Darryl Cherney's Speech at annual MAXXAM shareholder meeting

"Charles Hurwitz and Members of the Board of the MAXXAM Corporation:
I am very sorry that I can not be here today. As you know, I love visiting with you all and singing for Charles in particular. I cherish my five shares and the entrance it provides me to this grand affair. I do hope to pay you a cordial visit in the not too distant future. But for now, we'll have to settle for this statement that I am grateful to my proxy Courtney Clarke for reading.
Up here in the redwoods, things are looking a bit grim and I am concerned for the potential liability that my company may face. I trust that the Board is aware that people who are sitting in trees in peaceful protest are
being ripped down violently without regard to their personal safety by contractors who work for Pacific Lumber, a wholly owned MAXXAM subsidiary.

I can recall when Charles Hurwitz, back at the 1999 MAXXAM shareholder meeting, in front of 200 steelworkers and a cadre of environmentalists,
said to Cindy Alsbrooks, and I quote, "I am sorry for what happened to your son," referring to the death of David "Gypsy" Chain, an environmental activist from Houston.

It was the first time I had ever heard Charles Hurwitz say he was sorry. And Charles, you meant it. And I appreciate that. But there has been a lot of
water under that bridge, and although you can correctly assume that I do not see eye to eye with this Board and do in fact, have an alternate agenda, I can tell you honestly and factually that it is a miracle that another activist hasn't been killed by Pacific Lumber, a wholly owned MAXXAM subsidiary.
So, Charles Hurwitz, when you said your were sorry to Cindy Alsbrooks, did you think at that time that you might have to say your sorry again to another bereaved mother who's child died at your company's hands? Yes, these people are protesting. And yes, they are risking their lives. But they do not deserve to die. I simply want you to understand that I, as a
shareholder, want to recommend in the strongest possible terms that you order your wholly owned subsidiary Pacific Lumber to cease taking actions
that greatly endanger the lives of protesters.

I am not here, at least by proxy, to lecture you all about the irresponsible behavior of your wholly owned subsidiary. I am here, however, to suggest that you all look deeply into your souls and ask yourselves at what point will you kill another human being to make a dollar. It's happened once. It appears that something severe is going to happen again.

The Forest Peace Alliance that this company arranged into reality with Ms. Alsbrooks as part of the settlement for the wrongful death suit she filed against you, began its venture by establishing some guidelines that the timber fallers should follow when encountering protestors. But laws and rules are only as strong as those who enforce them. Now you can make your excuses about how the people sitting in trees deserve what they get. And you can go on about trespassing laws. But, when you meet your maker, will
you tell him or perhaps her, that the company you directed was willing to kill people who sat in its trees. Imagine that moment, right now, if you will.
Ancient trees are like people to this company. They are something to be calculated on a ledger, given a value, and then exploited or eliminated as profit dictates. That is a given in your world of capital. But the world's capital is not its money, but its resources. And though the current economic systems that dominate the world allow us to grab all we can now, it doesn't mean that we must do so. That is a moral decision.

And that is what I want to leave you with today. To understand that no matter what side of the issue you're on, that this is a moral issue. Can the corporate leaders of the 21st century decide that they want to be leaders of how we can make the world a better place? Can you conceive of making Pacific Lumber into a model timber company practicing truly sustained yield? Can you employee people repairing the earth, including the land you've logged and left with landslides and dead streams? Can there be a way a company like MAXXAM can live in harmony with the Earth?

If not, then the company surely will go bankrupt. It will be economically bankrupt, as has most likely been the plan all along. The lots of real estate in the desert will have lost their value because the water tables
will have dried up. The Kaiser Aluminum Company went bankrupt, of course already. And the trees will really be gone, as they have for hundreds of
lumber companies before Pacific Lumber over the millennia. Boom and bust is nothing new.

And it will be morally bankrupt. No concern for the employees, including the staff here at MAXXAM in Houston. No concern for the future economy of
this nation as a whole. No concern for the earth that brings us all the very components of life itself.

So my fellow shareholders and members of the MAXXAM Board, in this heady time in the history of this country, MAXXAM has the opportunity to change it's course. But of course I know that most likely all of you are set in your ways. But you know what I say. Live dangerously. Set a precedent. And not one to go down as a footnote in the biography of Michael Milken,
but rather one that shows the world that we can all change. If you can do that, it would truly be something to be remembered. If you don't and no one else does either, then there most likely will be no one left to remember anything anyway.

So go out, have one last steak dinner, and then bust out in the morning and say, we're going to start saving some trees. We're going to start repairing the damage we've all done. And we're going to leave the world looking better than when we found it, just like a real environmentalist.
Thank you."

http://www.jailhurwitz.com/
Darryl Cherney's music homepage: http://www.darrylcherney.com/