Also, San Francisco received no federal help, save the grant to construct the dam. In an era when the Bureau of Reclamation allocated many millions of federal dollars for construction of new dams, San Francisco had to go it alone. Of course, in theory, the farmers and ranchers would repay the Reclamation Service through water fees, but that rarely happened. While communities throughout the West fed at the federal trough, San Francisco was going hungry and actually paying a yearly fee to Yosemite Park for the privilege of water storage. San Francisco supervisors bristled at what they saw as unfairness, especially as they watched Oakland and the participating East Bay cities develop their own water system in the late 1920s with privileges and a streamlined federal permit system, a result of the 1920 Water Power Act.
Of course the provisions of the Raker Act were one thing; the enforcement of those provisions was another. To the city's dismay, both the U.S. Army (until 1915) and then the National Park Service and the Department of the Interior were determined to protect the park. There was little sympathy for San Francisco. The administrators of Yosemite looked on the city as a grasping antagonist, a piranha bent on eating away the flesh of Yosemite Park for its nourishment. Park Service personnel studied and understood the Raker Act and constantly reminded San Francisco when it evaded its responsibilities.
The city seemed most remiss in its obligation to build roads and trails in order to open the Hetch Hetchy area to recreational tourism. Director Stephen Mather, with his dedication to a usable park, considered City Attorney Percy Long's promise that his city would "build at its own expense a magnificent system of roads and trails which will make one of the most beautiful scenic parts of the Sierras" to be one of the only positive sections of the Raker Act. At first Mather said nothing, allowing Long and his colleagues to postpone such projects given the city's financial difficulties and the tough labor climate created byWorldWar I. But by 1920 the director reminded Long, O'Shaughnessy, and the supervisors of the act's provision that the city would construct roads and trails. San Francisco leaders, struggling with mounting debt and the difficult construction deep in the mountains, responded with surprise and outrage at such an imposition. To assuage the head of the National Park Service, the city conferred the name Mather on the upper terminal of the Hetch Hetchy Railroad. However, such a transparent move only made the Park Service chief more determined to see that the city carried out its obligations.
For its part, the city chastised the Park Service for its failure to maintain good roads. In November 1918 O'Shaughnessy complained toYosemite Park superintendent Washington B. Lewis that the roads in the northern part of the park were in bad shape. O'Shaughnessy believed "that for a payment of a toll by San Francisco of $15,ooo a year," the roads ought to be repaired. In a crusty mood, the city engineer stated that the Big Oak Flat Road should be unproved "as the people of San Francisco, who are paying the bills, should get some measure of relief and benefit from the money they are contributing to the Park."26 Of course the fee paid had no stipulation, except that it would be used inYosemite Park.
When the city completed the dam in May 1923,Yosemite Park superintendent Lewis wrote O'Shaughnessy with a compromise regarding roads. Rather than releasing the dam construction crews, why not redirect their effort to road and trail construction? But the city had lost interest. Months of inactivity became years of frustration for Superintendent Lewis, who grew increasingly suspicious and disillusioned with San Francisco's noncompliance.
Certainly the city dragged its feet because of financial considerations, but it also had a vested interest in keeping the Tuolumne River watershed a de facto wilderness area. The Spring Valley Water Company had successfully cordoned off its extensive lands on the San Francisco Peninsula, and once the city purchased SVWC, it continued a policy of no swimming, boating, or even walking. The area was, and is today, closed to public entry.27 San Francisco wished to do the same with the vast 420,ooo-acre Tuolumne River watershed. The area represented an ecological unit, and if the city could gain hegemony, it would guarantee the purity of its water. In 1927 the city posted some of the park watershed area as closed to campers, fishermen, and recreationists.The Park Service rangers removed the signs. The San Francisco Chronicle jumped into the jurisdictional dispute by proclaiming that "instead of roads and trails to take people into the Hetch Hetchy watershed there ought to be fences and gates to keep them out.."28 It became evident that the city-if it could get away with it-wished to declare the whole Tuolumne River watershed as its preserve. To ensure pure water, the city municipal utility district would restrict human use whenever possible.29 In response park officials announced that if hikers, campers, and recreationists polluted the water, San Francisco would have to do what many other cities did-chlorinate it. When Stephen Mather suggested that the city might have to build a filtration plant and chlorinate its water, San Francisco supervisor Keenan, a man of short temper, exploded: "Do you mean to say that the federal government wants San Francisco to build a lot of roads so that people can go to the lake and pollute the water, endangering the lives of 750,000 people just for the benefit of a few thousand?"30 The answer was yes. Human use of watersheds was common enough. Neither Stephen Mather, Horace Albright, nor Superintendent Washington Lewis was willing to shut down one-third of the park for the convenience of San Francisco. Director Mather became increasingly perturbed by San Francisco supervisors ignorant of the Raker Act. They seemed to come and go with the regular cycle of municipal elections. In 1928, after a difficult session with the supervisors, Mather, in a jocular mood, mentioned to a reporter that it seemed "rather difficult to make them understand that there was such an act and that it imposed upon San Francisco certain obligations."31
Although few of the supervisors understood the Raker Act, some of them did enjoy the outdoor benefits of the Hetch Hetchy region. Assistant Director Horace Albright was more than a little upset when he heard that some supervisors and guests were driving the road from O'Shaughnessy Dam to Lake Eleanor, a locked route for emergency use only. Not only were these fishing parties driving on a closed road, but "they carried in intoxicating liquor and the City party usually got `gloriously drunk"'32 The idea of San Francisco officials excluding the public but using park land for their own private retreat for fishing and socializing infuriated Albright. Nor did such activities escape the pages of the San Francisco newspapers. The Bulletin ran a damaging cartoon showing Hetch Hetchy reservoir fenced off, with a sign "Supervisor's Summer Camp for Junket Trips: Public Keep Out" protecting "Supervisors' Rest "33
In contrast, when the Yosemite Park and Curry Company, the primary concessionaire in Yosemite Valley, applied for a permit to begin pleasure boat trips on the Hetch Hetchy reservoir, San Francisco's city attorney Robert Searles voiced official opposition. The lake was "exceedingly dangerous for the operation of pleasure-boats, due to the high winds which prevail almost daily." O'Shaughnessy visitedYosemite Park assistant superintendent Earnest Leavitt and warned him against small boats, stating that "they would surely be upset and the occupants drowned, and our sad job then would be to pick out the dead bodies which might pollute the water."34 Albright inquired of Superintendent Lewis if Searles and O'Shaughnessy's scare tactics were valid. In a lengthy letter, Lewis replied that he had "never observed anything in the way of wind and storm conditions which would constitute a danger in the operation of boats." Neither had his rangers-more familiar with the reservoir than he-ever observed such conditions. In the final regulations, shore fishing would be permitted but not boating. However, the boating ban was for reasons other than the exaggerations advanced by San Francisco.35
FIGURE 25. City Engineer Michael O'Shaughnessy tended to think of the Tuolumne watershed as the city's private domain.The National Park Service disagreed. Courtesy of the SFPUC.
In spite of negative publicity and the wrist slapping by Mather, the city leaders dodged their responsibility, seeking protection from clever city attorneys or their congressional delegation. But there was no avoiding reality, and
San Francisco officials faced a blistering attack even in their own newspapers. The San Francisco News devoted a full-page editorial titled "Complete Hetch Hetchy or Lose Everything." In a powerful, yet measured, message, the paper attacked leaders, especially the dominating, domineering, "bullheaded" Michael O'Shaughnessy, for alienating Washington and humiliating the city in the halls of Congress.36
Representative Lewis Cramton of Michigan administered the humiliation. A capable and devoted friend of the national parks, Cramton was outraged by San Francisco's attitude and actions. He fully understood the Raker Act, for he had been a member of the Congress that enacted it. He was good friends with both Mather and Albright and followed the Hetch Hetchy development with interest and foreboding. He made at least two congressional investigative trips toYosemite National Park to confer and observe. In 1928 he delivered a savage blow to San Francisco in the halls of Congress, one that would leave the city reeling and practically begging for compromise and reconciliation. Cramton charged that the city was "interfering with the administration of the greatYoseinite National Park and trying to stop the legitimate use of it by the public." Furthermore, the city was "holding off and failing to build the roads that were expressly provided for in that (Raker) act, estimated to cost $1,680,000."37 He also attacked the power sale arrangement between the city and the Pacific Gas and Electric Company. San Francisco had, in a word, broken with the spirit and letter of the Raker Act. At another point, and after a blistering attack, Cramton dropped the threat that "if San Francisco cannot properly cooperate with its generous landlord, the relationship had better cease and the Federal Government resume exclusive use of the park area." 38
San Francisco's public response to Cramton was understandably acrid. Supervisor Frank Havenner ranted that he would challenge "the right of the United States government to continue recreational activity or permit devel opment in Hetch Hetchy or Lake Eleanor regions, even if the whole public must be barred." Supervisor Alfred Roncovieri declared that San Francisco would move at once to have the Raker Act amended in favor of city con- trol.39 Actually, San Francisco had few grounds for argument. The Raker Act, while stressing clean water and public health, recognized that the region must be open to recreation. That was, of course, the reason for section 9(P), requiring the city to build roads and trails. Furthermore, the Freeman Report, the pro-San Francisco script that influenced Congress in 1913, stressed the tourist and recreational benefits which would accrue from the reservoir. Roads, hotels, and campgrounds overlooking the reservoir would bring tourists to a spectacular site. In 1928 the supervisors and the city engineer seemed to have conveniently forgotten the very arguments that abetted the city in gaining the grant. Closing off Hetch Hetchy and the Tuolumne River watershed was never the intent of the Raker Act, and both the National Park Service and the California public reminded San Francisco of that fact.
The city could muster little support in California and surrounding communities. Many residents of the hinterland towns distrusted the grasping city Although San Francisco cultivated good relations with the San Joaquin Valley irrigation interests, many towns closer to the Hetch Hetchy project harbored deep resentments. The Sonora Banner labeled San Francisco's actions a "grand theft of public property" claimed that and if they succeeded, all of Stanislaus National Park [Forest] could be closed to campers and tourists. San Francisco might have the advantage through "bullyrag, and bamboozle and bribe" of local interests, but the people of the region would not give up without a fight.411
The Banner editors need not have been so fearful. The determination of the National Park Service, the outspoken revelations of Representative Cramton, the aggressiveness of O'Shaughnessy, and the palpable ignorance of some of the San Francisco supervisors all worked against the city. It retreated. By 1929 O'Shaughnessy directed his efforts to finishing the Hetch Hetchy system rather than wasting energy in jurisdictional squabbles with Yosemite Park superintendent Washington Lewis or his successor, Charles G. Thomson. Most encouraging, San Francisco leaders, including Lewis Byington for the Public Utilities District, O'Shaughnessy, and City Attorney John J. O'Toole, hammered out a roads and trails agreement with the secretary of the interior in December 1930.
Under this agreement the city would complete a system of trails on the north side of Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, making the high country once again accessible to hikers. The city reconstructed the road from Mather (the former Hog Ranch) to the O'Shaughnessy Dam, providing a good auto road for tourists at an estimated cost of $200,000. The bulk of the monies for roads, however, would be used at the discretion of Yosemite National Park The city pledged six payments of $250,000.Once completed, the city would be free of any obligations. The Park Service soon abandoned Freeman's impractical plan to construct a road around Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, diverting the payments to rebuilding the western and eastern sections of the Tioga Pass road.41
Most significant, the agreement stated that "the Department of the Interior alone will be responsible for the maintenance of law and order, regulation of recreation, preservation of water shed, sanitary control, and all other matters of administration of Yosemite National Park."42 From 1930 on, there would be few disputes regarding jurisdiction. The Raker Act surely gave away an irreplaceable wonder of nature, but the many restrictions assured that if the Park Service persevered, the legacy of loss would be circumscribed. The vast wilderness that comprises the northern part of Yosemite National Park remained open to people and provided habitat for wildlife. The agreement confirmed a new precedent-which should need no confirming-that no private or public institution, even though it had acquired certain rights, would be allowed to dictate its will on a national park. Such a precedent, of course, would have to be continually defended and reaffirmed.
HETCH HETCHY'S LEGACY is surely political, but it also has an intellectual side. The controversy established important precedents regarding national policy not only in dam building but also in the origins of land use ideas. However, there are two ideas that are associated with the Hetch Hetchy controversy but should not be. The most important of these fictions is that the Hetch Hetchy fight pitted the forces of development against those favoring wilderness preservation. Roderick Nash, in his classic book Wilderness and the American Mind (1967) frames the Hetch Hetchy controversy as one that put the "principle of preservation of wilderness" to the test. In a memorable sentence, Nash defined the issue: "For the first time in the American experience the competing claims of wilderness and civilization to a specific area received a thorough hearing before a national audience."43 Other historians have followed Nash's lead, one suggesting that Hetch Hetchy was essentially about "salvaging islands of wilderness." Another maintained that Hetch Hetchy's "claim to distinction was wildness," while yet another believed that the defenders of Hetch Hetchy were "champions of the right of all Americans, living and unborn, to experience the vanishing wilderness." Recently, a prominent environmental historian wrote that "Hetch Hetchy became the battle cry of an emerging movement to preserve wilderness."44 The documentary evidence suggests otherwise.
Of course, wilderness is a slippery concept. Native American peoples have noted that the term is ethnocentric. What was wilderness to a European American was home to a Native American. Moreover, the word has changing meanings, and definitions abound. Roderick Nash points out that "one man's wilderness may be another's roadside picnic ground.."45 Some might see wilderness as their suburban backyard or a tent on top of an apartment building. I once had a colleague who defined a wilderness experience as the walk between his air-conditioned house and his air-conditioned automobile. On a more serious note, many within the academic community see wilderness as a culturally constructed notion that is at best romantic, at worst racist, exclusionist, and ahistorical. However, in the context of the Hetch Hetchy historiography, the Wilderness Act of 1964 can provide a workable definition. To be eligible for the American wilderness system, an area should be at least 5,ooo acres in size, be "effected primarily by the forces of nature," and
include "outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation." It is to be "an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain."46 This definition assumes that wilderness is a place, not an idea.47
Yet, would Colby and the defenders agree with this 1964 definition? For instance, would a two-track wagon road into Hetch Hetchy Valley have eliminated the "wilderness"? Would a few simple cabins have disqualified the valley from wilderness status? It is impossible to define precisely what the defenders thought wilderness was, but perhaps we can suggest what it was not. For Muir his belovedYosemite Valley was not wilderness. As early as the 1870s the roads, carriages, hotels, and many creature comforts in the valley eliminated it from such consideration. To experience wilderness, Muir escaped the valley and what he considered the annoying, lazy, superficial tourists. By 1912 much more development had taken place, and when automobile drivers requested entrance into the valley, neither the Sierra Club nor Muir opposed the idea, knowing that any wilderness characteristics of Yosemite Valley had already been compromised in the name of tourism.
More to the point, the Hetch Hetchy defenders did not use the word wilderness. Preservation of wild lands, however slippery that concept, was not among their objectives. We can search the Colby Brief, hundreds of letters, and the 1909 tract and not find the word wilderness anywhere. Most congressional representatives and senators avoided the designation. When they explained their preservationist positions, they referred to "playgrounds," scenery, scenic values, places of "solitary loneliness," "beauties of nature," "picturesque spots," and "beautiful natural features," but seldom wilderness. The use of such descriptive words suggests that the effort to save the valley had economic, commodity implications.The defenders laid their arguments on the rock of tourism.
The Battle over Hetch Hetchy: America's Most Controversial Dam and the Birth of Modern Environmentalism Page 27