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chapter 1 Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman Conservation and the environment once again became a primary focus of attention in the White House with the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt—our thirty-second president and fifth cousin of Theodore Roosevelt , our twenty-sixth president. As the nation’s first modern environmental president, Franklin Roosevelt expressed an interest in conservation well before he became president. Anna Lou Riesch Owen pointed out that “in public office as senator, as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and as governor he was active in promoting conservation. His conservation record as Governor of New York is merely repeated on a larger scale as President of the nation.”1 Franklin Roosevelt Conservationists saw in this president a person who would fully support their goals and objectives. He was a president who was willing—even in times of crisis—to set aside budget allotments to facilitate improvements to the environment. Franklin Roosevelt also saw himself as a conservationist wanting to educate others, much as had Theodore Roosevelt before him. Protecting nature and the management of resources was important to FDR. He urged Congress in 1935 to “start to shape our lives in a more harmonious relationship with nature.” And he cautioned, “The future of every American family everywhere will be affected by the action we take.”2 Among other things, FDR explained the critical need for conservation, and why federal regulations were necessary to establish long-term planning and secure conservation as a working concept in the minds of Americans. This approach exposed private citizens to their overall responsibilities to preserve the land and resources.3 As a citizen himself, Roosevelt wanted to be considered a “gentleman farmer,” one who thought of “forestry”—or the sort of “forestry” he practiced on his Hyde Park estate—not just as the acquiring of land with trees and the maintaining of that land, but as the cultivating of trees as a “crop” that could be used much like a “crop of corn or wheat.” Such thinking was consistent with how he saw each segment of conservation as intercon- 30 chapter one nected with every aspect of American life. As he indicated in 1935, “We think of our land and water and human resources not as static and sterile possessions but as life giving assets to be directed by wise provision for future days. We seek to use our natural resources not as a thing apart but as something that is interwoven with industry, labor, finance, taxation, agriculture, homes, recreation,goodcitizenship.”4 AndforthisreasonitwasPresidentFranklinD. Roosevelt who, despite Theodore Roosevelt’s pioneering efforts in first focusing our attention on conservation, was recognized as having ushered in the “golden age of conservation.”5 Political Communication Franklin Roosevelt was a particularly effective and persuasive spokesperson for causes he believed in. Through speeches, press conferences, and radio addresses, he attempted to both convey his message as well as educate citizens and policy makers alike regarding the need to conserve resources. One way he reached a large audience of Americans with his high priority message was through his very popular and effective “fireside chats” on the radio.6 He also visited the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camps—the camps that had been recently established to employ some two million persons to build roads, construct trails, and engage in other activities to protect the environment—as forums to preach the need for conservation of resources to those who would listen.7 Additionally, he made an effort to frequently talk to reporters both in formal press conferences as well as in informal settings . He averaged about 6.9 press conferences a month, a sizeable number when one compares the numbers of press conferences held by our last two presidents—Bill Clinton held around 3.4 press conferences a month and George W. Bush limited press conferences to a very few during his entire term in office.8 In his major public addresses Roosevelt, surprisingly, did not always make reference to the environment. In his 1937 State of the Union address, the president did not even mention conservation. Rather, the entire address discussed the economic problems facing the nation in his first term in office, the extension of democratic government to respond to these needs, and the impending war in Europe.9 His 1936 State of the Union message, however, was an exception to the general rule with fully 6 percent of the address being devoted to conservation needs. Unlike his formal speeches, conservation became a...

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