Innovation on Tap by Eric B. Schultz

Author:Eric B. Schultz
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781626346642
Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group Press
Published: 2019-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

To provide for the little children, men, and women of the 800,000 population who swarm the shores of San Francisco Bay is a matter of much greater importance than encouraging the few who, in solitary loneliness, will sit on the peak of the Sierras loafing around the throne of the God of nature and singing His praise.

Phelan was answered by diplomat Robert Underwood Johnson (1853–1937), who had partnered with Muir to protect Yosemite. The records show, Johnson wrote, that San Francisco “could get water anywhere along Sierra if she would pay for it.” The issue, he added, was that city leaders wanted a bargain. Hetch Hetchy was not the only available resource—it was simply the cheapest. If the great parks of the United States were given over to every local interest, he wrote, then sooner or later they would all be lost. “We hold that while we are willing to die for the lives or the health of the citizens of San Francisco,” he finished, “we are not willing to die for their pockets.”

Stirred by this indignation, Mather traveled to Washington to attend congressional hearings on the Hetch Hetchy proposal. He witnessed a debate, historian Paul Sutter believes, that has framed conservation history ever since. Those who saw nature as a thing to be developed won the battle. Woodrow Wilson signed the Raker Act in December 1913, and Hetch Hetchy was dammed and flooded. This victory of developers would turn out to be Pyrrhic, however, and Muir spotted the silver lining. “The conscience of the whole country has been aroused from sleep,” he wrote, “and from outrageous evil compensating good in some form must surely come.”

That compensating good was the fire kindled in Stephen Mather, whose next move—a surprise even to himself—was to create the most powerful preservationist organization in America.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.