| OCR Text |
Show 503. the history of t h i s p e r i o d , and i s s t i l l generally viewed as a spokesman for a p a r t i c u l a r s p e c i a l - i n t e r e s t group. People have come to the f a l s e n o t i o n t h a t the S i e r r a Club represented his true i d e a l s and p o l i t i c s , when in fact Muir was far more radical in h i s outlook than the Club was able to be. So i t is necessary to deal with the p o l i t i c a l a l l i a n c e s Muir a c t u a l ly made during the p e r i o d 1890-1905, and see the s t y l e and intention of h i s own p o l i t i c s , before one can assess the importance of the b a t t l e s over Yosemite and Hetch Hetchy which represented the a p p l i e d a s p e c t of h i s views. MUIR'S CHOSEN ROLE AND STYLE The l u r e of Washington, and of the East, was great in post Civil War America. After the war, San Francisco was emptied of the b r i g h t e s t members of i t s l i t e r a r y renaissance. Even in the s e v e n t i e s , Muir's c l o s e friend John Swett advised Henry George t o go t o New York i f he wanted to get a hearing f°r Progress and P o v e r t y . Washington was becoming the central power which, for the f i r s t time, would support serious scientific e x p l o r e r s . Men l i k e John Wesley Powell linked t h e ir careers i r r e v o c a b l y to the government. Yet Muir r e s i s t ed the lure of e a s t e r n academia and of government s e r v i c e . In 1895, he reviewed for Robert Underwood Johnson the h i s t o ry °f the academic E a s t ' s s e d u c t i v e arguments, and remembered that in the s e v e n t i e s he "never for a moment thought of leaving ^ d ' s big show for a mere prof s h i p , c a l l who may-" For the |
