Amateur Management of the Yosemite Scenery.
THE articles by Mr. John Muir in the present and preceding numbers of THE CENTURY on the Yosemite Valley and the proposed National Park will have failed of their natural effect if, in addition to exciting the wonder of the reader at the unique beauty of waterfall and cliff effectively portrayed in Mr. Muir’s picturesque descriptions, they do not also stimulate the pride of Californians to an active interest in the better discharge of the trust assumed by the State in its acceptance of the Yosemite grant.
Mr. Muir shows abundantly bow desirable it is to reserve for public use, under national supervision, contiguous lands, only less rich in natural wonders than the Yosemite. The reservation is not only desirable for its intrinsic value, but also because incidentally it will attract attention to the valley itself, and especially to the dangers to which it is exposed from the lack of skill and knowledge in the commission which should be its most intelligent guardian. On this point Mr. Muir, who in California is recognized as the best authority on matters relating to the Sierra, adds his testimony to that of many other unprejudiced observers and lovers of the valley. He says:
One might multiply testimony as to the injury already done to the floor of the valley were not the later boards’ lack of respect for the plainest principles of the treatment of landscape already notorious in California through testimony before an investigating committee of the California legislature—testimony abundantly supported by photographs of the injury done.
These later sins of commission might long ago have been avoided were it not for the sins of omission of earlier boards. Mr. Frederick Law Olmsted, the distinguished landscape forester, and a member of the first Yosemite Commission, was once officially invited to suggest a plan for making the valley available to the public. Mr. Olmsted’s suggestions contemplated as little alteration to the natural growth as would be consistent with a public use which would not impair the sentiment of wildness and grandeur characteristic of the valley. His suggestions, however, though formally presented, were not only not adopted, but were never even printed in full. Had these been followed, visitors to the Yosemite in the past few years would not annually have seen the spectacle of the most phenomenal of the national pleasure grounds ignorantly hewed and hacked, sordidly plowed and fenced, and otherwise treated on principles of forestry which would disgrace a picnic ground.
Following Mr. Olmsted, another distinguished member of the first board, Prof. J. D. Whitney of Harvard University, for several years State Geologist of California, made further efforts to place the valley under systematic and proper supervision. Of his success Professor Whitney has lately written:
A member of the present commission made very clear the issue between the friends and the enemies of reform when he said that he would rather have the advice of a Yosemite road-maker in the improvement of the valley than that of Mr. Frederick Law Olmsted. Since the Yosemite is unique among pleasure grounds, it is at one time assumed by this commissioner that Mr. Olmsted would make the valley a marvel of potted plants, and at another time that his love of wildness would lead him to import decayed and picturesque tree trunks; the fact being that no member of the commission has shown any conception of the principles upon which the modern treatment of nature in making it available to man is professionally carried on. The protest of the friends of reform is clear enough, and is not capable of being mistaken. It is simply that the Yosemite Valley is too great a work of nature to be marred by the intrusion of farming operations or of artificial effects.
Judging from the published reports of the meeting of the Yosemite Commission in the valley in June of the present year, steps are now being taken to put into operation a scheme to uproot and destroy the undergrowth, brush, and trees of the last forty years—a policy which Mr. Olmsted has declared would result, if carried out, in “a calamity to the civilized world.” It is difficult to believe the commission sincere in the exaggerated fear of a conflagration in Yosemite, which is given as the reason for this policy; for, as the reader will see by reference to the illustrations of Mr. Muir’s article in THE CENTURY for August, there has been permitted a pernicious system of trimming up the young conifers to so considerable a height as to destroy the beauty of the trees, while the dry brush and the lopped limbs have been left lying upon the ground, where the writer of this article saw them in June, 1889. Assuming the danger from fire to be an actual one, it would seem to be better to spend one’s energies in preventing the beginning of a conflagration than to destroy the beauty of the valley by cutting out what at most would be but a small part of the combustible material. But even if it were necessary to make extensive alterations by means of the ax, does this lessen to any degree the necessity for expert knowledge in the operation? Members of the commission have publicly discussed the matter as though the question to be considered were the stoutness of the axman, and not the effect of his work to the eye. After this, the qualifications of the “experienced foresters” whom they expect to consult in their avowed policy of slaughtering the young growth in the valley may easily be imagined; they are certainly not such as will commend themselves to the respect and confidence of the public.
So far THE CENTURY has confined its protest against Yosemite management in this matter solely to the lack of expert supervision of the scenery. As to the causes which lie behind, and have for years preceded, the lamentable condition of affairs in the valley, Californians have every reason to be intelligent. It is devoutly to be hoped for the good name of the State that it will not be necessary to transfer to the halls of Congress the scandals of California’s capitol. If this shall not be necessary, it will probably be due to the fact that the next legislature of the State will be awakened to a sense of its responsibility in the matter. Meanwhile it is easy to see that the fire which endangers the Yosemite is not so much the unextinguished embers of the wandering camper ns the all-consuming flame of politics, which nowhere burns with a fiercer or more withering heat than in the noble State of California.
WHY are American cities so generally misgoverned, and what is the remedy? These are questions which have been discussed almost constantly for many years, and the discussion has produced many plans for reform, some of which have been tried, but none of which has resulted in the establishment of anything more than a temporary and limited improvement. One set of reformers has maintained that the only way by which approximately good government could be secured was by the concentration of power in the hands of one executive, or at most of an executive and a few heads of departments. Another set has maintained that such concentration would lead surely to an aggravation of all our worst evils, and that the only road to reform lay in division of responsibility and power among the executive and legislative and administrative branches. Others have maintained that local rule was bad under any conditions, and that the only way by which honest government could be secured was for the State to take virtual control and rule the city through its legislature. Still others have advocated some system of minority representation as the only infallible panacea for all municipal ills.
Of course the primary end of every reform system is the getting of fit men into the offices, and the fundamental reason for the common failure of the systems which have been tried is that they have one and all failed in accomplishing this purpose. Occasionally one of them has succeeded in doing it at one election, but the gain has been only temporary. The question naturally arises, Is there any system to be discovered which will infallibly put the right men in office and keep the unfit men out? If not, is it not time that we looked for relief in other directions?
We are sure that many of our readers remember the valuable article by Mr. Albert Shaw upon the government of the city of Glasgow which we published in the March CENTURY. He gave us in that a picture of a model city government, and also the reasons why it was so. Its town council, which rules it, is composed of members, be said, who “come chiefly from the ranks of men of business, and are upright, respected, and successful citizens”; they serve without salary; the office is deemed an honor; “party lines are seldom very sharply drawn in municipal elections. An efficient councilor may, in general, expect reelection for several terms”; and “the seat of a satisfactory man who asks reelection is in a majority of cases not contested at all.” All the great departments in the Glasgow administration, that of public buildings, that of health, that of street cleaning, that of law, are occupied for life by men who are among the highest authorities on their several subjects that are to be found in the British Empire. A government thus constituted gives the city precisely the kind of administration which the same men would furnish were they placed at the head of a great private enterprise, and the result is a well-paved, clean, orderly, handsomely built city, with the rights of every citizen protected at every point, economical to live in, with cheap gas and water, low rents, and no breath of scandal throughout all its departments. Is it the system which does this for Glasgow, or the men who administer the system? Would Glasgow under the same system have a model government were its offices to be filled with such men as we put in charge of our American cities? Again, if the Glasgow system were to be adopted in any great American city, would it of itself result in the election of the kind of men who hold the offices in Glasgow?
There are other European cities which can give us light on these points. Berlin, Birmingham, and Manchester are as well governed as Glasgow, but none of them has the same system. The first has for the foundation of its administration a great municipal assembly of 126 members, while Birmingham and Manchester have a form of town council similar to that of Glasgow, but not identical. The one peculiarity which all have in common is that they put the best men attainable into office, without regard to their political affiliations. There is not one of them which depends for the success of its system upon the system itself. First of all it looks to the character and fitness of the men who are to administer the system. Does anybody doubt, if this example were followed in America, that we are capable of producing the same results? Are we less honest, less intelligent, less fitted for self-government, than the people of foreign cities are?
It cannot be denied that our unrestricted suffrage makes the problem more difficult here than it is abroad; but the difficulty is not insurmountable, and it is not, as it is often claimed to be, the chief cause of our troubles. We are in the habit of charging all our worst evils to the combined ignorant and corrupt vote, but there is not a city in the land in which that vote is not many thousands less than the combined intelligent and honest vote. The trouble is that the latter vote, misled by party names and party issues which have no bearing upon questions of municipal rule, is about evenly divided in most municipal elections, and is thus deprived of nearly all its influence. When the happy day shall come that the respectable voters of our cities join hands and say that henceforth they will know no politics in the administration of city affairs, and will only ask of a candidate whether or not he is fit and honest, then there will no longer be any danger to apprehend from the combined ignorant and vicious vote. It will make very little difference what kind of a system we have upon which to govern the city when this spirit shall have entered into the election of its officials, but until we can secure that spirit in the elections it will be useless to hope for reform under the most perfect system which the human mind can devise, for an ideal system administered by ignorant and corrupt men cannot produce intelligent and honest government without performing a miracle.
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1 See p. 667 of the present number of this magazine; also “Destructive Tendencies in the Yosemite Valley,” THE CENTURY for January, 1890.
