History of the U.S. conservation movement Records relating to the Pinchot-Ballinger controversy, 1904-1910

Format:

Book

Series:

Archives unbound

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Pinchot, Gifford, 1865-1946.

Pinchot, Gifford.

Ballinger, Richard A., 1858-1922.

Ballinger, Richard A.

United States. Forest Service--History--Sources.

United States.

United States. Department of the Interior--History--Sources.

Conservation of natural resources--United States--History--Sources.

Conservation of natural resources.

United States--Politics and government--1901-1909.

United States--Politics and government--1909-1913.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Farmington Hills, Mich. Gale, a Cengage Company 2025

Summary:

The Pinchot-Ballinger controversy, also known as the "Ballinger Affair", was a dispute between high level officials in the U.S. government regarding whether or not the federal government should allow private corporations to control water rights, or instead regulate them so that the wilderness would be protected from capitalist greed. Between 1909 and 1910, the dispute escalated to a battle between President William Howard Taft (who supported Richard Ballinger) and ex-president Theodore Roosevelt (who supported Gifford Pinchot). Pinchot and his allies accused Ballinger of criminal behavior to help an old client of his, thus promoting big business. Ballinger was eventually exonerated but the highly publicized dispute escalated a growing split in the Republican Party. Taft took control of the Republican Party in 1912, but Roosevelt started a third "Progressive" party. Both Taft and Roosevelt were defeated in the three-way 1912 presidential election, with Democrat Woodrow Wilson the winner. Pinchot, a close personal friend of Roosevelt, was Chief of the U.S. Forest Service in the Department of Agriculture. Richard A. Ballinger was U.S. Secretary of the Interior, a separate cabinet department. Roosevelt in 1908 selected Taft as his successor in the White House because he thought Taft fully agreed with his main policies. Roosevelt then left the country in early 1909, but his friends flooded him with messages hostile to Taft, and he returned in 1910 convinced that his protege had betrayed him. The feud helped to define national political alignments between 1910 and 1914, as well as the conservation movement in the early 20th century. This collection consists of correspondence, reports, memoranda, and maps relating to three major issues that occurred during the controversy: withdrawal of power site lands from entry by private persons; withdrawal of sites in national forests for administrative use by the Forest Service, and administration of the Alaskan coalfields

Notes:

Date range of documents: 1904-1910

Reproduction of the originals from National Archives (United States)

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license