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By HunTeR ROTHWeLL
“We must handle the
water, the wood, the
grasses, so that we will
hand them on to our
children and children’s
children in better and
not worse shape than
we got them.”
-Theodore Roosevelt
This call to action was Roosevelt’s
most consistent message during his
extraordinary presidency [1901-
1909]. So many books have been written
about this man that you could fill
a library. The majority of Roosevelt
biographies concentrate on his successes
as a soldier, a trustbuster, infrastructure
projects initiated during
his administration, his imperialism
and the building of the Panama Canal.
Douglas Brinkley’s The Wilderness
Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and
the Crusade for America, provides due
compensation for Roosevelt’s lifelong
mission to preserve America’s natural
resources. During his tenure, Roosevelt
created the U.S. Forest Service,
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
and the National Park Service, and
he oversaw the passage of the Antiquities
Act of 1906. On his watch,
Roosevelt’s administration created
five National Parks, 18 National
Monuments, 150 National Forests
and placed 230 million acres of U.S.
land under public protection [half the
size of the Louisiana Purchase].
Brinkley explains that from a very
early age, the bright young Roosevelt
consumed books on nature. His
heroes were storied men such as John
James Audubon and Charles Darwin.
His own father, Theodore Roosevelt
Sr., founded the Museum of Natural
History in New York City. Before
the age of 10, Teddy started his own
natural museum in his family’s home,
where he performed all the taxidermy
himself. Roosevelt’s boyhood dream
was to become a great naturalist.
Rich in detail, Brinkley’s writing
rewards the reader with often overlooked
historical accounts of Roosevelt’s
bird watching in the Adirondacks,
hiking trips in the Blue Ridge
Mountains, ranching in the Dakotas,
hunting in the Big Horns and his
escape to the outdoors of Wyoming,
Montana, Idaho and the Sierra Nevada.
From Roosevelt’s teenage years
until his death in 1919, he published
26 books, over 1000 articles and
thousands of speeches and letters on
his observations of the natural world.
Brinkley used these to offer insight
into Roosevelt’s mind.
When he stepped into the presidency
in 1901 after the assassination
of William McKinley, Roosevelt
utilized his “bully pulpit” to slow the
hectic pace of lumber, mining, fur
and plumage interests. By this time,
half of America’s original stand of
timber had been cut and billions of
tons of precious topsoil had eroded.
The American bison and many native
bird species had been harvested to
near extinction.
To his critics, Roosevelt was a man
of contradictions. He was a preservationist
and a big game hunter. He
was a leader who encouraged war
and conflict as being healthy for the
national spirit, but then won the
Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating
a halt to war between Russia and
Japan. He championed “the strenuous
life.” He boxed, wrestled, lifted
weights, hiked, rowed, rode horses,
played polo and tennis. Often called
the most intellectual president since
John Quincy Adams, he could read
two books a night and recite passages
from those books five years later. The
First Volunteer Calvary Regiment,
nicknamed the Rough Riders by the
press, was the embodiment of Col.
Roosevelt’s diverse interests. The
Rough Riders consisted of every type
of successful American man from
cowboys and Indians of the Wild
West to Ivy League friends from New
York. Brinkley masterfully highlights
Roosevelt’s most interesting characteristic—his
adventurous side.
Brinkley’s accounts of Roosevelt’s
friendships with the most recognizable
names in American history are
wonderful: racing through the woods
alongside John Burroughs to see who
could identify the most birds; camping
with John Muir in Yellowstone,
where Muir set fire to a dead pine tree
and the two men danced around it in
celebration; the retelling of Roosevelt’s
friendships with his Rough
Riders and Seth Bullock, the sheriff
of Deadwood. These relationships, in
combination with Roosevelt’s unwavering
passion, helped the 26th president
achieve so much for America’s
wild areas.
The Wilderness
Warrior is a
treasure of a
biography and
should be a
priority read
for anyone
who loves
nature. With
no uncertainty,
Brinkley
helps readers
understand
how much
we owe
Theodore Roosevelt. The
beautiful state of Montana would
look very different if not for his unwavering
crusade for conservation.
Rough Rider Teddy believed in hard
work and wild places:
Big Sky Weekly
“When life gets to be too easy and the
elements of danger, risk and hardship
are removed, we have to expose
ourselves to these again, and we need
to preserve the places where we can
do that.”
wishing you
HOLIDAY
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