History Bytes: TR at Yellowstone

Theodore Roosevelt. From the Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.

“There was once a floating wisp of glory” describes for many of us, not Camelot, but the conservation-friendly Theodore Roosevelt Administration. That special era came to mind recently when I heard the dispiriting (disgusting?) news that Congress had passed legislation permitting visitors to carry loaded firearms into our national parks. The first President Roosevelt was not a pantywaist when it came to totin’ guns, but he could be persuaded by public opinion to back off from unseemly behavior in the woods.

Some unfortunate notions, it’s true, captured the minds of otherwise levelheaded outdoorsmen during the early twentieth century. One was the tendency to divide brute creation into two sharply defined underclasses—“good animals” and “bad animals,” a cast of mind dubbed by later biologists “the Mother Goose Syndrome.” Predators fell into the latter category. Wolves, coyotes, even peregrine falcons (“duck hawks”), deserved instant execution by the gun for eating species deemed superior because of their value to farmers or hunters.

One of Roosevelt’s cronies was John Burroughs, that “John-O’-Birds” who became one of the most popular and knowledgeable nature writers of his time. The two corresponded often, and Roosevelt accepted much advice from him on nature study and conservation issues. But in 1903 the President, a renowned big-game hunter and persistent enemy of “varmints,” went a step too far in preparing for an official visit to Yellowstone National Park. While he was interested in seeing the sights, he also itched to take a shot at a mountain lion and inquired of the park superintendent about the prospects for such sport.

Somehow the press got wind of Roosevelt’s hopes. A public outcry went up over the propriety of a President of the United States trying to “butcher” animals in a national park and he swiftly abandoned that little item on his Yellowstone agenda. Exercising good sense and the art of public relations, he invited gentle John Burroughs to accompany him on the tour. Instead of shooting predators, the President entertained his guest (and the press) by catching a mouse with his bare hands.

Presumably he let it go. In any case, the wisp of glory remains.