Mr. Write's Page

A few years ago, I wrote a post about Theodore Roosevelt, who was President from 1901 to 1909, and his relationship with the poet Edwin Arlington Robinson. Both men were fiercely determined, undeterred by obstacles. They elevated stubborn to an art form.

Teddy got that way by sheer willpower. He overcame a sickly childhood (asthma and other health problems) and grew to be an energetic outdoorsman — a rancher, big-game hunter, and world explorer. He went on to become a war hero and a political leader of great significance.

Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. (1858-1919)

Roosevelt’s love of nature and the outdoors made him an early champion of wildlife protection and land conservation. He became President at a time when westward expansion and industrial progress were beginning to take their toll on the environment, and he happily used his powers to protect public lands.

Teddy was a fan of national parks in particular because park status blocks private development on the land. By law, however, national parks are created by Congress. And Congress isn’t always cool with a President’s wishes.

Roosevelt responded by turning to a controversial workaround: the presidential executive order.

Back then, executive orders were a rare thing. One example: Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation by executive order. But Roosevelt applied the concept often and to more mundane matters.

In 1906, concerned about pot-hunters raiding prehistoric sites around the Southwest, Congress passed the Antiquities Act, which charged the executive branch with “the proper care and management of the objects to be protected.” The act gave the President the power to establish protected areas called National Monuments.

Teddy saw the opening and made his move.

Congress had long resisted making Grand Canyon a national park, so in January 1908, Teddy declared 800,000 acres in Northern Arizona to be Grand Canyon National Monument. Congress was furious, and Grand Canyon wasn’t given national park status until 1919.

But, as of early 1908, Grand Canyon was under federal protection. Teddy relished the opportunity this presented. In all, over the course of his presidency, he established 18 national monuments.

Roosevelt’s first visit to Grand Canyon was on May 6, 1903. (Accompanying him was Territorial Governor Alexander Brodie, a veteran of the Indian Wars and the Spanish-American War. Brodie had served with Teddy in the Rough Riders; their friendship led to Brodie’s appointment in 1902 as the 15th Governor of the Arizona Territory.)

Teddy’s speech that day, part prepared text and part impromptu, was memorable. His genuine concern for the Canyon and his passion for conservation are clear.

After the usual acknowledgments, accolades, and blah-blah, Roosevelt said this:

————

In the Grand Canyon, Arizona has a natural wonder which, so far as I know, is in kind absolutely unparalleled throughout the rest of the world.

I want to ask you to do one thing in connection with it, in your own interest and in the interest of the country: to keep this great wonder of nature as it now is.

I hope you will not have a building of any kind, not a summer cottage, a hotel, or anything else, to mar the wonderful grandeur, the sublimity, the great loneliness and beauty of the canyon. Leave it as it is. You cannot improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it.

What you can do is to keep it for your children, your children’s children, and for all who come after you, as one of the great sights which every American, if he can travel at all, should see.

We have gotten past the stage, my fellow citizens, when we are to be pardoned if we treat any part of our country as something to be skinned for two or three years for the use of the present generation, whether it is the forest, the water, the scenery. Whatever it is, handle it so that your children’s children will get the benefit of it.

If you deal with irrigation, apply it under circumstances that will make it of benefit — not to the speculator who hopes to get profit out of it for two or three years, but handle it so that it will be of use to the home-maker, to the man who comes to live here, and to have his children stay after him.

Keep the forests in the same way. Preserve the forests by use; preserve them for the ranchman and the stockman, for the people of the Territory, for the people of the region round about.

Preserve them for that use, but use them so that they will not be squandered, that they will not be wasted — so that they will be of benefit to the Arizona of 1953 as well as the Arizona of 1903.

————

If Teddy were around today to see Grand Canyon, he probably would be disheartened.

Yes, the Canyon abides. It remains much as it was in 1903 — largely intact, still stunning and majestic.

But the place is too popular for its own good. At certain times and in certain places, it is overwhelmed with visitors.

As for Roosevelt’s plea not to erect buildings of any kind at Grand Canyon because they would “mar the wonderful grandeur” — well, posterity ignored that part.

Surely Roosevelt knew that was a pipe dream anyway.

Aerial view of one section of Grand Canyon Village on the South Rim. Shown are three large hotels, a three-story gift shop, and an employee dormitory. Plus that passenger train in the foreground.