filed for Sunday Times, 17 May 1998
The strange sound you may hear, if you listen carefully, is one of Scotland's greatest environmentalists turning in his grave. The name of John Muir, the Dunbar-born father of conservation in America, is being taken in vain for a cause his devotees say he would have despised - selling insurance.
The State Farm Insurance Company, the largest seller of car and property insurance in the US, has launched a multi-million pound advertising campaign featuring Muir as a "life hero". Glossy two-page spreads are appearing in American magazines in which Muir, a passionate enemy of profiteering capitalism, appears to endorse the company's life insurance policies.
Such a nakedly commercial use of the great man, revered as a cult figure across the Atlantic and staidly commemorated in the country of his birth, has infuriated his disciples here and abroad. State Farm, they say, should be boycotted, forced to withdraw the adverts and shamed into donating money to an environmental cause.
"John Muir would turn in his grave to know that his name has been prostituted for the job of earning cash for a car insurance company," said Graham White, a leading expert on John Muir and editor of his books. "He would have utterly despaired at the global impact of concrete sprawl, of 100 million road deaths and the air pollution than now chokes the world's cities."
John Muir, born in the East Lothian coastal town of Dunbar in 1838, was taken by his parents to America when he was 11 years old. Towards the end of the last century he campaigned for America's wild mountain areas and was instrumental in establishing the US system of national parks protecting Yosemite, Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon.
Described by US President Theodore Roosevelt as a "dauntless soul", Muir was voted the "Most Important Californian" ahead of William Randolph Hearst, Walt Disney and Ronald Reagan in 1987. He also founded one of America's most powerful conservation groups, the Sierra Club, which said he would be "embarrassed" by State Farm's adverts.
From its headquarters in Bloomington, Illinois, State Farm runs 66.3 million insurance policies and insures one in every five cars in the US. Founded in 1922 by farmer-turned-insurance-salesman, George Mecherle, it now describes itself as "one of the world's largest financial institutions". In the advert it compares John Muir's visionary views on the environment with the company's life insurance plans. "State Farm understands life," it claims.
In retaliation, Dave Morris, the Scottish Officer of the Ramblers' Association, called on people to insure their cars with more environmentally friendly organisations. "Companies that profit from gas-guzzling American motor cars and then embark on weird marketing campaigns involving dead heroes of the conservation movement are to be treated with great caution," he said.
Nigel Hawkins, the director of the John Muir Trust which aims to protect wild lands in Scotland, deplored State Farm's campaign as "ludicrous" and "absolutely inappropriate". He urged the company to withdraw its adverts and to make a serious investment in aid of the environment in return for trading on Muir's reputation.
The John Muir Birthplace Trust, Hawkins pointed out, had just launched a 250,000-pound appeal to to buy and renovate the house on Dunbar High Street where Muir was born. The money has to be raised within the next six months. "Perhaps this company might like to make a donation," he suggested.
That is a suggestion that is backed by John Muir's great grandson, Bill Hanna (52), who who runs an award-winning vineyard in California's famous Napa valley. Although he gave permission for State Farm to use pictures of Muir, he feels a little uncomfortable about the creeping commercialisation of his great grandfather's name. "We've had requests from people trying to sell everything from cars to herbal teas," he said. "We generally don't approve them."
State Farm, however, strongly defended its adverts as tasteful tributes to a true hero. "John Muir was chosen because he was a common man who made a remarkable contribution to the American way of life," said the company's advertising executive, Mark Gibson.
State Farm even claim there is a link between Muir's past work and today's sometimes sordid business of selling insurance. Modern-day Americans like Muir, ventured Gibson, "can also become great visionaries and perform heroic acts by signing up for a State Farm life insurance package."
Naturally John Muir himself, who died in Los Angeles in 1914, is silent about such things. But his writing does make clear his exasperation with those who tried to make money out of the environment.
"These temple destroyers, devotees of ravaging commercialism seem to have a perfect contempt for nature, and, instead of lifting their eyes to the God of the mountains, lift them to the almighty dollar," he wrote. "Everything, without exception, even to souls and geography, would be sold for money, could a market be found for such articles."
