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Show 515. because that would involve confronting the more powerful anti-monopoly progressives who stood behind Roosevelt. Thus the lesson of the recession might not have been very cheering to Muir, despite his e n t h u s i a s t i c and forward looking comment to Johnson: "Now, ho! for righteous management." In fact, the b a t t l e had taken a serious personal t o l l, as he wrote to Johnson in the same l e t t e r: I am now an experienced lobbyist; my p o l i t i c al education i s complete. Have attended Legislature, made speeches, explained, exhorted, persuaded every mother's son of l e g i s l a t o r s , newspapers reporters, and everybody else who would l i s t e n to me. And now that the fight is finished and my education as a p o l i t i c i a n and lobbyist is finished, I am almost finished myself. In i t s proper perspective, the fight for the recession of Yosemite Valley pales into a small skirmish in a much larger war. By 1905, San Francisco had made i t s f i r s t moves to gain the Hetch Hetchy as a r e s e r v o i r , and Los Angeles was well on its way to gaining the watershed of the Owens Valley for i ts own use. wild and r u r a l California were already hearing the death knell; California was well on i t s way to pursuing a policy of s a c r i f i c i n g a l l for the growth of i t s large urban centers. On a national l e v e l , the p i c t u r e was even bleaker. As Samuel Hays documents t h i s h i s t o r y , by 1903, the very year of Roosevelt's v i s i t to Yosemite with Muir, the Roosevelt Administration was r e a l i z i n g i t s objective of "efficient maximum |
