Roosevelt, Robber Barons, and the Continued Fight for Our Public Lands
Last week, we all witnessed the beauty of democracy in a vivid way when Utah congressman Jason Chaffetz withdrew a piece of proposed legislation called H.R. 621. If passed, this bill would have instructed the Secretary of the Interior to begin disposing of your federally managed public-land hunting and fishing grounds in ten western states. Hunters and anglers came out in such rabid defense of our public lands that Chaffetz rightfully shit-canned the whole idea. I was so moved by the victory that I actually choked up and shed a tear, which is usually something reserved for the birth of my children.
As good as it felt, it’s important to understand that our victory over H.R. 621 was really only a skirmish in the broader war over America’s public lands. As I write this, two related bills are making their way through Washington D.C. One is H.R. 622, which was introduced by the same guy who brought us the defeated H.R. 621. This bill has the goal of eliminating the law enforcement functions of the National Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. The second bill, H.J. Res. 44, which scuttles the recently revised BLM land management planning process, called Planning 2.0, was passed by the House of Representatives on February 7. It will go up for a Senate vote in a week or so.
It’s helpful if you think about these things in their broader context, which requires you to step back in time. In 1901, an anarchist named Leon Czolgosz reached out as though he wanted to shake President McKinley’s hand but instead shot him a couple of times with a .32 caliber revolver. The first shot grazed the president, but the second punched through his abdomen. The bullet was never found, the wound became gangrenous, McKinley died, and Theodore Roosevelt became president.
At the time, our nation was experiencing catastrophic losses of wildlife and rampant environmental destruction. Roosevelt believed that we were on the verge of wholesale ecological collapse. A lifelong naturalist and hunter, he recognized that preserving habitat was the most important step toward restoring America’s wildlife populations. He was exceedingly efficient. During his time in office he set aside 230-million acres of public land, including about 150 million acres of national forest.
In many ways, Roosevelt’s vision of a public land system was a response to the land and wildlife management systems of Europe. We’re all familiar with the mythical figure of Robin Hood, that swashbuckling archer who poached the king’s game with his trusty bow. The reason that Robin Hood had to steal game was because “commoners” in England were effectively barred from hunting and fishing. The aristocracy owned all of the land, and they kept the land and the land’s resources for themselves. You could have your eyes gouged out for poaching, or else you could be hanged, castrated, or killed by dogs. The notion of public land, where the lowly working class was free to roam and hunt and fish, was distasteful to the aristocracy of England. In Roosevelt’s time, this wasn’t such a distant memory as it is today. Roosevelt was forthright about his intentions to preserve land for the spiritual and physical well-being of all Americans, regardless of income, race, and political affiliation. In fact, his concerns about the longevity of American wildlife extended beyond his own immediate constituency. He kept in mind the unborn generations, or as he put it, those “within the womb of time.”
http://www.themeateater.com/2017/roosevelt-robber-barons-and-the-continued-fight-for-our-public-lands/
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