STATEMENT OF HON. ALEXANDER T. VOGELSANG, OF SAN FRANCISCO, CAL., SUPERVISOR, CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO.

Mr. Vogelsang Mr. Chairman and gentleman of the committee, I will take but a few moments. Like the eloquent speaker from the San Joaquin. I have come from the other side of the continent to Washington in the hope that I might do something in expediting what we believe to be the most important legislation affecting the State of California that has come before Congress in recent years. We believe it is so important because it benefits so many citizens of the State.

I am a native of the State of California; my birthplace was in the mountains of California, not more than 60 miles from Hetch Hetchy. I went myself last August with Mr. Freeman and the Board of Army Engineers to the Hetch Hetchy Valley. And I know all about it.

In fact, I may say that I know more about it than the gentleman who has so eloquently discussed the rights of a water district formed since the report of the House committee was made.

Senator Thomas. What was the district you referred to?

Mr. Vogelsang. I refer to the Waterford district. That district was not in existence at the time the report of the House committee was made. It was represented in its tentative form by Mr. Dennett, a report of whose statement is contained in the latter part of the hearings.

We are very friendly to the people of the San Joaquin Valley, who are tributary to this watershed of the Tuolumne. They are our friends; we have attempted always to treat them as friends; we have guaranteed them always, and always voluntarily, as entitled to the rights they originally claimed. We have filings subsequent to theirs which can only fulfilled by the conservation of the storm waters of that section. We are asking the right to conserve the storm waters by building this dam at the mouth of the Hetch Hetchy Valley and flooding it. That will flood 720 acres of land owned by the city and county of San Francisco, which we have the right to use, of course, as we please, as any other citizen has the right to use his own land.
I am a nature lover, second to one, not even Mr. Johnson. Every summer of my life my vacation is spent among the crags and we streams and the lakes of the mountainous sections of California and Oregon. I am a disciple of Izaak Walton, and I have my chief pleasures in studying nature and following the gentle art of angling.

As representative of the city and county of San Francisco here officially I have come to ask you to extend a hand to us. I do not want to revert to what has gone before in our city. We have made a struggle now for 12 years in order to get this water; we do not desire to harm the face of nature; we do not desire to injure the people in the San Joaquin Valley who have rights there, for their prosperity is our prosperity; they are our friends and our customers. We have come together with them here before the House committee and have settled every difficulty with their official representatives, their attorneys, their engineers, the representatives of the entire district, and with the judge of the superior court of the county of Stanislaus at their head.
I have had conferences with their representatives since their return concerning this bill in San Francisco. They are unanimously in favor of it. They have held mass meetings, not only those reported, but many others; they have canvassed the counties, and since they have returned have explained their attitude and explained the provisions of this bill. At least they so reported to us at our conference in San Francisco, and they reported that their communities were unanimously in favor of this measure.

Now, gentlemen, there is a great necessity for it. There are many other reasons why we should not take some other source that has been mentioned. It is possible that by extreme expenditure we might find a supply that would suffice, but if we did that we would be forced to take a very large area of the State of California that might better be left for the people and devoted to beneficial uses and production.

There is probably no other water source on the face of the earth equal to the Hetch Hetchy, for its waters will never be polluted by mining, by milling, by lumbering, by agriculture, or anything of that sort. The face of nature is too stern to ever be softened by the hand of man to his profit. It is there, a natural granitic watershed, partly covered with underbrush, interspersed with trees. There is no forest in commercial quantity on it whatever, no mining has ever been done there, and it will never be used for agriculture. It will only be a pleasure ground for the American people in the summer season, and it will have upon it in thee way of restrictions only the ordinary rules of common decency. That is all that we shall require; that is all that is required by the bill; and that will give in perpetuity, not only to San Francisco but to the city of Oakland, the city of Berkeley, the city of Alameda, the city of Richmond, and the city of San Jose, a pure domestic water supply forever.

Now, gentlemen, I am a conservationist of human life, of human activity, and of human comfort, and I say, when I speak for San Francisco, that I am speaking for the conservation of the men, women, and children of this great, rich, popular section of California, which suffers to-day most seriously and grievously for water.

If every known resource local to us was developed to-day to its uttermost extent, there would be a shortage of water throughout that section. We have had two years of drought now; we are in San Francisco drawing upon the water that fell three years ago in that section. As I came away from San Francisco I read a Sacramento paper on the train which gave out the statement of the water supply of the city of Vallejo, where the navy yard is at Mare Island, Cal. That statement set forth the rules which have been applied to the water service and which have been promulgated in that city. They provide that the water shall be turned on at quarter to 6 in the morning and turned off at 6 o'clock in the morning; turned on at quarter to 12 and turned off at 12 o'clock in the middle of the day; and turned on the quarter to 6 at night and turned off at 6 o'clock at night.

That is the condition of the water supply of the City of Vallejo, which has never occurred before in the history of that city, and that some condition exists to-day throughout northern California.

I do no want to extend these remarks any further than to say that the city of San Francisco is a good city, a great city, a magnificent city; a city with a great spirit and a great determination, as she has exhibited before. We have had our troubles and our tribulations. We have had our grafters, and, please God, we will never have them any more. We think our laws are so complete now that there never can be a recurrence of that sort. We are here pleading and begging for this; we are begging for an opportunity to make an investment eventually of over $77,000,000 in order that the future as well as the present may be protected.

Mr. Johnson said that if this grant was made it would not be long before other parks and other reserves would be opened upon similar pretext. Gentlemen, I am not a Member of Congress, but I say to you that whenever a similar pretext to this is presented to your attention that you can not be true to your country unless you grant it.

I am pleading for the conservation of humanity at the present time, the protection and delivery to them of the second prime necessity of life to the extent of almost a million resident inhabitants, and that is certainly all the excuse which could warrant a representative of the people in casting an affirmative vote in favor of the passage of this bill.

Gentlemen of the committee, I thank you.