The San Francisco calamity by earthquake and fire Part 13

There was urgent need of haste. On Friday, while the flames were still making their way onward, General Funston telegraphed: "Famine seems inevitable." The people of the country took a more hopeful view of it, and by Sat.u.r.day night the spectre of famine was definitely driven from the field and food for all the fugitives was within reach.

THE SYMPATHY OF THE PEOPLE AWAKES.

On all sides the people were awake and doing. In all the great cities agencies to receive contributions were opened, and many of the newspapers undertook the task of collecting and forwarding supplies. The smaller towns were equally alert in furnishing their quota to the good work, and from countryside and village contributions were forwarded until the fund acc.u.mulated to an unprecedented amount. Collections were made in factories, in stores, in offices, in the public schools; cash boxes or globes stood in all frequented places and were rapidly filled with bank notes; theatrical and musical entertainments were given for the benefit of the earthquake sufferers; never had there been such an awakening. As an instance of the spirit displayed, one man came running into a banking house and threw a thousand dollar bill on the counter.

"For San Francisco," he said, as he turned toward the door.

"What name?" asked the teller.

"Put it down to 'cash,'" he answered, as he vanished.

Rapidly the fund acc.u.mulated. A few days brought it up to the $5,000,000 mark. Then it grew to $10,000,000. Within ten days' time the relief fund was estimated at $18,000,000, and the good work was still going on--in less profusion, it is true, but still the spirit was alive.

FOREIGN OFFERS OF AID.

The generous impulse was not confined to the United States. From all countries came offers of aid. Canada was promptly in the field, and the chief nations of Europe were quick to follow, while j.a.pan made a generous offer, and in far Australia funds were started at the various cities for the sufferers. No doubt a large sum from foreign lands would have been available had not President Roosevelt declined to accept contributions from abroad, as not needed in view of America's abundant response. To the Hamburg-Line which offered $25,000, the following letter was sent:

"The President deeply appreciates your message of sympathy, and desires me to thank you heartily for the kind offer of outside aid. Although declining, the President earnestly wishes you to understand how much he appreciates your cordial and generous sympathy."

All other offerings from abroad were in the same thankful spirit declined, even those from our immediate neighbors, Canada and Mexico.

Some feeling was aroused by this, especially in the relief committee at San Francisco, which felt that the need of that city was so great and urgent that no offer of relief should have been declined. In response the President explained that he only spoke for the government, in his official capacity, and that San Francisco was in no sense debarred from accepting any contributions made directly to it.

It may justly be said for the people of this country that their spontaneous generosity in the presence of a great calamity, either at home or abroad, is always magnificent. It never waits for solicitation.

It does not delay even until the necessity is demonstrated, but it a.s.sumes that where there is great destruction of property and homes are swept away there must be distress which calls for immediate relief.

There is one ray of light in the gloom caused by the calamity at San Francisco. A truly splendid display of brotherly love and sympathy has been shown by the people of this country, and a similar display was ready to be shown by the people of the civilized world had it been felt that the occasion demanded it and that the exigency surpa.s.sed the power of our people to meet it.

ENTERPRISE IN SAN FRANCISCO.

In the face of an appalling and death-dealing disaster, rendering an entire community dependent for the bare necessities of life and putting it in imminent danger of greater horrors, the nation has been stirred as it has rarely been before, and there have been awakened those deeper feelings of brotherhood which are referred to in the oft-quoted pa.s.sage that "one touch of nature makes the whole world akin."

The nature indicated in this instance is human nature in its highest manifestation, the sympathetic sentiment that stirs deeply in all our hearts and needs but the occasion to make itself warmly manifested.

There is something incomparably splendid in the spectacle of an entire nation straining every nerve to send succor to the helpless and the suffering, and this spectacle has warmed the hearts of our people to the uttermost and inspired them to make the most strenuous efforts to drive away the gaunt wolf of famine from the ruined homes of our far Pacific brethren.

It may be said that San Francisco will be willing to accept this relief only so long as stern necessity demands it. At this writing only two weeks have pa.s.sed since the dread calamity, and already active steps are being taken to provide for themselves. As an example of their enterprise, it may be said that their newspapers hardly suspended at all, the Evening Post alone suspending publication for a time from being unable to acquire a plant in the vicinity of the city. When the conflagration made it apparent that all plants would be destroyed, the Bulletin put at work a force in its composing rooms, a hand-bill was set and some hundreds of copies run off on the proof-press, giving the salient features of the day's news.

The morning papers, the Call, Chronicle and Examiner, retired to Oakland, on the other side of the bay, and there, on Thursday morning, issued a joint paper from the office of the Oakland Tribune. On Friday morning they split forces again, the Examiner retaining the use of the Tribune plant and the Call and Chronicle issuing from the office of the Oakland Herald. Two days later the Call secured the service of the Oakland Enquirer plant. Meantime, on Friday, the Bulletin, after a suspension of one day, made arrangements for the use in the afternoon of the Oakland Herald equipment, and from these sources and under such circ.u.mstances the San Francisco papers have been issuing.

Offices were hurriedly opened on Fillmore Street, which today is the main thoroughfare of San Francisco, and from these headquarters the news of the day as it is gathered is transmitted by means of automobiles and ferry service to the Oakland sh.o.r.e.

There also were accepted such advertis.e.m.e.nts as had been offered. The number of these was, perhaps, the best visual sign of the resurrection of the new city. It was noted that in a fourteen-page paper printed within two weeks after the fire by the Examiner there were over nine pages of advertis.e.m.e.nts, and in a sixteen-page paper published by the Chronicle at least fifty per cent. of its s.p.a.ce was devoted to the same end.

Many of the larger factories left unharmed were also quick to start work. At the Union Iron Works 2,300 men were promptly employed, and the management expected within a fortnight to have the full complement of its force, nearly 4,000 men, engaged. No damage was done to the three new warships being built at these works for the government, the cruisers California and Milwaukee and the battleship South Dakota. The steamer City of Puebla, which was sunk in the bay, has been raised and is being repaired. Workmen are also engaged fixing the steamship Columbia, which was turned on her side. The hulls of the new Hawaiian-American Steamship Company's liners were pitched about four feet to the south, but were uninjured and only need to be replaced in position.

As for the working people at large, those without funds for their own support, abundant employment will quickly be provided for them in the necessary work of clearing away the debris, thus opening the way to a resumption of business and reducing the number requiring relief. The ukase has already been issued that all able-bodied men needing aid must go to work or leave the city.

This dictum of Chief of Police Dinan's will be strictly enforced. The relief work and distribution of food and clothing are attracting a certain element to the city which does not desire to labor, while some already here prefer to live on the generosity of others. Chief Dinan has determined that those who apply for relief and refuse work when it is offered them shall leave the city or be arrested for vagrancy. The police judges have suggested establishing a chain gang and putting all vagrants and petty offenders at work clearing up the ruins.

Perhaps never in the history of the city has there been so little crime in San Francisco. With the saloons closed, Chinatown, the Barbary Coast, and other haunts of criminals wiped out, and soldiers and marines on almost every block in the residence districts, there have been few crimes of any kind. It is the opinion of the police that most of the criminal element has left the city. The saloons, in all probability will remain closed for two more months.

THE PROBLEM OF THE CHINESE.

In conclusion of this chapter it is advisable to refer to the situation of one of the elements of San Francisco's population, the people of Chinatown. One of the problems facing the relief committees on both sides of the bay is the sheltering of the Chinese. Many of them are dest.i.tute. It has long been a question in San Francisco what should be done with Chinatown, and moving the Chinese in the direction of Colma has been agitated. Now they are without homes and without prospects of procuring any. They can get no land. The limits of Oakland's Chinatown have already been extended, and the strictest police regulations are in force to prevent further enlargement. On this side of the bay they are camping in open lots. Unless the government undertakes their relief, they are in grave danger. Those who have money cannot purchase property, as no one will sell to them. Few, however, even of the wealthiest merchants in Chinatown, saved anything of value, for their wealth was invested in the Oriental village which had sprung up in the heart of the area burned.

Yet it is the desire of the munic.i.p.ality not to hara.s.s this portion of its foreign population, and the vexatious problem of placing the new Chinatown will probably be settled to the satisfaction of the Chinese colony. This colony diverts an important part of the trade of San Francisco to that city, and if its members are dealt with unjustly there is danger of losing this trade. The question is one that must be left for the future to decide, but no doubt care will be taken that a new Chinatown with the unsavory conditions of the old shall not arise.

CHAPTER XI.

San Francisco of the Past

The story of San Francisco's history and tragedy appeal with extraordinary force to the imagination of all civilized men. For several generations the city was looked upon as an Arabian Night's dream--a place where gold lay in the streets and joy and happiness were unlimited. Its settlement, or, rather, its real rise as a city, was as by magic. It was first a city of tents, of shanties, of "shacks," lying on the rim of a great, s.p.a.cious bay. Ships of all sizes and rigs brought gold-seekers and provisions from the East, all the way round Cape Horn, after voyages of weary months, and at San Francisco their crews deserted and hundreds of these craft were left at their moorings to rot. Ash.o.r.e was a riot of money, prodigious extravagance, mean, shabby appointments, sudden riches, great disappointment, revelry, improvidence and suicide.

The streets that now lay squares from the water were then at the water's edge and batteaus brought cargoes ash.o.r.e. Long wharves--one was for years called the Long Wharf even after there were others built much longer--led out over the shallow water. These shallows were later filled and streets built upon them, and upon them arose warehouses, hotels, factories, lodging houses and business places.

The city grew rapidly in the direction away from the bay. But in its early days it was a city with no confidence in its own stability, and its buildings were accordingly unstable. A few minor earthquakes shook some of these down years ago and established in the minds of the people a horror of earthquakes. Frame houses became the rule.

In its ensuing life San Francisco developed the attributes of a city of gayety tempered by business. The population, for the most part, affected light-hearted scorn of money, or, rather, of saving money. It made mirth of life, habituated itself to expect windfalls such as miners and prospectors dream of, developed a moderate amount of business, and enjoyed the day while there was sunlight and the night when there was artificial light. The windfalls grew less frequent, mining became a costly and scientific process, and agriculture succeeded it. But, though it was only necessary to tickle the land with a hoe and pour water upon the tickled spot, to have it laugh with two, three or even four harvests a year, agriculturists continued scarce. The Chinese truck farms, some of which lay within the city's lines, supplied the small fruits and vegetables. Across the bay white men farmed, and grapes, fruits, vegetables and flowers of prodigious variety and monstrous dimensions were grown. But Eastern men came to do the farming. The Californian who himself was an "Argonaut," or whose father was an Argonaut, found no attractions in the steady labor of farming.

There followed a period of depression, ascribed by many to the influx of the Chinese and their effect upon the labor market, though the army of the unemployed were as a rule unwilling to do the work their Celestial rivals engaged in, that of truck farming, fruit raising, manual household labor, wood cutting and the like. A heavy weight settled on the city; business grew slack; the army of the unemployed, of ruined speculators and moneyless newcomers grew steadily greater, and for an era San Francisco saw its dark side.

But this was not a long duration. There was fast developing a new and important business, resulting from the development of the real resources of the State--the fruits, particularly the citrous fruits that grew abundantly in the warm valley. Fortunes were made in oranges, lemons, limes, grapes, almonds and pears. Raisins, whose size defied anything heretofore known, were made from the huge grapes that grew in the San Joaquin Valley. Sonoma sent its grapes to be made into wine. Capital flowed in from every side. Eastern men in search of health, others in search of wealth, came to the Golden State. No matter who came, where they came from, or where they were going, they spent a few days, or many, and some money, or much, in "'Frisco." The enterprise of the second edition pioneers quickly transformed the State and city.

AGRICULTURE BRINGS NEW WEALTH.

Luxury was startling. San Francisco's mercantile community equaled the best, the stores and shops were as beautiful as anywhere in the world and proportionately as well patronized. Theatres, music halls, restaurants, hotel bars and the like were ablaze with lights at night, and patronized by a gay throng. Sutro's bath, near the Cliff House, was a species of entertainment unequaled anywhere. The Presidio, as the army post is still known, as in the Spanish nomenclature, gave its drills, regarded as free exhibitions for the people. Golden Gate Park was an endless daily picnic ground.

The crowds in the streets of San Francisco were noticeably well dressed and usually gay, without that fixed, drawn, saturnine look noticeable among the people of the East. It is doubtful whether, upon the whole, the earnings of the San Francisco man equaled those of his Eastern brother, but his holidays were frequent and his joys greater. The grind of life was not yet steady--men had not become mere machines.

The climate of California is peculiar; it is hard to give an impression of it. In the first place, all the forces of nature work on laws of their own in that part of California. There is no thunder or lightning; there is no snow, except a flurry once in five or six years; there are perhaps half a dozen nights in the winter when the thermometer drops low enough so that there is a little film of ice on exposed water in the morning. Neither is there any hot weather. Yet most Easterners remaining in San Francisco for a few days remember that they were always chilly.

A PECULIAR YET DELIGHTFUL CLIMATE.

For the Gate is a big funnel, drawing in the winds and the mists which cool off the great, hot interior valley of San Joaquin and Sacramento.

So the west wind blows steadily ten months of the year and almost all the mornings are foggy. This keeps the temperature steady at about 55 degrees--a little cool for comfort of an unacclimated person, especially indoors. Californians, used to it, hardly ever think of making fires in their houses except in the few exceptional days of the winter season, and then they rely mainly upon fireplaces. This is like the custom of the Venetians and the Florentines.