Th e 1905 proposal calling for the construction of a dam in Hetch Hetchy Valley of Yosemite provoked a furious reaction from naturalist John Muir, founder and president of the Sierra Club, who summed up the position of many preservationists. The proposal created a deep rift in the conservation movement and ended the friendship of Muir and Gifford Pinchot:

The proponents of the dam scheme bring forward a lot of bad arguments to prove that the only righteous thing to do with the people's parks" is to destroy them bit by bit as they are able. Their arguments are curiously like those of the devil, devised for the destruction of the first garden. . . . These templedestroyers, devotees of ravaging commercialism, seem to have perfect contempt for Nature, and, instead of lifting their eyes to the God of the mountains, lift them to the Almighty Dollar...