After the American Revolution, the United States grew geographically in leaps and bounds, and one of the government’s goals was to distribute that land to American citizens. Public land was to be eventually privatized, but then came the realization that much federal land was being stolen through fraudulent land claims with no gain to the nation, some was simply too steep or barren to be desired by any private owner, and some was too unique or too beautiful to pass to private ownership and exploitation. The American people, through the federal government, would own part of the American geography and it would be retained for the common good.
John Clayton tells the story of two men, John Muir and Gifford Pinchot, major players in decisions about which parts of the American geography would be retained by the people and for what common good. Most accounts of the conservation movement describe a rivalry between the two that shaped the movement. Clayton summarizes the common perception of their positions: “The romantic Muir is preservation: leaving nature alone so as to benefit from its holistic wonder. The practical Pinchot is conservation: using natural resources sustainably to serve what Pinchot called the ‘greatest good for the greatest number in the long run.’” John Muir’s writing and activism led to creation of national parks, while Pinchot’s pragmatism and political savvy led to national forests.
Clayton divides Natural Rivals into two parts, the first of which looks at Muir and Pinchot and is titled “Natural Prophet, Natural Statesman.” Of Muir he writes that, “to a biographer the key question about any individual is: What did he or she want? And with Muir the evidence shows that he wanted to bring people to a richer spiritual life through appreciation of the natural world. Activist, scientist, writer, and wanderer were all offshoots. At his core, he aspired to be a prophet.”
Muir famously lost the final battle of his life, to keep a dam out of Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park. He thought construction of a dam would deal a blow to the sanctity of Yosemite and perhaps of all national parks, and Clayton argues that the last years of his life “play like a tragedy.” The prophet “didn’t make enough conversions” to keep the dam out of the park.
Clayton argues also that the “grand arc” of Pinchot’s career also plays like a tragedy. He got himself needlessly fired as chief of the U.S. Forest Service, driven by ego to disputes with President Taft and many others. “His ego led him to write memoirs claiming immense individual credit for advances achieved by groups. His ego must have secretly enjoyed his opponents referring to conservation as Pinchotism. His conservation cause might have developed a better footing if his hubris could have set it free.”
Part two is titled “The Birth of the Public Lands.” Clayton begins by briefly summarizing how the stage was set for the emergence of a movement for public lands, a period during which the course of Western American history dictated that “the federal government would have to decide that it wanted to own this land forever, rather than holding it in trust for eventual privatization.” Some lands were withdrawn from homesteading “so that they could better serve tourism or other nonagricultural economic purposes” like scenic preservation, wildlife conservation, and watershed protection. Then along came Muir “talking about spiritual purposes.” Inspired by the example of Yellowstone National Park, Muir saw in the national park idea a way to protect land with the potential to inspire the human spirit.
Clayton recounts how Pinchot, trained as a forester, emerged as a leader of the movement for federal “conservation” of forests. Without realizing the import of doing so, Congress passed Section 24 of an omnibus homestead reform act in its 1890-91 session that “allowed the president to reserve forested lands from homestead entry.” This became known as the Forest Reserve Act of 1891, and Presidents Benjamin Harrison and Grover Cleveland promptly used it to remove land from entry under the homestead act. Clayton describes the uproar this caused, which ultimately resulted in formation of a commission to decide what lands should be reserved with Pinchot as the secretary of the commission, catapulting him into the forefront of the forest conservation movement. While Muir was pitching parks for the human spirit, Pinchot rose to become conservation adviser to Theodore Roosevelt and the result was creation of the national forest system and the Forest Service.
Next, Clayton describes how, in the 20th century, people concerned about the American natural world in general and public lands in particular identified themselves with either the preservationist or conservationist camps. Muir was for some too purist, too much of a nature worshipper, too much an advocate of removing land from economic production; Pinchot for others was too political and pragmatic, opening up public land to exploitation and degradation. Muir was identified with the National Park Service, Pinchot with the Forest Service, which he served as its founding chief.
Clayton argues in Natural Rivals that while Muir and Pinchot were adversaries in some situations, “rivalries such as theirs can sometimes be productive rather than divisive.” He recounts how they came together in 1896 in what was to become Glacier National Park, Pinchot as secretary of the commission surveying Western forests to advise on what should remain public forest, Muir a volunteer adviser to the group. Circumstances allowed them to spend several days together in gorgeous scenery, and while Clayton admits there is no record of what they talked about, he “can imagine weighty ideas emerging under the stars.”
They could agree that they shared a greater priority. This land must be handled rationally and fairly. Politics-as-usual wasn’t working. A new system was needed, one with enough foresight to preserve the scenery of Lake McDonald while also allowing for growth and development. Within this new system, their goals might still conflict. But in the ethereal sunset, under the nemophila sky, the two men could find mutual respect. Each could appreciate and understand the other as an individual with great intellect and integrity. Each could see that the rival perspective was valid, was equally deserving of triumph.
Despite their “rival perspectives,” Clayton argues, Muir and Pinchot played key and complementary roles in what resulted from the Forest Commission’s work. Both men were attracted to conservation because they sought to “articulate a relationship between society and nature.”
According to Clayton, the Forest Commission made a political mess out of their work, and Muir as writer and Pinchot as politician saved the day.
Muir’s essays from 1897 sound as if they have an unstated dual byline: Muir’s rhetorical gifts are applied to Pinchot’s ideas. For example, in Mining and Scientific Press, a San Francisco weekly on mining and industry topics, Muir argued for “a new departure in the Government’s management of its forest property.” Specifically, “Uncle Sam is trying to have his forests – at the same time trying to find out how best they can be put to use forever for the benefit of miners, farmers, lumbermen, and people in general.”
The prophet Muir could also be the pragmatist and was in his advocacy for public land and what ultimately would be defined as “multiple use” of parts of that land. Muir was not only a wilderness prophet but also a farmer, so he was not the wilderness purist many have made him out to be. Clayton elaborates on how these two “natural rivals” complemented each other:
Muir’s moral authority and Pinchot’s tactical genius made for an exceptional combination. As Muir continued to stoke the public’s affection for forest and other natural places, Pinchot efficiently managed many such places, halting abuses. Muir wrote captivating books; Pinchot compelled loggers to use sustainable practices. Muir won hearts; Pinchot built trust. Furthermore, they were both able to shed the shackles that limited the commission’s discussion to forest reserves – they expanded public lands in new formats, such as wildlife refuges and national monuments. When the National Park Service was established in 1916, it rightfully credited the philosophical legacy of John Muir, but it also benefited from a legacy of federal managerial authority combined with public-relations genius – the legacy of Gifford Pinchot.
Natural Rivals offers a refreshing revisionary take on the origins of public lands and the two gifted men who, along with Theodore Roosevelt, were hugely important in changing a historical course that might have left no common lands for Americans. I recall the conclusion drawn by a historian in a film about the history of the wilderness idea in America I often used in a history of conservation class I taught. The gist of his point was that Gifford Pinchot’s work and ideas had led to much more wilderness than had John Muir’s because Pinchot had “saved” so much more land later designated part of the National Wilderness Preservation System than had Muir – more acres in national forests than in national parks.
This bothered me because it seemed to me that two men with big ideas had come along at a critical time for land in American history and had made a broad conservation movement possible with good outcomes for the nation. What if only one of them had been present? This made for a lively discussion in the class. Clayton’s analysis confirms my view when he says, “A Muir-Pinchot dichotomy becomes a useful hook on which to hang debates. It has great explanatory power – but its continuity is an illusion.” He continues to say, “If we could free public lands from the illusion of a preservation versus conservation dichotomy, we could free administrators to see public lands as a canvas for variable and changing visions of nature.”
Clayton offers a timely discussion as we are engaged in a battle like none since the days of Muir and Pinchot over public land values. One lesson he draws from his analysis is that, “to solve today’s challenges, we need a marriage of morality and capability.” Do we ever!
At one point Clayton notes that Aldo Leopold, who described a land ethic, was a forester, manager, scientist, and philosopher, and his ethic was “an expansion of Muir’s philosophy that Leopold began developing under Pinchot’s influence as a early Forest Service employee [which] cemented the connection between public lands and nature.” Anyone interested in the history and concerned about the future of America’s public lands should read this provocative and well-written book. Clayton offers new insights into the history underlying debates about public land today and suggests how we might move beyond the “politics-as-usual” approach that is no more helpful to us now than it was to Muir and Pinchot in 1897.
Comments
I have not yet read this book; however, over the past couple of decades there has been a notable uptick in what was already quite a bit of revisionist history about the roles, beliefs, and personal characters of Roosevelt, Muir, Pinchot, the Leopolds, and many other of our historic leaders. This urge to "spin" history seems to have undergone a growth spurt along with the rise in the use of more sophisticated mass marketing techniques in the politcial realm and this review seems to infer that this new book may have slipped into that trap. One aspect of this school of revisionist history has been for one of our political parties to try to reclaim now deceased and beloved historic national figures that the party dissed and trashed during their lifetimes. Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln are the two most egregious examples of this unscrupulous tactic; both of these men, as well as the noble causes they embraced, were "used" by the party simply for its own purposes and then, grotesquely and graphically in the case of Roosevelt, then discarded until the party needed to resurrect their memory.
Next example, according to this review, "Clayton notes" that Aldo Leopold's ethic was "an expansion of Muir's philosophy that Leopold began developing under Pinchot's influence" and, although the chronology might be coincidentally correct, I am very disturbed by any undocumented assertion attributing any significant portion of Aldo Leopold's ethic to Pinchot. Many years ago, I was honored to spend some time talking with Luna Leopold and the discussions sometimes turned to the direction that The Aldo Leopold Foundation was taking in those days. Dr. Leopold made quite clear his discomfort with the influence of what he saw as politically motivated actors on his younger sister Nina and the Foundation. Central to his discomfort was a perceived effort to use his father's legacy as a means of softening and blurring the acrimonious and downright adversarial relationship between Aldo Leopold and Pinchot. According to Luna Leopold, his father's beliefs were fundamentally antithetical to everything Pinchot advocated and his father remained steadfastly contemptuous of everything Pinchot stood for, philosophically and personally. Now, many years later, we have another effort to resurrect and revivify the distortions and once again "spin" Pinchot's corruption and we have a reviewer willing to breathlessly accept the revisionist history and naively join this latest repainting of the "wise use" bandwagon. The band's costumes are always so convincing.
As far as the relationship between Muir and Pinchot, there is no legitimate way to revise, sugarcoat, or spin Pinchot's treachery on Hetch Hetchy and this book's attempts to do so seem ludicrously disingenuous. If you want an honest, or should I say honorable, accounting of that relationship and Pinchot's background and moral character, you might read "Prophets & Moguls, Rangers & Rogues, Bison & Bears: 100 Years of the National Park Service" by Heather Hansen, published by Mountaineers Books and available through Amazon. Whatever you do, don't base your understanding of Muir, Pinchot, or Aldo Leopold just on what Clayton may write or Miles might review. Clayton and Miles may be furthering a long tradition, a tradition that's certainly still alive and kicking in these "sad" times; but, it's not a good one.
I hope you get a chance to read the book. It goes deep into primary sources to question your claim that Muir found Pinchot's position on Hetch Hetchy to be treacherous or a betrayal. You may disagree with Pinchot, as Muir certainly did, but Pinchot's consistently-expressed position on Hetch Hetchy was consistent with his other positions -- and the positions of many of Muir's other friends, including a vocal minority of Sierra Club members themselves.
Aldo Leopold makes only the briefest appearance in "Natural Rivals"; I was surprised that Mr. Miles mentioned him. My point was that Leopold attended the Pinchot-funded Yale Forestry School and then worked for the Pinchot-founded Forest Service for more than 20 years. Leopold argued, successfully, that habitat was a use for USFS to consider along with logging, grazing, etc. Discussing Leopold's later publication of "The Conservation Ethic," biographer Curt Meine says that its "fundamental devotion to wise land management was second nature to all who were nurtured on the philosophy of Gifford Pinchot." I'm intrigued by your assertion that Leopold later came to dislike Pinchot (although it sounds like Nina disagreed with Luna?... Meine doesn't address...), but given the influence of Yale and the USFS on Aldo, I don't see how you can argue that he was not under Pinchot's influence as he began developing his ideas.
This site is better than most at having thoughtful discussions in the comments. I'm happy to participate in one.
Well, John, I did mention, in the interests of full disclosure, that I have not read this book. In the same interests of full disclosure, I need to let you know why. A year or so ago, I bought and read "Wonderlandscape" and found some good research and interesting new perspectives in there. However, I'm afraid I was also put off by signs of what seemed to be a less than full acknowledgement of many of the most important concepts behind the still evolving national park idea. Even the title itself seemed to teasingly mock the role of the park and thus the role of all parks and all acts of selfless protection.
I know that you know what your previous book was about; but, on behalf of those who might read my comments without knowing, indulge me. In that previous book, you wrote about Yellowstone in eleven chapters, each focusing on a phase in its history. Only you didn't actually write about Yellowstone, you just used the park as the literary equivalent of a stage across which you strolled and mused ...about people ...who used the park. Yes, you wrote about some people who seemed to have good intentions for the park by the standards of their times; but, even in those cases, you wrote about their motives, their intentions, their history, with a feathery painted backdrop of the park unsteadily propped up in the shadowy background. Yes, you gave some lip service to diversity; but, it rang as hollow as an item on the checklist of a writer making sure his manuscript would be marketable. In truth, you focused only on a specific subset of people, their aspirations, their needs, their accomplishments. I was left feeling that "Wonderlandscape" made a statement, but not about the park.
I have not read your most recent work because I felt "Wonderlandscape" betrayed what has become the all too common tendency toward self-congratulatory human narcissism and was afraid your most recent work would drift in the same direction. When I read John Miles' review, I worried because the written word can influence thinking and even become propaganda. When I read your reply, it confirmed my suspicions about who has been influencing your thinking. Why am I so intense about this subject? It is not because I don't believe people or stories about people matter; it is because some things matter more and I want us all to learn and remember the difference.
With regard to how Aldo Leopold could attend Pinchot's Yale Forestry School and then work for Pinchot's Forest Service without Pinchot deserving credit for Leopold's ideas, I would respond on two fronts. First, do the people you've been around deserve the credit for your ideas? Second, a very distant ancestor of mine grew up under a foreign monarchy, was educated under that monarchy, and was, to all appearances, loyal, even deferential, to a foreign king until late into his thirties. Prior to that time, he had even been chosen by that monarchy to argue a very unpopular court case defending foreign soldiers against unreasonable charges. He won that case. In hindsight, however, the recorded writings and statements of his wife, his cousin, and his son make clear that he held a visceral disgust for all forms of monarchy since his early twenties. It was not until his late thirties, after decades of dutiful service to the crown, that he and his wife finally organized the citizenry and outlined the concepts behind and structure of a new form of government, a government that ended monarchic rule. He and his wife deserve credit for doing that; the monarchy they defeated doesn't deserve that credit.
So, don't assume that attending a school or working for an agency means that your thinking is going to be completely controlled and dictated by the founder of that school or that head of the agency; that's just absurd. Give Aldo Leopold the credit for Aldo Leopold. If you really want to know Leopold's thinking, read Leopold. If you really want to know what Muir thought about Pinchot, read Muir and Pinchot and let the honest truth speak for itself. Don't let anybody even remotely like Curt Meine tell you what to believe, about Leopold, Muir, Pinchot, or anything else for that matter. And, at the end of the day, it isn't really about the people who play a role or what they want or need anyway; it's about ideas, like the national park idea.
Ah, thanks for the explanation. One place we differ is on the meaning of "influence." To me, saying that Leopold's land ethic was "an expansion of Muir's philosophy that Leopold began developing under Pinchot's influence as an early Forest Service employee" isn't giving Pinchot (or Muir) credit for Leopold's ideas, or implying that they controlled those ideas, but discussing the framework in which Leopold was able to develop those ideas. And yes, I do think the people you've been around have influenced you -- maybe sometimes unconsciously, and even rebellion is an expression of influence. But again, that's just a single paragraph in the book.
It's true, in Wonderlandscape I tried to look at the way several characters through history have interpreted Yellowstone. They often used Yellowstone as a backdrop for their own ideas, and in portraying that I probably did the same. But that was basically my point: I tried to track what Yellowstone has meant to the culture at large, and in doing the research I was surprised to discover that this meaning had been shaped by people and their motives as much as, or more than, the features of the landscape itself. (In doing so I chose a subset of characters who could make that point; I could have written a book three times as long with all the different perspectives -- and still it would not be touching on the things that I hear you saying should "matter more.") Whether that point strikes you as troublingly narcissistic or (as it did for me) weirdly reassuring depends on your outlook on humanity. If you don't want to read Natural Rivals because our outlooks differ, I totally respect that.
Regarding your comment, "If you really want to know what Muir thought about Pinchot, read Muir and Pinchot and let the honest truth speak for itself," I wholeheartedly agree. Digging into their correspondence is exactly what I did for Natural Rivals. I was very surprised at what I found, because it challenged the historians and teachers and TV documentarians that I had previously spent time with (been influenced by). Indeed, John Miles' thorough, thoughtful review effectively described the way I encountered these ideas of Muir and Pinchot, and I'd like to thank him for writing it and the Traveler for publishing it.