EVER HEARD OF MADISON GRANT? Probably not, as he is one of the forgotten Progressive Republican leaders of the post-Civil War period in the U.S. who helped advance multiple causes, including Eugenics, “Nordic” racial purity and what is today known as “going Green” environmentalism.

Yes, environmentalism. Capital Research Center’s (CRC) Hayden Ludwig explains in an important review of a book you won’t find on the New York Times best-seller list:

“Grant, for instance, was one of the pioneers of the modern environmental movement. He loved nature and sought to use federal law to preserve America’s natural beauty and wildlife — the genesis of the national parks and many of the zoos we enjoy today. Grant practically saved the bison with help from his close friend Theodore Roosevelt. He also helped preserve Northern California’s endangered redwood trees. One tree, the ‘Madison Grant Tree,’ was even dedicated to this fierce conservationist. The tree was removed in 2021.

“But he also wanted to use government force to preserve ‘Nordic’ racial supremacy in America. Grant led the campaign to exterminate sickly infants, forcibly sterilize the ‘unfit,’ enact race-based immigration laws, and deport black Americans to Africa. As with many of his contemporaries, Grant was convinced that conservation and eugenics—the Darwinist pseudoscience of ‘beautifying’ the human race through selective breeding— ‘were two sides of the same coin.’ Saving the ‘master race’ from extinction was merely an extension of saving plants and animals.”

In other words, Madison Grant would be a far-left progressive Democrat in today’s political debates.