The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America

1259 Pages·2009·7.76 MB·English

by  Douglas Brinkley

The Wilderness Warrior
Theodore Roosevelt
and the Crusade for America
Douglas Brinkley
Dedicated to the memory of
Dr. John A. Gable (1943–2005),
executive director of the Theodore Roosevelt Association;
and
Sheila Schafer of Medora, North Dakota,
whom I love with all my heart;
and
Robert M. Utley (aka “Old Bison”)
Historian of the American West
Defenders of the shortsighted men who in their greed and selfishness
will, if permitted, rob our country of half its charm by their reckless
extermination of all useful and beautiful wild things sometimes seek to
champion them by saying that “the game belongs to the people.” So it
does; and not merely to the people now alive, but to the unborn people.
The “greatest good for the greatest number” applies to the number
within the womb of time, compared to which those now alive form but
an insignificant fraction. Our duty to the whole, including the unborn
generations, bids us to restrain an unprincipled present-day minority
from wasting the heritage of these unborn generations. The movement
for the conservation of wild life and the larger movement for the
conservation of all our natural resources are essentially democratic in
spirit, purpose, and method.
—THEODORE ROOSEVELT, A Book-Lover’s
Holidays in the Open (1916)
And learn power, however sweet they call you, learn power, the smash
of the holy once more, and signed by its name. Be victim to abruptness
and seizures, events intercalated, swellings of heart. You’ll climb trees.
You won’t be able to sleep, or need to, for the joy of it.
—ANNIE DILLARD, Holy the Firm (1984)
Contents
Epigraph
Prologue
Chapter One The Education of a Darwinian Naturalist
Birds Above All—The Face of God—Sitting at the Feet of Darwin and
Huxley—The Swashbuckling Adventures of Captain Mayne Reid—Boy
Hunters and the White Buffalo—The Last Link—The Foraging Ants—Bear
Bob Stories—Collecting for the Roosevelt Museum—Drawn to the Hudson
River Valley—Of James Fenimore Cooper and the Adirondack Park—
Albert Bickmore and the American Museum of Natural History—In Search
of Live Animals
Chapter Two Animal Rights and Evolution
Protection of Harmless Wildlife—Feeling Pain—T.R.’s Family and the
Humane Movement—Henry Bergh and the SPCA—Are Turtles Insects?—
Theodore Sr. and the Civil War Surrogate—The Art of Taxidermy—The
Talented Mr. John Bell—Travelling to Europe—Jackal Hunting in Palestine
—Journey Down the Ancient Nile—Damn the Old Mummy Collectors—
Comprehending the Origin of Species—Evolution from the Stork—Thomas
Huxley and Man’s Place in Nature
Chapter Three Of Science, Fish, and Robert B. Roosevelt
Learning the Latin Binomials—In the Shadow of Linnaeus—Preparing for
Harvard—“Tranquility” in Oyster Bay—What Is Wilderness?—With
Moses Sawyer in the Adirondacks—Under the Sway of the American West
—Protecting Alaska—The Willful and Wily Robert Barnwell Roosevelt—
Fish of the Great Lakes—Save the Shad—Seth Green and the Hatcheries—
The Sage of Lotus Lake—Yachting in the Great South Bay—Eels and
Evolution—The Frogs of Illinois—Forgotten Mentor
Chapter Four Harvard and the North Woods of Maine
The Moosehead Lake Hazing—Evolution of the Red Crossbills—The
Loathsome Death of Frederick Osborn—Homage to Edward Coues’s Bird
Key—Under the Wing of Arthur Cutler—Shorebirds of New York and New
Jersey—The Philadelphia Centennial—Harvard Zoologists—Summer Birds
of the Adirondacks—North Woods of Maine—Will Sewall and the Art of
Surviving in the Wild—An Ode to Alice Lee—The Birth of Weasel Words
—A Bull Moose in the Making—Thoreau’s Mount Katahdin—Galumphing
About—My Debt to Maine
Chapter Five Midwest Tramping and the Conquering of the Matterhorn
Boxing for Harvard—The Highs and Lows of Exuberance—Mount Desert
Island Aglow—The Heroic Historian Francis Parkman—Goin’ to Chicago,
Chicago—Competitive Grouse Hunting in Iowa—Tramping on the Plains
—The Red River Valley Appeal—Getting Serious about Law—Sou’-Sou’-
Southerly—Honeymooning in Europe—Conquering the Matterhorn—
Beware the New York Assemblyman—Spencer Fullerton Baird and
America’s Attic—The White Owl and the War of 1812
Chapter Six Chasing Buffalo in the Badlands and Grizzlies in the Bighorns
The Lordly Buffalo—Chugging on the Northern Pacific Railroad—Barbed
Wire on the Open Range—The Badlands of North Dakota—Reveling in the
Real Earth—The Great Buffalo Hunt—Turning Rancher and Stockman—
The Maltese Cross Brand—Valentine Deaths of His Loves—Bighorns and
Beyond—Lonely Bugle Call of Elk—Rolling Plains and Antelope Herds—
Grizzly, King of the Rockies
Chapter Seven Cradle of Conservation: The Elkhorn Ranch of North
Dakota
Jottings Away—Grover Cleveland’s Triumph—Badlands Snow—The
Dominant Primordial Beast—Beavering for Firewood—The Fashion Plate
—A Trip After Bighorn Sheep—An Adobe of Iron Desolation—Birth of
the Literary Sportsman—Outmatched by George Bird Grinnell—The White
Wolf and the Native Americans—The Elkhorn Ranch and Conservationist
Thinking—Old Bullion Returns—Deputy Sheriff of Billings County—
Courting of Edith Carrow—Defeated for Mayor of New York City—Winter
of the Blue Snow
Chapter Eight Wildlife Protection Business: Boone and Crockett Club
Meets the U.S. Biological Survey
Ranch Life Lore—Out of Big Game—Birth of the Boone and Crockett
Club—Idaho as God’s Country—Ranch Life Continued—Frederic
Remington and Frontier Types—Burning the Midnight Oil—Dr. Merriam, I
Presume—The Cyclone and the Shrew—Jaguar Eyes and the Flash of
Green Fire
Chapter Nine Laying the Groundwork with John Burroughs and
Benjamin Harrison
The Late Great John Burroughs—Sharp Eyes of the Naturalist—Busting
Bad Guys at the U.S. Civil Service—Brother Elliott Struggles with Life—
Who’s Not Afraid of Western Developers?—Reading Elliott Coues—Bears,
Bears, and More Bears—The Itinerant Historian—Bullish against the Hay-
Adams Circle—Americanism and The Winning of the West—Carousing at
Sagamore Hill—The Medora Magic—Yellowstone Days—Springing into
Action at the Metropolitan Club—President Benjamin Harrison Steps Up to
the Plate—Cooke City Crooks—The Darwinian Cowboy—Birth of the
National Forest System—Frederick Jackson Turner’s Closed Frontier—
Grover Cleveland Picks Up the Conservationist Torch—Awe and
Admiration at Two Ocean Pass
Chapter Ten The Wilderness Hunter in the Electric Age
Shooting Wild Boars in Texas—The Mighty Javelina Charge—Deadwood
Days and Pine Ridge Blues—The Triumph of the Log Cabin—Boom and
Bust at the Chicago World’s Fair—The Panic of 1893—Albert Bierstadt’s
Moose—Boone and Crockett Club Ventures into Publishing—W. B.
Devereaux and Colorado Camera Hunting—Americanism of The
Wilderness Hunter—President Grover Cleveland and the Yellowstone
Game Protection Act of 1894—Getting On with Interior Secretary Hoke
Smith—Garbage Dump Bears—The California National Parks—Good-Bye
to Brother Elliott—Social Darwinism Run Amok
Chapte Eleven The Bronx Zoo Founder
Clashes with Dr. C. Hart Merriam—Buffalo Mania—Welcome to the New
York Zoological Society—Mr. Madison Grant—Husband Taxidermy and
Dr. William Temple Hornaday—Hunting in Foreign Lands—New York
Police Chief Doldrums—Support from Cornelius Bliss—Squabbling Over
Bears and Coyotes With Dr. C. Hart Merriam—Cervus Roosevelt—
Anchors Away with Hornets, Wasps, and Yellowjackets—Daydreaming of
the Faraway Olympic Mountains—The “Forever Wild” Mammals of the
Adirondacks—Where the Buffalo Roam Stamp (or Pike’s Peak)
Chapter Twelve The Rough Rider