small man make a living rather than help the big man make a profit," as Pinchot said frequently. But once engaged, they never looked back.
The dinner crowd in Butte was liquored up by the time food was ready to be served, buzzed on "every kind of whiskey," Roosevelt recalled. As he had asked that his guests be a cross-section of Butte, there were more than the usual Irish who dominated the town. Blacks, Chinese, Cornish, Italians, Greeks, Swedes, and Germans â all had a seat, in addition to pinch-faced Senator Clark and
his allies. Mayor Pat Mullins summoned his waiters: "Boys, bring on the feed." Then he ordered that the window blinds be lifted so that people on the street could look inside and see what Butte had corralled. Gifts were presented. One in particular touched Roosevelt: a pair of silver scales from black miners at the table. "This comes in the shape I appreciateâscales of justice held even," Roosevelt said. He went on to discuss the bravery of "colored troops" who had served with him in Cuba. Visibly moved, he turned to the miners and said the scale â this gift â made him want to help blacks get "a square deal." A pact, of sorts, was born at the banquet table: the simple phrase "a square deal" would be at the heart of the Roosevelt social contract.
Clark was not impressed. In a huff, the senator retreated to his manse in Butteâthree stories, thirty-four rooms, stuffed with Tiffany glass lamps â fortified in his resolve to thwart Roosevelt at every turn. Since buying his Senate seat, he had rarely been home in the northern Rockies. Clark preferred the forest of chateaux in New York with the other titans now carving up the West. J. P. Morgan had a house at 219 Madison Avenue. The Astors, the Fricks, the Goulds, the Whitneys, the Harrimans, and the Carnegies each had a stone showpiece nearby. Clark started with a home on Fifth Avenue, a few blocks from Morgan. But after visiting the world's fair in Paris, he was determined to build a royalist fantasy in Manhattan. He created a 121-room palace on Park Avenue at Seventy-seventh Street. And so for the duration of his only term as a senator from Montana, Clark's principal residence was a Gotham fortress with thirty-one bathroomsâa different commode for every day of the month.
After the dinner in Butte, there would be no truce, no letup, no middle ground. Roosevelt had to be stopped. Clark used his Senate seat to block every effort at conservation, and he used his newspapers to echo his interests and applaud his opposition to Roosevelt. At the same time, his wealth grew with a plan to start a town in the Mojave Desert built around a pit stop for a railroad he ownedâLas
Vegas, Nevada. The town took off, and the railroad was sold to E. H. Harriman, putting Clark within reach of becoming one of the richest Americans ever. Clark was the voice of brute wealth and blunt strengthâmight over right, the way copper kings did their business in the West. And, as his papers told it, he was heroic to take on this radical young president. His allies, such as Herschel Hogg, a congressman from Colorado, relied on ridicule: these conservationists were "google-eyed, bandy-legged dudes from the East and sad-eyed, absent-minded professors and bugologists," in Hogg's memorable phrase.
So long as there were no trained professionals to watch the woods and grasslands, big money prevailed. Clark could rest easy. The General Land Office existed for one reason: to transfer public property to private handsâin Clark's mind, the perfect government agency. It was staffed by bureaucrats who neither knew nor cared for wild land in the West. As for Pinchot's main request, Clark was consistently defiant: he would never agree to transfer the reserves from the land office to a forest service. As to the larger argument, he sniffed at calls from Roosevelt and Pinchot to leave something behind for the future.
"Those who succeed us," said Clark, "can well
The dinner crowd in Butte was liquored up by the time food was ready to be served, buzzed on "every kind of whiskey," Roosevelt recalled. As he had asked that his guests be a cross-section of Butte, there were more than the usual Irish who dominated the town. Blacks, Chinese, Cornish, Italians, Greeks, Swedes, and Germans â all had a seat, in addition to pinch-faced Senator Clark and
his allies. Mayor Pat Mullins summoned his waiters: "Boys, bring on the feed." Then he ordered that the window blinds be lifted so that people on the street could look inside and see what Butte had corralled. Gifts were presented. One in particular touched Roosevelt: a pair of silver scales from black miners at the table. "This comes in the shape I appreciateâscales of justice held even," Roosevelt said. He went on to discuss the bravery of "colored troops" who had served with him in Cuba. Visibly moved, he turned to the miners and said the scale â this gift â made him want to help blacks get "a square deal." A pact, of sorts, was born at the banquet table: the simple phrase "a square deal" would be at the heart of the Roosevelt social contract.
Clark was not impressed. In a huff, the senator retreated to his manse in Butteâthree stories, thirty-four rooms, stuffed with Tiffany glass lamps â fortified in his resolve to thwart Roosevelt at every turn. Since buying his Senate seat, he had rarely been home in the northern Rockies. Clark preferred the forest of chateaux in New York with the other titans now carving up the West. J. P. Morgan had a house at 219 Madison Avenue. The Astors, the Fricks, the Goulds, the Whitneys, the Harrimans, and the Carnegies each had a stone showpiece nearby. Clark started with a home on Fifth Avenue, a few blocks from Morgan. But after visiting the world's fair in Paris, he was determined to build a royalist fantasy in Manhattan. He created a 121-room palace on Park Avenue at Seventy-seventh Street. And so for the duration of his only term as a senator from Montana, Clark's principal residence was a Gotham fortress with thirty-one bathroomsâa different commode for every day of the month.
After the dinner in Butte, there would be no truce, no letup, no middle ground. Roosevelt had to be stopped. Clark used his Senate seat to block every effort at conservation, and he used his newspapers to echo his interests and applaud his opposition to Roosevelt. At the same time, his wealth grew with a plan to start a town in the Mojave Desert built around a pit stop for a railroad he ownedâLas
Vegas, Nevada. The town took off, and the railroad was sold to E. H. Harriman, putting Clark within reach of becoming one of the richest Americans ever. Clark was the voice of brute wealth and blunt strengthâmight over right, the way copper kings did their business in the West. And, as his papers told it, he was heroic to take on this radical young president. His allies, such as Herschel Hogg, a congressman from Colorado, relied on ridicule: these conservationists were "google-eyed, bandy-legged dudes from the East and sad-eyed, absent-minded professors and bugologists," in Hogg's memorable phrase.
So long as there were no trained professionals to watch the woods and grasslands, big money prevailed. Clark could rest easy. The General Land Office existed for one reason: to transfer public property to private handsâin Clark's mind, the perfect government agency. It was staffed by bureaucrats who neither knew nor cared for wild land in the West. As for Pinchot's main request, Clark was consistently defiant: he would never agree to transfer the reserves from the land office to a forest service. As to the larger argument, he sniffed at calls from Roosevelt and Pinchot to leave something behind for the future.
"Those who succeed us," said Clark, "can well
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