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420 Further, he was in danger of becoming, not the publicizer of Parks, but the product being sold. Even while the strategy seemed to be working in Congress, it carried a price to be paid in the future. THE BOUNDARIES AND CONTENTS OF PARKS: "FEATURES" In principle, Muir thought the whole Sierra should be preserved, preferably as a National Park. But in practice, he and Johnson were proposing a large rectangle which included the watersheds of Yosemite Valley and Hetch Hetchy, as well as the headwaters of the San Joaquin, including Mount Ritter. A year later, he would propose the same basic plan for a Park to include the Middle and South Forks of the Kings River, as well as the Kaweah and Tule River watersheds. In the seventies, Muir had tried to justify preserving watersheds in terms of the agricultural benefits which would accrue to the Central Valley. Now, however, he was going to argue from the position that the mountains themselves were worth preserving. In the Yosemite proposal, the most obvious issue was the inclusion of an entire wild and trailless area which took in Tuolumne Meadows and Hetch Hetchy. Thus he would have to advertise the recreational possibilities of the entire northern half of the Park. It was crucial that his article persuade the public, and perhaps even more important, persuade Congress, that northern Yosemite was an available new recreation area - that the public could follow |
