The History Of Theodore Pinchot's Progressive Conservation Policies

To gain broad public support of his progressive conservation policies, and the increases to executive power to accomplish its aims, Theodore launched and unparalleled media campaign. With a constant stream of news conferences and interviews with the media, Theodore Roosevelt was able to go around the staunch opposition he faced in Congress to his policies. The chief architect of the President's plan to foster public favor of forming "a national conservation movement based on federal resource planning" was his conservation advisor and chief of the Bureau of Forestry, Gifford Pinchot (Ponder, 548). Pinchot's vision was to gain public approval for the centralization of natural resource, public land, and water use. The first stage in Pinchot's

Forest Service, the establishment of a "formal press bureau", and the placement of scientific forestry at the forefront of Theodore's public conservation campaign (Ponder, 549). In addition, Pinchot composed and aided Theodore Roosevelt in 30 presidential speeches, messages to Congress, media interviews and a multitude of other types of correspondence issued from 1901-1909. Besides a prolific amount of correspondence, Theodore, with the help of Pinchot and commissioner of the General Land Office W.A. Richards, launched a Public Land Commissions in 1903 to carry out a public set of hearing and investigations on federal land laws. As a result of these hearings, which took place across the country, and other events such as the American Forest Congress of 1905 (where

Theodore's speech at the Conference illuminated the rhetorical approach undertaken President to convince the American people to pressure Congress into supporting his conservation policy. Theodore's program of resource moderation was constantly challenged by Congressmen and their industrial constituents. In 1907, Congress amended the Agricultural Appropriations Bill to prohibit the President from creating additional forest reserves. In response, Roosevelt expanded the area of thirty-two forest reserves before signing the bill. Furthermore, Congress denied President funding for the National Wildlife Commission and Inland Waterways Commission. To many individuals, conservation, in particular the oversight of public lands by the federal government, stood as an eminent threat to private property, which was considered the source of American freedom and " 'power as citizens' " (Buehler, 446). In response to these threats, Theodore assembled at the Conference, "the Governors of the state and territories, numerous influential Senators and Representatives, all the Supreme Court Justices, and noteworthy public figures including William Jennings Bryan, Andrew Carnegie, and James H. Hill" (Buehler, 446). The stage was set for Roosevelt to defend his utilitarian and centralized approached to