Antedating of "tree hugger" (1965)

[Jesse Sheidlower]

On Fri, Apr 23, 2004 at 09:47:31PM -0400, Sam Clements wrote:
> OED and MW use 1982.(OED has a 1977 cite for a park ranger who loves trees.  Not the same, in my mind.)  Ca. 1982 is certainly when the term was used as a perjorative.
>
> But this AP story out of Chicago was ahead of its time.
>
> Seeing as how the Chicago papers haven't been digitized, we turn to the
>
> 10 Sept. 1965 Appleton(Wi) _Post Crescent_  1/4-5(Newspaperarchive)
>
>  <<The battle was between the tree huggers and the city./The
> city won, 100-0./Conservationist Stuart Chase describes the
> holding action on the lakefront Thursday:/They started up
> their chain saws and, with blades whirring, charged at us
> and cut the trees off right on top of us.  They tried to
> drop trees on people and waved whirling chain saws at
> everybody.  If people had been chained to the trees, they
> would have been cut in half.>>

Are you sure this date is accurate? The story doesn't seem
at all like something from 1965, vocabulary aside.

Jesse Sheidlower