terça-feira, 29 de setembro de 2009

The Wilderness Warrior by Douglas Brinkley

HarperCollins, July 2009

From John M. Formy-Duval, for About.com

In March 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt declared Pelican Island in Florida "a preserve and breeding ground for native birds." That was the first federally protected area for birds. By 2003 this had grown to more than 540 wildlife refuges comprising 4% of US lands - 95 million acres. That initial designation was not without a backlash. It was done when bird feathers were the height of women's fashion, even to stuffed hummingbirds as an adornment for hats. The "plumers" (those who killed the birds by the thousands for their feathers) and the milliners were certainly among those who were most unhappy, but Roosevelt persevered in doing what he knew was right.

An appendix in Douglas Brinkley's The Wilderness Warrior lists accomplishments during hiTheodore Roosevelt's eight years as president. There were 150 national forests created or enlarged; 51 federal bird reservations; 4 national game preserves; 6 national parks; and 18 national monuments. Curiously, none of these was in a great circle from Maine to Georgia across to Arkansas, up to Iowa and back east to Ohio. Two national forests in Arkansas were the one exception. Nearly everything was in Florida or well west of the Mississippi River. I found no explanation of why this is the case.

Roosevelt believed in the healing powers of nature. He understood biological diversity and ecology long before it was popular. He believed in Darwinism from an early age (He called Darwin the "Isaac Newton of biology."). Although he believed in a supreme being, Roosevelt saw the natural world as a "series of accidents." Humans had a "sacred obligation" to protect nature in his view.

Roosevelt drew a clear distinction between hunting game and pets. He believed all creatures felt pain so that abusive treatment of any animal was anathema to him. At the same time, he was an ardent hunter who believed, drawing on Darwin, that the natural world was violent. If wild animals killed one another, then an efficient death by hunting was actually a humane way to end their lives.

Roosevelt seems to have been bred and born to be a naturalist. His mother's tales of growing up in the antebellum South replete with "Georgia red clay, black bears, and beige panthers" led to a life-long obsession with natural history, especially birds. By age nine he was writing his father asking him to find certain plants that were hard to find. His father, a successful businessman and founder of the American Museum of Natural History, encouraged all his children to study the natural world. None took it to the lengths that Roosevelt did throughout his life. Even as President he would burst into a Cabinet meeting excitedly exclaiming that a certain bird had appeared that morning on the lawn long before it should have. He never lost the child-like wonder that comes with continually learning something new.

No biography would be complete without an account of the bear hunt because it illustrates so many of the positive aspects of Roosevelt, including sportsmanship and integrity. Brinkley devotes most of one chapter to this 1902 hunt in the Mississippi Delta. The bear was a bedraggled adult, which had killed one dog, not a cuddly, cute cub. The hunt was led by Holt Collier, an illiterate former slave and probably the greatest bear hunter in the country. A character in William Faulkner's "The Bear" was based in part on him. It was Collier who stunned the bear and tied him to a tree. The blow was so hard that it actually bent the barrel of his rifle. TR refused to kill the bear, and the next day newspapers carried stories about his sense of sportsmanship. The following day Berryman's cartoon appeared in The Washington Post, depicting his refusal to kill that "cute cub."

But, there was even more to the story. Word got out that Roosevelt befriended Collier, which, on the heels of having invited Booker T. Washington to the White House, caused some political problems. True to his ideals, Roosevelt did not let this deter his friendship with Collier. Then, Rose Michtom made two little stuffed bears and she and her husband got permission to make more and call them "Teddy's Bear." At $1.50 each the bears made a fortune for the Michtom's and the other companies that began to make them. Although Roosevelt had given his personal permission, he absolutely loathed being called Teddy.

Exhaustive, exhilarating, entertaining, enlightening. Massively researched, The Wilderness Warrior is well suited for an audience with a particular interest in conservation and all that encompasses as its focus is rather narrow, despite the 940 pages. If we are to believe contemporaneous accounts about Roosevelt's voracious reading and retention, he could have roared through this book in a couple of evenings and been able to quote long passages from it. For the modern reader, this is a biography to be read slowly and savored in small segments.