Gifford Pinchot

Selected Writings

Gifford Pinchot, Char Miller

• Publisher: Penn State University Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780271078410
• eBook ISBN: 9780271079868
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

The founding chief of the U.S. Forest Service and twice governor of Pennsylvania, Gifford Pinchot was central to the early twentieth-century conservation movement in the United States and the political history and evolution of the Keystone State. This collection of Pinchot's essays, articles, and letters reveals a gifted public figure whose work and thoughts on the environment, politics, society, and science remain startlingly relevant today.

A learned man and admirably accessible writer, Pinchot showed keen insight on issues as wide-ranging as the rights of women and minorities, war, education, Prohibition, agricultural policy, land use, and the craft of politics. He developed galvanizing arguments against the unregulated exploitation of natural resources, made a clear case for thinking globally but acting locally, railed at the pernicious impact of corporate power on democratic life, and firmly believed that governments were obligated to enhance public health, increase economic opportunity, and sustain the land. Pinchot's policy accomplishments—including the first clean-water legislation in Pennsylvania and the nation—speak to his effectiveness as a communicator and a politician. His observations on environmental issues were exceptionally prescient, as they anticipated the dilemmas currently confronting those who shape environmental public policy.

Introduced and annotated by environmental historian Char Miller, this is the only comprehensive collection of Pinchot's writings. Those interested in the history of conservation, the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, American politics, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania will find this book invaluable.

Table of contents

• COVER Front
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• PART ONE: FORESTS, FORESTRY, AND FORESTERS
• Government Forestry Abroad
• The Forests of Ne-Ha-Sa-Ne Park in Northern New York
• A Plan to Save the Forests
• In the Philippine Forests
• Dear Forester
• The Proposed Eastern Forest Reserves
• Speech to the Denver Public Lands Convention
• The ABC of Conservation
• Mr. Pinchot on Forest Fires
• Roosevelt’s Part in Forestry
• National or State Control of Forest Devastation
• A Letter to Foresters
• Old Evils in New Clothes
• PART TWO: WAR AND PEACE
• Declaration of Principles: North American Conservation Conference
• England in War
• Preparedness and Common Sense
• An Agricultural Policy for the United States in War Time
• A Forest Devastation Warning
• Conservation as a Foundation for Permanent Peace
• PART THREE: GOVERNING THE KEYSTONE STATE
• The Reclamation of Pennsylvania’s Desert
• The Influence of Women in Politics
• Inaugural Address (1923)
• The Blazed Trail of Forest Depletion
• Why I Believe in Enforcing the Prohibition Laws
• Old Age Assistance in Pennsylvania: Righting the Neglects of Yesterday
• Politicians or the People?
• Inaugural Address (1931)
• The Case for Federal Relief
• Lifting the Farmers Out of the Mud
• Liquor Control in the United States: The State Store Plan
• The Pennsylvania State Forests
• PART FOUR: WATER, ENERGY, AND POWER
• What Shall We Do with the Coal in Alaska?
• Testimony on the Hetch Hetchy Dam to the House Committee on Public Lands
• Muscle Shoals
• Giant Power
• Prevention First
• The Power Monopoly: Its Make-Up and Its Menace
• The Long Struggle for Effective Federal Water Power Legislation
• PART FIVE: NATURAL ENGAGEMENTS
• One Afternoon at Pelican Bay
• Swordfishing
• South Seas Reflections
• Two’s Company
• Time Like an Ever Rolling Stream
• Acknowledgments
• Index
• COVER Back