About Restore Hetch Hetchy

The Hetchysburg Address

Ron Good

Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new dam and reservoir, conceived in the Bay Area, and dedicated to the proposition that all national parks are not created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil debate -- testing whether that dam and reservoir, or any things so conceived and so dedicated -- should any longer endure. We are met a great time during that debate.

We have come to dedicate a portion of that debate as a lasting celebration for those who everywhere gave their lives, their hopes, their dreams that Hetch Hetchy Valley might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate -- we cannot consecrate -- we cannot hallow that valley. The brave men and women, living and dead, who struggled for its preservation and restoration have consecrated that holy temple, far above our poor power to add or detract. John Muir said: "Earth has no sorrow that Earth cannot heal," so it will little note, nor long remember what was done to it, but it can never forget what those brave women and men did to allow the healing process to begin.

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought for that valley's preservation and restoration have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from those honored women and men we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that those men and women shall not have struggled in vain -- that Yosemite National Park shall give birth to a restored Hetch Hetchy Valley -- and that national park of all the people -- by all the people -- for all the people -- shall not perish from this Earth.

Inspiration for the foregoing is gratefully acknowledged:

President Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address

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To get involved in the effort to restore Hetch Hetchy, contact Restore Hetch Hetchy at: info@hetchhetchy.org, P.O. Box 565, San Francisco, CA 94104. Telephone: (415) 956-0401.

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