Creator
John Muir
Recipient
[Robert Underwood] Johnson
Transcription
Martinez, Jan 7, 1897
My dear Johnson
Thanks for New Year's best wishes & for news of Sargents sad blows of fortune But Sargent will not down, He will soon be on his firm Mastodonic legs again strong & available as ever. I am trying to get the Sierra club to take plain open ground on the Yosemite question as to the advisability of recognizing it as a natural part of the Yosemite National Park, which it really is & sooner or later must become in fact.
I am also trying to write the confounded syndicate forest letters you & Sargent have blandly loaded me with. Here is a letter from father Yorke a Catholic who has got into controversy with our old bad friend J.P.I. He evidently has at length met his match, Ill trouble you no more with it.
Here too is a funny but telling article on the milatary management of our park
With very best wishes to you & family
I am ever with love
John Muir
Bancroft Library
55
Funny article inclosed on John P. Irish
J Muir
Mr. R.U. Johnson
The Century Magazine
Union Square
New York
[newspaper clipping]Examiner Jan. 5, 1897
THE REV. FATHER YORKE TO JOHN P. IRISH.
Second Answer of the Chancellor to the Charges Made Against Him.
He Says That His Opponent Is Both Officious and Meddlesome.
THINKS THE PUBLIC CAN NOW JUDGE.
A claim That the Naval Officer Has Gone Back on His Word - Mud-Slinging Cannot Divert Attention.
The following communication is from the pen of the Rev. Father P.C. Yorke:
To the Editor of "The Examiner" - Dear Sir:
The last effusion of the Hon. John P. Irish answers itself. He has eschewed argument, confessed forgery, admitted misrepresentation, and now he stands with arms akimbo like a truculent fishwife and brazens it out. With him no decent man can bandy words. The style of his epithets shows that he is suffering from a rush of bowels to the brain.
The public can now judge of the Hon. John P. Irish and of the Hon. John P. Irish's cause. He and his pastor have been pilloried for their fellow-cititzens, but despicable to themselves. Malice, misrepresentation, forgery, false witness and all untruth are the charges which have been made against them and which have been proved to the hilt. No amount of mud-slinging can divert public attention from these facts - not even if the Hon. John P. Irish turned his throat into a suction pump and drained our new Postoffice bog dry.
As to the personality of the Hon. John P. Irish, I have learned of it from this controversy and from his letters. I have learned that he is meddlesome and officious, because he has interfered in matters that did not concern him. I have learned that he is void of truth, because I have caught him red-handed in mendacity. I have learned that he is void of honor, because he has gone back on his word. All these things I have learned, not from his enemies, but from himself. He has painted his own picture by his own hand, and I have done nothing but gibbet up his name.
The Hon. John P. Irish boasts in conclusion that he has never been downed by his enemies. 'Tis true. They who crawl to power can never be downed. Of his prototype was it said, "On thy belly shalt thou go and dirt shalt thou eat all the days of thy life." His enemies have no need to down him. Their triumph consists in his success.
In the sewers into which he has descended leave him. Thither I cannot follow. The familiarity he shows with their construction and contents manifests the fact that he is quite a [nome?]. Yours truly,
P.C.YORKE
Location
Martinez [Calif.]
Date Original
1897 Jan 7
Source
Original letter dimensions unknown.
Recommended Citation
Muir, John, "Letter from John Muir to [Robert Underwood] Johnson, 1897 Jan 7." (1897). John Muir Correspondence (PDFs). 2116.
https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/muir-correspondence/2116
Resource Identifier
muir09_0609-let.tif
File Identifier
Reel 09, Image 0609
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
The Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley. 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
2 pages
Keywords
Environmentalist, naturalist, travel, conservation, national parks, John Muir, Yosemite, California, history, correspondence, letters
