This passage is adapted from John Muir, “Save the Redwoods.” Originally published in 1920 in Sierra Club Bulletin.
We are often told that the world is going from bad to worse,
sacrificing everything to mammon*. But this righteous uprising
in defense of God’s trees in the midst of exciting politics and
wars is telling a different story, and every Sequoia, I fancy, has
heard the good news and is waving its branches for joy. The
wrongs done to trees, wrongs of every sort, are done in the
darkness of ignorance and unbelief, for when light comes the
heart of the people is always right. Forty-seven years ago one
of these Calaveras King Sequoias was laboriously cut down,
that the stump might be had for a dancing-floor. Another, one
of the finest in the grove, more than three hundred feet high,
was skinned alive to a height of one hundred and sixteen feet
from the ground and the bark sent to London to show how fine
and big that Calaveras tree was—as sensible a scheme as
skinning our great men would be to prove their greatness. Now
some millmen want to cut all the Calaveras trees into lumber
and money. But we have found a better use for them. No doubt
these trees would make good lumber after passing through a
sawmill, as George Washington after passing through the hands
of a French cook would have made good food. But both for
Washington and the tree that bears his name higher uses have
been found.
Could one of these Sequoia Kings come to town in all its
godlike majesty so as to be strikingly seen and allowed to plead
its own cause, there would never again be any lack of
defenders. And the same may be said of all the other Sequoia
groves and forests of the Sierra with their companions and the
noble Sequoia sempervirens, or redwood, of the coast
mountains.
In these noble groves and forests to the southward of the
Calaveras Grove the axe and saw have long been busy, and
thousands of the finest Sequoias have been felled, blasted into
manageable dimensions, and sawed into lumber by methods
destructive almost beyond belief, while fires have spread still
wider and more lamentable ruin.
For the thousands of acres of Sequoia forest outside of the
reservation and national parks, and in the hands of lumbermen,
no help is in sight. Probably more than three times as many
Sequoias as are contained in the whole Calaveras Grove have
been cut into lumber every year for the last twenty-six years
without let or hindrance, and with scarce a word of protest on
the part of the public, while at the first whisper of the bonding
of the Calaveras Grove to lumbermen most everybody rose in
alarm. This righteous and lively indignation on the part of
Californians after the long period of deathlike apathy, in which
they have witnessed the destruction of other groves unmoved,
seems strange until the rapid growth that right public opinion
has made during the last few years is considered and the
peculiar interest that attaches to the Calaveras giants. They
were the first discovered and are best known. These kings of
the forest, the noblest of a noble race, rightly belong to the
world, but as they are in California we cannot escape
responsibility as their guardians. Fortunately the American
people are equal to this trust, or any other that may arise, as
soon as they see it and understand it.
Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot defend themselves
or run away. And few destroyers of trees ever plant any; nor
can planting avail much toward restoring our grand aboriginal
giants. It took more than three thousand years to make some of
the oldest of the Sequoias, trees that are still standing in perfect
strength and beauty, waving and singing in the mighty forests
of the Sierra. Through all the eventful centuries since Christ’s
time, and long before that, God has cared for these trees, saved
them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand
storms; but he cannot save them from sawmills and fools; this
is left to the American people.
*Material wealth, often associated with greed
We are often told that the world is going from bad to worse,
sacrificing everything to mammon*. But this righteous uprising
in defense of God’s trees in the midst of exciting politics and
wars is telling a different story, and every Sequoia, I fancy, has
heard the good news and is waving its branches for joy. The
wrongs done to trees, wrongs of every sort, are done in the
darkness of ignorance and unbelief, for when light comes the
heart of the people is always right. Forty-seven years ago one
of these Calaveras King Sequoias was laboriously cut down,
that the stump might be had for a dancing-floor. Another, one
of the finest in the grove, more than three hundred feet high,
was skinned alive to a height of one hundred and sixteen feet
from the ground and the bark sent to London to show how fine
and big that Calaveras tree was—as sensible a scheme as
skinning our great men would be to prove their greatness. Now
some millmen want to cut all the Calaveras trees into lumber
and money. But we have found a better use for them. No doubt
these trees would make good lumber after passing through a
sawmill, as George Washington after passing through the hands
of a French cook would have made good food. But both for
Washington and the tree that bears his name higher uses have
been found.
Could one of these Sequoia Kings come to town in all its
godlike majesty so as to be strikingly seen and allowed to plead
its own cause, there would never again be any lack of
defenders. And the same may be said of all the other Sequoia
groves and forests of the Sierra with their companions and the
noble Sequoia sempervirens, or redwood, of the coast
mountains.
In these noble groves and forests to the southward of the
Calaveras Grove the axe and saw have long been busy, and
thousands of the finest Sequoias have been felled, blasted into
manageable dimensions, and sawed into lumber by methods
destructive almost beyond belief, while fires have spread still
wider and more lamentable ruin.
For the thousands of acres of Sequoia forest outside of the
reservation and national parks, and in the hands of lumbermen,
no help is in sight. Probably more than three times as many
Sequoias as are contained in the whole Calaveras Grove have
been cut into lumber every year for the last twenty-six years
without let or hindrance, and with scarce a word of protest on
the part of the public, while at the first whisper of the bonding
of the Calaveras Grove to lumbermen most everybody rose in
alarm. This righteous and lively indignation on the part of
Californians after the long period of deathlike apathy, in which
they have witnessed the destruction of other groves unmoved,
seems strange until the rapid growth that right public opinion
has made during the last few years is considered and the
peculiar interest that attaches to the Calaveras giants. They
were the first discovered and are best known. These kings of
the forest, the noblest of a noble race, rightly belong to the
world, but as they are in California we cannot escape
responsibility as their guardians. Fortunately the American
people are equal to this trust, or any other that may arise, as
soon as they see it and understand it.
Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot defend themselves
or run away. And few destroyers of trees ever plant any; nor
can planting avail much toward restoring our grand aboriginal
giants. It took more than three thousand years to make some of
the oldest of the Sequoias, trees that are still standing in perfect
strength and beauty, waving and singing in the mighty forests
of the Sierra. Through all the eventful centuries since Christ’s
time, and long before that, God has cared for these trees, saved
them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand
storms; but he cannot save them from sawmills and fools; this
is left to the American people.
*Material wealth, often associated with greed