Creator
John Muir
Recipient
[Robert Underwood] Johnson
Transcription
Martinez, Cal. Feb. 24/05.
Dear Mr. Johnson:--
I wish I could have seen you last night when you received my news of the Yosemite victory. which for so many years as commanding General you have bravely and incessantly fought for.
About two years ago public opinion which had long been on our side began 2 to rise in effective action. On the way to Yosemite both the President and our Governor were won to our side, and since then the movement was like Yosemite avalanches. But though most everybody was with us, so active was the opposition of those pecuniarily and politically interested, we might have failed to get the bill through the Senate but for the help of Mr. H., though of course his name or his company were never in sight through all the fight. About the beginning of January I wrote to Mr. H. that Yosemite Valley had been grossly mismanaged, that as it was naturaly a part of the surrounding Yosemite National Park the two should be under one management, that a bill for the recession of the Valley was about to be introduced in the State Legislature, that I thought the bill should pass, and if he was like-minded and could help us in securing its passage I wished he would. He promptly telegraphed a favorable reply.
I wished you could have heard the oratory of the opposition. Fluffy, nebulus, shrieking, howling, threatening like sand storms and dust whirlwinds in the desert. Sometime I hope to tell you all about it.
I am now an experienced lobbist my political education is complete; have attended legislature making speeches, explaining, exhorting praying, prsuading
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every mother's son of the legislators, newspapers reporters and everybody else that would listen to me. And now that the fight is finished and my education as a politican and lobbyist is finished I am almost finished myself.
Now ho for righteous management! Do you know any available landscape artist to treat the wasted valley floor? This should be the first care of the new management.
Can't you come out the spring? So little can be said in letters. Of course you'll have a long editorial in the "Century".
Faithfully yours,
[John Muir]
1 Robert Underwood Johnson holograph note: The passage by the California legislature of the bill for the retrocession of the Yosemite Valley to the U.S. to be merged in the National Park which surrounded it.
2 Robert Underwood Johnson holograph note: Roosevelt
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Location
Martinez [Calif.]
Circa Date
[19]05 Feb 24
Source
Original letter dimensions unknown.
Recommended Citation
Muir, John, "Letter from John Muir to [Robert Underwood] Johnson, [19]05 Feb 24." (1905). John Muir Correspondence (PDFs). 3263.
https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/muir-correspondence/3263
Resource Identifier
muir15_0238-trans.tif
File Identifier
Reel 15, Image 0238
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
Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin. 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
