In a communication that has been given to the public from the Governor of California to the Senators and Representatives in Congress of that State, I am surprised to find my name introduced in a manner that compels me to make the following statement.

In the year 1864, being then a citizen of California, I had the honor to be made chairman of the first Yosemite Commission, and in that capacity to take possession of the Valley for the State, to organize and direct the survey of it and to be the executive of various measures taken to guard the elements of its scenery from fires, trespassers and abuse. In the performance of these duties, I visited the Valley frequently, established a permanent camp in it and virtually acted as its superintendent. It was then to be reached from the nearest village only by a sixty mile journey in the saddle, and there were many more Indians in it than white men. The office had come to me unexpectedly and in a manner that earned my devotion. So far from a salary coming with it, it was an affair of considerable cost to me, which I have not asked to be reimbursed. Moving out of the State in the autumn of 1867, I presented my resignation of the office, which was accepted by the Governor with expressions of regret and gratitude.

I have not been in the Valley since; but because of some knowledge of this pioneer duty of mine, travelers returning from it have often told me of what they thought missteps in its administration. I have never expressed an opinion on the subject. These travelers have also now and then urged that some proceeding should be taken to expostulate with the State against the manner in which it was [779]believed by them to be abusing its trust. I have always declined to move, or take any part in any movement, for the purpose.

Several years ago, one of the editorial staff of the Century Magazine, Mr. R. U. Johnson, called on me with a letter of introduction. In the conversation that ensued, the subject came up of the danger to treasures of natural scenery that is more and more growing out of modern developments of commerce and modern habits of travel. The thought came to the surface that with reference to this danger, a sentiment needs to be cultivated such as would appear in any crisis threatening a national treasure of art. I do not remember that the Yosemite was referred to, but it followed from the conversation that I wrote a short paper, afterwards published in the Century, upon the duty of towns to guard for their future people eminently valuable passages of scenery near them, and in this paper the Yosemite was mentioned; but not reproachfully to the Commissioners.

Last summer I received a second call from Mr. Johnson. He had just returned from the Yosemite, and his object was to invite me to prepare an article upon it. I declined, giving as one reason for doing so that I could not properly write on the subject without making a prolonged personal examination of the present condition of the Valley and investigating the grounds of the complaints made by travelers as to the management of it. I was then asked if I would undertake to make such an examination and investigation at a suitable professional compensation from the Magazine, taking with me an accomplished artist to prepare illustrations for the desired article. I was loth to decline so liberal a proposition, but concluded that I must in justice to my existing professional engagements.

Mr. Johnson then said that he would be obliged to write it himself, and thereupon mentioned several points upon which he desired my opinion. One was in regard to a proposition which I understood to involve the systematic cutting out of all young trees in the Valley. He asked what I thought of it. A proper system of management for woods valued because of their effect in scenery, must be directed as much to the renewal and perpetuation of the constituent trees as to anything else; a common rule being that for every hundred or thousand trees going off, there shall be a hundred or a thousand more, advancing, to take their place. To provide against accidents, and in order that the replacing trees shall be of choice quality, a much larger number of young trees are kept growing, those not selected to remain because of their choiceness being gradually thinned out. A systematic removal of all the young trees of the Valley would be equivalent to the destruction, in course of time, of just what the State of California stands voluntarily pledged to “hold, inalienably, for all time.” That is to say, the distinctive charm of the scenery of the Yosemite does not depend, as it is a vulgar blunder to suppose, on the greatness of its walls and the length of its little early summer cascades; the height of certain of its trees, the reflections in its pools, and such other matters as can be entered in statistical tables, pointed out by guides and represented within picture frames. So far, perhaps, as can be told in a few words, it lies in the rare association with the grandeur of its rocky elements, of brooks flowing quietly through the ferny and bosky glades of very beautifully disposed [780]great bodies, groups and clusters of trees. In this respect, its charm is greater than that of any other scenery that, with much searching, I have found. There is nothing in the least like it in the canyon of the Colorado, sometimes foolishly compared with the Yosemite. I felt the charm of the Yosemite much more at the end of a week than at the end of a day, much more after six weeks when the cascades were nearly dry, than after one week, and when, after having been in it, off and on, several months, I was going out, I said, “I have not yet half taken it in.” To the perpetuation of this charm nothing is more essential than the constant renewal of its wood. There will always be danger that fire will too much interfere with what is necessary to provide in this respect.

These views having been for years fixed in my mind, to Mr. Johnson’s inquiry I replied, that to carry out such a rule as he said had been advocated, would be “a calamity to the civilized world.” I remember that I said this because he introduced the phrase in what he afterwards wrote, and this has been my sole contribution, hitherto, to the agitation of the subject. It did not occur to me at the time, nor do I think now, that Mr. Johnson was trying to “make a case” against the State. His questions were such as would be asked by any intelligent man of one known to have given many years of serious and business-like study to a subject about which the inquirer was preparing to address the public. To me he only seemed patient and pains-taking, just and loyal in the performance of a not at all pleasing duty. He was apparently seeking to avoid injustice to the Commissioners whom I judged that he regarded as honest and well meaning men. He distinctly agreed with me in discrediting much that had been charged against them. He spoke disrespectfully of no one of them, but showed, I think, that he had an impression that, as a body, they had taken a narrow, short-sighted and market-place view of the duty of the State in the premises.

I have thus shown all that I have had to do with the matter, and all that I know concerning Mr. Johnson’s motives and methods. I believe that the latter were simple, honorable, public spirited and perfectly in character with the distinguished high tone of the Magazine he represents. The Governor has been led to state in an official paper, given to the world, that Mr. Johnson is my nephew, and that all he wanted in this business was to bulldoze the Commissioners into giving me employment, as to the latter of which delusions I may say that I have never been so unfortunate as to need to solicit public employment, or to have any one solicit it for me.

After the above narration, may I not suggest that if the attitude of the State of California toward the trust it accepted in 1864, from the Nation, were what it ought to be, its Governor would hardly have missed the point of the remonstrance of the Century, so completely as his letter indicates that he has.

That remonstrance points to nothing in the methods of the Commissioners that would be objectionable if the concern of the Nation in the matter were of the same kind that it is with the State’s dealings with mineral deposits, irrigation, militia, schools, railroads, or even forests. If the Governor and the Commissioners are in error, their error probably lies not in any intentional [781]disregard of the State’s obligation, but in overlooking the fact that in natural scenery that which is of essential value lies in conditions of a character not to be exactly described and made the subject of specific injunctions in an Act of Congress, and not to be perfectly discriminated without other wisdom than that which is gained in schools and colleges, counting-rooms and banks. Such qualities as are attributed by the Governor to his Commissioners—integrity, general education, business experience and what is comprehensively called good taste—do not, in themselves, qualify men to guard against the waste of such essential value, much less do they fit them to devise with artistic refinement means for reconciling with its preservation, its development and its exhibition, such requirements of convenience for multitudes of travelers as must be provided in the Yosemite. Whether it is the case with these Commissioners or not, there are thousands of such estimable men who have no more sense in this respect than children, and it must be said that those most wanting in it are those least conscious of the want. Men of the qualifications attributed to the Commissioners are the best sort of men for the proper duties of an auditing and controlling board. There could be no better men for the usual business of a board of hospital trustees, for example. But the best board of hospital trustees would commit what the law regards as a crime, if they assumed the duties of physicians and nurses. Ability in a landscape designer is, in some small degree, a native endowment, but much more it is a matter of penetrative study, discipline, training, and the development through practice of a special knack. Even men of unusually happy endowment and education, who have not, also, the results of considerable working experience, can rarely have much forecasting realization of the manner in which charm of scenery is to be affected by such operations as commonly pass under the name of “improvements.”

I should say no more had I not observed in a California publication on the subject an assumption that a professional field-student of that which constitutes the charm of natural scenery would be more inclined than other men to crowd the Yosemite with “artificialities.” Its error may be shown by quoting the advice, given several years ago, by the Landscape Architects employed by the State of New York to outline a plan for the restoration, preservation, development and exhibition, of the scenery of Niagara Falls. The paragraph which follows was the only italicised passage in their report, this distinction meaning that they regarded the principle stated as the corner stone of their work.

“Having regard to the enjoyment of natural scenery, and considering that the means of making this enjoyment available to large numbers will unavoidably lessen the extent and value of the primary elements of natural scenery, nothing of an artificial character should be allowed a place on the property, no matter how valuable it might be under other circumstances, and no matter at how little cost it may be had, the presence of which can be avoided consistently with the provision of necessary conditions for making the enjoyment of the natural scenery available.”