| OCR Text |
Show 528. the Lincoln Roosevelt Republican League. And for good reason. Before Phelan and the other progressives cleaned up the politics of San Francisco, the citizens had their choice between a Republican Party dominated by railroads, and a Democratic Party run by a combination of power companies and underworld figures. No wonder he felt threatened by monopolies on one side and organized labor on the other. He had been raised a Protestant and might be attracted to the secularized version of pantheism that the Sierra Club represented. Yet men like William Kent or Chester Rowell were also likely to belong to Chambers of Commerce, and wanted to "preserve the fundamental pattern of twentieth-century industrial society." Like Roosevelt himself, the progressive believed that none should be for a class, and all should be for the State. In this way we can understand that conservation was only a part of Roosevelt's larger progressive movement. A member of the Sierra Club was very likely to sympathize with this movement, if he was not actively engaged in fighting for its aims. Did these men think they could have their growing cities and the wilderness too? Apparently they did. They were not prepared to take a stand on an issue which would seem to involve not just the preservation of the forests and natural features of the Sierra Nevada, but which drew the Club into the political arena. The decision to dam Hetch Hetchy was a decision, for many of them, to insure the growth of their beloved cities, and was perhaps even crucial to the long-range security of their nation. Particularly after the great |
