One of the staunchest supporters of the Progressives was Gifford
Pinchot. Pinchot, highly
motivated by Taft's unwillingness to support scientific conservation
fullly, became an active supporter of the movement to deny Taft the
Republican nomination in 1912. Pinchot
became a member of the Nominating and Executive Committees of the
National Progressive Republican League, which was organized in January
of 1911 in response to these and other issues. He also advised Progressive candidates, wrote Progressive
propaganda, and actively campaigned for the party. Pinchot was instrumental in convincing Roosevelt to run for
President in 1912 as a Progressive.
The Ballinger-Pinchot Controversy had won Roosevelt and
Pinchot’s conservation policies a great deal of popular support, which
influenced the Progressive platform. T.R.’s “New Nationalism” called for a strong central
government to correct America’s social problems and protect citizens
from special interests. Among
the basic components of this philosophy was the scientific conservation
of natural resources.
However, not all of the repercussions of the Ballinger-Pinchot
Controversy helped the conservation cause. The controversy made conservation a partisan issue that obscured
the complicated business of managing the country’s resources. The controversy also ended the interdepartmental cooperation that
Pinchot relied on to carry out his ideas. Without a strong figure like Pinchot to force government agencies
to work together, a comprehensive conservation program was more
difficult to achieve. Furthermore,
the Ballinger-Pinchot Controversy united many conservationists against
Taft even though not everyone agreed with Roosevelt. The unified front eventually splintered as natural differences
among conservationists became apparent once the election was over, and
Taft was out of office.
The upheaval created by the Ballinger-Pinchot Controversy did not
end with the Election of 1912. In
1940, Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes reexamined the events of
1910 and proclaimed that Ballinger was innocent of any wrong doing. Furthermore, Ickes attacked Pinchot for trumping up charges
against Ballinger without sufficient evidence, merely to serve his own
political ends. Pinchot retaliated about ten years later when he published his
autobiography, Breaking New
Ground, in an attempt to refute Icke’s charges. |
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