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Show 473. those who wanted to profit from the forests: "Gold stings worse than the wasps of the woods, and gives rise to far more unreasonable and unexplainable behavior," he said. Lawyers and lumbermen - Muir called them patriotic thieves - were complaining, "for the good of the nation, for the sake of the dear people, and to clear a path for prosperity and progress, these trees must come down. . . . " As he had never done before, Muir took great glee in satirizing the rhetoric of his western enemies, while appealing to a silent majority, "probably more than ninety percent," who were in favor of Reservations. "All of our precious mountains," they screamed, "with their stores of timber and grass, silver and gold, fertile valleys and streams - all the natural resources of our great growing States are set aside from use, smothered up in mere pleasure-grounds for wild beasts and a set of sick, rich, dawdling sentimentalists. For this purpose business is blocked and every current of industry dammed. Will our people stand for this? No-o-o-o!" Which in plain English means, "Let us steal and destroy in peace." As such language attested, Muir saw the arguments of "States' rights," "progress," and "good business" as the window dressings of greed. His argument, buttressed with many illustrations, brooked almost no compromise with use. Wise use might come later, but he saw the work of the Commission as precisely what its vocal opposition said it was, a locking up |