Billings’ move, therefore, from the WestnCoast and law to the East Coast and railroadsnwas not a radical new departure. AsnWinks observes, “What Billings knew bestnwas land law,” and “railroad companiesnwere, in fact, land companies.” Addressingnthe standard question about the businessngiants of the Gilded Age—were theyn”Robber Barons” or “Industrial Statesmen”?—Winks’nanswer for the railroadnbuilders is a little bit of both. Billings,nhowever, despite a few small warts (realnestate promotion is inherently risky to thenpromoter’s moral health), unquestionablynbelongs in the second category; he is an”hero of capitalism.”nThe bandwagon labeled “Pioneers ofnAmerican Conservation” has in recentnyears become increasingly crowded.nAmong the old, familiar riders—^naturalistsnand foresters, novelists and essayists, politiciansnand publicists—are unfamiliar newcomersnsuch as sportsmen and militarynmen, artists and scientists. To this lengtheningnmanifest Winks would add yet anothernname, the businessman—or at leastna businessman—Frederick Billings. Henshowed an interest in conservationnthroughout his life and devoted his lastnyears to it “almost wholly.” Yet Billingsnwas, as Winks makes clear, a conservationistn”by the light of his day.” Not onlynwas he untroubled by such present-daynquestions of deep ecology as “Do rocksnhave rights?” but he died in 1890, beforenthe controversy over definition that producednthe conservation schism had fullyndeveloped. Hence, without much sensenof inner conflict, he could be both preservationistn”nature-lover” and utilitariann”wise-user.” He worked for the preservationnof the natural wonders of bsemite,nserved on the Vermont Forestry Commission,nand demonstrated reforestation,nscientific management, and sustainednyield on his Woodstock estate. et like hisnmentor Marsh, Billings was in the end annintelligent manipulator of nature. InnWinks’ words, “Love of landscape . . . wasnnot enough…. Nature would need help.”nSt. Benedict, not St. Francis, was thenpatron saint of conservation.nWinks’ biography of Frederick Billingsnbrings a much-needed reminder to conservatives:npioneer conservationists werennot exclusively early-day, left-wing “radicalnenvironmentalists” pursuing the “hiddennagenda” of destroying private enterprise.nConservation was not, and is not,ninherently “anti-business,” and Billings’nlife provided repeated instances of-whatnWinks calls “the alliance of ‘commercenand conservation.'” Rereading Marshntoward the end of his life, Billings was convincednthat “conservation was the highestnform of efficiency.” It is time for conservativesnto regain the leadership role innthe conservation movement that Billingsnpioneered more than a century ago.nNelson Van Valen is a retired professornof history living in Belen, New Mexico.nThe CulturalnMiddlemannby Thomas FlemingnDaydreams and Nightmares:nReflections of a Harlem Childhoodnby Irving Louis HorowitznJackson: University Press ofnMississippi; 116 pp., $18.95n••nTo start with, the process of Americanizationnbegan at birth. Withinnthe space of one week at the MetropolitannHospital, I started life as a Hebrewnchild, with the name Yitzhak-Isaac. Thisnapparently was too cumbersome fornrecord-keeping purposes, so I was enterednon the birth certificate as Isadore.nBut my sister, or at least so she told me,nthought that name was far too Europeanizednfor a Harlem baby, so I becamenIrving by the seventh day. Louis is an affectationnof my late teens—there hadnto be some way to distinguish myself fromnall the other Irvings who lived in thenBronx and Brooklyn.”nSo begins Irving Horowitz’s remarkablenmemoir of growing up Jewish in Harlem.nReaders be warned. This is no Neil Simonntale of adoring parents and precociousnkids. The Horowitzes were not anhappy family. The socialist father, who desertednthe Czar’s army but nourishedndreams of a Soviet Yiddish state, displayednno affection toward his family.nWithout the skills to succeed in the garmentntrade, he set up a key and locknshop in Harlem on the sound theory thatnsuch a business would do well in a highcrimenarea. The author gives us the impressionnthat when his parents were notnquarreling with each other or beatingnthe children, they were staying one stepnahead of their black neighbors. DuringnChristmas season the family workednthe bulb scam: unsuspecting black cus­nnntomers would bring in their bulbs forna test that usually revealed the lights .tonbe defective. “When the same bulbsnwere retested after the customer left,nthey almost always were found to be perfect.n. . . My father placed them intoninventory and resold them as new.”nBut if the Horowitzes picked up a fewndollars with such tricks, the whole ofnHariem, black and white, was devoted tonthe hustle, and young Irving goes fromnsneaking money from his father’s cashndrawer to manipulating ticket sales at thenPolo Crounds to running numbers andnscalping tickets. What training for a politicalnsociologist!nMore than anything this is the story ofna Jewish boy with a cleft palate making itnthe hard way on the streets of Harlem.nAfter the great Harlem riot in which thenfamily business is sacked, the Horowitzesnmove to pleasanter quarters in anJewish section of Brooklyn. The youngnHorowitz—“a Jew with heavy traces ofna black sharecropper’s accent”—^broughtnHarlem with him to Brooklyn. His newnclassmates regarded him, not withoutnreason, as a bully, and he got into realntrouble with his one attempt to imitatenthe sexual mores of Harlem by attackingna girl whom he had never met. When allnhell broke loose, he “kept wondering whynHariem kids seemed to manage sexual intercoursenwithout incurring the wrathnof parents and other authorities.” Duringnhis period of in-school suspension, henbegins to see life from the principal’snperspective, and it took the tough-mindednteachers of PS 193 only one term tonturn him into a kid who would grow upnto be a major American social theorist andnthe proprietor of a major academic press.nEven more interesting than IrvingnHorowitz’s personal story are his observationsnon the difficult relations betweennblacks and Jews. Like many Jewish kids,nHorowitz was as fond of the blacks’ musicnas he was terrified of their unrestrainednbehavior. If blacks envied Jewsnfor their particles of economic success innthe I930’s, some Jews had a sneaking admirationnfor black creativity. However,n”the majority of Jews, for their part, sawnthis flirtation with black culture asnnothing short of a desecration of Jewishnlife—an early warning signal that sexualitynwould displace marriage and undilutednindividual expression would destroynfamily solidarity.”nBut for all the ambiguities of the relationship,nsuggests Horowitz, it was anblack-Jewish partnership that to a greatnJUNE 1992/37n