As a war hero and charismatic progressive, Theodore Roosevelt was elected New York governor in 1898, only to become a monopoly fighter and corporate tax advocate, outraging the very people who’d funded his campaign. Too popular to oppose, in 1900 wealthy New Yorkers got Roosevelt out of the governor’s mansion, by drafting him to a largely ceremonial post as Wm. McKinley’s vice president. To their horror, McKinley was assassinated in 1901, and Roosevelt became president.
Roosevelt’s administration coined the word “conservationism” for the protection of national wildlife areas, national parks and national forests. A forestry convention led by Gilbert Pinchot attempted to promote selective harvesting, to stop the ecological damage done by clear-cutting. But conservation drew a strong reaction from logging, mining and oil interests, who felt Roosevelt was locking up valuable resources in what amounted to oversized picnic grounds, while raising the cost of materials extraction.
So Roosevelt decided to take his case directly to the public, with a 1903 tour of the west and its natural wonders. He traveled in his 70-foot long presidential rail car “Elysian.” In Yellowstone National Park, he denounced the excesses of wasteful sports hunting. He took a horseback ride through the Grand Canyon, and later cited the looting of Indigenous artifacts as reason to create National Monuments at Chaco Canyon and Gila Cliff Dwelling. He entered California, and toured the flower-bedecked coastal mission towns, then arrived at the Del Monte Hotel on May 10, and spent the day touring the landscaped grounds.
Santa Cruz County
The next morning, Roosevelt stopped briefly in Pajaro, then in Watsonville. Roosevelt said his senate gavel was made of Santa Cruz redwood, manzanita and oak, and onlookers pointed out the mill where it had been made. He left shortly, not realizing an off-hand remark was causing a world-wide reaction. Roosevelt said American influence must now extend across the Pacific Ocean, making European colonies wonder if he was expanding the scope of the Monroe Doctrine.
Roosevelt passed through Seabright, entering Santa Cruz over the San Lorenzo River. He saw a massive rainbow-striped Tent City at the corner of Cliff and Beach streets, recently built to house the overflow guests wanting to see the president. It was so popular, Tent City became a permanent attraction. At 9:45 a.m., his train arrived at the crowded Union Station, where the Hastings Band played “Hail to the Chief.” The station was decorated with a veritable Christmas tree forest of redwoods.
Ten carriages formed a procession of dignitaries, with Roosevelt in the lead carriage, accompanied by former Lt. Gov. Wm. T. Jeter, and local naturalist H.S. Deming. The procession traveled up on Beach Hill to view the waterfront. The 70-foot-tall tabernacle in Garfield Park Christian Campgrounds, was pointed out on the horizon of West Cliff terrace, since Garfield’s son James was Roosevelt’s Secretary of the Interior. Riding along Third Street, they rejoined the Hastings band on the flats north of Beach Hill, as they hadn’t climbed the hill for fear of being too winded to play.
The procession then moved up a Pacific Avenue swathed in flags, bunting, and paper lanterns, decorations organized by Samuel Leask, S.A. Palmer, and T.W. Kelly. The president stood in his carriage and bowed graciously to the enthusiastic crowd. At the Lincoln Street junction, children showered the route with flower petals, roses and ferns. Students from the Catholic school held up a painting of the Santa Cruz Mission. And students from Walnut Street seminaries and business colleges lined the block.
At the junction of Pacific Avenue and Cooper Street, a banner painted with poppies proclaimed “Welcome to Santa Cruz” beside the handsome new court house. The crowd gathered around a speakers platform with a large American flag canopy and a framework of flowers. Mayor David C. Clark introduced the president, who said a nation bordered by two oceans needed a modern naval fleet, so its policies would be taken seriously. Only a month before in Chicago, Roosevelt had quoted the West African proverb “Speak softly, but carry a big stick,” and war ships were the Big Stick.
Roosevelt praised the preservation of historic landmarks, but said his greater admiration was in the preservation of natural wonders. Thus he praised those local men and women who sought the preservation of virgin groves of redwoods.
“Cut down one of these giants and you cannot take its place. Nature was its architect, and we owe it to ourselves and our children’s children to preserve them. … We should see to it that no man for speculative purpose or for mere temporary use, destroys the groves of great trees. Where the individual and associations cannot preserve them, then the state, and if necessary the nation, should step in and see to their preservation.”
When Roosevelt finished, F.A. Hihn, the president of the Santa Cruz Pioneers Society, acknowledged Roosevelt’s pioneer spirit as a cowboy, explorer, and naturalist. Hihn presented the president with an engraved silver plaque and lapel pin, making Roosevelt an honorary member of the Santa Cruz Pioneers. He was also presented with a silk rosette holding a ribbon designed by local artist/teacher Lillian Howard, with the word “Roosevelt” across a picture of redwoods. At the narrow gauge station (now Goodwill site on Union Street), the president boarded the platform, as U.C. Berkeley students cheered. Only 89 invited guests wearing a Roosevelt ribbon were admitted. The train had been decorated by the Daughters of the Golden West, with different floral themes in each car. The “Barber Car” was so-called because the chairs swiveled and reclined like barber chairs.
Big Trees Grove
These were the first redwoods Roosevelt had ever seen, and he marveled at their majesty as they traversed the wild Rincon Gorge. The tracks above today’s Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park were then called Big Trees Station, where the residents of San Lorenzo Valley towns greeted him.
Roosevelt was escorted to breakfast under the redwoods by Fred Swanton, placing him at the head of a table that included Naval Secretary Wm. Moody, Mayor Clark, U.C. president Benjamin Ide Wheeler and Columbia president Nicholas Butler, with Fred Swanton and elderly Sentinel journalist Josephine Clifford McCrackin nearby.
The fog gave way to beams of sunshine in the cathedral grove. The meal consisted of broiled steaks from Councilman F.R. Walti, beans cooked by Jose Maria Guieres, the mother of 34 children, and coffee brewed by former Mayor Gustav Bowman.
Roosevelt pronounced, “This is the best steak I’ve had since I was a cowboy!” Then came local strawberries and cake with Santa Cruz wines. White-clad high school girls served the meal, while the Hastings Band serenaded.
Roosevelt was impressed by fellow bird lover, Josephine McCrackin. She’d lost her home in an 1899 forest fire, but realized these ancient groves were irreplaceable, needing centuries to grow, and would vanish forever if left to the mercy of logging and wildfires. She joined others in efforts that resulted in saving Big Basin in 1902 as the nation’s first Redwood State Park.
At the insistence of the high school girls, Roosevelt made a speech congratulating Santa Cruz for saving these magnificent trees.
“But let me preach to you a moment,” he added, and reproached the tourist tradition of littering a tree’s trunk with tacked-on calling cards. “Cards give an air of ridicule to this solemn and majestic grove.”
At the president’s request, he and Columbia University president Butler toured the grove alone without crowds or entourage. At one point, Roosevelt lay down to better gaze upward at these amazing trees. Each tree bore a name plaque, one being the “McKinley,” which Roosevelt regarded as a moving tribute to his running mate. When Roosevelt returned from his 15 minute walk, he discovered that cooks Walti and McCormick, Presidential Secretary Wm. Loeb Jr. and U.C. President Wheeler, had removed all the calling cards from the despoiled tree. Then on another tree a plaque was unveiled dedicating it to Roosevelt. Roosevelt thanked them, but said he’d prefer a small label on a post.
From Santa Cruz, Roosevelt went to San Jose, then San Francisco, and finally to Yosemite, where he roughed it alone with John Muir for three days of hiking and camping. The two hit it off, but Muir opposed conservation for future extraction of resources, believing scenic beauty was reason enough for permanent preservation. Just as the 1906 earthquake shook San Francisco, so Roosevelt shook Washington that year with an avalanche of national parks and reserves. A rider inserted in a 1907 Agricultural Funding Bill sought to revoke the power to make National Reserves by presidential decree. Rather than stop him, Roosevelt increased his efforts before the bill became law, securing a total of 80 million acres in National Forests, 14 million of these acres in California.
He doubled the number of national parks from five to 10, adding four Historic Parks and Recreation Areas, more than any other president.
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