pleuralism in the united states. tonight at 8:00 eastern part of american history tv this weekend on cspan 3. when people are saying to him don't take the vice presidency, right now you are the most -- you are a powerful majority leader, don't take the vice presidency, you won't have any power. johnson says power is where power goes. meaning i can make mpower in hi situation. nothing in his life previously makes that seems like he's boasting because that is exactly what he had done all his life. >> sunday night the conclusion of our conversation with robert caro on the passage of power, volume 4 in the years of lyndon johnson, his biography of the president sunday night on q and a. each week at this time american history tv featured an

hour long conversation from cspan's sunday night interview series q and a. here is the encore q and a on american history tv. sheperdstown, west virginia is in the eastern panhandle of the state near the famous civil war sites of harper's ferry an an teed am. chartered by the virginia assembly in 1762, it is the oldest town in the state. today, sheperdstown is thoem a division of the u.s. fish and wildlife service, a bureau of the department of interior. that is where q and a went in late april to talk with historian douglas brinkley about his book on the influence of our 26th president, on the history of the conservation movement.

the book is tighted "the wildnerness warrior" theodore roosevelt and the crusade for america. doug bringley, why did you want to start our conversation about your book at this center? >> this is the national conservation training center, this is where biologists get trained, make sure that our rivers and our marshlands are taken care of, that manage endangered species, the headquarters of u.s. fish and wildlife but cleaders come here for seminars and learn proper methods and techniques. walking past are pictures of caribou in alaska, roosevelt was very interested in all big game including caribou. what interests me is writing a book like wil"the wildnerness warrior," roosevelt is the father of u.s. fish and wildlife. the creator of the sierra club it's roosevelt that realized the federal government has an

obligation to save species of birds an animals, to save plants and trees, and to be the president has an obligation to makes sure that we put aside for generations unborn, natural wonders like roosevelt did like the grand canyon or mount olympus or petrified forest, and they turned this training center for conservation into a museum almost for theodore roosevelt. >> when did you first get interested in theodore roosevelt. >> i loved him since childhood, liked reading about him. liked edmond morris' biography, david mccullough, i got interested in him in 1992 when i had a program "the magic bus" bring students across the country went to the badlands of north dakota, that is where he spent his ranching days as a cowboy, where he did some of his hunting but wrote these incredible books, a book i particularly like called "the

wilderness hunter" many people came in on the hunting part in between was writing about the eco system as we call it today of the badlands. he knew more about them than any person alive. i fell in love with that landscape and i was teaching at hofstra university and with the late john gable, who was a professor who died, unfortunately, of cancer, john and i co-hosted a presidential conference i was co-chair on theodore roosevelt, i phad papes and john gable helped me realize there had never been a book written on tr and conservation on tr and the wilderness of any magnitude. there was a university press one of note, so i had this great opening there and i started realizing that between the civil war, the emancipation proclamation of lincoln and world war i with wood row wilson, roosevelt using the white house to promote

conservation and nature and the strenuous life, his involvement with the autobahn society and creation of u.s. fish and wildlife and national monuments, changed america. if this summer anybody opens up an atlas, there is america, you see the green you're looking at roosevelt reserves, roosevelt monuments. put aside almost 240 million acres of wild america so now as people are talking about environmentalism and green movements, roosevelt is becoming the key figure to understand because he was the only politician of his day who be ased darwin and understood biology and birds, migratory patterns and mating habits of deer and elk and antelope and did something. he's a resident who in his young days shot a buffalo and then the president who created wichita mountains in oklahoma reserve

for buffalo and one up in montana. >> one of the things you see throughout this center are stuffed animals. >> taxidermy -- roosevelt was d in taxidermy. his teacher in new york was a man named john bell who had been autobahn's student. there is a linkage there and young tr had asthma, very sickly, from eight years old onward was obsessed with birds. he created his own roosevelt museum, brian. he has his father, theodore roosevelt's father was the founder of the american museum of natural history in new york. and young tr was a bird lover. the first document we have is about birds. the last article he wrote before his death at age 60 was about birds. and i'm not saying he liked birds, he was one of the experts

on color ration and variation on inventorying what we have and he created these bird reservations, 51 federal bird reservations that roosevelt created are the heart and soul of u.s. fish and wildlife. all the people watching this have heard of u.s. fish and wildlife but don't realize it all began with the 51 bird reservations of roosevelt trying to save egrets and spoonbills and pelicans, et cetera, on both coasts. >> before we go any farther, explain where this training center is located. >> we're in sheperdstown, west virginia not far from washington, about 90 minutes. a beautiful campus here in west virginia. it's the archive where i did research because they have the papers not just of early conner va shunnists, but rachel carson,

so this is an are a kie shall treasure trove. in addition, i went to the places roosevelt saved so i would go to various bird places that he actually saved and they have local archives, one in michigan or one in arizona, i even went to puerto rico recently to go to see the national forest which he saved for the nationalest service our only rain forest in our entire protection system in the united states and home to rare puerto rican parrot and spectacular park, if you can go to puerto rico and see the rain forest. i would go to these places, meet the local superintendent, or ranger or warden, and interview them and get local documentation, too, this is the nerve center for what i consider roosevelt's grid of america. >> we're standing in the roosevelt room of the center you look up behind you there is a picture, a photograph large

about the fireplace. who is in that? theodore roosevelt and john muir. roosevelt becomes resident in 1901 because mckinley is assassinated. tr gets worn in in buffalo, says i'll keep polies similar to mckinley, he doesn't. two months as president, tr starts this aggressive conservation program because he had created the first game club was the first wildlife protection for big game group, he was a member of the autobahn society, as governor of new york he had been considered a radical on preservation of natural resources. in 1903, t rrve gets on the train and goes to yellowstone with john bureaus, then to the grand canyon, then ends up in the redwoods of northern california and yosemite. here is the president with john muir, they camp out, spend three days in the wild. camp under these redwood trees

which roosevelt thought were like the redwoods were our great cathedrals. he would use religious i am rage ri. freezing in a snow storm with john muir, they would try to out naturalist each other. nobody knew birds like tr. muir was a botanist. he wa talk plants and roosevelt was outplaying them on birds they had a friendly competition. roosevelt thought muir was a great figure, they had differences. tr was a hunter conservationist, muir thought only in hunger should you shoot an animal. roosevelt believed you had to constantly hunt that hunters were the great conservationists, at one moment by a campfire, muir said to roosevelt when are you going to give thaup boyi hunting thing of yours?

tr uncharacteristically said i know i need to. i should. of course he didn't. he ended up going on to africa as ex-president and brazil collecting for science with you getting specimens, back to the tax determine my question before dna, before banning of an i halls, before radar the way our great ornatholagists would study specimens. you had to have a wide selection of them to study in the laboratory. roosevelt as resident collected for the biological survey for what is today's u.s. fish and wildlife wherever he went he would send specimens in, would send skins in to get them analyzed. because tr, it's a key point in the book, brian, after the civil war the first people going west wanted the geological survey was the big deal, people wanted things mapped, was about money, where is the mineral rights, the

copper, the gold, the zinc. tr by the 1890's is interested in biological survey. i want to know what wild flowers we have, what grace grasses, insects, flocks, i want numbers. he's applying tr, applying what he learned at harvard as a natural studies major and what he learned from the field observations to the presidency in his inventory between 1901 and 1909 what we are custodians of in the country. >> how many people were in the united states in those years? >> oh, gosh, you mean in 20th century? i don't want to say the wrong number on your show. >> we have 300 plus million now. >> i don't know. i don't want to say wrong i would say around 150 million. if i had to get but i don't want to. but where roosevelt went to the west, it wasn't that populated,

meaning new mexico was a territory, arizona was a territory, oklahoma were the twin territories, so he could use the power of the executive office to make executive orders on behalf of them, declared because they were territories. >> how old was he when he was president? >> he came in and died when he was 60, mainly president in his 40s. as that point our youngest american president, there is always a trick, john f. kennedy was the youngest elected because tr didn't come in, so he was in the prime of his life, vigorous, one of the things that i argue in the book is there is a psychiatrist at johns hopkins university who wrote a book called exuberance, she argued roosevelt had a form of manic depression called exuberance.

he couldn't turn his mind or energy off. when you read it's bully, my jove, he would hike 40, 50 miles, rock creek park and horseback ride all the time. he would do these like as president here, just disappearing in the wilds forfor days without reporters. but this was part of his need to act all the time. he was a person of pure emotion, lock oh motion. if he entered a room, he took it over. >> let me interrupt to ask this probably isn't fair are you a little bit liking? >> i identified with him in the sense i had asthma as a boy, and it wasn't fun having asthma. and for some reason i have found a lot of relief from nature, so i go on nature hikes with my kids, the outdoors to me is a great replenisher whenever i get

a chance i'm living in austin so we go to silker park or the wild basin a loss, big ben national park and on adoigs that, my parents were high school teachers and we had a trailer and we used to go around the country and camp all these places so animals, i'm very much like tr and his love of animals. i have in my study we had a family a kid of raccoons born under my daughter's bedroom. a possum comes out and eats from the cat dish, i have bird feeders all over. i like to hatch wildlife around me. roosevelt was a believer and now become in vogue we don't want to -- people urban people can develop nature defish yen zoo and roosevelt was very wernd about industrialization for health and you had to get back to nature and have nature in your life. you didn't have to live in the wild but you needed national parks and mon you mens a place to replenish your spirit and come back to work.

>> i remember when you spent a summer or part of the summer in madora, north dakota how many years ago was that? >> 1992. i go up there not every summer, every other summer, in fact i did research for "the wildnerness warrior." the badlands is now theodore roosevelt national park. there is a wonderful park superintendent valerie nailer who helped me a lot with the proof. helped me understand the tr rain. there is a woman named shyla schaefer, i love very much, she saved madora, many people go on vacations in the summer to st. st. bus of mount rush more and the black hills. not far over the border in wyoming's devils tower which he saved as the first national monument. if you go north to north dako ,

dakota,tacular unknown, theodore roosevelt national park. families are guaranteed to see buffalo in the wild, wild horses, immense prairie dog towns, antelope. i go jogging or mountain buying, herds of antelope, one of these great places in america and summers in montana, getting forest fires up in canada the air quality isn't as great in montana. this part of the badland madora north, the north pole. the air at night you get the you see the north star and the whole sky is like a planetarium, the sunsets are miraculous. one of the eastbound viernal things i'm interested in hopefully the obama will do more to protect the little missouri river, the river roosevelt loved by his ranch there. prairie lands and too often we haven't treasured the american prairies but the interior of the united states, the midwest and

great plains is a part of the country that i personally feel happiest in more than the coast. >> in and around doing this book you published several other books and articles, jury book on katrina came out when? >> that came out 2006. zplchblth had you been working on this book? >> i was. i have been working on this book for a long time. i have been collecting, roosevelt's papers are divided up at harvard where wallace daily helped me a great deal. library of congress has his papers on microfiche, we're looking at a man who wrote over 150,000 letters. and what is traditionally happened people are looking in his correspondent for issues of panama canal, foreign policy, trust busting, when tv would write a lot, most about birds, people would say it's a hobby. i took his writing about animal life seriously because he did. we know him as the rough rider,

spanish-american war. tv when he trained in san antonio had to have animals around hymn. he had a cougar cub names josephine from arizona. gold eagle, teddy and a dog, cuba. to train his men he had three animals with him appeared wrote wrote letters about the cougar biting a's foot. he would find this funny. this continued in the white house, pony in the elevator, pet badger on this trip he didn't have a dog, like what is the obama's dog? he had six dogs around him all the time. all night long they skipped, he picked up in colorado would sit on his lap. he inherited this love of animals from his uncle robert roosevelt, who in the 1860s and 1970s was the number one expert on fish, wrote books about

canada, on tone yo, fa farks very big to roosevelt. it came part of the family tradition being a conservationist. >> how did you convince or did you try to convince harper collins to publish 1000 page book in this economy that we in right now? my vision is to do what is a quartet, america in the age of conservation with the first volume on tr, they don't like to promote multi-volumes because people feel it's a first volume we're not marketing it that way per se. i wanted to do something definitive, i've always loved multiple series of american and i realize we never have written a conservation history of the country and tr, because of all the day ris he department, looks he wrote was perfect person to do. i could have cut down in length. i would not have written about

crater lake in oregon. petrified forest in arizona or not write about the bird refugees in florida. you have to cut the places he saved and i didn't want to do that. i thought my book is a chance for a major statement for people to understand these battles. it's not just a washington story of roosevelt and the white house, there were food soldiers for conservation everywhere. tr was networking with these people. this isn't just a biography of theodore roosevelt, it's a book of tr and conservationists, naturalists around him. we mentioned muir and bureaus, spencer fulton baird, head of the smithsonian institute caring about wildlife. william hornaday bred buffalo at the bronx zoo, roosevelt was a founder of the zoo. repopulate the plains with buffalo. dr. c. hart miriam who ran the biological survey.

these aren't household names i wanted to inject them in the main stream history i didn't want to be relegated to a specialist it's not just roosevelt i'm writing about but a circle about him. >> how many other places did you spend time in to research this book? >> almost all. not all of his national forests there are way too many, just hundreds going down, but all his national parks, his monuments i've visited, i travel the country a lot, this has been my hobby visiting vo roosevelt's p. what was exciting for me, i'll pick a place, pine knot is a cabin in virginia outside charlottesville, in the wild, and roosevelt as resident saw the last alive passenger pigeon, there used to be 100 million passenger pigeons in america. it's an extinct species, roosevelt wrote the last ons

observation in the wild. pine knot shows you the real tv, the person most comfortable in nature. people don't want to think of roosevelt's conner vags as a policy or as much as a passion. the foresight that he had, we could not deforest ourselves, we had to keep rivers protected. animals had to have habitats, because he was influenced by darwin, he believed that to lose a specie any kind was like losing a master piece of old. that we had a moral obligation to make sure that we protected wildlife in species because to live without animals for roosevelt or wildlife was to live in utter pain and a modern condition of commerce and not romance. he was a scientist, roosevelt, but got romantic excitement, really, from the wild and from seeing species in the wild. >> so here at the center the

national conservation training center, fish and wildlife service, this place was paid for by the taxpayer. >> yes. >> do they know about it? >> no, that is one of the reasons i wanted you to come. mark madison -- beautiful, he saved those, and the early photograph roosevelt was very interested in travy, william l. finley, he would come to the white house and show him pictures of wild oregon, roosevelt went up to portland and met him once, and it became a movement to save the wildlife of oregon. the states particularly in the west and florida, you can't even -- you can't write about the states without seeing the impact roosevelt has had. these weren't easy things to do.

when he saved the grand canyon, he went there and said don't mar the grand canyon, standing on the rim, it's for future generations you cannot improve the beauty of it. he then was shocked to find congress that was ready to mine it for asbestos and zing zinc, copper and commercialize it. roosevelt used and executive order, congress refused to make the grand canyon a national park. they refused. roosevelt had a weapon, the antiquitieies act of 1906, i so declare it a national monument for future generations. overriding congress. the key to tr's conservation he did it with a group but congress and particularly western senators and congressmen were not in the federal government grabbing an area like the grand canyon and closing it off. roosevelt's conservation can be seen as he was inspired by

lincoln's emancipation and the power of the federal government, and roosevelt's heros incidentally were very keen on protecting yellowstone, general grant saved yellowstone in 1872 as president and sherman sheridan the generals were hunters but wanted to create game reserves. and so roosevelt's part of that tradition, but he's determined to use the executive power to save wild america. >> back to the business of the archives here, are you afraid maybe you would open this place up to others they would discover and take away this -- you had a special look at this stuff. >> no, what i want brie be a is people to come. a campus environment here, you want scholars to look in this. look, you can't pick up a magazine without reading about green power or wind power, the environmental movement, like in

anderson cooper's -- in order to understand it roosevelt created the global modern conservation movement. he as president was calling for international conferences to save rain forests, old ever green forests, it wasn't localized to america for tv, he was evolved in the sense of seeing the problems of hyper industrialization and ha vok it would wreck. he could not be more relevant. his concerns 100 years ago are really now are true front burner of concerns today. >> this place, tell me if i'm wrong, wouldn't be here without robert c. byrd, $150 million came in to build the place all done specific to this requirement here, do you think roosevelt would be surprised if he saw this. >> he would love it. >> would it be surprised? >> no.

i don't think he would. his sense of grandeur was so large, he was creating conservationist foot soldiers. darling joined his crusade, he was creating a movement roosevelt. he was spearheading the conservation movement for perpetuity. for example, many of the first rangers in thewest rough riders that served with him, because roosevelt's concerns were to millitarize natural areas, he was worried about poaching, people stealing petrified a wood. garishness of commerce, he was doing law enforcement saying we will protect our heirlooms, he called places like cave or yosemite, el marro or mesa verde national park, these are our heir looms, we will police and

protect them. here they are training people how to be conservationists in west virginia. >> if you look around the banners hanging in the room have locations that he was involved in. >> he saved these. >> again at the time do you think he left when he was 51 years old, he didn't live beyond 60. do you think he thought they would be that important all these years later this kind of thing would be celebrated in history? >> he would be pleased, but remember and because of our time limits i can't get in it in a micro way of a specialist. >> might want to buy the book, is that what you're going to say? >> people talk about the bull moose in roosevelt, roosevelt leaves in march of '09 he leaves the white house. his last weeks he put bird reserves and monuments every where. the olympic national park mount olympus saved at the very last