the passage of the Reclamation Act [see Document
63], the federal government sold off massive amounts
of public lands to provide funds for irrigation pro-
jects. Roosevelt Dam, on the Salt River in Arizona,
the first of the large dams to be built with these funds,
was completed in 1911. Roosevelt also championed
Powell’s proposal to conserve the woodlands of the
arid regions, for it was becoming obvious that the
nation’s woodlands were fast disappearing. By 1900
all but one-quarter of the virgin timberlands that had
existed when the first colonists arrived had been cut
down.
By 1907 President Theodore Roosevelt was
deeply committed to the cause of resource conser-
vation [see Document 66]. The first real effort of the
federal government to develop a conservation policy
began that year, when Roosevelt, at the urging of
WJ McGee [see Document 71] and Gifford Pinchot
[see Document 73], formed the Inland Waterways
Commission to prepare a comprehensive national
plan regarding flood control, irrigation, water
transportation, hydroelectric development, and soil
conservation. The commission, which included both
McGee and Pinchot, determined that the issue of
waterways and forest cover was of concern to the
nation as a whole, and recommended that the presi-
dent convene all the state governors to discuss the
problem. Invited guests at the conference, held at the
White House on May 13, 1908, included congress-
men and other prominent politicians, scientists,
and Supreme Court justices in addition to the state
governors. During the conference it became evident
that very little was known about the extent of avail-
able natural resources in the country, although it
was obvious that a resource problem did exist. The
National Conservation Commission [see Document
70] was created to look into the problem, but Con-
gress failed to appropriate sufficient funds for the
planned study.
Roosevelt, an ardent anti-monopolist, attempted
to prevent the bleeding of America’s resources by
instituting antitrust legislation aimed at the huge
monopolies that at the turn of the century controlled
the railroads and the production of beef, sugar, ferti-
lizers, and farm machinery.
In 1909 Roosevelt invited representatives from
Canada, Newfoundland, and Mexico to a North
American conservation conference. He also tried toindustrialization increased and cities grew [see Docu-
ment 67]. In reaction, a movement to improve health,
living, and working conditions, especially in the cit-
ies, gained ground. It was spearheaded primarily by
women, many of them advocates for the poor and
working class (like Jane Addams [see Document 72]
and Lillian Wald) and doctors, nurses, and scientists
(like Alice Hamilton and Ellen Swallow Richards [see
Document 65]).
Because pollution and unsanitary conditions
tended to be considered local issues, most social and
legislative efforts to ameliorate these problems were
initiated by local activists or members of state or
local governments. The federal government evinced
little interest in pollution and sanitation problems
until 1899, when the Rivers and Harbors Act [see
Document 61]—the first federal antipollution law—
was passed.
While industrial growth and urban expansion
fueled many urban sanitation problems, the move-
ment of people away from the sources of food pro-
duction also created new types of sanitary problems
related to food production and packaging that called
for federal oversight. The need for greater federal
involvement together with a popular demand for
improved sanitation helped to spark a pure foods
movement. This movement, reinforced by the graphic
descriptions of unsanitary conditions in the meat-
packing industry in Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle
[see Document 64], provided the impetus for the pas-
sage of both the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 and
the Meat Inspection Act of 1907.
The Federal Conservation Effort
The recognition that there was effectively no
frontier remaining in which to expand [see Docu-
ment 60] stimulated increasing numbers of people
to be concerned about the careless destruction and
plunder of the nation’s resources. In 1891 Presi-
dent Benjamin Harrison created a national forest
system with a set-aside of 13 million acres of for-
ested land [see Document 59]. During President
Grover Cleveland’s second term of office (1893-
1897), Harrison’s forest reserve was augmented by
another 21 million acres.
In 1901, twenty years after John Wesley Powell
began his campaign to reclaim the arid lands of the
West, the cause was embraced by President Teddy
Roosevelt [see Document 62]. Then, in 1902, following
68 The Environmental Debate