Probably nothing that Bob Marshall did could make people pull the hair out their heads more than his coverage of political issues. I decided to take the bull by the horns and just asked him, “Bob, what about you and left wing politics?”
He didn’t flinch. He knew the question was coming.
“I’ve gotten questioned or charged not infrequently, ‘What’s a liberal doing in the outdoors?’” Marshall said. “My answer is, ‘How do you know I’m a liberal?’ A lot of things that I wrote in support of were promulgated by Teddy Roosevelt or signed into law by Richard Nixon.
“The only things in politics that I wrote about were those that concerned environmental protection. The positions that I’ve taken are the same as that are supported by Ducks Unlimited, Trout Unlimited, Pheasants Forever, the Louisiana Wildlife Federation, B.A.S.S., the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership and many others.
“If that makes me a liberal, the people that belong to these organizations are also liberal. I think that it is important to mention the party when votes on conservation issues are along strict party lines.
That’s good reporting, he said.
“I wish that I would never have to write about politics, but that was part of the job. It was part of the beat.”
Later in the day, after Mendoza had mellowed him with some fish, Marshall looked at me, a twinkle in his eye visible through his glasses and made a surprising confession.
“You know, I’m not a registered Democrat,” Marshall said.
“Aw,” I replied, “You’re one of those wishy-washy independents.”
“No, I’m not, he said. “My party begins with an ‘R’.”
