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Show 421, in his footsteps, could use and appreciate this part of the Park. The inclusion of Hetch Hetchy indicated an ideological duality, since the division of the Park into two halves was part of his idea of a National Park. The tame Yosemite for the tame tourist, and the wild canyons of the Tuolumne for the wild people like himself: he saw the necessity for conceding the front country, and even allowing it to be improved by landscape architects and road builders, if only Congress would include the wild half of the Park and protect it unimpaired for future wilderness. Meanwhile, Johnson pushed for an article "not sentimental but descriptive." The Park was already being considered in committee in Congress. So Muir could not be visionary in his second effort, "Features of the Proposed Yosemite National Park." He would have to defend the specific boundaries of the two hundred and fifty square mile reservation he had proposed, and in addition justify his concept of a National Park which would be mostly wilderness. He would try to make preserving the drainage of the Tuolumne seem like good business. This entailed two arguments, first that tourists could enjoy the wild parts of the Park, and second that America could and should afford more than one Yosemite Valley. Thus the first half of the essay was largely devoted to a tour guide of the northern drainage, beginning at its center, Big Tuolumne Meadows, "the wildest, smoothest, most serenely spacious, and in every way most delightful summer pleasure Park in all the Sierra." One must remember that this was the |