266 OUR FEDERAL LANDS 



fered. We participate literally in a contest between 

 localism and national idealism for the sake of a price- 

 less irreplaceable national possession. Let us look 

 at the struggle more closely. 



COMMERCIALISM DEFINITELY RULED OUT 



Several years before the storm broke, a fight to 

 save Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National 

 Park from damming had been lost through failure 

 of the straggling defense to organize. Later, as 

 the great dam rose slowly, it dawned upon the coun- 

 try that it had been camouflaged water power for 

 profit, not city water for San Francisco, as had 

 been claimed in Congress, which had won this 

 notable triumph. 



So when, in 1920, a bill to dam an obscure val- 

 ley in Yellowstone National Park slipped quietly 

 through Senate into House, when the new Federal 

 Power Act was found deputing rights to a commis- 

 sion to issue water power leases in National Parks 

 without reference to Congress, and a bill in the Sen- 

 ate asked authority to dam Yellowstone Lake, no 

 time was lost in organizing the country to meet the 

 grave emergency which it was plain faced the Na- 

 tional Parks System. 



Investigation showed all a part of a single pro- 

 gramme. Three chances with need to secure only one 

 precedent! To meet the skilled professional busi- 

 ness and political players of the game in Congress, 



