 00:38:34,000 Speaker 1: He's you know, and he's sort of got what almost 512 00:38:34,040 --> 00:38:36,800 Speaker 1: certainly one would argue as a kind of a manic, 513 00:38:36,880 --> 00:38:43,200 Speaker 1: depressive kind of personality. And fortunately for America and the world, 514 00:38:43,280 --> 00:38:46,240 Speaker 1: he's in the manic stage for most of his life. 515 00:38:46,719 --> 00:38:49,720 Speaker 1: I mean, he certainly has some moments of depression. But yeah, 516 00:38:49,760 --> 00:38:52,920 Speaker 1: so he's a very young guy, and he's you know, 517 00:38:53,040 --> 00:38:55,600 Speaker 1: and he's ambitious, and of course he comes out of 518 00:38:55,880 --> 00:39:02,080 Speaker 1: this kind of patrician, elite New York family that enables 519 00:39:02,160 --> 00:39:05,040 Speaker 1: him to kind of view the world as his oyster. 520 00:39:05,120 --> 00:39:07,480 Speaker 1: He can do anything he wants to do. He can 521 00:39:07,520 --> 00:39:10,680 Speaker 1: be any kind of person he wants to be, and 522 00:39:11,200 --> 00:39:13,640 Speaker 1: what he decides he wants to be from a very 523 00:39:13,680 --> 00:39:16,600 Speaker 1: early age. Just he wants to be a naturalist. He 524 00:39:16,640 --> 00:39:22,160 Speaker 1: wants to sort of be Alexander von Humboldt or you know, 525 00:39:22,280 --> 00:39:25,360 Speaker 1: John James Ottoman, someone like that who gets to go 526 00:39:25,440 --> 00:39:30,840 Speaker 1: out into the world and have adventures and hunt, and 527 00:39:30,920 --> 00:39:34,480 Speaker 1: he hunts throughout his life everywhere he goes, even on 528 00:39:34,520 --> 00:39:37,960 Speaker 1: that Brazilian adventure on the Real to Do, I mean, 529 00:39:37,960 --> 00:39:39,959 Speaker 1: he takes time out to go in a jaguar hunt 530 00:39:40,360 --> 00:39:44,560 Speaker 1: and he gets himself a jaguar on that particular trip too. 531 00:39:44,719 --> 00:39:48,160 Speaker 1: So that's kind of he's a person who had every 532 00:39:48,160 --> 00:39:50,400 Speaker 1: opportunity to do whatever he wanted to do in life, 533 00:39:50,880 --> 00:39:52,960 Speaker 1: but he knew from a very early age what it was, 534 00:39:53,120 --> 00:39:55,680 Speaker 1: and I mean he went for it with a tremendous 535 00:39:55,680 --> 00:39:59,200 Speaker 1: amount of energy. Yeah. 536 00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:04,360 Speaker 3: Think another point that stood out to me in this 537 00:40:06,080 --> 00:40:13,080 Speaker 3: chapter is you emphasize how his conservation ethos fit within 538 00:40:13,200 --> 00:40:18,319 Speaker 3: this broader progressive stage in American political development. And I 539 00:40:18,320 --> 00:40:23,200 Speaker 3: think that's unless you've studied progressivism and you're familiar with 540 00:40:23,239 --> 00:40:25,040 Speaker 3: it as a movement at the turn of the century, 541 00:40:25,040 --> 00:40:28,920 Speaker 3: it sort of gets left out of our understanding of conservation. 542 00:40:29,000 --> 00:40:30,359 Speaker 3: But I wonder if you can talk a little bit 543 00:40:30,360 --> 00:40:33,800 Speaker 3: about what you mean when you when you refer to 544 00:40:33,840 --> 00:40:37,040 Speaker 3: the progressivism of the Roosevelt era and sort of what 545 00:40:37,160 --> 00:40:40,440 Speaker 3: shape that took and what impulse has guided it. 546 00:40:40,840 --> 00:40:44,440 Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a useful question to be sure, to provide 547 00:40:44,440 --> 00:40:47,840 Speaker 1: some context. I mean, what I did with the script 548 00:40:47,880 --> 00:40:52,799 Speaker 1: for this particular episode was to couch progressivism for Roosevelt 549 00:40:52,920 --> 00:40:58,640 Speaker 1: primarily in conservation, and that's I think that's the natural 550 00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:04,880 Speaker 1: direction from which he comes to it. But progressivism was 551 00:41:05,200 --> 00:41:08,560 Speaker 1: a kind of a bigger movement an American life in 552 00:41:08,640 --> 00:41:13,200 Speaker 1: those years, a political movement. It was a movement that 553 00:41:13,560 --> 00:41:17,120 Speaker 1: prevailed in both parties, both the Republican and the Democratic parties. 554 00:41:17,120 --> 00:41:19,440 Speaker 1: And I mean Roosevelt was a Republican, but he was 555 00:41:19,480 --> 00:41:23,600 Speaker 1: certainly strongly influenced by progressivism, and it was kind of 556 00:41:23,600 --> 00:41:29,440 Speaker 1: an argument at the turn of the century that capitalism, 557 00:41:30,120 --> 00:41:35,040 Speaker 1: particularly big corporate capitalism that was emerging in those days, 558 00:41:36,600 --> 00:41:40,799 Speaker 1: was a pretty scary force in American life and it 559 00:41:40,880 --> 00:41:45,000 Speaker 1: needed to be corralled and rained in some and the 560 00:41:45,200 --> 00:41:48,879 Speaker 1: argument became in the conservation realm and in several other 561 00:41:48,920 --> 00:41:52,680 Speaker 1: realms that the federal government was the primary player in 562 00:41:52,760 --> 00:41:56,360 Speaker 1: doing that, although many of the states had strong progressive 563 00:41:56,520 --> 00:42:01,160 Speaker 1: kind of political developments as well. But the idea was 564 00:42:01,239 --> 00:42:05,680 Speaker 1: to insert the government, whether at the state level or 565 00:42:05,680 --> 00:42:09,360 Speaker 1: the federal level, into the economic life of the country 566 00:42:10,160 --> 00:42:16,359 Speaker 1: in order to do things like regulating drugs that were 567 00:42:16,440 --> 00:42:21,080 Speaker 1: sold in pharmacies and having the government began to intervene 568 00:42:21,239 --> 00:42:23,759 Speaker 1: in making sure that the food that was sold in 569 00:42:23,800 --> 00:42:30,040 Speaker 1: grocery stores was healthy, and it extended to child labor 570 00:42:30,160 --> 00:42:35,160 Speaker 1: laws and a variety of different things. What I try 571 00:42:35,200 --> 00:42:39,160 Speaker 1: to do in this particular script, as I mentioned a 572 00:42:39,200 --> 00:42:44,480 Speaker 1: minute ago, is to counch what Roosevelt's particular passion about 573 00:42:44,480 --> 00:42:50,279 Speaker 1: progressivism is in the conservation movement that establishes very much 574 00:42:50,360 --> 00:42:56,240 Speaker 1: the beginnings of the whole environmental movement in the United States. 575 00:42:56,320 --> 00:42:59,239 Speaker 1: And this, of course is one hundred and twenty five 576 00:42:59,320 --> 00:43:03,040 Speaker 1: years ago that this happens. But much of what becomes 577 00:43:03,080 --> 00:43:07,880 Speaker 1: the kind of framework of conservation and environmental thinking in 578 00:43:07,920 --> 00:43:11,840 Speaker 1: America comes out of this particular period, and it does involve, 579 00:43:12,080 --> 00:43:16,279 Speaker 1: as Roosevelt said, a different role for the government than 580 00:43:16,320 --> 00:43:19,600 Speaker 1: had been the case in American life up to this point. 581 00:43:21,160 --> 00:43:23,600 Speaker 1: So if you're a fan of, you know, kind of 582 00:43:23,640 --> 00:43:27,440 Speaker 1: the anarchy of the wild wild West, this is the 583 00:43:27,520 --> 00:43:31,640 Speaker 1: point at which Americans, in particularly someone like Tady Roosevelt, 584 00:43:31,680 --> 00:43:34,000 Speaker 1: who thinks that he says, a great civilization and a 585 00:43:34,040 --> 00:43:37,600 Speaker 1: great country needs to understand itself that you have to 586 00:43:37,719 --> 00:43:40,640 Speaker 1: step in and say, Okay, you know that level of 587 00:43:40,680 --> 00:43:43,799 Speaker 1: freedom is great, but we're going to have to regulate 588 00:43:44,280 --> 00:43:48,040 Speaker 1: things and make sure that just kind of pure selfishness 589 00:43:48,080 --> 00:43:51,720 Speaker 1: doesn't prevail to the detriment of the future. 590 00:43:51,840 --> 00:43:58,040 Speaker 3: Especially And the other sort of intellectual thread that shapes 591 00:43:58,200 --> 00:44:03,840 Speaker 3: Roosevelt's world view is, as you point out, that of Darwinism, 592 00:44:04,440 --> 00:44:09,840 Speaker 3: and you also point out that he fit within a 593 00:44:10,719 --> 00:44:16,000 Speaker 3: ongoing debate between what the implications of Darwinism were and 594 00:44:16,040 --> 00:44:21,640 Speaker 3: how that I mean, I think it's interesting to to 595 00:44:21,360 --> 00:44:23,760 Speaker 3: to point out that you can look at a wild 596 00:44:23,800 --> 00:44:26,200 Speaker 3: animal and think of it in two very different ways 597 00:44:26,239 --> 00:44:29,040 Speaker 3: through the lens of Darwinism. Yeah, as you did in 598 00:44:29,080 --> 00:44:30,120 Speaker 3: this in this chapter. 599 00:44:30,320 --> 00:44:34,000 Speaker 1: Yeah, And I tried. I tried to do this in 600 00:44:34,040 --> 00:44:36,719 Speaker 1: a way to provide a kind of a fresh look 601 00:44:36,760 --> 00:44:41,839 Speaker 1: at that sort of famous nature faker controversy where Roosevelt 602 00:44:43,040 --> 00:44:48,680 Speaker 1: and William Burrows in particular, charge these writers like Jack 603 00:44:48,760 --> 00:44:53,560 Speaker 1: London and John Muir and Ernest Thompson Seaton with with 604 00:44:53,880 --> 00:44:59,880 Speaker 1: faking the animals that they were writing about, and h 605 00:45:00,880 --> 00:45:04,160 Speaker 1: the truth is, with the perspective of another one hundred 606 00:45:04,160 --> 00:45:10,240 Speaker 1: and twenty five years of research, it looks as if 607 00:45:10,440 --> 00:45:14,839 Speaker 1: actually the people who were getting it right were probably 608 00:45:14,960 --> 00:45:20,160 Speaker 1: the writers themselves, you know. And I think Roosevelt stepping 609 00:45:20,200 --> 00:45:23,160 Speaker 1: into the fray, which he, of course he couldn't resist doing. 610 00:45:23,480 --> 00:45:25,600 Speaker 1: Or one thing, this was a subject dear to his heart, 611 00:45:25,920 --> 00:45:29,600 Speaker 1: and for another thing, he's you know, he inhabits the 612 00:45:29,600 --> 00:45:33,200 Speaker 1: bully pulpit as the president, and he tends to sort 613 00:45:33,200 --> 00:45:37,200 Speaker 1: of step into every debate that's out there. And I 614 00:45:37,440 --> 00:45:41,200 Speaker 1: think that what you get out of that story, as 615 00:45:41,280 --> 00:45:44,680 Speaker 1: I told it in this particular episode, is probably a 616 00:45:44,800 --> 00:45:49,960 Speaker 1: fresh look at how this played out and who in 617 00:45:50,000 --> 00:45:54,399 Speaker 1: fact probably had the better notions about the relationship that 618 00:45:54,440 --> 00:45:58,600 Speaker 1: people and other animals have. I mean, you know, I've 619 00:45:58,600 --> 00:46:02,719 Speaker 1: always loved that line that Ernest Thompson Seatan uses in 620 00:46:02,840 --> 00:46:05,640 Speaker 1: Wild Animals. I have known where he says, we and 621 00:46:05,719 --> 00:46:10,080 Speaker 1: the beasts are ken, and that's what these writers are 622 00:46:10,120 --> 00:46:16,919 Speaker 1: trying to convey. But Burrows and Roosevelt in particular pushed back. 623 00:46:17,000 --> 00:46:21,000 Speaker 1: They were resistant to that, and so it makes for 624 00:46:21,080 --> 00:46:25,279 Speaker 1: a kind of an interesting take on Roosevelt. I mean, 625 00:46:25,320 --> 00:46:27,320 Speaker 1: we tend to think of him, you know, in pretty 626 00:46:27,719 --> 00:46:33,200 Speaker 1: heroic terms, but sometimes he wasn't right about things, and 627 00:46:33,239 --> 00:46:34,920 Speaker 1: I think this may have been one of those times. 628 00:46:36,360 --> 00:46:40,479 Speaker 3: And at the beginning you link him and maybe again 629 00:46:40,520 --> 00:46:42,640 Speaker 3: at the end you link him to Jefferson as the 630 00:46:42,680 --> 00:46:46,920 Speaker 3: two you know, chief executives who are most interested in 631 00:46:46,960 --> 00:46:50,520 Speaker 3: the West. And Jefferson I think, you know, they both 632 00:46:50,560 --> 00:46:55,560 Speaker 3: have a curiosity about animals and landscapes. But when it 633 00:46:55,600 --> 00:46:58,839 Speaker 3: comes to their legacy, sort of thing about Jefferson as 634 00:46:58,960 --> 00:47:03,440 Speaker 3: redrawing the bound and then Roosevelt is sort of reorganizing 635 00:47:03,560 --> 00:47:07,279 Speaker 3: internally what the West would look like in terms of 636 00:47:07,320 --> 00:47:13,000 Speaker 3: public lands and and all that. So, yeah, I don't 637 00:47:13,040 --> 00:47:15,440 Speaker 3: often think of the two of them in the same 638 00:47:15,760 --> 00:47:19,799 Speaker 3: in the same breath. But it's an interesting, Uh, it's 639 00:47:19,840 --> 00:47:23,879 Speaker 3: an interesting pair to just sort of consider the similarities 640 00:47:23,880 --> 00:47:24,560 Speaker 3: between the two. 641 00:47:24,840 --> 00:47:27,960 Speaker 1: Well, I think, you know, and I'm not sure exactly 642 00:47:28,000 --> 00:47:34,240 Speaker 1: when I began associating Jefferson and Roosevelt, although the West 643 00:47:34,400 --> 00:47:37,880 Speaker 1: is a common denominator for both of them. Uh, And 644 00:47:37,920 --> 00:47:39,840 Speaker 1: in a podcast like this, I mean, we sort of 645 00:47:39,920 --> 00:47:43,160 Speaker 1: started back in some of the early episodes with Jefferson 646 00:47:43,800 --> 00:47:47,160 Speaker 1: and Lewis and Clark and the expedition up the Red 647 00:47:47,239 --> 00:47:50,440 Speaker 1: River into the Southwest. So there's a there's a kind 648 00:47:50,480 --> 00:47:55,440 Speaker 1: of a natural combination there, I think. But at some point, 649 00:47:55,880 --> 00:47:58,680 Speaker 1: you know, in my thinking over the years, I began 650 00:47:58,840 --> 00:48:01,600 Speaker 1: to sort of look at American presidents and say, okay, 651 00:48:01,640 --> 00:48:05,520 Speaker 1: so among them, who were the ones who are sort 652 00:48:05,520 --> 00:48:09,120 Speaker 1: of interested in the kind of values that I'm interested 653 00:48:09,160 --> 00:48:16,680 Speaker 1: in in nature, in wilderness, in landscapes and wild animals. 654 00:48:17,280 --> 00:48:20,000 Speaker 1: And the two, of course who immediately pop to the 655 00:48:20,040 --> 00:48:25,200 Speaker 1: top of that list are Thomas Jefferson and Teddy Roosevelt. 656 00:48:25,239 --> 00:48:28,440 Speaker 1: And you know, and since Roosevelt, it's difficult to really 657 00:48:29,120 --> 00:48:32,400 Speaker 1: find another American president. I mean, for one thing, we 658 00:48:32,440 --> 00:48:37,880 Speaker 1: don't have very many presidents coming from the West, where 659 00:48:38,480 --> 00:48:40,480 Speaker 1: as a result of the lifestyle we get to have 660 00:48:40,560 --> 00:48:43,800 Speaker 1: in the American West that you know, it's probably more 661 00:48:44,320 --> 00:48:47,320 Speaker 1: possible for someone to be interested in those kinds of subjects. 662 00:48:47,360 --> 00:48:51,320 Speaker 1: But yeah, it's almost as if Teddy Roosevelt and Thomas 663 00:48:51,360 --> 00:48:54,480 Speaker 1: Jefferson are the almost the only ones who have that 664 00:48:54,600 --> 00:48:57,600 Speaker 1: kind of concern, and so that makes them kind of 665 00:48:57,640 --> 00:49:01,640 Speaker 1: particular heroes of people who are interested in Western history. 666 00:49:01,640 --> 00:49:06,640 Speaker 3: And last question here, which dovetails nicely with that answer, 667 00:49:07,239 --> 00:49:10,640 Speaker 3: we do often think about Roosevelt as a hero. On 668 00:49:10,719 --> 00:49:14,759 Speaker 3: the other hand, he's one of these figures, as you 669 00:49:14,800 --> 00:49:18,080 Speaker 3: point out the big controversy over his statue outside of 670 00:49:18,120 --> 00:49:23,520 Speaker 3: the American Museum of Natural History, And he's one of 671 00:49:23,520 --> 00:49:28,239 Speaker 3: those figures where I think he's obviously you can read 672 00:49:28,280 --> 00:49:32,160 Speaker 3: things that he's written, and he espouses viewpoints and values 673 00:49:32,200 --> 00:49:36,480 Speaker 3: they're at odds with my own viewpoints and values. On 674 00:49:36,560 --> 00:49:40,800 Speaker 3: the other hand, you can't help but acknowledge the tremendous 675 00:49:40,840 --> 00:49:45,600 Speaker 3: amount of good he did for wild places, wild animals 676 00:49:45,600 --> 00:49:48,879 Speaker 3: and all that. And so I don't know, I don't 677 00:49:48,880 --> 00:49:53,080 Speaker 3: know if there's necessarily a question there, but he's sort 678 00:49:53,080 --> 00:49:55,440 Speaker 3: of like an uncle where you don't really agree with 679 00:49:55,520 --> 00:50:00,160 Speaker 3: everything he says, but you don't dismiss him out of 680 00:50:00,200 --> 00:50:05,200 Speaker 3: hand for for what some might chalk up todays like these, 681 00:50:05,280 --> 00:50:08,840 Speaker 3: these horrible you know, racial views things of that nature, 682 00:50:09,320 --> 00:50:12,520 Speaker 3: especially when you lump them in with characters like Madison 683 00:50:12,560 --> 00:50:13,160 Speaker 3: Grant and. 684 00:50:13,640 --> 00:50:17,200 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and it was unfortunate that he he blurbd 685 00:50:17,239 --> 00:50:20,960 Speaker 1: in Madison Grant some book of Course, which is a 686 00:50:21,040 --> 00:50:24,600 Speaker 1: book that a lot of people regard as an unfortunate 687 00:50:24,640 --> 00:50:27,880 Speaker 1: production from someone in the United States who shouldn't have 688 00:50:27,880 --> 00:50:32,840 Speaker 1: been thinking in those terms. But you know what I 689 00:50:32,880 --> 00:50:35,680 Speaker 1: will say, and I said it in the script here, 690 00:50:36,400 --> 00:50:39,800 Speaker 1: is that you you know, as someone who's interested in history. 691 00:50:39,840 --> 00:50:42,040 Speaker 1: And I know Randall you know this too, because we 692 00:50:42,440 --> 00:50:45,640 Speaker 1: used to talk about it in graduate classes. You have 693 00:50:45,719 --> 00:50:49,000 Speaker 1: to think about people in terms of the times they 694 00:50:49,120 --> 00:50:53,040 Speaker 1: live in. And I mean you can't look at someone 695 00:50:53,120 --> 00:50:55,920 Speaker 1: like Teddy Roosevelt and say, okay, so this guy, he 696 00:50:56,000 --> 00:50:58,680 Speaker 1: should be smart enough to understand the way we think 697 00:50:59,120 --> 00:51:03,400 Speaker 1: in in the twenty twenties. I mean, the truth is 698 00:51:04,080 --> 00:51:08,879 Speaker 1: a century from now, we have no idea what thoughts 699 00:51:08,880 --> 00:51:12,920 Speaker 1: and expressions and values that we have that might be 700 00:51:13,040 --> 00:51:18,680 Speaker 1: regarded as completely unsatisfactory to somebody living one hundred years 701 00:51:18,719 --> 00:51:22,360 Speaker 1: in the future, and so I have a difficult time 702 00:51:22,760 --> 00:51:26,080 Speaker 1: looking back on people like that and divorcing them from 703 00:51:26,120 --> 00:51:30,440 Speaker 1: their time and the period they're living in and trying 704 00:51:30,480 --> 00:51:33,440 Speaker 1: to evaluate them based on how we would look at 705 00:51:33,480 --> 00:51:35,799 Speaker 1: them today. It doesn't mean I'm not willing to say 706 00:51:35,840 --> 00:51:39,280 Speaker 1: things as I did in the script about the particular 707 00:51:39,280 --> 00:51:42,560 Speaker 1: statu I mean, that wasn't Teddy Roosevelt. That was you know, 708 00:51:43,000 --> 00:51:46,960 Speaker 1: other people using the Roosevelt image. But he did do 709 00:51:47,080 --> 00:51:50,160 Speaker 1: the Madison Grant thing, and he did say some unfortunate 710 00:51:50,200 --> 00:51:54,080 Speaker 1: things about what groups of people, you know, might actually 711 00:51:54,160 --> 00:52:00,440 Speaker 1: share the cultures and abilities of wild animals, And it 712 00:52:00,520 --> 00:52:05,200 Speaker 1: wasn't you know, Western humanity and his view. It wasn't 713 00:52:05,480 --> 00:52:07,800 Speaker 1: the people who sat around the dinner table with him. 714 00:52:08,000 --> 00:52:11,520 Speaker 1: In other words, So I think that you can be 715 00:52:11,719 --> 00:52:14,560 Speaker 1: critical and understand somebody in the past, but also try 716 00:52:14,640 --> 00:52:19,640 Speaker 1: not to, you know, to just completely dismiss them. I mean, 717 00:52:19,680 --> 00:52:23,600 Speaker 1: I think that's an unfortunate thing that we've been doing recently, 718 00:52:23,719 --> 00:52:26,279 Speaker 1: and I'm encouraged a little bit by the fact that 719 00:52:26,320 --> 00:52:27,880 Speaker 1: I think we're getting to get over that. 720 00:52:29,000 --> 00:52:30,560 Speaker 3: Yeah, there does seem to be a bit of a 721 00:52:30,800 --> 00:52:31,640 Speaker 3: bit more pause. 722 00:52:32,160 --> 00:52:34,200 Speaker 1: I think there's a bit more pause, and I think, 723 00:52:34,960 --> 00:52:39,120 Speaker 1: I mean, you know, we're trained as historians to think 724 00:52:39,160 --> 00:52:43,600 Speaker 1: in terms of history, and historicism is about doing that 725 00:52:43,640 --> 00:52:47,480 Speaker 1: sort of thing, understanding that people occupy a particular point 726 00:52:47,520 --> 00:52:50,239 Speaker 1: in time, and you have to understand their time to 727 00:52:50,320 --> 00:52:51,680 Speaker 1: fully appreciate who they are. 728 00:52:52,560 --> 00:52:54,840 Speaker 3: Well, Dan, thank you. Always fun to chat Roosevelt. 729 00:52:54,960 --> 00:53:07,320 Speaker 1: It is indeed no kidding used to music music