Creator
John Muir
Recipient
[Charles Sprague] Sargent
Transcription
Martinez, Jan. 3. 1898
My dear Sargent.
I thank you for your kind wishes for the New Year & send you my best in return, congratulating you on the recovery of your daughter the healing of your broken ankle & on our good reviving Alaska trip. Of course I'm sorry to hear the doom of good park-loving - flower-loving forest-loving Forest & Garden, but we must just turn our love unto other channels. I am now pegging away on a description of the Yellowstone Park poking in as I can praise of the military management as compared with political. Next I will take up the Yosemite Park & then the Sequoia this will make fine forest articles for the Atlantic which Houghton Mifflin is to
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bring out as a book. The whole leafy thing being due to you.
After Johnson got home he wrote that the Century Co. would like to bring out these forest articles in book form & when I replied that Houghton Mifflin had the promise of them & also of an Alaska book he wrote a six page letter of lamentation. - enough to make a fellow conceited. I told him I did not write enough to make a fuss about.
What are we to do about forest matters? The sky looks mighty black & blue and I have no plan system or trick to save them. You must know far better then me what is best to be done I mean simply to go on hammering & thumping as best I can at public opinion hoping & praying in the meantime that we may get soon a president, Sec of the Interior & Land Agent that love trees & will try
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to save them.
Here is something from Pinchot which, had it comes from a deeper fountain would have lighted the gloom. He says in a letter to me dated Dec. 15, "Except for certain administrative clouds which darken the horizon, the general prospect for the forests seems never to have been so bright as now. I am not only confident of maintaining the present reserves, but full of hope that we shall be able, not only to protect them in the near future, but to increase their area to a notable extent." "Two alternatives" he says "present themselves for the treatment of the reserved public timber lands. One is to reserve all such lands at one blow by refusing to allow any forest lands of the U.S. to be disposed of hereafter. This course would probably require Congressional action, & it is by no means certain that such action could be obtained. The other course is to
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secure the reservation of considerable bodies not now reserved, so as to include, as far as possible, all mountain ranges & any other considerable bodies of government timber land which may exist..... I shall recommend the general withdrawal of all lands as the best plan, but if it is out of reach, I wish to be in a position to describe accurately such large bodies of government forests, that with good will on the part of the President, we could secure essentially the same result. Of course, we can be said to have secured nothing so far except the chance to fight, but even that is a great thing". Draw what comfort you can from this. For my part I find nothing at all in it that is dependable. He says further, "I learned yesterday (Dec 14) that my direct connection with the Interior Department may terminate with this year". Draw what comfort you can from this. To me it seems all fog & mush. When shall we meet again? What do you say to a trip through the interior of Alaska next summer, we'll see Mugin & Patton, & [pecan?] [celba?] by the the time your glorious Silva is done I will be ready for most anything sylvan.
Ever yours
John Muir
Location
Martinez [Calif.]
Date Original
1898 Jan 3
Source
Original letter dimensions unknown.
Recommended Citation
Muir, John, "Letter from John Muir to [Charles Sprague] Sargent, 1898 Jan 3." (1898). John Muir Correspondence (PDFs). 2053.
https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/muir-correspondence/2053
Resource Identifier
muir10_0019-let.tif
File Identifier
Reel 10, Image 0019
Collection Identifier
Online finding aid for the microform version of the John Muir Correspondence http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt0w1031nc
Copyright Status
Copyrighted
Copyright Statement
The unpublished works of John Muir are copyrighted by the Muir-Hanna Trust. To purchase copies of images and/or obtain permission to publish or exhibit them, see http://www.pacific.edu/Library/Find/Holt-Atherton-Special-Collections/Fees-and-Forms-.html )
Owning Institution
Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University Archives, Boston, Massachusetts. Please contact this institution directly to obtain copies of the images or permission to publish or use them beyond educational purposes.
Copyright Holder
Muir-Hanna Trust
Copyright Date
1984
Pages
4 pages
Keywords
Environmentalist, naturalist, travel, conservation, national parks, John Muir, Yosemite, California, history, correspondence, letters
