Conservation Corner: January 10, 2000

Theodore Roosevelt IV Visits Mississippi
by James L. Cummins

Not long after the turn of the century (Y1900), President Theodore Roosevelt said something that probably every boy playing football in Mississippi has heard - Coach Bob Tyler included.

Roosevelt said, "The credit belongs to those people who are actually in the arena...who know the great enthusiasms, the great devotions to a worthy cause; who at best, know the triumph of high achievement; and who, at worst, fail while daring greatly...so that their place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."

The character and traits we associate with the former President such as fair play and foresight seem few and far between in today's world. Nowadays, we are consulting Dick Morris, pollsters or holding focus groups.

However, the character and traits of the President were obviously passed down the line to his great-grandson, Theodore Roosevelt IV. Roosevelt, a New York investment executive and avid conservationist, was recently on a trip to Mississippi to call attention to the need to restore bottomland hardwood forests.

T-4, as they call him in France, came to Mississippi to retrace his great-grandfather's footsteps. He also came to praise landowners, businesses and conservationists for their work that has restored over 100,000 acres of bottomland hardwoods and to urge more investment in conservation, including Wildlife Mississippi.

"As an investment banker on Wall Street, I firmly believe that environmental health is the bedrock of economic health," stated Roosevelt at the Old Court House in Vicksburg - the same place President Roosevelt delivered an address ninety years earlier.

At the same time Wildlife Mississippi and the Mississippi Outfitters are working to develop an infrastructure for wildlife-associated tourism along the Mississippi River and its valley, Roosevelt said, "Its an undertold story in the United States."

Republicans, of which Roosevelt is one, and Democrats agree. At a recent Christmas party, I had the opportunity to visit with Margaret Carter Joseph, the granddaughter of Hodding Carter, and it reminded me of a quote. Hodding Carter once said, "For no where else on the North American continent can wildlife, in the forests and beneath the waters of the river and its smaller feeders and even in the violated heavens, be found in such a variety of animals and birds and fish as along the Mississippi's (River) course."

A former Speaker of the House, Tip O'Niell, said, "You better dance with the one that brung ya." Mississippi's natural resources have made our state what it is today. Overall, we are enjoying good economic times, but let's not take our natural resources for granted. Preserve them. Restore them. Enhance them.

It'll keep our stock at the right price on Wall Street.

James L. Cummins is Executive Director of the Mississippi Fish and Wildlife Foundation in Stoneville, Mississippi. Known as "Wildlife Mississippi," the Foundation is a non-profit, conservation organization founded to conserve, restore and enhance fish, wildlife and plant resources throughout Mississippi.