330 OUR FEDERAL LANDS 



dramas. Powell had navigated the Canyons of the 

 Colorado, but nobody knew why. Yellowstone Na- 

 tional Park had been created, but was thought a 

 freak of nature. California was known as a gold 

 mine, and the intermediate West as a wilderness in-- 

 habited by savage bears and troublesome Indians. 



As we look back, we realize that those old days 

 were wonderfully romantic. Or was it youth that 

 made them seem so to the boys we were; and will 

 our boys look back at our times as an age of ro- 

 mance? At least those old days possessed the mys- 

 tery of the unknown. To us in the East, it seemed 

 more of an adventure to cross the Mississippi than 

 it does now to circle the world. 



The young conservation movement thrived 

 upon the outrages perpetrated on Nature. The soil 

 of the Great West had been drenched increasingly 

 for years with the blood of our vast heritage of wild 

 animals. Our heritage of forest was increasingly 

 slashed and burnt. It was the heyday of a mighty 

 destruction against which fast-growing bodies of 

 conservers were protesting with ever increasing ve- 

 hemence. Then Roosevelt came. 



The discussion grows concerning what was 

 Roosevelt's greatest contribution to his times. 

 Asked by a by-stander at a train-end rally on his last 

 political campaign, he was puzzled to reply, and la- 

 ter, discussing the incident in private conversation, 

 expressed the belief that, in all respects but one, he 

 was altogether an average man. "There is this one 



