By Andrea Marroquin
Jekyll Island Club Member Cornelius Newton Bliss, one of the biggest dry goods merchants of New York, was frequently nominated for public office and just as frequently declined the honor, refusing opportunities to be elected governor and mayor of New York and even turning down the opportunity to be President McKinley’s running mate in the 1900 national elections before Theodore Roosevelt accepted the nomination.
Like Theodore Roosevelt, Cornelius Bliss was a proponent of preserving America’s public lands. Perhaps for this reason, Bliss, famous for refusing public office, did accept the position of 21st United States Secretary of the Interior in President McKinley’s cabinet from March 6, 1897 to February 19, 1899. In this capacity, Bliss focused his attentions, in part, on forest preservation.
“The preservation of public forests. . . is a matter of vital interest to the entire nation,” Bliss proclaimed in November of 1897, in those days before the birth of the United States Forest Service. In his care were an estimated 1,835,017,692 acres of public lands including 19 Forest Reserves which encompassed almost 19 million acres. Bliss reported to the President regarding the need for “adequate laws for their protection and the proper enforcement thereof, coupled with the inauguration of a comprehensive forest system.”
“It was my intention originally to establish a forest bureau in this department, but the inadequacy of the appropriation for the work precluded my carrying into effect such [a] plan,” Bliss lamented.
Bliss had a relatively modest proposal for a beginning Forest Bureau, which he described as a trained corps of 50-60 professional forest agents, supervisors, patrolmen, and assistants to patrol the reserves and enforce regulations. While he was unable to establish a Forest Bureau during his tenure in office owing to a lack of funds, he did go a long way towards establishing a vision for preserving the nation’s forest resources. He spoke of the benefits of such a plan to preserve timber, prevent forest fires, and save the country’s forests for future generations.
Perhaps his greatest legacy as Secretary of the Interior was made through his hiring of Gifford Pinchot, who was related to Jekyll Island Club Member Amos F. Eno. In 1898, Bliss chose Pinchot as Chief of the Division of Forestry to design an organization to manage the nation’s forests. Pinchot was the nation’s first native professional forester. Under Pinchot, the Bureau of Forestry eventually became known as the United States Forest Service.
Pinchot advocated the conservation of the nation’s Forest Reserves by planned use and renewal and coined the term “conservation ethic” as it applied to natural resources. It was Pinchot who established the mission of the U.S Forest Service “to provide the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people in the long run.” He would run the U.S. Forest Service until 1910.
Today, the United States possesses a system of 155 National Forests, scientifically managed for multiple uses, including recreation, timber, wilderness, minerals, water, grazing, fishing, and wildlife management. Thanks in part to the enthusiasm, planning, and vision of predecessors such as Cornelius Newton Bliss and Gifford Pinchot, the Forest Service recently celebrated its 100th Anniversary. It is now launching into a new century of service in the United States.
An active Jekyll Island Club Member, Bliss served on the Executive Committee overseeing Jekyll Island’s management for at least 17 years, from 1892 to 1909, and owned a private flat in the Jekyll Island Clubhouse Annex. Bliss also helped raise funds to build the Jekyll Island Club Stables, purchasing Stall Number Two.
The historic Club Stables, located on Stable Road, is now the home of the Jekyll Island Museum. It contains exhibits and a Museum Store and is the gateway for daily tours of Jekyll Island’s 240-acre National Historic Landmark District. Call or visit the Jekyll Island Museum at (912) 635-4036 for more information about its many famous Jekyll Island Club Members and its daily tours of Jekyll Island’s historic district.
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April 2009, Beachscape |
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