Conservation And The Gospel Of Efficiency: The Progressive Conservation Movement, 1890–1920

by Samuel P. Hays

The relevance and importance of Samuel P. Hay's book, Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency , has only increased over time. Written almost half a century ago, it offers an invaluable history of the conservation movement's origins, and provides an excellent context for understanding contemporary enviromental problems and possible solutions. Against a background of rivers, forests, ranges, and public lands, this book defines two conflicting political the demand for an integrated, controlled development guided by an elite group of scientists and technicians and the demand for a looser system allowing grassroots impulses to have a voice through elected government representatives.

Genres: Environment, History, Nonfiction, Conservation

320 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1959

About the author

A leading scholar of American environmental history, Samuel Pfrimmer Hays was Distinguished Service Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh. A 1948 graduate of Swarthmore College, Hays earned a doctorate from Harvard University in 1953 and taught at the University of Illinois and the University of Iowa before moving to Pitt in 1960, where he taught until his retirement in 1990.

Reviews

[Frank Stein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although it was published back in 1959 and most of its arguments have since become the conventional wisdom on the subject, this is still the best book out there on early federal environmental policy.

Hays's main argument is that although federal officials portrayed themselves, in classic Progressive fashion, as protecting "the people" against the "interests," many of these early "conservationists" were allied with railroads and other companies and were vigorously opposed to "preservationists" who fought for unsullied parks and forests. Gifford Pinchot, Chief Forester of the US, is the main protagonist here. He organized groups like the National Conservation Association and yet he supported pro-development groups like the National Irrigation Congress (partially funded by railroads to promote homesteading) as well as the damming of the Hetch-Hetchy valley, now seen as one of the great environmental catastrophes of the early 20th century and the beginning of preservationist opposition to "conservation" as embodied in the Sierra Club.

The other argument here, that I knew less about, was how central the conservation movement was to the general engineering trend to making efficiency the cynosure of public and private policy. Journals like "Engineering News" reported favorably on Pinchot's attempts to create a federal inventory of natural resources, and the main engineering societies (Civil, Mining, Electrical, etc.) were vigorous proponents of such seemingly unrelated projects as national forest and grazing management. They viewed all these attempts to subject private "wasteful" competition to scientific management as enlarging their own sphere of influence and as steps to placing science and engineering at the center of national politics.

Despite some disorganization and repetition, I learned more about early environmental policy, and early 20th century politics more generally, from this book than any I can remember.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s easy to forget, over a hundred years after the presidency of Teddy Roosevelt, that around the turn of the twentieth century there was a sudden realization that, yes, it was possible to chop down the country’s seemingly endless supply of forest; yes, it was possible to exhaust grasslands from grazing, and so on. The initial response to this was not, as one might think, the conservation movement; it was a desperate grab by every corporation and small farmer to take as much as they could for themselves.

It was from this that largely stepped the figures we talk about in this era – particularly Roosevelt and Pinchot – who, rather than the narrative we tell today of simply preserving land for parks and beautiful views, tried to figure out a way to centralize management in order to get the most possible use out of what was revealing itself to be a finite resource. Rather than simply let individual farmers take whatever water they needed for irrigation, and inevitably run the river dry while ignoring the many other requirements for that river as well – navigation, energy production, relationship with forest management – use science and centralization to achieve the best possible combination of all of those aims. Not surprisingly, there was fierce resistance from this – typically from the small family farm owners, who couldn’t benefit from this economic centralization the way large corporations could:

Each group feared that a broader program would obscure its own specific needs or minimize its own project. Basin-wide river planning might require a dam in another locality. Multiple-purpose dams might provide less water desperately needed for navigation and more for electric power for some remote industry. Rigid grazing control might benefit the irrigator in the lower basin, but curtail the activities of stockmen on the headwater. Each group desired financial and technical aid from the federal government, and each supported executive action when favorable to it, but none could feel a deep sense of participation in the process by which technical experts made resource decisions. (Hays 1959)

This is not a book to pick up if you are casually interested in the history of an environmental movement: it is an academic text, written for other academics already familiar with the time period of the 1900’s, and does little to nothing to place the basic facts it offers in any type of broader context. That said, I found it extremely valuable for the facts that a.) it showed me I had a rather off-base notion of the motivations and conservation actions of Roosevelt and Pinchot (less about the inherent values of nature; more about science and economics); b.) it’s a reminder (always needed) that the exact same conversations we’re having about conservation today are the same ones we had over a century ago – from centralized planning to worrying about the degradation of people’s health in urban environments and seeking a cure in nature, c.) it’s given me a sneaking suspicion that the more pop-culture narrative of The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America was vastly oversimplified.

Pick this up if you are a student of policy who wants to observe the ins-and-outs of how things actually happen or if you’d like a true deepening of your knowledge of the history of conservation in the United States. And also because the books leaves us with an excellent question:

How can large-scale economic development be effective and at the same time fulfill the desire for significant grass-roots participation? (Hays 1959)

[Andrew Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hayes is writing to a group of people gathered around an article of faith, which is the merit of efficiency. He argues that trained experts can and should explain efficiently and implement policies through enlightened management.

The book reminds me of discussions at Messiah College about the role of Federalism and the view of the individual. Specifically, the ways in which our founding fathers intentionally made sure that politicians were able to make decisions independent of the people. Even now with the election coming up, we are forced to try to remember the purpose of the Electoral College, which was to distance the people from the President. Today we vote for President, Senators, and maybe one day it'll be Supreme Court justices. I would argue that we need to be careful with direct representation, as we need to allow experts, even political experts, to do their job. It seems today that we fear "experts," even labeling someone a "career politician" is pejorative. We need to allow experts to do what they do. From California's referendums to "Web MD," people today think of themselves as experts when they simply are not. For a democracy to function, everyone cannot have what they want. People must be willing to listen and understand one another, unfortunately, our current political climate is revealing an inability to do this.

I give the book four stars simply because it is a little dry and seemingly backwards in design, but it can foster excellent conversations.