Pinchot - Roosevelt
Gifford Pinchot believed government could control private industry by controlling natural resources for long-term sustainable commercial use.
In 1905 Roosevelt appointed Pinchot head of the U.S. Forest Service. He continued in that position into Taft's administration.
Nine months into Taft’s term Pinchot accused the Secretary of the Interior Richard Ballinger of reopening exploitation of public lands that had been closed to private industry.
Pinchot falsely accused Ballinger of criminal behavior by improperly using his office to help the Guggenheims and other powerful interests to illegally gain access to Alaskan coal fields.
In January 1910 Pinchot, in an open letter to congress, criticized Ballinger and Taft claiming they violated the fundamental principles of the country’s heritage and conservation. He called for a criminal investigation. Taft was livid and fired Pinchot.
The Pinchot firing alienated many Progressives within the Republican party. From January to May 1910 the House held hearings on Ballinger. In the proceedings it was proven Ballinger hadn’t misused the power of his office. The House concluded the charges of corruption were entirely unjustified. and cleared Ballinger of all and any wrongdoing.
There is a report Pinchot traveled to Italy to catch TR at the end of his African Safari right before he traveled through Europe. While the truthfulness of the report is in question there is a rumor while in Italy Pinchot convinced TR that Taft had so badly betrayed the ethical principles of conservation he had to be ousted.
In Henry Pringle's 1939 biography of Taft he portrayed Ballinger as an innocent victim of vindictive Roosevelt loyalists. He wrote that after an examination of thousands of pages of evidence you can only conclude Ballinger was the victim of an attack fostered by fanaticism.
Harold Ickes Secretary of the Interior under FDR reached the same conclusion. In The Saturday Evening Post he asserts in a 58 page report that Ballinger was totally innocence and paints Pinchot as a vindictive publicity-seeker who without pity pursued Ballinger even after Ballinger's death June 6, 1922.
Some portray Pinchot as an arrogant, deceitful sociopath lacking any remorse. His critics are convinced he is a classic psychopath unable to distinguish right from wrong. The general consensus is Pinchot disregarded the rights of others and that he was manipulative, deceitful, impulsive, and to the extreme may have committed acts of violence, theft and fraud.
Roosevelt’s August 31, 1910 “New Nationalism” speech delivered in Osawatomie, Kansas was written by Gifford Pinchot and edited by William Allen White. In the speech the NY Times reported Roosevelt was suggesting Communism. The Washington Post called it Socialism.
TR's third term initiative in 1912 split the Republican Party and elected Woodrow Wilson. Critics point to Pinchot's political influence as one of the reasons the country walked away from Roosevelt He went from the lovable Teddy Bear to the unpredictable, dangerous, hard charging Bull Moose that was out of step with the American voter.
He took the loss hard and set out to challenge himself one last time in the jungles of Brazil. He returned home to campaign for a World War that wounded two of his sons and killed a third. The Greek Tragedy complete TR died in the first week of January 1919.
For trivia buffs. Pinchot Forest in Washington State is where B. D. Copper parachuted into the woods from a 727 with his stolen cash and was never heard from again. Some of the money was eventually recovered from the forest floor. Mount St. Helens is in the forest along with Big Foot. Pinchot was elected governor of Pennsylvania and Pinchot State Forest located in the state.
