Teddy Roosevelt's Gift to the World
U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt (left) and nature preservationist John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, on Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park. In the background: Upper and lower Yosemite Falls.
Anybody who loves nature appreciates the forethought of anybody who has worked to preserve and protect it. Teddy Roosevelt, former United States President and wilderness adventurer, helped establish many National Parks, National Forests, Game Preserves, Federal Bird Reservations and National Monuments in America.
The following is a quote from his book, A Booklover’s Holiday in the Open, published in 1916.
“Defenders of the short-sighted men who in their greed and selfishness will, if permitted, rob our country of half its charm by their reckless extermination of all useful and beautiful wild things sometimes seek to champion them by saying the ‘the game belongs to the people.’ So it does; and not merely to the people now alive, but to the unborn people. The ‘greatest good for the greatest number’ applies to the number within the womb of time, compared to which those now alive form but an insignificant fraction. Our duty to the whole, including the unborn generations, bids us restrain an unprincipled present-day minority from wasting the heritage of these unborn generations. The movement for the conservation of wild life and the larger movement for the conservation of all our natural resources are essentially democratic in spirit, purpose, and method.”
God bless Teddy!