the beginning of yosemite tourism - Yosemite Online

P R E S I D E N T I A L P O L I T I C SA N D H E T C H H E T C H YEditor’s note: The following is an excerpt from theauthor’s recently published book entitled Dam!Water, Power, Politics, and Preservation in HetchHetchy and Yosemite National Park (PantheonBooks, 2005). Mr. Simpson will be the keynotespeaker at the Yosemite Association annual meetingin Tuolumne Meadows on September 10.As [San Francisco city engineer Marsden] Mansonprepared his plan and cost estimate the spring[1909] following the congressional setback, thefate of Phelan’s [Hetch Hetchy] project and the Garfieldpermit appeared further in doubt when PresidentWilliam Howard Taft (1909-13) assumed office. ManyRepublicans assumed the new president would continuethe Progressive conservation policies of his popularpredecessor. He didn’t. The new president wasn’t a truebeliever in the cause like his rambunctious predecessor.To the Progressives, conservation meant the protectionof valuable public lands from private ownership andpotential abuse, and the wise development of timber,minerals, grazing, water, and recreation on those landsthrough cooperation directed by government scientistsand enlightened bureaucrats. Both presidents appreciatedHetch Hetchy’s spectacular scenery, and both struggledwith how best to manage it. Roosevelt’s Progressive conservationvalues led him to favor the utilitarian, multipleuseapproach. Taft’s preference for resource developmentby the private sector along with legal concerns led himto hesitate in permitting such uses in national parks orforests, or in creating new ones. Roosevelt fumed, overreactingto Taft’s resource policies in the belief that theynecessarily favored the interests of big business over publicand environmental welfare, backsliding to the shortsightedpolicies of the 1800s.As Taft took hold, Pinchot and the other true believersbecame increasingly angry about the policy changesand their lessened influence. They tried unsuccessfully toconvert the new president to their gospel or to bypass hispolicies. Some in the former Roosevelt coterie resignedin protest. The powerful chief forester chose to stay andfight. Hetch Hetchy reflected the widening rift. Pinchothad lobbied hard to win approval of the Garfield permit;now, to the dismay of many Progressive Republicans, Taftappointed Richard A. Ballinger, a like-minded land attorney,as secretary of the interior.Pinchot had never approved of the new secretary; andhad contested his appointment. Ballinger was a respectedBY JOHN WARFIELD SIMPSONattorney and former mayor of Seattle, who had worked toreform the notoriously corrupt General Land Office duringa short tenure as commissioner several years earlier.But integrity aside, Pinchot fundamentally disagreed withBallinger’s (and Taft’s) land management philosophy.Likewise, Ballinger thought some of Pinchot’s freewheelingagreements were illegal.Tensions between Taft and Ballinger and the holdoversfrom the Roosevelt administration tightened, quicklystraining their working relationship to the breaking point.It all snapped during the so-called Ballinger-Pinchotaffair, which unfortunately evolved into a public debateargued in the national press and focused more on personalityand politics than the men’s important underlyingpolicy differences.In autumn 1909, Ballinger’s critics accused him ofindirectly asserting pressure for the approval of a potentiallyfraudulent Alaskan coal claim without sufficientinvestigation; the land claim had been submitted by someof his former law clients. The complicated issues datedto Ballinger’s term as commissioner of the general landoffice and involved nuances in several land laws. Whetheror not the accusations were founded, personal vindictivenessand politics clearly motivated some participants.Accusations of wrongdoing were hurled back and forthbetween Ballinger and his accusers, especially Pinchot.President Taft had little patience for the mudslinging,accepting his attorney general’s belief after a cursoryinvestigation that Ballinger had not breached any ethics.The controversy exploded in early 1910 when Iowasenator Jonathan Dolliver read to the body a letter writtento him by Pinchot that defended Ballinger’s accuserswhile extolling thepolicies of the forestservice underPinchot’s leadership.President Taftpromptly firedPinchot for insubordination.Pinchotstruck back,leading a publicattack to discreditSecretary Ballingerand the Taft conservationpolicies.Meanwhile,Congress con-10 Y O S E M I T E A S S O C I A T I O N , S U M M E R 2 0 0 5