Montana, on May 27, 1903. The president and the Copper King despised each other â no surprise. What each held dearest in his heart could not have been more different. "There is not in the world a more ignoble character than the mere money-getting American, insensitive to every duty, regardless of every principle, bent only on amassing a fortune," Roosevelt said just before he became president. To him, the West was a place for restoration and a proving ground. To Clark, it served no greater purpose than his life ambition to become the world's richest man. Clark and his allies derided Roosevelt as an outsider who didn't belong in the West.
Making his way home from a long tour of the West, Roosevelt had reason for an additional bounce in his step. Whenever his train pulled into another depot in the Rockies, he would take a sip of mountain air and wave with a proprietary sweep. At times, his bronchial troubles bothered him in the high altitude, a price he didn't mind paying for spending time on the sunset side of the country.
"At heart," he told people, "I am just as much a Westerner as an Easterner."
The day before arriving in Butte, Roosevelt had stopped in Wallace, Idahoâa triumphant visit, and not just because thousands showed up to welcome the president. For on May 26, the president learned that his leading political opponent, Senator Mark Hanna,
had given up the idea of challenging him. Hanna had called Roosevelt "that damned cowboy" and was horrified that he seemed to be taking the Republican Party on a different course.
But by the spring of 1903, it was clear that the country loved the cowboy, and Hanna, in failing health, could not stop him. In Wallace, Roosevelt made an appeal to the shared humanity of all Americans, a common plea in an era when the angry poor and the predatory rich were at each other's throats. Just a few blocks away, in a big house on a manicured street in Wallace, lived one of Roosevelt's most powerful opponentsâSenator Weldon Heyburn, a fellow Republican and chief ally of Clark. He fought Roosevelt on the major ideas of the Progressive Era, from the eight-hour workday and child welfare laws to direct election of senators. But most vociferously, Heyburn hated the idea of national forests, vowing to his last breath to kill the principles that were just taking root with the first rangers in the West.
Chugging through Montana, Roosevelt had been approached by the mayor of Butte. All of Butte â the "richest hill on earth," the source of Clark's wealth, the biggest city between Minneapolis and Seattleâwanted to see Teddy, the mayor explained. The town was more often under martial law than playing host to a president. And it was also the center of timber and mining opposition to Roosevelt's forest reservesâClark's kingdom. The Copper King used the newspapers he owned to destroy Roosevelt's "green rangers" before they could become part of the western landscape, painting them as sissies and interlopers who were in the woods on some kind of college-boy holiday. Still, Roosevelt's celebrity was enough to put public rancor aside for an evening.
The president no sooner arrived at dinner than he spied his rival, along with half a dozen or so underlings of other barons who had been carving up the West in mockery of Roosevelt and his choirboy chief forester. Teddy could feel the hatred in the room. "There was Senator Clark with his Iscariot face," he wrote. Nearly two years into his administration, the president had been barnstorming the
country and wrestling with Congress, trying to keep some of the very people who sat at this dinner from getting further control of the land. In his first message to Congress, he said preserving the nation's forests and fresh water amounted to "the most vital internal question of the United States." It seemed an odd, even esoteric selection for the top issue of the day. But as Roosevelt persisted, it became clear this would be a defining feature
Making his way home from a long tour of the West, Roosevelt had reason for an additional bounce in his step. Whenever his train pulled into another depot in the Rockies, he would take a sip of mountain air and wave with a proprietary sweep. At times, his bronchial troubles bothered him in the high altitude, a price he didn't mind paying for spending time on the sunset side of the country.
"At heart," he told people, "I am just as much a Westerner as an Easterner."
The day before arriving in Butte, Roosevelt had stopped in Wallace, Idahoâa triumphant visit, and not just because thousands showed up to welcome the president. For on May 26, the president learned that his leading political opponent, Senator Mark Hanna,
had given up the idea of challenging him. Hanna had called Roosevelt "that damned cowboy" and was horrified that he seemed to be taking the Republican Party on a different course.
But by the spring of 1903, it was clear that the country loved the cowboy, and Hanna, in failing health, could not stop him. In Wallace, Roosevelt made an appeal to the shared humanity of all Americans, a common plea in an era when the angry poor and the predatory rich were at each other's throats. Just a few blocks away, in a big house on a manicured street in Wallace, lived one of Roosevelt's most powerful opponentsâSenator Weldon Heyburn, a fellow Republican and chief ally of Clark. He fought Roosevelt on the major ideas of the Progressive Era, from the eight-hour workday and child welfare laws to direct election of senators. But most vociferously, Heyburn hated the idea of national forests, vowing to his last breath to kill the principles that were just taking root with the first rangers in the West.
Chugging through Montana, Roosevelt had been approached by the mayor of Butte. All of Butte â the "richest hill on earth," the source of Clark's wealth, the biggest city between Minneapolis and Seattleâwanted to see Teddy, the mayor explained. The town was more often under martial law than playing host to a president. And it was also the center of timber and mining opposition to Roosevelt's forest reservesâClark's kingdom. The Copper King used the newspapers he owned to destroy Roosevelt's "green rangers" before they could become part of the western landscape, painting them as sissies and interlopers who were in the woods on some kind of college-boy holiday. Still, Roosevelt's celebrity was enough to put public rancor aside for an evening.
The president no sooner arrived at dinner than he spied his rival, along with half a dozen or so underlings of other barons who had been carving up the West in mockery of Roosevelt and his choirboy chief forester. Teddy could feel the hatred in the room. "There was Senator Clark with his Iscariot face," he wrote. Nearly two years into his administration, the president had been barnstorming the
country and wrestling with Congress, trying to keep some of the very people who sat at this dinner from getting further control of the land. In his first message to Congress, he said preserving the nation's forests and fresh water amounted to "the most vital internal question of the United States." It seemed an odd, even esoteric selection for the top issue of the day. But as Roosevelt persisted, it became clear this would be a defining feature
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