70 



Sierra Club Bulletin. 



ously supported their enlightened services to the cause of forest 

 conservation, as we have the services of preceding administra- 

 tions. It was in this magazine that the movement for the crea- 

 tion of the Yosemite National Park first took pubHc form in 

 1890, and the chief reason urged upon the Public Lands Com- 

 mittee for making the reservation — and we know whereof we 

 speak — was to rescue from private invasion and for pubhc use 

 the rare beauty of the Hetch-Hetchy and of the Canon of the 

 Tuolumne River, which flows through it. We therefore have 

 particular regret that we do not find satisfactory the reasons 

 officially given for the Administration's extraordinary step, 

 which, logically, would place the great natural scenery of the 

 country at the service of any neighboring city which should 

 consider its appropriation necessary or even desirable. 



Let us say at once that we hold human life more sacred than 

 scenery, than even great natural wonderlands, vastly as they 

 contribute to save life and promote happiness; and if that were 

 the issue, if San Francisco could not otherwise obtain an abund- 

 ant water supply, we should be willing to dedicate to that pur- 

 pose not only Hetch-Hetchy, but even the incomparable Yosemite 

 itself. But this is not the contention of Secretary Garfield in 

 the official document granting the request. The Administration's 

 position is not that the step is a last resort, that no other 

 source is adequate, but that Hetch-Hetchy affords the most 

 abundant and cheapest available supply of pure water. Even 

 this is stoutly denied by the opponents of the scheme, who 

 contend, moreover, that a dozen other adequate systems may 

 be found. Eminent and disinterested engineers have declared 

 the present supply excellent and capable of ample development, 

 as the water companies claim, and since the city fixes the water 

 rates, and at need may condemn and acquire these sources at 

 reasonable cost, there would seem to be no dangerous "monop- 

 oly." Indeed, the permission to dam the beautiful valley into 

 a lake is conditional upon the previous exhaustion by the city 

 of the resources of Lake Eleanor, which is also in the National 

 Park. Other conditions are attached and compensations agreed 

 upon which are believed by the Secretary to be safeguards 

 of the public interests, with the important omission, however, 

 to provide safeguards against the destruction of the scenery; 

 but the fact remains that of this great reservation, which is as 

 large as the State of Rhode Island, the northern third — for the 

 watershed of the valley even above the Tuolumne Meadows 

 must go with the valley itself — is to be withdrawn from the 

 use of the people of the whole United States and given to the 

 city of San Francisco. This involves a new principle and a 



