Archives and Special Collections Mansfield Library, University of Montana Missoula MT 59812-9936 Email: [email protected] Telephone: (406) 243-2053

This transcript represents the nearly verbatim record of an unrehearsed interview. Please bear in mind that you are reading the spoken word rather than the written word.

Oral History Number: 297-028b, 029, 030 Interviewee: Horace M. Albright Interviewers: Gyongyver "Kitty" Beuchert and Forrest Anderson Date of Interview: June 22,1979 Project: Boone and Crockett Club Oral History Project

Horace Albright: You see there what the paper said, how im portant that the item was. Here's an example of the kind of the kind of (unintelligible) story of it all. How he went there you see and what he did and how he got back. There's pictures of them at the geysers and hot springs and the bears and everywhere. That's the (unintelligible) Arch, and that's the road out to Cody where he went out. He went up to Buffalo Bill's town when he went out. This whole folder my daughter's been getting together is on —

Gyongyver "Kitty" Beuchert: (unintelligible)

HA: —on President Coolidge's trip. Of course, there's all kinds of interesting things happened. I don't know if you want to put them all on tape or not. I might give you one example. While we were taking President Harding around, we had to move rather fast because we only had two days to go clear around the park. He spent one night at Old Faithful Inn, and the next day we had to go clear around the Grand Canyon for lunch. Various things stopped him. He wanted to play with a bear here. We had arranged to have a group of college girls come out and stop the car and sing a little to him. They had stringed instruments. Just about 12 o'clock. We had only just about half an hour to get down to where we were going to have lunch. These lovely girls came out, all dressed in white. They had a bouquet of flowers which they gave Mrs. Coolidge; otherwise, they didn't pay attention...or Mrs. Harding. They didn't pay attention to her. They started singing to him. They had songs about his hair and about his eyes about his teeth. He enjoyed it hugely. He didn't want to let them go. We had a terrible time getting them off the running boards of the cars. You know they had running boards on the cars. Finally one of the Secret Service men said, "If you don't get these girls off," he said, "I'm going to do it." He said, "We've got to keep on going. We can't stop this way." So I finally talked the leader of the girls into getting them all off the boards and letting us go. The President didn't care for that. He wanted to keep (unintelligible). When we started on, he turned to me and said, "All right, can we come back this way this afternoon?"

I said, "No, Mr. President, we got to keep on going toward the train because you have to leave tonight." We had some fun out of it all although it was a big strain, I'll tell you.

Nowadays it's very interesting. Those trips were four years apart. We traveled 150 miles in a wide-open car with a million trees, millions of rocks and so forth that people could get behind and shoot you, don't you see. We had plenty of rangers. We cleared the place as best we could, for a period of a week, but it was so different .You could be right with them and travel around, and nowadays you can't do that. You got to come in and drop them in a helicopter. You can't ride along through the forests and so forth. ] Horace M. Albright Interview, OH 297-028b, 029, 030, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. Forrest Anderson: What were your impressions or what comments did Coolidge have to say when he was out there as regards...conversation, any form or any parks or any (unintelligible)?

HA: President Coolidge wanted to fish, of course. He was a fisherman and a good one. But he was cordial enough. As cordial as he was with anybody. He was not a backslapping president. I don't know how much he would've been interested in a group of girls singing, (unintelligible) offer that service. But he was very pleasant. But having said he wasn't going to run for president anymore, politics wasn't on his mind. He wasn't ready to meet anybody and everybody like Harding was. After those girls and after we left the girls and he said "(unintelligible) can we go back that way this afternoon?" and I said, "No."

Mrs. Harding said, "I watched you Warren." She said, "It took you as long to shake hands with those girls as it did to shake hands with 500 people yesterday over at Old Faithful." They were two different people. They were two different kinds of people entirely.

As far as I was concerned, I found them both very interesting, and I liked them both. I got along very well with them. I don't think I would have taken the same liberties with Harding as I did with Coolidge. I insisted that Coolidge use certain kinds of bait which the boys in the Secret Service said he didn't like. I said, "That's the only way you're going to catch fish in Yellowstone," and I wanted him to catch fish. They said, well, you know you might get yourself fired if you try to tell him.

I said, "He's not going to run next year. He won't fire me."

GB: Listen, going on to another topic...Did you want to say any more? Okay

HA: I think I'm wasting a lot of your time.

GB: No, you're not either! This is...No! This is exactly...

You were a very good friend of Archie Roosevelt's, and you're probably one of the few people who can really tell about him. Could you describe what he was like when he was very active in the Club?

HA: No, I don't think I can tell. Archie was never a very active fellow. He's loud and noisy and shouting around and pleasant enough to be with, but he really didn't do very much as far as Club affairs were concerned. His name got him most everywhere he wanted. He was just a pleasant fellow to be around and interesting because he was exotic. He was exotic. He was erratic, (laughs) He had a warm heart. He was a generous fellow. Long years afterward, we started around with world in 1963 with our daughter, our granddaughter, and when we got to the Aegean Sea my wife discovered a nodule in her breasts which we wereafraid of. When we got to Constantinople, I phoned over to Athens and asked them to have thebest cancer

2 Horace M. Albright Interview, OH 297-028b, 029, 030, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. specialist available for us when our boat arrived on its way back. The doctor put her in the hospital and did an experimental operation and there was a malignancy. So then we, by telephone, arranged to go back to New York and have the major surgery.

Archie and Grace Roosevelt had a winter apartment not very far from the hospital. I didn't get in touch with him when I got down there, but I guess I was the Vice President of the Association at that time. Anyway, they knew at the Roosevelt home that my wife had undergone this surgery for malignancy, and he called up and offered his apartment for her to recuperate, which we did. We stayed there. I remember there's a big painting on the wall of him taking his pony up in the elevator. He did when he was in the White House—took his pony in the elevator. At any rate when we left, it was just about time for them to move in for the winter. It was in October at that time, and I called him up on the phone to express my thanks the fourth or fifth time for what he had done for us. I said, 'There's only one thing." I said, "You've got quite a lot of antiques in there. Some of those chairs I was afraid to sit down on."

He said "So do I." He said, "Damndest lot of stuff you ever saw. I'm just scared to do anything around there." (laughs) That's typical Archie.

There's a woman up in Walden Creek (?) whose mother belonged to the Roosevelt family. She was a distant cousin or something. Her name was Roosevelt. Her father's name was Albright. No relation of mine. She was interested in the Albright family. She was quite a genealogist. She knew that Archie and I were good friends, and she wondered if we couldn't send some autograph to her. About that time, Hermann Hagedorn's book on Sagamore Hill came out, and Archie and I bought a copy of it and autographed it to her. I said, "What are we gonna say? We don't know her very well. What are we gonna say?"

He said, "Well, I'll write in something." So he wrote in..."What's her name?" I gave him her name.

"From your two wayward cousins, Archie Roosevelt and Horace Albright." She was so proud of that book. Two wayward cousins. That was a typical thing of him.

We might say a little about Sagamore Hill because Boone and Crockett was represented in there. You know when Franklin Roosevelt...before Franklin Roosevelt, when he was still president, he decided to give his home to the government as a national historic site, and they built a library there for all his papers and so forth (unintelligible) federal government. It was all to go to the Park Service. Then he had an automobile he could operate with his hands. He didn't have to use his legs. So he gets in this little automobile with a little hatchet, and he goes around and blazes the trees for the boundary of what he was going to give to the Park Service. Of course, I was out of the Park Service. I was only on the sidelines when that...they told me all about it. Right away, it became sort of a national park. Well, I was on the Board of Trustees of the Theodore Roosevelt Association, and I was on the Executive Committee. We were meeting quite often. Ethel Roosevelt was on that, and we usually met at the birthplace in New York. We

3 Horace M. Albright Interview, OH 297-028b, 029, 030, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. didn't meet over at Sagamore Hill. But the question came up as why should Theodore Roosevelt have a second place? Why shouldn't he have a national historic site? Just before, that Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt died. She didn't die until 1949. She died 30 years after Theodore Roosevelt died. He died in 1919, she died in 1949.

The trustees of the Theodore Roosevelt Association bought the Sagamore Hill to fix it up and open it to the public. Of course, here were these two places, the birthplace in town and Sagamore Hill. Then it came up this question, well, why shouldn't it have some national status? It fell to me, because I'd been in the Park Service, how to find a way to do it. So I got the director of the Park Service to come up to Sagamore Hill. Before that we had a committee. This is where the Boone and Crockett Club came in. There was a committee appointed to look over the Sagamore Hill to see what could be done to put it up for tourist attraction and to see what make up a budget of what money would still have to be raised or given by the Association to get it in shape. So that was made up of historians. I was asked to go on this committee, not only as a member of the Executive Committee of the Association but also the Boone and Crockett Club member. I think I was probably Conservation Chairman at the time. Anyway, we went down to the house, and we got plans to have it put it in shape so it could be opened to the public.

The first time we went out there—this committee—Mrs. Crowninshield...You know who she was. She was a du Pont. She was the sister of Henry du Pont who developed Winterthur, that magnificent home. She's dead now. They're both dead. But she was interested in it. She telephoned that there's a lady out there by the name of Harrison who would be glad to have us come for lunch. There's no place to eat there on Sagamore Hill. Have us come up to lunch. Well, it was a bitter cold day. The wind was terrible. The house was just freezing, but we worked in there all morning looking it all over, and then we went over to the Harrison home. Lunch just about finished. When she saw us, she said, "Well what you folks need more than anything else is a drink right now. Come with me." There were about five of us. We trooped through their wonderful home to a sort of a sun deck where she had drinks set out for us. I was walking along with her the back of the group. The others were rushing to liquor faster than I was, and I noticed the magnificent furniture. I'd been 23 years on Mr. Rockefeller's Board at Williamsburg so I know some antique furniture when I see it. I said to Mrs. Harrison, I said, "You have some very beautiful pieces of furniture here."

"Oh" she says, "yes. There's some odds and ends my grandfather, my father gave me." I didn't know that she was a daughter of Henry du Pont, who had the greatest collection of antiques in the United States. She just had some odds and ends.

Anyway, it was a great day because we did some things that day. One of the things, they were going to turn the kitchen into an office. They had all his trophies and all his books and all the rest of it would all been open. The upstairs and the room where he died and all that. But the kitchen was worth the whole thing. They had an old flour barrel there. They had an old cook stove. They had all the stuff that went along with the old days. It was absolutely a piece of fine,

4 Horace M. Albright Interview, OH 297-028b, 029, 030, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. unique furnishings right there. I put up a protest right away. I said, "Don't lay your hands on this kitchen. You've got to have this above everything." Today it still is, it still is the thing they all crowd in to see.

At any rate to that extent, we had Boone and Crockett was mixed up in making Sagamore Hill available to the public. But then it had to be given a status, so I actually got Secretary [Stewart] Udall up there. While he was a Democrat, he had grown up loving Theodore Roosevelt, so he was excited about the whole business. He wanted it. He wanted it made a historic site, but trying to get it through Congress was something else. We had to get help on that. We devised the idea that the Foundation would give half their endowment. They had about a million dollars still left in that Theodore Roosevelt endowment. We'd gotten up this memorial. Even after they had bought Sagamore Hill, they still had about a million dollars left. They offered that to the federal government if the government would take both the birthplace and Sagamore Hill and make historic sites out of them. That's the way we did it, got it through. They're both historic sites, same as Franklin's.

FA: That was a fine job to save Sagamore Hill and open it to (unintelligible).

HA: Oh yes, Sagamore Hill is a very fine place.

GB: I have two more questions about this as long as you're on the subject. How did the Boone and Crockett Club gain control or ownership or however it stands of—and maybe you could explain exactly how that goes—of the gun room and its contents?

HA: That's only a courtesy. That's only kind of a concession. They don't own it. The gun room is a part of Sagamore Hill.

GB: But they do own its contents.

HA: Possible they do own the contents. I don't know. I don't know about that. It's possible they do. At any rate, the gun room itself belongs to Sagamore Hill. It's way up on the top floor. After we got that set aside and everything, a couple of guns were stolen.

FA: Yes, that's what I remember hearing.

GB: The reason I'm pursuing this is because maybe you could explain something. Just last year, the National Park Service asked the Boone and Crockett Club since they own the contents of that room to refurbish it because it's really getting rather shabby looking. They cannot refurbish it because they cannot spend National Park funds that something that the government doesn't own. This is why I was wondering if you knew—

HA: The Park Service owns the building. Absolutely.

5 Horace M. Albright Interview, OH 297-028b, 029, 030, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. GB: But not the contents of that room, and they can't touch it.

HA: Maybe...do they call the paper on the wall part of the contents?

GB: I don't think so. I'm talking about things like the furniture. The guns, which are kept in good shape, but the furniture and the books and rugs and things like that were getting rather shabby looking, and the Park Service—

HA: They don't belong to the Boone and Crockett Club. I don't think so. I didn't think so, but that could happen.

GB: They must because the National Park Service said they couldn't touch it.

HA: See, I was not in the Park Service at that time. I was on the Theodore Roosevelt Association at the time. I was in that until I came out here. I guess I was on that board for about ten years or so.

GB: Then the other thing I wanted to ask you about it was how did Archie Roosevelt feel about all of this? Do you know personally since you were (unintelligible)?

HA: He seemed to be satisfied with it. He seemed to be glad it was being endowed. As I recall. I never heard him say anything against it.

[Break in audio]

GB: Can you tell a little bit about what Robert Ferguson's influence in various activities in the Club were over the years?

HA: I can't say anything definite about it, but he's always been on the job. He's been on the committees. He's been (unintelligible) with the association. I've seen him with members of the family. They regard him as very near and dear to them. He's always been generous and cooperative, but I can't remember any particular thing. Wasn't he president a while?

GB: Yes.

HA: I think he was. He usually attended meetings.

There's one man that I think I liked as much or more than any of the others who were on that board was Elisha Dyer, but he doesn't have much to do with it anymore. Mrs. Rose is another one—Mrs. Reginald Rose. Of course, when Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was alive, she took a lot of interest in it, but she didn't live very long.

GB: Do you know Robert Ferguson well? Did you get to know him well?

6 Horace M. Albright Interview, OH 297-028b, 029, 030, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. HA: I think I know him as well as anybody who was on that group. I think there were probably older friends who were closer to him, but I wasn't around with him much. I don't know just what the connection was. Wasn't his mother...His father died, and his mother married a very famous man in the mining world. His statue is in the Congressional halls down there. Each state has the right to put monuments of their two prominent citizens. That's his stepfather. He's down there. But his mother never paid much attention to him as I recall, if I'm right about this relationship. But as you said yesterday, it was his father that was close to Theodore Roosevelt.

GB: Theodore Roosevelt was his godfather, and Mr. Ferguson has a telegram that Theodore Roosevelt sent to his father when his father had asked him to be the godfather for his new son. I think the telegram said something like, "I'd be happy to be your little fella's godfather." Robert Ferguson still has the telegram.

Going onto another person who was very, very close to you and you've mentioned him slightly, but I thought maybe you'd like to recall some things about him, is Newton B. Drury. Some of the things that he accomplished.

HA: Newton Drury was the man who developed the Save the Redwoods League. He carried it through and raised enormous sums of money, which the state matched. How he built up those great redwood parks. But he also was the leader in establishing the state park system—it's the best state park system in the country—and the creation of the California Park and Beach Commission. He was involved with those things. In 1940, he became Director of the National Park Service. He was the fourth director. There was one man in between myself and him. He was there about ten years, and then he resigned and Earl Warren, another classmate of ours, appointed him head of the State Parks. So he has been head of both national and state parks.

In college, he was a very prominent fellow. He was the student body president. He was the chief debater. He won all the prizes in debating. He debated against Stanford. He was president of the Associatied Students. He was a professor of forensics. He was secretary to the president of the university. He was a very versatile, talented man. He and I had a more of a background — this isn't anything important to you here—but his father and my father were both in the legislature of Nevada together. Our mothers were at the school board in school in Reno back in the 1870s. When I was at college, I used to go up and see his father who was (unintelligible) early mining camps of Nevada. So there was a very close relationship there between us. I can give you some data about him. But he was nine months older than I am. He would have been 90 on the 9th of April. He died in December.

GB: Of this year.

HA: I think if he had taken my advice and started using a cane earlier, he would've been all right, but he had some bad falls and broke his arm. But he was a tremendous fellow. I'm glad there's been so much written about him.

7 Horace M. Albright Interview, OH 297-028b, 029, 030, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. I don't know how much he did with Boone and Crockett Club. I remember there was a movement on—I think DeForest Grant was responsible for that—raising a fund to buy a memorial grove for his brother Madison. But it wasn't all done by the Grant family because I know Mr. Rockefeller made a substantial contribution. There must have been contributions from other members of the...other friends of his and possibly members of the Club.

GB: Then there was another man that you just mentioned by name and said he was a Club member is William E. Colby. I wonder how well you knew him.

HA: William E. Colby. He had a great deal of influence on my life. He was the real man behind Muir. Muir didn't take any part...he couldn't organize. He could write. He could preach. He could interest you in natural history and the values of nature and all that, but Will Colby is the one who carried on all the affairs. He was secretary of the Club for about 40 years, and he was president part time. He was the foremost mining lawyer on the Pacific Coast. He taught mining—the law of mines and waters—at the University of California. That's where I became under his influence. He was interested in me because I came from the mountains and because my family were in mining and because I was interested in mining. I'd become a mining lawyer. He's the one who took me over to meet John Muir. That's how I come to meet John M uir because I was with Colby one night. I just met him once.

After I finished law school and became admitted to the bar, why, he offered me a job in his office. So I had a place to go in case I did leave the Park Service. But I stayed with him right up until the end of his life. He was attacked viciously by arthritis, and he had to quit his practice. He built a home down on the Big Sur, but this kept bedeviling him. Finally a situation developed where gangrene was setting in on this leg that he couldn't do anything with, and they had to take it off.

[End of Tape 1]

8 Horace M. Albright Interview, OH 297-028b, 029, 030, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. [Tape 2, Side A]

HA: His arthritic leg became so dangerous to his health that they had to amputate it. He lived some years after that. He was almost 90 when he died. He was the first Chairman of the California Commission, State Park Commission. He handled many affairs for Mr. Mather in the early days of the Park Service free of charge. This is when Mr. Mather bought the rights to the Tioga Road in Yosemite. He handled the legal matters connected with it and the same way when they bought the Giant Forest He got the option and drew all the papers, never charged anything for it. He was a remarkable man, and we've never had anybody like him in the Sierra Club. Who was the other one we were going to talk about?

GB: Conrad Worth.

HA: Conrad Worth was educated as a landscape architect, graduated the University of Massachusetts, and was engaged in the practice of landscape architecture in New Orleans when he ran afoul of the Depression. Then he got a job on the staff of the Capital Park and Planning Commission in Washington, of which I was a member as Director of the Park Service. I was a member of that commission. He didn't appear very much. He was working behind the scenes in the back rooms and so forth. But one day he had to appear before the Commission, and he made a wonderful showing. Just before that, we had lost Assistant Director Lewis, who had been Superintendent of Yosemite and we had him Assistant Director in Washington. He died of a heart attack. So I began looking into Worth to see what...talking about him. I talked to him and I've have him come up and see me and I'd have him give me references. But I guess months went by, and he just didn't do anything about it. Now, I'm telling it the way he tells it. So then one night I called him up and wanted to know if he'd come over the next night to dinner at our house and bring his wife. He said they would so they came over, and the next morning after we had dinner at our home, I hired him. He says I didn't hire him, I hired his wife. I'd gone weeks without offering the job to him, but the first time I see his wife I offer him a job.

There'll be a book come out on him next year. It's being published now by the University of Oklahoma. Since he left the Park Service, he's been employed by New York and consulting physicians, and he's a trustee of National Geographic—one of their most valuable ones. Very able fellow. He was the fifth or sixth Director of the Park Service.

GB: You said that you met John M uir once. Did you know much about him?

HA: I just met him once. Will Colby said this to me one time. We often talked about M uir and how important he was. He said, "How would you like to meet him?"

I said, "Yes. I certainly would."

"Well," he said, "we're having"—I think he said—"a committee or a council meeting or something tomorrow." He said, "Come over with me, and we'll go." I don't know whether it was

9 Horace M. Albright Interview, OH 297-028b, 029, 030, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. in his office or some other office. I can't remember just where the office was. There were four or five there, and they did some talking. They introduced me to Muir when we first went in. So I went over and sat down by him, and we had, oh I guess, 10 or 15 minutes to talk while others were doing other things. Little more consequence than that that I just knew him, but now it's getting to the point where I'm one of the few men that actually saw him alive. It's the same way it is with T.R., Theodore Roosevelt. You have to look around now to find somebody that actually knewT.R. and shook hands with him. (unintelligible) know him.

Muir did very great work. His writings were splendid, and they attracted attention. On the other hand, you can't put your finger on any particular thing that Muir did like creating a park or undertaking some particular project. I think he had a great deal to do with getting Yosemite Valley back from California into federal hands. I don't want to depreciate him in any way because I think he was a great man. One of the very great men.

GB: There are several people that I would like to just give you their names and see if you knew anything about them. They were very active in the Club, and because of how long you've been in the Club, I thought you might know them although I haven't been able to find any connection. Okay? Do you know anything about Archibald Rogers?

HA: No.

GB: Redmond Cross?

HA: I knew him just casually years ago and his family. He's a younger man, isn't he?

GB: He's not alive now.

HA: He must not have been the one I knew. They had a place out in Jackson Hole, a ranch up there on the Gros Ventre River, but I can't tie myself into any particular thing that he did.

GB: He was an officer of the Club, and I thought if you knew something about him. That was somebody we didn't have anything about. How well did you know Douglas Burden?

HA: I didn't know Douglas Burden very well. I used to see him. He was just another member to me. I don't have any particular business with him. I think Douglas Burden...Was he tied to Tolstoy—Ilya Tolstoy?

GB: I'm not sure. That's the thing. We don't—

HA: Have you seen much among your books there about Tolstoy?

GB: No, there wasn't a lot in there. If you know something about him, I sure wish you'd —

10 Horace M. Albright Interview, OH 297-028b, 029, 030, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. HA: He was a very, very favorable...I mean favorite Boone and Crockett man, a very loyal member. You could always find Ilya around there. I think Douglas Burden had something to do with him when he first came over here. (Unintelligible).

[Break in audio]

GB: Harold J. Coolidge, Jr. was and still is very involved in international conservation and helped to educate many countries in the idea of national parks. Therefore, I thought you all might have had some lengthy discussions. Have you had close dealings with him, and would you tell about that relationship?

HA: Yes, but that's not the same committee that you have there. What you've just read a moment ago is connected with the national parks (unintelligible) IUCN. That's the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources [IUCN]. Its headquarters are in Switzerland. He was President of the National Parks Commission, and he engineered the first International Conference on National Parks in Seattle in 1962. He hasn't been active in recent years because he has a heart condition. He's living now in Massachusetts. He's a very able man. He was in Washington for years. He was out there at the...I can't remember the name of it. Out there on Constitution Avenue.

Did you know Coolidge, Harold Coolidge?

FA: No.

GB: I just want to mention I have a three-hour interview with him, thank goodness.

HA: Oh, you're going to have?

GB: I did. I already did. But I just wanted you to speak.

HA: Was he talking about IUCN in that?

GB: Yes, yes. About both of these, but I just wanted —

HA: One I didn't mix up in. I'm glad there's one I wasn't mixed up in. (laughs) I've been mixed up in too many of them.

GB: Now, I'd like to try and clarify—

HA: Let's talk a little about Tolstoy, because I think Burden is the man...I think that's where Burden and I had things to talk about. Tolstoy is the great-grandson of the famous Russian writer, Ilya Tolstoy, and he came over here—it must've been about 1930—as a student. He had student credentials, but being the grandson of the great Tolstoy, he didn't really have to do

11 Horace M. Albright Interview, OH 297-028b, 029, 030, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. anything but eat the fine meals he had and keep his tuxedo clean. Things just went fine with him all winter—he had some resources of course—but when summer came he needed a job. So Burden...Was it Burden? Yes, I think it was Burden. Now it's coming back to me. We managed to get him a job as a horse wrangler in Mount McKinley Park. Of course, everybody got a great kick out of being guided around Mount McKinley Park by Tolstoy. He was on his way back in the fall, and he fell in on the boat with a former ranger of mine by the name of Sherman Pratt (?), belonged to one of those Long Island Pratts. His grandfather was a partner of J.P. Morgan. They were wealthy people. Sherman had been a ranger. On the basis of knowing me, they got together, and by the time they got to Seattle they were good friends. Well, Pratt said to Tolstoy, "How would you like to drive back to New York? If you're in no hurry, we could drive down along the coast and across Texas. I'll pick up a second-hand car in Seattle." Tolstoy agreed to that so they did. They got this second-hand car, and they drove down through Oregon, San Francisco and Los Angeles and on through until they got to El Paso, Texas. There they had some trouble.

They telephoned me about 2 o'clock in the morning. I guess they'd forgot the difference in time and talked to me. They'd both been pinched. Both been arrested by the immigration officers— both of them. Pratt, who had a kind of a temper and was outspoken, he belabored the immigration officer, and the officer told him to shut up. He said "You can't talk as good of English as the Russian." The Russian spoke English very well and was calm about it and admitted his credentials were worn out—they weren't any good. He was there improperly. He admitted to all of this. But because Pratt was so boisterous and demanded to be released, that he was an American citizen and had a perfect right to go across the border to Juarez and so forth, so then he was threatened to be put in jail. Then they said they'd like to get in touch with me. So they did. They called me up and told me their predicament. I talked with the immigration officer and told him it would be all right. I said, "I'll drop by and see the Commissioner General of Immigration in the morning." But I said, "They'll stay there all right. You don't have to worry about that. They won't leave you. Don't put them in jail."

The next morning on the way to the office I stopped by the head of the Immigration Office, and he ordered into Washington—send them to Washington. Release them out there and send them to Washington. So when they came in there, of course, they'd let Pratt go right away. He had no trouble establishing his citizenship. But Tolstoy was against it. They found he had to be...What do you call it? (unintelligible)

GB: Deported?

HA: Deported, yes. I felt sorry for him because his family were in trouble at the time. Things could've been tough for him in Russia. He didn't want to go back to Russia. All of us liked him, and I think more than one Boone and Crockett Club man was interested in him at that time too. At any rate, it so happened that the brother of the Superintendent of Yellowstone was Assistant Secretary of State. Name was Jim Rogers. So we took it up with Jim, and Jim got interested in it too. So it ended up by having him declaring, having a certificate like a diploma and Ilya Tolstoy

12 Horace M. Albright Interview, OH 297-028b, 029, 030, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. declared a man without a country and calling upon all American representatives, counsels, ambassadors, and all to render him help if it's needed. Then we got together all the letters we could get from people he had guided when he was a horse wrangler in Alaska, and we had a bundle of letters and this. They deported him to a country that had almost used up the quota, and he could get back in again. It didn't take him long to get back in. He was back in w ithint about a year. He was back in, and at that time he was all right so he could become an American citizen, which he did. He helped to build that—Pratt was with him—they built that big underwater aquarium down in Florida.

GB: Ah, now Douglas Burden was the one that started that.

HA: Yes, he was mixed up in it. Tolstoy was partner on that. In fact, Tolstoy ran it until the war broke out, and then he was a particularly valuable man because he spoke Russian. They gave him a captain's commission and put him behind the lines out in Tibet, where he could watch the Russians. It was afterwards he wrote up his story in theNational Geographic and came back here.

He was a very devoted to the Boone and Crockett until he died. He died prematurely. We felt awful badly about it. In fact, his aunt is still alive, Alexandra Tolstoy, the daughter of the author. She must be 90 years old now. Wasn't that quite a story? "You can't talk good as English as the Russian." (laughs) Pratt never saw anything funny about that. Pratt died too. They're both gone.

GB: You had mentioned another member that you would talk about him and that was Prentiss Gray.

HA: Well now, Prentiss Gray. I knew Pren Gray not so much in the Boone and Crockett Club. He stayed over in Europe a lot after war—after the First World War. He was connected with Hoover in the relief work, and he got around over Europe. He was a stamp collector, and he bought stamp collections over there. He just bought buy whole collections. Well, he got out to Yellowstone to see the wildlife, and I showed him all over the place down in Wyoming and got him on my side of the Jackson Hole-Teton project. Then he got interested in my own son, who was a collector, and he gave him a couple of those collections. One was an Austrian, and I don't know what the other one was—foreign stamps. But he was active in the Club, and he spent a lot of time down in Florida. He was interested in with us in what we were thinking about in the Everglades, and he died down there. He drowned. His boat sank.

Well, let's see what I can think of some other things. He was very close to Hoover—President Hoover. I can't think of anything more worthwhile. Many times he was in my office visiting, but nothing significant.

FA: When was the Jackson Hole-Teton project carried through to its end? The Jackson Hole- Teton mountain...Yes, when did you finally—

13 Horace M. Albright Interview, OH 297-028b, 029, 030, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. HA: Well, we got the first part through on February 26, 1919...or 1929 because President Coolidge signed that bill. But we only had 150 square miles. The main part of the area we couldn't get in the first place because we didn't control the land. Mr. Rockefeller bought the land for about million and a half dollars. When we tried to get it enlarged, we ran into all sorts of political difficulties, and it took 30 years to do it. We finally got it in 1950. We just celebrated the 25th anniversary a couple of years ago of the enlargement of the park.

Those little sketches you see right there. Those were made by the artist [Thomas] Moran in 1872, coming across from Idaho. They were the Tetons from the Idaho side, and that's Moran up above there.

FA: I've seen some of his works at the Cody Museum.

HA: Of course, you've probably got some of the final work.

FA: Yes, yes.

HA: Of course his two great works—Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and Grand Canyon of the Colorado—hung in the Capitol for years in Washington. Congress paid 10,000 dollars for them.

GB: These were the original sketches?

HA: The original sketch. They're color sketches, you see there. From these sketches, he made his big paintings. This one over here is [William Henry] Jackson, you see. His photographs were responsible for creating Yellowstone Park. That's the painting up there he made when he was 94 years old. He died at 99. He was not connected with the Boone and Crockett, but he was very active in the Explorers Club. His 99th birthday—he was the darling of the Explorers Club— they had a big party for him. But he insisted on doing the talking and being the speaker so he gave the lecture and it was his own pictures on a trip he made through Russia. These pictures were these big slides, which he colored himself. He was an artist. After he'd given the talk, and of course to great applause, he opened himself to questions. Quite a number of questions were asked, which he answered. Finally a woman got up and said, "M r. Jackson you've lived a long time. You're 99 years old. You can answer a question that's been bothering me a long time." She said, "You know this was once a wonderful country. Everybody was happy. We didn't have any wars. We were not greatly in debt. Things just went nicely. Suddenly something changed, and it's been going downhill ever since and look what a country we've got now. I thought maybe you might be able to tell us exactly when that happened."

He says, "Yes, I can tell you exactly when it happened." Imagine this coming from a 99 year old man. "It happened when they invented twin beds and men stopped wearing long tailed nightshirts." (unintelligible)

GB: Yes, that is quite a (unintelligible). Without a doubt.

14 Horace M. Albright Interview, OH 297-028b, 029, 030, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. FA: That's marvelous!

HA: Well, we thought he'd live to be 100, but he fell in the night a few months afterwards and died of pneumonia. Broke his hip. He couldn't get up and go to the telephone and couldn't get help. It wasn't until the maid came in the next day did she find him. But he was a wonderful man.

GB: I'd like to ask you a question. How many years ago was it that this young woman asked this question?

HA: What?

GB: How many years ago was it that this young woman asked this question?

HA: Well, he died in 1942 so it would be around 1940.

GB: Don't you think that would be applicable today? Could I ask you the question today? (laughs) That's what I was thinking of here.

HA: You go that on the —

[Break in audio]

HA: The first medal I showed you is the Theodore Roosevelt medal, which was given in 1959 to me for my activities in conservation and natural resources over a long period of years. It was at a dinner on his birthday, and a couple of other medals were given at the same time. One to Henry Cabot Lodge, and I've forgotten the other one.

This medal was authorized by the American Planning and Civic Association about the same time. But I never saw it. They had me go down there and sit for this profile made by the great architect Paul Manship. But I never happened to see it. Here just this year they gave it to me— my own medal. Horace M. Albright medal.

GB: It's a likeness of you.

HA: For the same thing, for the same thing. In activity in saving of scenery. There's two medals: the Albright medal and the McAneny medal [George McAneny Historic Preservation Medal]. The McAneny medal is for saving historic sites and this one is for saving scenery.

GB: Would you mind reading what the back of T.R.'s medal says? That's also a likeness of Theodore Roosevelt, but would you mind reading the back of it because it sounds so like him? Or would you like me to read it?

15 Horace M. Albright Interview, OH 297-028b, 029, 030, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. HA: I think you can read it better than I can. My eyes are not good.

GB: It says, "If I must choose between righteousness and peace, I'd choose righteousness." I just wanted to read that because it sounds so like him.

HA: Yes, it does, indeed. You see the Tetons on the back of that.

FA: Yes. Gee, that's a handsome medal. You don't know how many people they've awarded it to?

HA: They've been awarding one a year for about 20 years. I don't know who all received it because...I've asked for a list of who received it.

GB: Harold Coolidge was one who received that. He showed it to me.

HA: Who:

GB: Harold Coolidge.

HA: Did he have this?

GB: He's very proud of it.

HA: Does he have this medal?

GB: Yes.

HA: Could have. There are quite a number of medals in there. We've had them around in that box for years, and finally my daughter said we've got to find some way of showing them so they made that just recently. The Theodore Roosevelt Association isn't giving medals anymore because that was the thing that kept them in the limelight—through giving those medals. They gave about three or four a year in different fields that Roosevelt was interested in.

FA: When did they stop?

HA: About four years ago, I think. They did give one this last year to Ethel, Ethel Derby, his daughter. She died right afterwards. But they don't have the dinners anymore, nor they give the medals.

GB: Speaking of medals, I'm wonder how much you might know about this one. The Boone and Crockett Club gives the Sagamore Hill Medal, and I wonder if you know how that came about?

16 Horace M. Albright Interview, OH 297-028b, 029, 030, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. HA: No.

GB: Several of the members—

HA: They have two medals. Don't they give some medals to the—

GB: The records—

HA: —the best heads? That caused quite a little trouble a few years ago. Some members quit about that.

GB: I'd like you to tell about that. If you know about that controversy, I'd love for you to tell about it.

HA: I used to have a file on it. They sent me copies of the...They just felt that the Club was backing away from conservation and was only interested in trophies. The fellow who caused the most trouble just recently died.

GB: That's what I was going to say. That was Douglas Burden.

HA: He lived up in Vermont.

GB: That was Douglas Burden, the man I asked you about earlier.

HA: Oh, I'm sure it was. It was indeed.

GB: The reason I'm asking you about this is that I was asked to interview him, and I neverhad the chance because he died so I thought maybe if you remember a little about it.

HA: That's right, he did. That's the whole thing, yes. That shows you I'm getting a little poor in my own memory.

GB: I wouldn't say that. Now, I would like to ask you something that you might be able to clear up a little. The records are a little bit fuzzy on exactly when you were chairman of the Conservation Committee. I know positively that you were chairman from '57 through '60, but it also shows that you were chairman in 1948 and then RichardBorden took over in between for a while. I wonder if you can clarify all of that.

HA: No, I can't. All my records (unintelligible) at the university.

GB: Maybe I could check that.

17 Horace M. Albright Interview, OH 297-028b, 029, 030, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. HA: I'll tell you where you might find it. You might it if you've got a complete file of these catalogs—these annual records. You can tell in there.

GB: Now, getting into some of your activities as chairman. First of all, I wanted to establish that definitely you were chairman from '57 through '60, and there were many things that happened during that time. One of the things that I wanted to do before I go on into asking you questions was to ask you about a couple of the people that were on that committee that you haven't mentioned so far. Do you remember anything about Philip Connors (?)?

HA: No, I don't.

GB: You did mention Karl T. Frederick and Richard Poe. Do you remember anything about Bayard Reed (?)?

HA: About them when they were with me, you mean?

GB: Yes.

HA: No, only you could always depend on them. Those were two fellows that were always there. They always attended a meeting, and they always did what you asked them to do. They were both of them very effective. One's a lawyer and the other's a conservationist. Dick Poe was still head of that. Karl Frederick died a few years ago. His wife lives in Rye.

GB: Rye?

HA: In Rye, New York. She lives in Rye.

GB: Fred Smith, do you remember him?

HA: Oh well, Fred, sure. I was with him night before last. He was with Laurance Rockefeller. He's one of Mr. Laurance Rockefeller's chief supporters. He works for him. He's a writer and a negotiator and programmer—all sorts of things. General supporter or assistant to him on everything.

GB: Also, I just want to get down for the record that you're still acting as Conservation Advisor?

HA: Who?

GB: You are.

HA: I'm not supposed to be.

18 Horace M. Albright Interview, OH 297-028b, 029, 030, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. GB: Just as an advisor. You're on the committee for advisors for people to come to you and you questions when they get stumped, (laughs)

HA: Who? I have no official position at all nowadays.

[End of Tape 2, Side A]

Horace M. Albright Interview, OH 297-028b, 029, 030, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. [Tape 2, Side B]

GB: Could you repeat that? You started to talk about the Alaska Bill.

HA: I said I wrote and asked the Conservation Committee to report and urge favorable action, and under no circumstances, to take adverse action on that bill. I got word back that they didn't take any action, (unintelligible) we can expect.

GB: Speaking of Alaska, do you recall any of the things that the Boone and Crockett Club—other than Mount McKinley—was involved in Alaska, like when Alaska first became a state and all?

HA: No, I don't. I don't remember. I don't think they did. I don't think they—

GB: They endorsed the Alaska game bill.

HA: Oh, I think they did that. Yes. They endorsed the migratory bird bill when it went through. They were active in that.

GB: Okay. I don't know if you know the answer to these, but I thought I'll ask it since you've been in the Club so long. There used to be a Game Preservation Committee, and I was wondering of this was the forerunner of the present Conservation Committee?

HA: It was. It was.

GB: Do you know why it was changed to now just the Conservation Committee?

HA: Because conservation takes in much more than wildlife. It takes in scenery and historic sites and everything else. Conserving part of our heritage. I think that's the reason. It's a good one anyway.

GB: Mr. Albright. Do you remember any of the details of the establishment of a reserve for the protection of Roosevelt elk in northern California, which was to be named in honor of Madison Grant?

HA: I remember well when it happened. Of course, I had little to do with it. I was a counselor of the Save the Redwoods League and that had to be done through the league, but I think Madison Grant and DeForest Grant were counselors too. At least, they had been active in the Save the Redwoods League work all through the years. The movement to establish that particular preserve involving the Roosevelt elk, if I remember, it was proposed by DeForest Grant—brother of Madison Grant. He was looking for a way to pay tribute to his brother, and this seemed to be an opportunity. He made a substantial contribution himself, and he wanted the Save the Redwoods League to favor it, which it did. Then special contributions were solicited from members of the Boone and Crockett Club and from outsiders. I remember Mr.

20 Horace M. Albright Interview, OH 297-028b, 029, 030, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. made a substantial contribution to it. It went through, and it's one of the features of the state park system now—that elk preserve up there. I think it's a part of the Prairie State Park [Prairie Creed Redwoods State Park] in northwestern California.

GB: Do you remember what the Club had to do with establishment of the National Bison Range?

HA: No. That was done...I didn't happen to be active when they did that, (unintelligible) Bureau too. It was done through the old Biological Survey, which afterwards became the Fish and Wildlife Service. I don't know who backed that now. Now, of course, you contribute Boone and Crockett influence to the establishment of the Yellowstone herd, which is the biggest herd by far. When buffalo disappeared on the plains in the late 1880s, an organization was established under Dr. Hornaday to try to save a few, and surveys were made as to just what areas you could look for buffalo. It was found that there was only two places where there were any wild buffalo left. One was in a small herd in North Park, Colorado, and the other was in Yellowstone Park.

The one in Colorado didn't last long so it got down to the point where, by the turn of the century, the only wild herd of buffalo was in Yellowstone Park. Then President Roosevelt was camping with John Burroughs in 1903 in Yellowstone. He was disturbed that there weren't more buffalo and realized that was a very good place for a substantial herd. So he secured an appropriation to establish a new herd. [Charles] "Buffalo" Jones was employed to put the herd together. He got three strains. He captured some calves from the wild herd, and he bought a few buffalo, just two or three or four, from the Goodnight herd in Texas. That's a private herd. There were some private herds you know. Then some more from the Conrad herd, which was in Montana. So that the new herd in Yellowstone Park had three strains of buffalo blood. That's the one that's grown to the proportions that we have today. An outgrowth of President Roosevelt's personal interest in the buffalo or bison. Of course, undoubtedly the Boone and Crockett Club had influence in getting that appropriation. I've seen no particular reference to it, but it probably did have.

GB: Do you remember any details about the establishment of the Kofa Game Range [Kofa National Wildlife Refuge]?

HA: What?

GB: I'm not sure I'm pronouncing it right. Kofa or Kofa Game Range?

HA: No. I have no remembrance of that. Some of those things came along so fast and so incidental that I didn't pick them up. I wasn't in on all the proposals anyway.

GB: That happened to take place in Arizona, and then later on —

HA: I know where it is, yes.

21 Horace M. Albright Interview, OH 297-028b, 029, 030, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. GB: —there was a bighorn sheep transplant project undertaken by the Club. I wonder if you remember anything about that.

HA: No. Not any details. I just know they did.

GB: This is a little out of step, but to your knowledge, did the Pittman-Robertson Act ever come into play with any of the conservation projects which the Club supported?

HA: I was not at any meetings where it did come in, but undoubtedly, it did. Undoubtedly, the Executive Committee passed on it. That's the kinds of a thing you support.

GB: How do you feel about that act? Do you think it was a good one? Do you think it's working well?

HA: Yes, I thought so. I am not familiar with its movements in recent years, but I never knew anything particular about it that I would regard as harmful or ineffective.

GB: You were on the Conservation Committee when the Rampart Dam study was done, and that was a dam that was to be built in Alaska. The Club was very much against it. I wonder if you remember anything about that.

HA: Only that they were against it and so was I. We took action against it. That was all I cared about.

GB: That's good. This is going back a ways and coming up right to modem times, I'd like your opinion of what's going on now. Would you tell us your views on the wild horses and burro problem which is still in existence today and has been for many years?

HA: The wild burro problem is a very serious one in national park areas where these herds of feral animals are destroying the food supply for wild animals. You take Death Valley. The mountain sheep are threatened there because of the abundance of wild burros. They don't belong there. They're the outgrowth of burros that were abandoned by miners. Of course, through the years they've multiplied, and there are far too many of them and they should be killed. It's the only way it can be done. At least where I think the environmentalists are wrong, to try to save an animal like a wild burro. It's no use to any purpose, and they ought to be eliminated. The other place where they're a menace is in the Grand Canyon. I think it was when I was director, we attempted to clear them out, and I think I thought we did. We just killed them. That's what should be done again. It's no use trying to get somebody to adopt a burro. Wild horses are another story. They're in other parts of the country. They're not in the national parks. I don't think there's a wild horse problem in the national parks. We didn't have them when I was active on the Conservation Committee. We didn't have these problems. I don't think

22 Horace M. Albright Interview, OH 297-028b, 029, 030, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. the wild burro were a problem before the Boone and Crockett Club. We didn't take it up with people. We just went ahead and killed them. Which should have been done now.

GB: It shows that there was a study done on wild burros and desert sheep funded by the Club in '62—1962—so that's going back a ways. But I understand the problem goes back further.

HA: I should say they are. They have these studies right along, and they always come out with a proposal that they've got to be eliminated, particularly in national parks and particularly where they are threatening the mountain sheep. Right away a group of environmentalists and sentimental people, emotional people, who don't want anything to happen to them—mustn't kill them.

GB: You know, the Club is very involved in this right now, and you having been a politician too as well as...You've worked in the government and you know the workings of it, many of the members feel that this is by far more a political problem than a scientific one. Because the scientific one has been proven. The answers are there. If you were working now, how would you attack this as a political problem?

HA: I don't regard it as a political problem. I regard it as an emotional problem.

GB: But I mean politically the environmentalists are —

HA: The environmentalists are now probably the strongest position of conservation organizations. They've got so many organizations with so many members, and they can put on letter writing campaigns and influence politics that way. But I don't believe Congress would pass a law authorizing the protection of burros, particularly in national parks. Now, they have passed a law to give some protection to wild horses.

GB: But they won't authorize the killing of the burros either. I mean, they won't do it the other way either.

HA: They're sitting on the fence in that respect. They know just where the votes are on this thing. The environmental vote is big now and very heavy. Sometimes I think it may be a little too heavy. I'm afraid there may be a backlash if the environmentalists go too far. They will be going too far if they want to keep burros in Death Valley and Grand Canyon.

GB: You were talking yesterday a little bit about that and I didn't have a chance to pursue it on tape, but you said you were worried about a backlash in a couple of areas. Do you remember what you—

HA: Yes. The Cosmos Club gave me its award in 1974, and I had to give an address on that, which I did, called "The Paradox of Conservation." Where you get into these situations where you're supposed to protect an area. Basically, you got to protect what's been set aside in

23 Horace M. Albright Interview, OH 297-028b, 029, 030, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. reserve. On the other hand, you've got to make them accessible to people. Now many environmentalists don't want any concessions in national parks. They don't want any hotels or lodges. Now, tomorrow you're going up to Yosemite. A lot of the environmentalists don't want you to sleep in Yosemite They want you to sleep outside someplace and drive in, take a look, and go back out again. They want it the way it was when the Indians had it. That's ridiculous, and Congress saw that in the beginning. The bills that are passed say that these particular areas shall be preserved in their natural state for future generations—the wildlife, the scenery all the natural features. Then the next paragraph authorized the granting of leases for the establishment of facilities. So there is a paradox there all right. You can't protect them 100 percent and still make them accessible.

On the other hand, the far-out environmentalist doesn't want you to have any facilities. He wants them left just the way they were. He's willing to hike in, treat these areas like a cathedral. He'd be willing to walk ten miles to see Yosemite and walk in with his hat off, but he doesn't want any facilities. He doesn't want eat in it. Don't bring any food. He doesn't care too much about whether there are any sanitation facilities or anything. He just wants it left the way it was. As far as the backlashes comes, they're going to carry that too far, there will be a backlash sometime saying this is silly. We can't go too far. These environmental impact statements go too far in many cases. They're developing opposition to them now. They require too much effort and too much expense and they're not worth it in many cases.

I'm an environmentalist and a conservationist and I'm for all these things, but I never get away from the fact that you have to be publicly oriented. You have to keep in mind that the public own these areas and pay for them and they want to see them and enjoy them. You can't shut them out.

GB: I don't think there's any question about the fact that you're an environmentalist. Now, going back into some of the activities of the Conservation Committee. I don't know if you'll remember this. The first meeting of the Conservation Committee held in Washington since the time of Theodore Roosevelt was held in 1968, and I wondered if you may have attended that meeting, if you remember anything about it?

HA: No, I haven't been active in the Club since 1962...1961. I haven't attended any meetings. I tried to attend the meeting in Phoenix last year when the Wildlife Association were meeting but nobody came. I noticed in Toronto there weren't many there. Some came to Toronto. They usually try to hold a meeting in connection with the convention of the Wildlife Institute and the Wildlife Federation. They try to hold a meeting and invite the members to come. Either they're not there, or they don't come.

GB: I know. Speaking of meetings that you've attended, I forgot to ask you at the beginning of the interview where it belonged. Before you became a member of the Club, did you attend many dinners or meetings or anything like that?

24 Horace M. Albright Interview, OH 297-028b, 029, 030, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. HA: I didn't attend many meetings, but I did attend several dinners. I attended dinners for three or four years before I was a member—as an invited guest.

GB: Did you ever attend a dinners when Theodore Roosevelt was also there?

HA: Yes, yes, I did; although, I can't remember which year it was. It was about 1916 or 1917, a year or two before he died.

GB: Was he at that time still pretty much in charge of the Club?

HA: No, no, no. He was just there as a guest really, just another member. No, he wasn't taking any part. Course, everybody was thrilled to have him there. But I don't remember of any other one. I do remember another one in Washington. This was after the war began, when we were in the war. The excitement that night was that Kermit Roosevelt was there, and he was just ready to leave and join the British army in Palestine, which he did. That was the thing most people remember about that Washington dinner, which was at the Metropolitan Club, and I would say that it was in 1918 maybe, or the fall of 1917.

GB: The reason that I have been pursuing this so much is because it seems like it's hard to find things that Theodore Roosevelt did after the initial formation. He was interested and he kept his hand in, but it's hard to find specific things. That's why I was pursuing it with you to see what you could remember.

HA: I'm not sure just what date that was. I'm not sure whether he was there all during the dinner or whether he just popped in, as they say. But he was there. That dinner was in New York. It was not in Washington.

The last experience I had with Theodore Roosevelt's family you might like to put on your record was in January 1972. President Nixon had a dinner in tribute to Mr. and Mrs. DeWitt Wallace, who developed the Reader's Digest and who owned it and still own it. He told Mr. Wallace that he would like to have sort of a private dinner but not a large one, probably 100 members. He said, "You invite 50, and you invite 50." We were invited as Mr. Wallace's friends. We were at that dinner, and it was a very wonderful affair. They had a cabinet officer and his wife as the hostess at each table. But before we went into the dining room, there was a reception — cocktail party and so forth. I don't know whether they call it cocktail parties at the White House, but that's...there were some cocktails served, I know. Then we were given cards showing our partners, and Mrs. Albright had the good fortune to draw Colonel Charles Lindbergh and I had the good fortune to draw Alice Roosevelt. When we got to the table, and of course it was a gay party because on the other side of Mrs. Roosevelt was Bob Hope. Bob Hope. So you can see that was a hilarious table. In the course of conversation, we got onto the population problem. Too many people, you know. Mrs. Longworth—Alice Roosevelt—she pointed out how things had changed. When she was a little girl, it was great to have big families. Her father had been praised for his family of six children—four boys and tw o girls—but

25 Horace M. Albright Interview, OH 297-028b, 029, 030, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. now it's all changed. She said, "Do you remember any of the things they said about my father in those days when he was being praised for being the father of a big family?" Well, none of us remembered. She said, "I remember one, and I'll give it to you. Here it is. 'Teddy Roosevelt, rough and ready, listen to his battle cry. Be a rabbit. Get the habit. Multiply."

GB: That's a riot! Oh Lord.

HA: It was a riot that night all right. Everybody wanted it you know. So she tore a piece of the program off and handed it over to me and said, "You collect things about the Roosevelt family. W rite it down and I'll say it again," which she did and I wrote it down. We have it here somewhere in her signature, and I Xeroxed it and sent it to the othermembers of the table. But my wife can't forgive me for not having her sign it. We could've had her autograph. I didn't do that.

GB: I'm always trying to collect autographs and I think it's neat to do.

HA: We've got lots of them. We've done that too for years.

GB: I've seen some of the things that you have collected. They're invaluable.

HA: We've got too much stuff. I don't know what we're going to do with it.

GB: I guess we've got to get back to a serious note here. In 1957, you had just become Conservation Chairman. There was a discussion about the conservation objectives of the Club. Apparently, the secretary of the Club, Julian Feiss, put out a request to the Conservation Committee to write their opinion of the way the bylaws were written. You had written a letter and several other people. Basically, it was just a discussion on the objectives of the Club. I wonder if you remember that and could comment on it?

HA: No, I do not. Is Julian Feiss still a member, or did he resign?

GB: He resigned.

HA: He resigned. He's out here now. He's moved out to Del Mar. He's one of my closest friends. I thought he resigned when they had that disturbance about the trophies. I think he did resign.

GB: You know, I want to interview him —

[Break in audio]

HA: We've been talking about Julian Feiss who's now just moving from Washington to California. He was a very fine member, secretary for a long time, and it was a pity that he resigned. Douglas Burden got very much upset about the awards program, thinking it was

26 Horace M. Albright Interview, OH 297-028b, 029, 030, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. taking too much of the time and efforts of the Club and its committees, and he resigned and endeavored to get others to follow him. I had a considerable correspondence with him, but I refused to resign but some of my friends like Julian Feiss did. My point of view is that if you're in full sympathy with the opposition that's being developed, as it was by Douglas Burden, you don't want to resign and think you're going to accomplish something of outside. The thing to do is to stay in and do what you can inside the Club. You're always more effective, whether your point of view is finally adopted or not, you've at least done your best and you're still maintaining the integrity of the Club without weakening it in any way. So I deplore the resignations that took place that year.

GB: Thank you. Now the next question I was going to ask you is a very general one, but I would like you to try and answer it as well as you can. From the very beginning most of the Club members have held very high ranking positions in other conservation organizations also, so that at any given Boone and Crockett Club meeting many other organizations were represented. Do you feel that this was an important factor in the strength and the effectiveness of the Club, and if you feel so, could you try and think of some examples?

HA: I don't think I can give examples. I really feel that having the Boone and Crockett Club members as prominent and effective members of other organizations helped the other organizations. I don't think it was a matter of importance to the Boone and Crockett Club, but it did show their influence. But the influence was the other way. The influence was on the other organizations.

GB: Could you explain how that helped? Was it like a forum effect, or could you explain how you feel it helped the other organizations?

HA: I think there were cases where other organizations would take a position more quickly and more effectively if they knew that they were following the Boone and Crockett Club. I think that happened.

GB: Also do you feel maybe at the meetings, since they knew from a meeting of the Boone and Crockett Club how the other organizations would feel or what stand they would take, they were able to go back and assure their organization that there's others supporting them? Do you think that may have been one of the effects?

HA: Yes, I think it could've been.

GB: Now I was going to ask you if you could describe some of the social get-togethers of the Boone and Crockett Club, and do you feel that the social friendships that were made in the Club helped get business done?

HA: You mean Club business?

27 Horace M. Albright Interview, OH 297-028b, 029, 030, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. GB: Club business and conservation business in general? The fact that these people knew each other and knew where to go for help when a problem arose? Do you feel that the friendships and the social aspect of the Club helped in that way?

HA: I don't see how they could've helped but be effective, but I can't put my finger on any particular one. Course those dinners were extraordinary affairs. The men that came in from their explorations. For instance, I can remember how excited we all were with the stories Carl Akeley would tell us when he was making such exciting trips to Africa. Particularly with the gorilla work that he was doing.

The dinners were strictly social affairs. We had our business affairs at luncheons. The big affair at night where there were guests and where you might try to influence other people, you didn't try to do that because you were putting on an entertainment. You weren't trying to bring any pressure to bear on them. You might report what the Club had done but not ask for any votes or anything like that

GB: Okay, I understand the difference. You mentioned entertainment, and this has been a big problem lately about finding entertainment for the dinners. Do you remember some of...You just mentioned one entertainm ent that they used to have. Would you have any ideas of what they could be using for entertainment nowadays of the same caliber that they used to use?

HA: No, I haven't given any thought to that for years. I'd have to give some thought to it. I haven't been to a Club dinner now since 1960, I think, was the last time I was there. I attended regularly until I came out here. But it's too much of an effort now to go clear back to New York for a dinner.

[End of Tape 2, Side B]

28 Horace M. Albright Interview, OH 297-028b, 029, 030, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. [Tape 3, Side A]

GB: The members asked me to get these types of opinions, or the officers I should say. At last year's dinner, Durward Allen gave his presentation on the studies of Isle of Royale. How do you feel about that type of thing for entertainment?

HA: Well, I think if you get the right fellow. Of course, some of our scientists can't make their subjects entertaining to a crowd of people, and it gets too technical and they get bored and the next time they don't want to come. I think that's the danger. But on the other hand, if the man has got the reputation of being able to translate his subject matter into entertainment, let's say, and make it so interesting and exciting that it would be remembered and appreciated then I would certainly favor having a member do the talking. Now over in the Explorer's Club, where the perennial toastmaster is Marlow Thomas (?), they've done the other thing. They've gone outside, but they occasionally have their own people if they've been on some exploration. Their main interest is exploration.

That's another club that I haven't been active in now for a long time. I've maintained my membership but I haven't been to an Explorer's Club dinner since 1960.

GB: Now I'm going to ask you a question that is really out of chronological order, but I don't want to skip the question. President Coolidge called a Conference on Outdoor Recreation in May of 1924, and I wonder if you can remember what the purpose of this was?

HA: Well, that was a very important conference. They organized it, and I think the head of it was a man named Chauncey Hammel (?) of Buffalo. But it covered all the conservation organizations and recreation organizations. It was really an outdoor recreation conference. But it had committees on various subjects, and one of them was to study the boundaries of national parks. There were several committees I'm sure where Boone and Crockett Club members were represented.

I think the National Park Boundary Committee was very active, and on 1925, they conducted an expedition to study the boundaries of Yellowstone and the proposed Grand Teton National Park. Charles Sheldon was named as a member of the committee of five, I think it was. But at the last night, he was unable to come and so they had another member of the Club. He afterwards lived in England for a long tim e before he died. A long name. I would recognize it if I see it He was on that committee, and it was...many national parks and some national forests. Mr. Mather was on it, and so was Mr. Greely—A. W. Greely. I think there were at least three Boone and Crockett Club people on that committee.

GB: There's another person, if I could remind you of him. Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. attended this conference. I don't know how much he did.

29 Horace M. Albright Interview, OH 297-028b, 029, 030, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. HA: Well, he was more than that. I think he was, for a time at least, he was head of it, but I don't think he stayed with it very long. I don't remember that he ever actually did anything, actually led any party. In Washington he probably heard committee reports and so forth, but I don't think he was a member of any active committee.

GB: Do you remember much about him at all?

HA: Well, my acquaintance with Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. was around Rockefeller Center. He was with the publishing firm of Doubleday Page, as I recall it, and he had offices there in Rockefeller Center. I used to see him at lunch. I was never very close to him. Off and on for years I saw him and talked with him but nothing particular. He wasn't deep in any of these conservation projects. I dislike to say it, but I don't think we can rate the Roosevelt sons as having been leaders in any of these movements.

GB: Except for possibly Kermit. He shows up on many things.

HA: Well, even Kermit. He was President of the Audubon Society. I told you yesterday that I was on the board when Kermit was president, but he was not so very active and he didn't stay with it too long. I think maybe a year or two. They always had something else to do. For instance, Ted, as they called him, and Kermit made an exploratory trip over to Indochina someplace and they wrote a book about it. They were much more interested in exploration and that sort of thing than I think they were in conservation. I don't think you can count them as top conservationists, although they've had that interest. They were more interested in other things. The same thing goes for Archie. Clinton died before he got active in anything. He was killed in the war.

GB: At an annual meeting in 1951, the Club formed a Sagamore Hill Committee and the members of that committee were Alfred Ely, Archie Roosevelt and Dr. Richard Derby. Do you know the reasons why the Club formed this committee?

HA: I think it was to see that they had a hand in the use of Sagamore Hill. They wanted to be consulted. Of course, you'll notice that two out of the three are Roosevelt people. Dr. Derby was Theodore Roosevelt's son-in-law. The Association—Theodore Roosevelt Association—was handling things at that time. I don't remember just the date that they came into the national park system. That was after my time. I think it was after my time. But I was on the board of the Theodore Roosevelt Association, which I still am. I'm on the board of trustees, but most of the work is done by the executive committee. I would think that was just a committee to maintain contact and know what is going on. Then they had the properties in the gun room.

GB: In the first year, again, that you were chairman, there were several conservation issues that the Club went over thoroughly and wrote resolutions on. I'm going to mention a few just by name and see if you remember anything about them or would like to do discuss them at all.

30 Horace M. Albright Interview, OH 297-028b, 029, 030, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. The first one was the recreation survey bill that was in Congress and they made a resolution on it.

HA: What year was that?

GB: In 1957.

HA: Well, I think that was just continuing the interest the Club always had, going back to Calvin Coolidge's organization of 10 years...of 20 years earlier. Then of course, it was just developed in the next year or two, they passed a law establishing the Outdoor Recreation [Resources] Review Commission, which Laurance Rockefeller was the chairman. After that produced the great report on outdoor recreation—a very fine report with 27 supplements. That's the way the federal participation in outdoor recreation in this country now is based upon the reports that came out from the commission. I don't think that commission was established until about 1960, anyway, very shortly after that. I'd have to go get the book to get my dates right on that.

The Club would support a thing like that and wouldn't drop it if it started to pick up something in the time of President Coolidge, they'd carry it on. They'd be ready to go ahead with it again if it came up again, and I think that's what happened.

GB: I have here w ritten they requested representation on the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission—

HA: That's the one.

GB: —which was a committee to advise the President of the United States on problems on outdoor recreation.

HA: That's right. That's the one I'm talking about. Well, Laurance Rockefeller was the chairman of it. He's a member of the Boone and Crockett Club. I'd have to...others on there. I was on the advisory board of it. I don't remember now who at the commissioners were. I avoided being a commissioner because I had so many other things to do at the time, so I was on the advisory committee. But I wouldn't be surprised if there were more than one Boone and Crockett Club member on that commission. I can look it up for you if you want me to. I can go get the book.

GB: We can do it later when I can write it down.

Another thing that was discussed was the Key Deer Bill, which was apparently up in the House.

HA: Oh yes, that's down in Florida. That's typical of the Boone and Crockett Club to support a thing like that. They did. They may have put a little money in that—the Key deer—because it was kind of a precarious situation. It looked like they were gone. But I don't think the Boone and Crockett Club was the leader in it.

31 Horace M. Albright Interview, OH 297-028b, 029, 030, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. GB: They were.

HA: Really?

GB: They were because I know on that particular one there are things in the minutes that show it. "Pink" Gutermuth [Clinton Gutermuth] was the one that brought it—

HA: Who?

GB: Dr. Gutermuth was the one that brought it to the attention of the Club and one of the people that got very involved in it through his cartoons was "Ding" Darling [Jay Norwood Darling]. I wonder if you remember him.

HA: Oh, very well. He was a very close friend of mine. There's a new biography of him just out. Just came in here. I'm a director of the Ding Darling Foundation, which is based in Des Moines. Oh yes, Ding—he was head of the W ildlife Service, Fish and W ildlife Service. Down there now, not where the Key deer are, but down in that game preserve—Sanibel Island—is actually dedicated to the memory of Darling. Name was Jay Darling, but we called him "Ding."

Was he a member of the Club?

GB: Yes, he was.

HA: I thought he was.

GB: That's why I mentioned him because you hadn't mentioned him up until now.

HA: I was sure he was He was very famous in conservation. There's nobody more vigorous, effective cartoonist than Darling was. He was also, of course, very effective politically. That's why they claim that at the time that President Franklin Roosevelt took him out of circulation as a cartoonist because he was such a wicked political cartoonist.

GB: Which President Roosevelt?

HA: Franklin Roosevelt. He made him head of the Wildlife Service to keep him cartooning politically. His cartoons of Roosevelt politically were terrific. I think they claim that he took him out of circulation at that point.

GB: They also supported the Minarets Addition to Yosemite National Park.

HA: Oh yes. They always did. Of course, Mr. Mather was a leader in that. That never was achieved. In 1905, a big section of Yosemite National Park was removed at the insistence of the

32 Horace M. Albright Interview, OH 297-028b, 029, 030, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. mining interests out here, and Mr. Mather wanted to get them back. He (unintelligible) in there and did everything he could while he was director of the Service to secure its return but didn't succeed.

GB: So the Minarets are not now a part of Yosemite?

HA: No, it's now in a wilderness except for hunting. There's no use of it there so anyway it's much like a park. That's right up near Yosemite, not very far from here.

GB: Do you remember the Dinosaur National Park bill, which the (unintelligible)?

HA: As far as the Club got into the dinosaur part was they were trying to build a dam there where the Yampa and Green Rivers came together at Echo Park. They were going to build a dam and flood...watershed both rivers. There was a big fight on that, and they nearly lost it. I think the bill got through one of the houses of Congress. But the Club was very active in that. That, again, was after my time, and I wasn't in the Service. Yes, I was too. Yes. I (unintelligible) the bill when I was chairman.

GB: (unintelligible) [talking at same time]

HA: [talking at same time] That's right, oh yes. Yes, I was because I remember Laurance Rockefeller...! remember Laurance Rockefeller getting in and Fred Smith—who wasn't with Rockefeller at that time—Fred was extremely active in it. It was finally defeated. Of course, we had all the conservation organizations working on that, and the Secretary of the Interior, who I thought very highly of, he went over for the dam and they had to attack him, which they did. Yes, that was an outstanding...I think that and the Arctic Preserve were the two (unintelligible).

GB: That's the next thing I was going to ask you about if you would you tell something about...Well, the Boone and Crockett Club endorsed and supported the establishment of an Arctic Preserve Wildlife Range of, I believe, nine million acres in Alaska.

HA: That's awfully big. It's the whole northeastern comer. Alaska is in danger now because of oil interests wanting to get in there and drill. It adjoins the big oil field, but it's terribly important in the protection of the caribou. Also, there's a proposal to put a pipeline across it, all the way to Canada. Canada never carried out the program we had. We had a similar preserve on the Canadian side, but they never did. There was a Boone and Crockett Club man who lives in Montreal...What's his name?

GB: Duncan Hodges.

HA: Duncan Hodges. He thought he could do it. He worked and he worked on that very hard. I don't think we can take—the Boone and Crockett Club—can take credit for putting it over, but I do think we were one of the most influential supporters of that preserve. I had the good

33 Horace M. Albright Interview, OH 297-028b, 029, 030, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. fortune to be very friendly with the Secretary of the Interior, Fred...Freddie. This was in President Eisenhower's term.

GB: What was his name?

HA: Seaton. Fred Seaton of Nebraska. He's dead now. But I made at least half a dozen trips to Washington on this as chairman of the committee to put our side of the case before him, and it eventually went through. It's one of the biggest things we've ever done. Of course, it's vastly bigger than M ount McKinley Park. But I think Boone and Crockett Club should have a good share in the credit for creating that preserve. Now, how much they're going to fight to keep it is one of the things they have to have right now before them. Also, how much are they going to do to try to influence Canada? Is Duncan still active?

GB: Yes. Well, he's active in the Club. I'm fairly certain he's still active in conservation.

HA: He's got to be old.

GB: I think he's in his 70s.

HA: That's the trouble. Some of us get old, and we're not any good anymore.

GB: But you don't get any less charming, (laughs)

HA: What?

GB: You don't get any less charming.

Now before I go into the last couple of questions—I've only got about three or four more questions—I just wanted to ask if there is anything that I may not have asked about that you'd like to mention.

HA: Well, it seems to me that you've covered the ground pretty well. I'm amazed at your vast knowledge of the Club from its inception until now. Of course, you've stirred memories by your questions. But you must take into consideration that this is a club of men who were very busy in their various fields. It wasn't an organization where you had somebody watching it all the time and working on it. The committee members were all busy people. So there are many places...there are many subjects on which more could have been done if we had to have an executive to follow things up for us. I was fortunate when I was Chairman of the Conservation Committee to have DeForest Grant's office and his secretary to help. Even at that, I didn't get an awful lot done. I wasn't on the Executive Committee, but I was always invited to attend.

I've always been very proud of the Club and my connections with it. I feel that through the years it's accomplished a very great deal. I don't know what the future of any of these

34 Horace M. Albright Interview, OH 297-028b, 029, 030, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. organizations are. There may be too many of them. Back at the time President Roosevelt had his Conference of Governors in 1908—the great conservation conference at the White House— there were only just two or three organizations that were interested in conservation resources. There were plenty of business organizations and the use of resources, but just for protecting them there were very few. American Forestry Association was in existence then. The Audubon Society wasn't effective then. It was just beginning. The Sierra Club was only just a local organization out here, same with the Appalachian Mountain Club in Boston. The Sand Prairie Club in Chicago—they weren't of national significance. Even the Boone and Crockett Club wasn't represented at that meeting, unless you want to say that the President and Pinchot were Boone and Crockett Club people, but they didn't express themselves as members. But now we've got an enormous number of organizations and membership is overwhelming. Hundreds of thousands of people belong to these organizations.

GB: My next couple of questions relate exactly to what you're already talking about. I was going to ask, do you feel that the Conservation Committee today is as active and effective as it was in years past?

HA: I don't know. I haven't seen the action to indicate that it is any more active. I wouldn't say it was less active because I'm not familiar with what's been going on. I'm not attending any meetings. I don't know what they talk about

GB: Regardless of whether you attend meetings or not, are there areas of conservation that you feel the Club should become more involved in at the present time. You've mentioned one already.

HA: I don't think the Club should project itself into a project which is already moving along under some other guidance. Suppose that's some proposal that's been developed by the Wildlife Federation and they're making good progress with it, I wouldn't recommend that the Boone and Crockett Club take a hand in it. They might ask for their support. They might ask for a resolution supporting it or something, but to be active in it I wouldn't think it necessary. But I think it can help most in this policy of making grants for research. I can think of tw o or three right now like the grizzly bear and I think (unintelligible). They may be supporting Cousteau in his sea work, I don't know.

GB: I don't think they are.

HA: I don't think they are. I'm not supporting that myself. But on the other hand there are places where we need just a little more money for research. I'd be for granting it. I don't think the Club is in very much danger politically, I mean, financially. I think financially it's in pretty good shape.

35 Horace M. Albright Interview, OH 297-028b, 029, 030, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. GB: My last question is how do you think the Boone and Crockett Club can best continue to carry out its original purposes and retain its position of influence and prominence? You've just mentioned there's so many organizations now it's hard to retain that prominence.

HA: I think that some organizations are going to disappear. One that I hate to see disappear I think is (unintelligible) out of existence before too long, and that's the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society. Its place has been pretty well taken by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. That's a big organization now whereas in the case of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society all its trustees are gone now and it's hard to keep it going when they haven't objectives to work on. Some of the strongest of them died in the past year, and I think that may disappear.

Maybe we've got too many wildlife organizations. There's two I'd like to see continue. One is the Wildlife Management that Mr. Poole is the head of, and the other is the Wildlife Federation, which Tom Kimball is the Executive Director. On the other hand there are others...I think the Audubon Society will continue and should. On the other hand, the Audubon Society has grown so expansive. It's now with its magazine probably the outstanding conservation organization. It has tremendous membership, and I think its magazine is the finest. It's possible, particularly if inflation goes on and people get poorer and people don't want to support so many organizations, I think it's possible that one or two big organizations would take them over. In that case, some will disappear. I think it's possible, not probable and I hope won't happen, that Boone and Crockett Club might disappear. Its members might not have the enthusiasm and interest that they used to have.

GB: You know we were talking a little while ago about the fact that the Club has always served...I guess I'm using this w ord—you didn't use it yourself, I'm using it—as a forum for people to get together. Do you feel that if they kept the leaders of the majority of the organizations as members of the Club that they continue to do the kind of work they've always done?

HA: I don't think I know them well enough to answer that question. I would hope so. I think one of the best things they've done in the Club is to employ you to pull things together and to gather up the ends that haven't been tucked in and go back into the history of the Club. I think that's a very good thing to do. I've felt much more secure about the status of the Club and about its future since you've had that Alexandria office.

GB: Well, I thank you very much. I think that answers all my questions. I thank you highly for the compliment...I mean, I think you very much for the compliment you just paid.

HA: I think it's been wonderful for you to do what you're doing. I think it's a fine thing to have for the record that you're making. I don't know how much I've contributed because I've been out a long time. I'm an awfully old man and I haven't been active for nearly 20 years so you're relying on an old man's memory.

36 Horace M. Albright Interview, OH 297-028b, 029, 030, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. GB: I'm going to ask you one more thing for the record. In compiling all this historical information, you have had occasions to make decisions on where to leave your records. I know, of course, it went to the University of California mostly. Would you have any suggestions as to where the Club might leave its records, if they haven't the facilities to keep them up themselves?

HA: No, but I think that the Club's record, because of its national and international activities that it had, they should be put someplace like the Library of Congress or the National Archives. I think it'd be better if they could than to put them in some university library. I don't know about the Roosevelt rooms at Harvard. Of course, most of the Theodore Roosevelt material has gone to Harvard. But I don't think it has any particular status as a conservation organization.

GB: No, they have already expressed that they do not want all the Club records.

HA: Of course, in many cases, these universities are getting pretty well filled up on papers and books—libraries. They don't have storage space for them. They haven't even got storage space on the campus. They have to employ warehouses to put their things. Even the archives, I understand, they have been stretched out. I think part of the archives are in Kansas City—the federal archives. I'm not sure, but that's what I heard.

GB: Well, you know there's been a place in Denver mentioned to me that's compiling a conservation history of the country.

HA: Well, now you're on the right track, but the man who started that, who promoted it, in fact who almost killed himself working on it, was Arthur Carhart. That's a conservation library in connection with the Denver Library. Many important papers have gone there. The American Bison Society papers are there, and I think Gabrielson's papers have gone there. But I heard recently that it's not being financed. It might unravel. It might not be something that will be there for all time. Now I think it's worthwhile writing Arthur Carhart. He's unfortunately suffered a couple of strokes, and he's down here at Escondido. He's pretty near as old as I am, but he's a very brilliant fellow.

He was with the Forest Service for years. He's a landscape architect and a good w riter and very active in recreation. It would be a good idea to find out. I might do that myself. I'll I undertake to write him. I've got to write him anyway and ask him what the present status of that—

[End of Tape 3, Side A]

37 Horace M. Albright Interview, OH 297-028b, 029, 030, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. [Tape 3, Side B]

GB: We were discussing where the Club might put its permanent records.

HA: Referring to this Denver one you say?

GB: Yes. Just what your thoughts are on that.

HA: It's on now?

GB: Yes.

GB: Of course, every organization and, for that matter, every thoughtful individual must give consideration sometime to where their books and papers are going to be deposited after they are no longer active or have passed away. The organizations that have done so much as some of these conservation associations should have their records preserved. The colleges are getting pretty well filled up with records, and also an organization of national and international repute, such as the Boone and Crockett Club, should have their papers in a place where they can be studied by people from all over the world.

I would favor the United States Archives if they'd take papers such as the Boone and Crockett Club has, but one of the places that might be considered if it's still developing is the Denver Library, which has a great Western collection and has a conservation section which was set up about 10 or 15 years ago under the leadership of Arthur Carhart. Arthur Carhart was a forester and landscape architect. He was with the Forest Service for years, wrote many books, and was knowledgeable on recreation matters, attended meetings everywhere, was an outstanding man, but had the misfortune some eight or ten years ago to suffer a stroke. I think it was followed by another, and he's been incapacitated for...been in a retirement home here in California for a long time. I think at the present time he is in Escondido, California. I'll undertake to write and ask him what he thinks about management of the records of a distinguished conservation organization like the Boone and Crockett Club.

I do know that all the records of American Bison Society are in Denver—every part of them. That was a society that came to the conclusion that it's no longer useful, and it dissolved when Edmund Seymour was president. I think there were only two presidents of the American Bison Society, Dr. Hornaday and Edmund Seymour. But it worked out that all the records of the American Bison Society should be in the Denver Public Library, and I think that several other collections of papers, including some of individuals. I think one was Dr. Gabrielson, who at one tim e was Fish and Wildlife Service and also head of the W ildlife Institute.

I'll undertake to find out from Mr. Carhart what his suggestions are.

38 Horace M. Albright Interview, OH 297-028b, 029, 030, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. GB: That would be much appreciated. You mentioned the Denver Public Library. That's not a university library?

HA: No, it's not, but it's a very fine library from the standpoint of Western material and collections and so forth. It's not a university library.

GB: Well, I thank you very much for this whole interview and all of the time you've spent with me.

HA: I've enjoyed it. I think you're doing a wonderful work, and I'm glad to have helped in any way I can. I don't know what all this is worth to you, but if it's worth something I'll be happy.

GB: Thank you. I'm sure it will be worth a lot.

[End of Interview]

39 Horace M. Albright Interview, OH 297-028b, 029, 030, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula.