The prolific William O. Douglas is best known as the longest serving Supreme Court Justice. He was promoted from a leadership role in the new SEC, serving from 1939 through the resignation of Nixon(1975). Though a champion of the poor and an opponent of big business he is perhaps secondly best known as a wilderness conservationist.
In a famous dissenting opinion, 1972's Sierra Club v. Morton, Douglas once argued that trees had every much a bit a right to sue as any corporation. I hiked the area in question as a pre-teen boy scout, the Southern Sierra's Mineral King, within five years of that decision. I don't know the details, but I gather, dissenting opinion not withstanding, the Sierra Club did prevail.
Douglas was a fan of the Sierra Club - in 1961 he wrote a children's biography book entitled 'Muir of the Mountains' - a co-founder of the club. (Muir was from the same generation of conservationists as Teddy Roosevelt.) The book, suitable for pre-teens (give or take, I'm not an educator) chronicles the life of one of California's legendary characters and his dedication to wilderness conservation.
Although Lawyers, as a rule, are not necessarily the most creative of scriblers, the string of reasoning throughout Douglas's endeavors is one worthy of following. And this book is certainly a much better 'cookie' to place on the path of a youngster than those left by Hansel and Gretel.
The book was re-published in 1993 by the Sierra Club. It is currently out of print, but available from Amazon, used.
