Gifford Pinchot: Selected Writings

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:
Contents Introduction Forests, Forestry and Foresters Government Forestry Abroad, 1891 The Forests of Ne-Ha-Sa-Ne Park in Northern New York, 1893 A Plan to Save the Forests, 1895 In the Philippine Forests, 1903 Dear Forester, 1905 The Proposed Eastern Forest Reserves, 1906 Speech to the Denver Lands Convention, 1907 The ABC of Conservation, 1909 Mr. Pinchot on Forest Fires, 1910 Roosevelt’s Part in Forestry, 1919 National or State Control of Forest Devastation, 1920 Letter to Foresters, 1930 Old Evils in New Clothes, 1937 War & Peace North American Conservation Conference, 1909 England in War, 1915 Preparedness and Common Sense, 1916 Agriculture Policy in Wartime, 1917 A Forest Devastation Warning, 1925 Conservation as a Foundation for Permanent Peace, 1940 Governing the Keystone State The Reclamation of Pennsylvania’s Desert, 1920 The Influence of Women in Politics, 1922 Inaugural Address, 1923 The Blazed Trail of Forest Depletion, 1923 Why I Believe in Enforcing Prohibition, 1923 Old Age Assistance in Pennsylvania, 1924 Politicians or the People? 1926 Inaugural Address, 1931 The Case for Federal Relief, 1932 Lifting Farmers Out of the Mud, 1932 Liquor Control in the United States: The State Store Plan, 1934 Pennsylvania State Forests, 1942 Water, Energy, and Power What are we going to do about Coal in Alaska? 1911 Testimony on the Hetch Hetchy Dam, 1913 Muscle Shoals, 1921 Giant Power, 1924 Prevention First, 1927 The Power Monopoly: Its Makeup and Menace, 1928 The Long Struggle for Effective Water Power Legislation, 1945 Natural Moments One Afternoon at Pelican Bay, 1897 Swordfishing, 1912 South Seas Reflections, 1930 Two’s Company, 1936 Time Like an Ever Rolling Stream, 1936 Acknowledgements Index