"If you've seen one redwood, you've seen them all"

[punctuation]

Did Ronald Reagan really say "If you've seen one redwood, you've seen
them all?"

Yes, there are thousands of google hits on him saying that. One even
says he said it in a March 1987 speech. The only problem is that all I
ever find about the quote is heeheehee, how funny, Reagan said it. I
never find an actual context for the statement.

Searches of the archives at the Washington Post and New York Times, both
of which would have reported it, turn up nothing useful (the archives
search doesn't let you read the article for free, but by seeing the
headline, I can usually do more research on the web and find what I'm
looking for). The earliest reference to the quote I can fine is a 1967
Jack Anderson column about a Reagan press conference.

Anyway, if someone can either find a specific news article - dates,
context, etc. - of Reagan saying that quote, I'd appreciate it. Or a
refutation of him saying it. Nothing about it is on Snopes.

[M. J. Freeman]

Post by punctuation
Did Ronald Reagan really say "If you've seen one redwood, you've
seen them all?"

[...]

Post by punctuation
Anyway, if someone can either find a specific news article -
dates, context, etc. - of Reagan saying that quote, I'd appreciate
it. Or a refutation of him saying it. Nothing about it is on
Snopes.

(Why am I doing your homework for you?)

You can search through Reagan's speeches at:
http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/resource/speeches/rrpubpap.asp

There's nothing there on the redwood thing, but it's pretty cool that
you can, so I thought I would reference it.

It would appear that what RR was actually reported as saying was:
"A tree’s a tree. How many more do you need to look at?"
He later denied saying it.
(http://www.bartleby.com/66/99/46099.html)

For a little context for the statement, I quote
<http://nyc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/95486/index.php>:

"In 1966, while opposing the expansion of Redwood National Park, he
[RR] said, 'A tree's a tree. How many more do you need to look at?'"


I think you can pretty easily see the "Redwood National Park" and the
actually reported quote co-habitating and producing the quote in
question.

[Marc Reeve]

Post by M. J. Freeman

Post by punctuation
Did Ronald Reagan really say "If you've seen one redwood, you've
seen them all?"

[...]

Post by punctuation
Anyway, if someone can either find a specific news article -
dates, context, etc. - of Reagan saying that quote, I'd appreciate
it. Or a refutation of him saying it. Nothing about it is on
Snopes.

(Why am I doing your homework for you?)
http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/resource/speeches/rrpubpap.asp
There's nothing there on the redwood thing, but it's pretty cool that
you can, so I thought I would reference it.
"A tree’s a tree. How many more do you need to look at?"
He later denied saying it.
(http://www.bartleby.com/66/99/46099.html)
For a little context for the statement, I quote
"In 1966, while opposing the expansion of Redwood National Park, he
[RR] said, 'A tree's a tree. How many more do you need to look at?'"

The quote, as above, is referenced in Curt Gentry's "The Last Days of the Late,
Great State of California." (A very entertaining book, by the way.)

Of course, there are also any number of ULs propagated in those pages, so make
of it what you will.

Marc "apparently not actually born in that book's universe" Reeve

[Dan Fingerman]

M. J. Freeman wrote at Mon 13 Dec 2004 12:14:08, in

Post by M. J. Freeman

Post by punctuation
Did Ronald Reagan really say "If you've seen one redwood, you've
seen them all?"

[...]

Post by punctuation
Anyway, if someone can either find a specific news article -
dates, context, etc. - of Reagan saying that quote, I'd
appreciate it. Or a refutation of him saying it. Nothing about
it is on Snopes.

The nearest thing I could find to a contemporary news report in
LexisNexis was an abstract of a larger article printed decade after
the supposed event. (Last I checked, most LexisNexis news databases
contain full text as far back as 1980.)

New York Times Abstracts, 4 January 1975, Page 9, Column 3:

Calif Gov Ronald Reagan holds farewell news conf
at which he insists that press misconstrued some
of most controversial things attributed to him
during 8-yr tenure. Asserts he never said 'a tree
is a tree, and once you've seen one you've seen
them all'. Some researchers and conservation
authorities agree that Reagan did not make
statement. Reagan also seeks to clarify once again
his assertion at '70 campaign appearance in Yosemite
that if it took 'bloodbath' to halt campus violence,
'let's get it over with'. Concedes that term
'bloodbath' probably was poor choice of words but
insists that he had never suggested that students
'were going to have to undergo a bloodbath' (M).

Post by M. J. Freeman
"A tree’s a tree. How many more do you need to look at?"
He later denied saying it.
(http://www.bartleby.com/66/99/46099.html)

Yeah, but this page reports a quote reported in a newspaper six months
after the supposed speech:

Ronald Reagan (b. 1911), U.S. Republican politician,
president. speech, Sept. 12, 1965. Quoted in
Sacramento Bee (California, Mar. 12, 1966).

A recording of the speech or a contemporaneous news report would be
more reliable.