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ANTI-CONSERVATION ACTIVITY 203 



and militant, and always ready to do anything that he thought the 

 public interest demanded, if it was not specifically forbidden. Taft, 

 on the other hand, was cautious, and did not act unless specifically 

 authorized by law. In an administrative office, the difference between 

 these attitudes was sometimes very great. 



When the question of investigating Ballinger was up in Congress 

 in 1910, the vote was purely on political lines, the Republicans lining 

 up with President Taft for a "whitewasning" of the secretary, and 

 also for the inclusion of the Forest Service in the investigation; while 

 the Democrats generally wanted to discredit Ballinger and opposed 

 the inclusion of the Forest Service in the investigation, as tending to 

 cloud the issue. The Republicans won, and some thirteen volumes of 

 "whitewash" were administered to a case which needed it rather badly. 



Humphrey was a staunch Republican, was one of Ballinger's 

 spokesmen in the House in 1910, and his sympathies were with Bal- 

 linger in the investigations. Also, in the fight over the national con- 

 vention two years later, he defended the selection of the Washington 

 delegates, who were supporters of Taft, and, according to current 

 charges, had been fraudulently chosen. The writer ventures no opinion 

 as to the grounds for these charges, or as to the validity of Taft's 

 nomination, or as to the relation of Humphrey to the whole matter; 

 but the point is that Humphrey's attitude toward the conservation 

 policy was a party matter. The upshot of the whole affair was that 

 Roosevelt left the Republican party after the Chicago convention in 

 1912, and formed the new Progressive party. His defection naturally 

 brought up conservation — the most important of his "policies" — for 

 discussion and criticism."^ 



Some of the Republicans were in loyalty bound to show that the 

 conservation policy, the favorite foster child of the founder of the 



98 The later work of Mr. Glavis, the man who precipitated the Ballinger con- 

 troversy, seems to be a rather unfortunate chapter in the history of conservation. 

 Soon after his dismissal from the government service, he was appointed Secretary 

 of the Conservation and Water Power Commissions of California; and while thus 

 a servant of the state, he acted in land transactions as the agent also of certain 

 lumber companies. There was no particular allegation of fraud or dishonesty, but 

 his actions had put him in a compromising position, and he was dismissed from 

 his position. He had been credited with some excellent work in the recovery of 

 state school lands. {Outlook, Nov. 23, 1912, 665; Feb. 8, 1913, 289.) 



