OCR Text |
Show 471. political coalition of people with diverse philosophical positions. It is a serious mistake to assume that Muir had the same reasons as his allies for his political actions in the nineties and later. When he attempted to spearhead a broad based coalition of groups, he necessarily began to articulate views which he hoped would appeal to these groups. He was no longer an introspective young man, but neither did he want to compromise himself while playing the public role in which Robert Underwood Johnson had cast him. Really, it was easy to become a practical man and a faithful citizen. It always has been easy. Muir could do that as well as the next man. He could buy himself a three-piece suit and go to Washington. It would have been easier, though, if he had a little less moral integrity. Finally, when men like William Kent tried to discredit him, then he must have felt the tragedy of his circumstance, but he knew enough about politics by then not to worry about such bothersome though trivial distractions. His allies were not to be mistaken for soul mates. William Kent was a perfect example. The man who donated the Muir Woods, "the best tree lover's monument that could be found in all the forests of the world," could decide three years later after becoming a Congressman that "real conservation meant proper use and not locking up of natural resources." By 1913 Kent was attacking Muir for lacking the social instincts of an average man, for being "entirely without social sense." Yet Kent was a preservationist too, as his career demonstrated. |