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ThePinchot–Ballinger controversy, also known as the "Ballinger Affair", was a dispute between high level officials in the U.S. government regarding whether or not the federal government should allow private corporations to control water rights, or instead cut them off so that the wilderness would be protected from capitalist greed. Between 1909 and 1910, the dispute escalated to a battle between PresidentWilliam Howard Taft (who supportedRichard Ballinger) and ex-presidentTheodore Roosevelt (who supportedGifford Pinchot). Pinchot and his allies accused Ballinger of criminal behavior to help an old client of his and thus promote big business. Ballinger was eventually exonerated but the highly publicized dispute escalated a growing split in theRepublican Party. Taft took control of the Republican Party in 1912, but Roosevelt started a third "Progressive" party. Both Taft and Roosevelt were defeated in the three-way1912 presidential election, with DemocratWoodrow Wilson the winner.[1]
Pinchot, a close personal friend of Roosevelt, was Chief of theU.S. Forest Service in the Department of Agriculture.Richard A. Ballinger wasU.S. Secretary of the Interior, a separate cabinet department. Roosevelt in 1908 selected Taft as his successor in the White House because he thought Taft fully agreed with his main policies. Roosevelt then left the country in early 1909. Roosevelt's friends flooded him with messages hostile to Taft, and Roosevelt returned in 1910 convinced that his protege had betrayed him. The feud helped to define national political alignments between 1910 and 1914, as well as theconservation movement in the early 20th century.
In March 1909, PresidentWilliam Howard Taft began his administration by replacingTheodore Roosevelt'sSecretary of the Interior,James Rudolph Garfield, withRichard A. Ballinger, a formerMayor of Seattle who had served asCommissioner of theUnited States General Land Office (GLO) under Secretary Garfield. Ballinger's appointment was a disappointment to conservationists, who interpreted the replacement of Garfield as a break with Roosevelt administration policies on conservationism. Within weeks of taking office, Ballinger reversed some of Garfield's policies, restoring 3 million acres (12,000 km²) to private use.[2]
Gifford Pinchot had been appointed by PresidentWilliam McKinley to head the USDADivision of Forestry in 1898, and had run theU.S. Forest Service since it had taken over management of forest reserves from theUnited States General Land Office (GLO) in 1905. In 1909 he became convinced that Ballinger was reversing the last-minute moves by outgoing President Roosevelt to block big business from gaining control of any major water sources. He said Ballinger intended to "stop the conservation movement". In August, 1909, speaking at the annual meeting of the National Irrigation Congress inSpokane, Washington, he accused Ballinger of siding withprivate trusts in his handling ofwater power issues. MeanwhileLouis Glavis, the chief of the Field Division of the GLO in Portland, Oregon, grew suspicious. He became convinced that Secretary Ballinger had a personal financial interest in obstructing an investigation of the Cunningham case. Glavis sought support from Pinchot, whose jurisdiction over theChugach National Forest included several of the Cunningham claims. Glavis received a sympathetic response from Alexander Shaw, Overton Price and Pinchot, who helped him to prepare the presentation for Taft.[3][4]
Pinchot now arranged a meeting between President Taft and Glavis. Pinchot and Glavis presented Taft with a 50-page report accusing Ballinger of an improper interest in his handling ofcoal field claims in Alaska. Glavis claimed (without evidence) that Ballinger while in office helped Cunningham. Glavis said that Ballinger first as commissioner of the General Land Office, and then asSecretary of the Interior, had tried to stop investigations of coal claim purchases made by Clarence Cunningham. In 1907, Cunningham had partnered with theMorgan–Guggenheim "Alaska Syndicate" to develop coal interests in Alaska. The GLO had launched ananti-trust investigation, headed by Glavis. Ballinger, then head of the GLO, rejected Glavis's findings and removed him from the investigation.
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Taft consulted withAttorney GeneralGeorge Wickersham before issuing a public letter in September, exonerating Ballinger and authorizing the dismissal of Glavis on grounds of insubordination. At the same time, Taft tried to conciliate Pinchot and affirm his administration's pro-conservation stance.
Glavis took his case to the press. In November,Collier's Weekly published an article elaborating his allegations, entitledThe Whitewashing of Ballinger: Are the Guggenheims in Charge of the Department of the Interior?
In January 1910, Pinchot sent an open letter to SenatorJonathan P. Dolliver, who read it into theCongressional Record. Pinchot praised Glavis as a "patriot", openly rebuked Taft, and asked for Congressional hearings into the propriety of Ballinger's dealings. Pinchot was promptly fired, but from January to May, theUnited States House of Representatives held hearings on Ballinger. Ballinger was cleared of any wrongdoing, Nevertheless he was criticized from some quarters with the accusation that he favored private enterprise and theexploitation of natural resources over conservationism.
The firing of Pinchot, a close friend of Roosevelt, alienated many progressives within the Republican party and drove a wedge between Taft and Roosevelt himself, leading to the split of the Republican Party in the1912 presidential election.[5][6] The clash had a long-term influence on the conservation movement because it spread misconceptions about a class warfare dimension. Contrary to the stereotype, many businessmen supported conservation programs and many farmers and workers opposed them. Furthermore there was a good deal of overlap in the goals of the Interior Department, the Department of Agriculture, and the Army Corps of Engineers.[7]
Henry F. Pringle, in his 1939 biography of Taft, portrayed Ballinger as an innocent victim of vindictive Roosevelt loyalists and ofyellow journalism that gave their accusations velocity:
An examination of thousands of pages of evidence can lead the impartial reader only to the conclusion that Ballinger was the victim of an attack fostered by fanaticism and nurtured by bad journalism. But Pinchot, Glavis,Hapgood [ofCollier's Weekly],Sullivan [also ofCollier's],Marse Henry [Henry Watterson of theLouisville Courier-Journal] and the rest handed down their verdict against Ballinger in 1909 and 1910 and a large element of the public believed that they had spoken justly.[8]
Harold L. Ickes, Secretary of the Interior underFranklin Roosevelt, reached a conclusion similar to Pringle's. Ickes published a popular account of his findings inThe Saturday Evening Post.[9] After an official investigation, his findings were expanded to a 58-page report that asserts Ballinger's innocence and paints Pinchot as a vindictive publicity-seeker who pitilessly pursued Ballinger even after Ballinger's death.[10]
