Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. The relevance and importance of Samuel P. Hay's book, Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency , has only increased over time. Written almost half a century ago, it offers an invaluable history of the conservation movement's origins, and provides an excellent context for understanding contemporary enviromental problems and possible solutions.
Against a background of rivers The relevance and importance of Samuel P. Against a background of rivers, forests, ranges, and public lands, this book defines two conflicting political processes: the demand for an integrated, controlled development guided by an elite group of scientists and technicians and the demand for a looser system allowing grassroots impulses to have a voice through elected government representatives.
Get A Copy. Paperback , pages. More Details Original Title. Ballinger , Theodore E. Newlands , Frederick Haynes Newell Other Editions 5. Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. Sort order. Jun 15, Frank Stein rated it really liked it. Copyright, , by the Mississippi Valley Historical Association. Issue Section:. You do not currently have access to this article.
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Purchase Subscription prices and ordering for this journal Short-term Access To purchase short term access, please sign in to your Oxford Academic account above. This article is also available for rental through DeepDyve. View Metrics. Email alerts Article activity alert. New issue alert. Conservation history, according to Hays, has nestled into a comfortable niche from which historians can easily play to the emotions of the public, inciting contemporary conservationist fervor.
This interpretation of the time period is markedly skewed, rightly argues Hays. The main mistake that these historians have made is that they have failed to separate conservation rhetoric from the reality of conservation policy.
Conservationists did not go to arms on account of public protest, nor were corporations always the enemy. If conservation was not a movement of moral, democratic zeal, then what was it?
Efficiency was the name of the game. Efficient use of resources, not the preservation and protection of resources was the ultimate goal. Roosevelt, the paterfamilias of conservation, supported the movement, according to Hays, because he loved the outdoors, but even more so because he respected this new cult of organization. The broader implication of the conservation movement, Hays writes, is that it took a decentralized and unorganized country and made it into a finished country that was structured, centrally planned, and socially organized.
Water management, particularly in the West where Hays argues conservation originated, is an example of the kind of program that does not conjure up visions of tree hugging. Irrigation and reservoir building were examples of ways in which conservationists developed tactics by which resources could be more efficiently used in order to halt population loss.
Range conservation and even forestry, both connected watershed protection, are also examples of how manage the environment. Public intervention was seen to be necessary. Otherwise, the ignorant public was likely to squander their natural resources. Experts were the only individuals that could properly oversee these policies, a belief that often put Roosevelt at odds with Congress and others who challenged his use of executive muscle, like Taft who argued Roosevelt disobeyed the Commerce Clause of the Constitution by interfering with waterway management in matters other than navigation.
When the upper and middle-class became enamored with conservation after the Governors Conference in , Pinchot was not pleased with their concern, but rather distrusted the emotional fervor they were placing on the movement.
Hays attempts to disrobe Pinchot of the heroic robe he has often been bestowed. The main historical account that is inaccurately portrayed by historians and subsequently leads to Pinchot adulation is that of the Ballinger-Pinchot controversy.
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