Meet Max Yasgur
I have never had the privilege of meeting Mr. Yasgur. I am, however, privileged to be the steward of his property, owner of his and Mrs. Yasgur’s homestead and as such, humbly trying to live up to his morals, ethics, and legacy.
This is what I have learned about Max Yasgur.
Max Yasgur was a farmer, as he declared in his now famous speech. He was educated at Cornell University. He ran the fourth largest dairy farm in New York State. He modified his barn to allow Agritourism before it was a thing. There was a walk-through partition where customers could observe the milking process. Most of the tourists came from urban environments and had never before seen food production in process. After the tour there was the stop for the legendary chocolate milk. He was a natural host. He seemed to genuinely enjoy people.
Max Yasgur was not of the counterculture generation. He was a staunch Republican and very conservative in his views. However, as an American, he believed in Democracy. He believed in the right to freedom of speech and the right to assemble for peaceful practices. In that regard, he stood up for what he passionately believed in regardless of the consequences to his business or personal life.
Mr. Yasgur was also a patriot of Bethel. The consequences to his neighbors and fellow farmers deeply sorrowed him. I believe he was torn between the damage caused by Woodstock as well as the deeper lesson to be learned. At the end of the day, I believe he was most grateful to the Woodstock Generation for proving something to the world that “for three days there was peace and music and nothing but peace and music” and he God blessed us for that.
I could not express the essence of Max Yasgur better than he.. On August 21, 1969, Max Yasgur wrote an impassioned letter to the Editor of the Sullivan County Democrat regarding the Aquarian Festival.
These are Mr. Yasgur’s own words:
“Three weeks ago the citizens of Wallkill, NY banished from their community a group of young people seeking three days of music and peace. In desperation looking for a site on which to hold their festival Woodstock Ventures came to Bethel. For two weeks it rained daily while the young people toiled around the clock in an almost impossible effort to turn hay fields into a Festival site. A playground was constructed for children, complete with animals, miles of chain link fence was erected, a magnificent stage was built, five wells were drilled, electric service was brought in from five miles away, thousands of portable toilets were positioned and generally every effort possible was made to handle a maximum expected turnout of 50,000 people per day.
The young people who built Aquarian began allaying the fears of the local people with whom they had contact. They were industrious, polite and policed up after themselves. On the eve of the Festival, however, adults and nature combined to form a severe test of pressure and problems or the Aquarian Festival. NYC Police Commissioner Howard Leary prevented an estimated 350 off duty police from serving as security officers as they had originally been hired to do.
One hundred buses which had been scheduled to shuttle in festival patrons free of charge from outlying parking lots were suddenly unavailable. Then finally the rains came. So did the young people. Eight or ten times as many people came as had ever been anticipated.
Under the severe strain of almost one half million people the facilities broke down. Parking in the rain soaked fields became impossible. Traffic, with an under-staged security force, became an impossible snarl. The wells, over taxed, were hardly able to keep up with the demand and the sanitation facilities became inaccessible to maintenance. By the early morning hours of Saturday I feared that major catastrophe was in the making. I tried to imagine what a population larger than Albany and perhaps as large as Buffalo might do in a situation in which they were wet, thirsty, tired and immobile and facing nothing but more of the same. The prospects were horrifying. Some had come over 3,000 miles and had paid $18.00 for tickets only to find they had to walk the last five miles in the rain to reach an over full Festival site where no tickets were being collected because the management feared someone might be hurt in the crush at the gate. What would you envisage that a group of a half a million professional football or other sport fans might do under similar circumstances.
But, thank heaven, none of our fears were realized. What happened at Bethel this past weekend was that these young people together with our local residents turned the Aquarian Festival into a dramatic victory for the spirit of peace, good will and human kindness. Hungry youths shared everything they had. Local residents poured out to volunteer food and aid. Well meaning youths looking for a place to rest and something to eat strayed onto private property, built fires out of fences and slept in fields. My neighbors were magnificent. They had nothing to gain from the festival. They were not receiving rent or selling anything. They were merely trying to run their dairy farms and homes. They woke to find thousands of young people camping on their lawns and fields. Yet, through it all there was not one incident as my neighbors, for whom my heart goes out more than they can know, rose to the occasion. The State Police, Sheriff Ratner and his overworked force, local police and volunteers from surrounding communities justly received the highest possible praise from Festival goers, staff and local residents. Together they organized emergency traffic and medical procedures that finally succeeded in bringing order out of the traffic and relief to the inundated first aid facilities. With the aid of Armed Forces helicopters and local volunteers a potential medical crisis was averted. They deserve the highest possible commendation, each and every one, for the tireless and magnificent way in which they handled the situation.
I am of course exceedingly sorry for my many neighbors and friends who suffered damage. The fault, if there be one, lies simply in the fact that ten times as many youths came to the festival as had been anticipated and of course the rain then made a bad situation terrible. But damage is repairable by money and effort.
In the final analysis, however, the material aspects of Aquarian, such as a local loss of revenue at the track and the monumental inconvenience to local residents are far less important than the lesson that was to be learned.
It seems evident to me that if one-half million young people came to Sullivan County there must be fifteen to twenty million of them in America. It has been stated that 80% were on some form of narcotics. Although this is merely a guess and not a proven fact if it is so the problem is more urgent than any of us realized.
The militant groups and the communist organizers were here and nothing would have proved their point more than a riot. But they couldn’t get a riot started no matter how they tried because, as the young people said, this was a cool scene with no reason for violence. I for one have learned a lesson that I will not forget.
I realize that as an American we are talking about most of our generation of young people, many of whom are the young intelligentsia of our society. Many of them are attending college, many have graduate degrees and the one thing that they have in common is that they are all thinkers. Possibly some are impractical dreamers but all are thinkers and deeply concerned about their future. I as an American am also concerned about the future of America and the form of government I love.
These young people, whom my age group refer to as the beat generation are the voters and the lawmakers of tomorrow. If they are a beat generation then we, the so-called establishment, their parents, made them so. Our generation will have to decide and decide quickly whether we are going to give these young people a fair shake or are going to discount them because they don? cut their hair or wear their clothes the way we do. If we don’t listen to their gripes the radical and extremist will and then we can and will have continued anarchy and violence in America.
It has been stated and undoubtedly greatly overstated that 80% of the festival visitors were on some form of narcotics. If these figures are even partly true it is clear that the basic problem is the climate in our country which makes such facts possible. Whether or not those who are now using drugs can be helped is primarily a medical problem. But the problem of preventing further drug use is the problem that my generation must face. If we want our young people to be free of the horrible effects of drug addiction then we must provide for them a climate in which they can grow without being forced to drugs to avoid our society.
It was proven in Bethel that these young people don’t want to follow all the radical groups that are pressuring them. In Bethel, in spite of terrible adversity one half million people remained peaceful and I believe that they and the millions of others like them would like to become part of a peaceful society with us. But, if we don’t welcome them, if we don’t give them a fair shake, if we don’t listen to their complaints and try to reason out the solutions with them what choice will they have? The radical groups will listen to their complaints and will make efforts for them. If we close the doors into our society they will only be left with choosing the radicals. As the late Robert F. Kennedy realized, “it is with these young people that we share this nation and with them that our form of government must be run.” But if we exclude them it will be our blame for having forced them to the anarchy of the radicals.
If a half million young people at the Aquarian Festival could turn such adverse conditions, filled with the possibility of disaster, riot, looting and catastrophe into three days of music and peace then perhaps there is hope that if we join with them we can turn those adversities that are the problems of America today into a hope for a brighter and more peaceful future.
