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The Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1850-1920
U.S. Congress. 61st. 2nd Session.
CREATED/PUBLISHED
United States : District of Columbia : Washington Government Printing Office 1910 01 19
SUMMARY
Authorizes an investigation by a joint committee of both Houses of Congress into the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Forestry, including public hearings, and requires that the results of the investigation be compiled in a report to Congress.
NOTES
This investigation developed out of the acrimonious public breach between Forest Service chief Gifford Pinchot and Secretary of the Interior Richard A. Ballinger. Though heavily politicized, the controversy had its roots in basic philosophical disagreements over the conduct of conservation policy: fundamentally, Ballinger wished to facilitate the development of natural resources by private capital in what he believed to be as fair a manner as possible, while Pinchot was primarily concerned with protecting public resources from private greed and shortsightedness through rational public ownership and management. Smoldering conflict between the two men broke into the open when Pinchot accused Ballinger on dubious evidence of official impropriety in the handling of some coal claims in Alaska; though President Taft decided that the charges were unfounded and initially hoped to retain both men in the Administration, the accusations were made public in sensational form. The subsequent uproar obliged Taft to fire Pinchot and to demarcate his differences with his predecessor Theodore Roosevelt on conservation policy, and led Congress to pass this Resolution. Congress's investigation exonerated Ballinger, but Pinchot won the public relations war: the controversy severely damaged both Ballinger's reputation (he resigned in 1911) and the Taft Administration's own in the public eye. (For a full history of this controversy, and interpretation which is particularly sympathetic to Ballinger, see James L. Penick, Jr., Progressive Politics and Conservation: The Ballinger-Pinchot Affair [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968].)
The results of the Congressional investigation were published as 61st Congress, 3rd Session, Senate Document No. 719: Investigation of the Department of the Interior and of the Bureau of Forestry (13 vols.; Washington: Government Printing Office, 1911).
Published 1911.
SUBJECTS
Law--United States
MEDIUM
0002
CALL NUMBER PART OF DIGITAL ID
KF 50 .U5
United States Statutes at Large
amrvl vl108
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