112 OUR FEDERAL LANDS 



on lands within the reserves for patented land else- 

 where. The bill passed, damaged by amendments, 

 to be sure, but it saved the reserves and defined the 

 sure path ahead. 



From this event on, the story hastens. In Sep- 

 tember, 1901, Theodore Roosevelt became President 

 and the decade began which has been called the 

 golden age of forest preservation. Already the lit- 

 tle Division of Forestry with Gifford Pinchot at its 

 head had become a flaming torch. Schools of for- 

 estry were founded at Cornell, Yale, the University 

 of Michigan and elsewhere. Forestry journals were 

 started. State associations were formed in New 

 Hampshire, Iowa, Nebraska, Kentucky, Maine, 

 West Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia and Loui- 

 siana. In 1908 the National Conservation League 

 was organized with Walter L. Fisher as president, 

 and the following year, Dr. Charles W. Eliot of 

 Harvard headed a National Conservation Associa- 

 tion with forestry as a main objective. In 1908, 

 both the Democratic and Republican conventions 

 wrote forest protection planks into their platforms, 

 an example followed by the Progressive and Pro- 

 hibition conventions four years later. 



Pinchot extended the conservation idea to cover 

 other public resources including coal, gas, iron, graz- 

 ing, and water for irrigation and power, filling the 

 country with enthusiastic propaganda. Roosevelt 

 concentrated his enormous driving power behind 

 conservation, making it a constructive national pol- 



