In American Environmental History, we’re utilizing a teaching/learning method called Reacting to the Past. The premise is interesting but relatively simple. Instead of being lectured on certain events throughout world history, students are all assigned roles of important people during that period. We are divided into different factions who each have select victory objectives. Then we take turns giving speeches, presenting arguments, and voting on issues depending on the “game” we’re playing. Students might be in the Assembly in Ancient Greece or the Constitutional Congress in Revolutionary America. Possibilities are only limited to the number of games played in one semester.
For this class, we are having hearings before the Senate in the 1913 Hetch Hetchy Debate. This debate is to determine if the Raker Bill is to go into law. The Raker Bill proposed that the Tuolomne River which flows through the Hetch Hetchy Valley should be dammed to provide water and power for the city of San Francisco. This bill makes sense being as the Hetch Hetchy dam would be the most cost effective and powerful solution. The major problem is that the Hetch Hetchy is within the confines of Yosemite National Park.
Nobody wants this beautiful land to fall into the hands of corporate greed, but opposing factions have different ideas about what should become of the land. The Conservationists are in favor of the dam while the Preservationists radically oppose it. I play John Muir, founder of the famed Sierra Club and head of the Preservationists. John Muir is a real historical figure with profound writings. He is often called the first American environmentalist because of his efforts in this Hetch Hetchy dispute.
Though Muir never testified before the Senate, my character John Muir does. So tomorrow I’m set to give a 2 minute testimony about why I believe the Hetch Hetchy valley shouldn’t be dammed. I’ve decided to share with you what I wrote.
Yosemite is a National Park. National Parks have been protected, set aside from municipalities and private interests, because thousands of tired, nerve-shaken people have found that going to the mountains is going home. The Hetch Hetchy valley is not only in Yosemite, it is Yosemite. It is a National Park. As previously decided, no Right of Way Act ought to destroy such a temple forged by God Himself.
The pithy politicians who testified last session were more concerned with their reputations and reelections than the spiritual well-being of their own people, for from my journeys I know one thing: civilization needs wilderness. These money changers and water-power pushers are interested in saving money, not saving this priceless land. They want personal legacies, not peace of mind and refuge for American citizens. They live on the world but not in it—separate and rigidly alone in their marble homes, disconnected from the reality of this wild land.
My friends, I have lived in the world. I have swam in the Tuolumne and slept on the grasses of these meadows. I’ve scaled the granite walls of this valley and inhaled the fresh air of these pines. This canyon is the heart of the Sierras. To dam such a land would be to cut off this national treasure, the lifeblood of this region, from the public. To dam such a land would set a relentless precedent for all protected places. To dam Hetch Hetchy! Why not dam the Grand Canyon of Arizona and harvest the rocks of the Yellowstone? What’s stopping you from chopping down sequoias for lumber and building towers in Central Park? To dam this valley would be the same as damming your churches and cathedrals. This is a place of worship.
The Hetch Hetchy valley is the future of our country. If we allow it to be removed from Yosemite and exploited for its infrastructure, then every future park will be at risk. The 90 million people of this country need beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in. Your choice determines our country’s future.
John Muir on October 11, 1913