The San Francisco calamity by earthquake and fire Part 9

Many weddings resulted from the disaster. Women driven out of their homes and left dest.i.tute, appealed to the men to whom they were engaged, and immediate marriages took place. After the first day of the disaster an increase in the marriage licenses issued was noticed by County Clerk Cook. This increase grew until seven marriage licenses were issued in an hour.

"I don't live anywhere," was the answer given in many cases when the applicant for a license was asked the locality of his residence. "I used to live in San Francisco."

Births seem to have been about as common as marriages, in one night five children being born in Golden Gate Park. In Buena Vista Park eight births were recorded and others elsewhere, the population being thus increased at a rate hardly in accordance with the exigencies of the situation.

THE EXODUS FROM SAN FRANCISCO.

We have spoken only of the camps of refugees within the munic.i.p.al limits of San Francisco. But in addition to these was the mult.i.tude of fugitives who made all haste to escape from that city. This was with the full consent of the authorities, who felt that every one gone lessened the immediate weight upon themselves, and who issued a strict edict that those who went must stay, that there could be no return until a counter edict should be made public.

From the start this was one of the features of the situation. Down Market Street, once San Francisco's pride, now leading through piles of tottering walls, piles of still hot bricks and twisted iron and heaps of smouldering debris, poured a huge stream of pedestrians. Men bending under the weight of great bundles pushed baby carriages loaded with bric-a-brac and children. Women toiled along with their arms full, but a large proportion were able to ride, for the relief corps had been thoroughly organized and wagons were being pressed into service from all sides.

In constant procession they moved toward the ferry, whence the Southern Pacific was transporting them with baggage free wherever they wished to go. Automobiles meanwhile shot in all directions, carrying the Red Cross flag and usually with a soldier carrying a rifle in the front seat. They had the right of way everywhere, carrying messages and transporting the ill to temporary hospitals and bearing succor to those in distress.

Oakland, the nearest place of resort, on the bay sh.o.r.e opposite San Francisco, soon became a great city of refuge, fugitives gathering there until 50,000 or more were sheltered within its charitable limits. Having suffered very slightly from the earthquake that had wrecked the great city across the bay, it was in condition to offer shelter to the unfortunate. All day Wednesday and Thursday a stream of humanity poured from the ferries, every one carrying personal baggage and articles saved from the conflagration. Hundreds of Chinese men, women and children, all carrying baggage to the limit of their strength, made their way into the limited Chinatown of Oakland.

Mult.i.tudes of persons besieged the telegraph offices, and the crush became so great that soldiers were stationed at the doors to keep them in line and allow as many as possible to find standing room at the counters. Messages were stacked yards high in the offices waiting to be sent throughout the world. Every boat from San Francis...o...b..ought hundreds of refugees, carrying luggage and bedding in large quant.i.ties.

Many women were bareheaded and all showed fatigue as the result of sleeplessness and exposure to the chill air. Hundreds of these persons lined the streets of Oakland, waiting for some one to provide them with shelter, for which the utmost possible provision was quickly made. No one was allowed to go hungry in Oakland and few lacked shelter. At the Oakland First Presbyterian Church 1,800 were fed and 1,000 people were provided with sleeping accommodations. Pews were turned into beds. Cots stood in the aisles, in the gallery and in the Sunday school room. Every available inch of s.p.a.ce was occupied by some subst.i.tute for a bed.

As the days wore on the number of refugees somewhat decreased. Although they still came in large numbers, many left on every train for different points. Requests for free transportation were investigated as closely as possible and all the deserving were sent away. Women and children and married men who wished to join their families in different parts of the State were given preference. The transportation bureau was on a street corner, where a man stood on a box and called the names of those ent.i.tled to pa.s.ses.

Along the princ.i.p.al streets of Oakland there was a picturesque pilgrimage of former householders, who dragged or carried the meagre effects they had been able to save. The refugees who could not be cared for in Oakland made an exodus to Berkeley and other surrounding cities, where relief committees were actively at work. Utter despair was pictured on many faces, which showed the effects of sleepless days and nights, and the want of proper food.

Oakland was only one of the outside camps of refuge. At Berkeley over 6,000 refugees sought quarters, the big gymnasium of the State University being turned into a lodging house, while hundreds were provided with blankets to sleep in the open air under the University oaks. The students and professors of the University did all they could for their relief, and the Citizens' Relief Committee supplied them with food.

The same benevolent sympathy was manifested at all the places near the ruined city which had escaped disaster, this aid materially reducing that needed within San Francisco itself.

WORSHIP IN THE OPEN AIR.

Sunday dawned in San Francisco; Sunday in the camp of the refugees. On a green knoll in Golden Gate Park, between the conservatory and the tennis courts, a white-haired minister of the Gospel gathered his flock. It was the Sabbath day and in the turmoil and confusion the minister did not forget his duty. Two upright stakes and a cross-piece gave him a rude pulpit, and beside him stood a young man with a battered bra.s.s cornet.

Far over the park stole a melody that drew hundreds of men and women from their tents. Of all denominations and all creeds, they gathered on that green knoll, and the men uncovered while the solemn voice repeated the words of a grand old hymn, known wherever men and women meet to worship the Lord:

"Other refuge have I none, hangs my helpless soul on Thee; Leave, oh, leave me not alone, still support and comfort me!"

A moment before there had been shouting and confusion in the driveway where some red-striped artillerymen were herding a squad of gesticulating Chinamen as men herd sheep. The shouting died away as the minister's voice rose and fell and out of the stillness came the sobs of women. One little woman in blue was making no sound, but the tears were streaming down her cheeks. Her husband, a st.u.r.dy young fellow in his shirt sleeves, put his arm about her shoulders and tried to comfort her as the reading went on.

"All my trust on Thee is stayed; all my help from Thee I bring; Cover my defenseless head with the shadow of Thy wing."

Then the cornet took up the air again and those helpless persons followed it in quivering tones, the white-haired man of G.o.d leading them with closed eyes. When the last verse was over, the minister raised his hands.

"Let us pray," said he, and his congregation sank down in the gra.s.s before him. It was a simple prayer, such a prayer as might be offered by a man without a home or a shelter over his head--and nothing left to him but an unshaken faith in his Creator.

"Oh, Lord, Thy ways are past finding out, but we still have faith in Thee. We know not why Thou hast visited these people and left them homeless. Thou knowest the reason of this desolation and of our utter helplessness. We call on Thee for help in the hour of our great need.

Bless the people of this city, the sorrowing ones, the bereaved, gather them under Thy mighty wing and soothe aching hearts this day."

The women were crying again, and one big man dug his knuckles into his eyes without shame. The man who could have listened to such a prayer unmoved was not in Golden Gate Park that day.

CHAPTER VII.

The Frightful Loss of Life and Wealth.

While mult.i.tudes escaped from toppling buildings and crashing walls in the dread disaster of that fatal Wednesday morning of April 18th in San Francisco, hundreds of the less fortunate met their death in the ruins, and horrifying scenes were witnessed by the survivors. Many of those who escaped had tales of terror to tell. Mr. J. P. Anthony, as he fled from the Ramona Hotel, saw a score or more of people crushed to death, and as he walked the streets at a later hour saw bodies of the dead being carried in garbage wagons and all kinds of vehicles to the improvised morgues, while hospitals and storerooms were already filled with the injured. Mr. G. A. Raymond, of Tomales, Cal., gives evidence to the same effect. As he rushed into the street, he says that the air was filled with falling stones and people around him were crushed to death on all sides.

Others gave testimony to the same effect. Samuel Wolf, of Salt Lake City, tells us that he saved one woman from death in the hotel. She was rushing blindly toward an open window, from which she would have fallen fifty feet to the stone pavement below. "On my way down Market Street,"

he says, "the whole side of a building fell out and came so near me that I was covered and blinded by the dust. Then I saw the first dead come by. They were piled up in an automobile like carca.s.ses in a butcher's wagon, all b.l.o.o.d.y, with crushed skulls, broken limbs and b.l.o.o.d.y faces."

These are frightful stories, exaggerated probably from the nervous excitement of those terrible moments, as are also the following statements, which form part of the early accounts of the disaster. Thus we are told that "from a three-story lodging house at Fifth and Minna Streets, which collapsed Wednesday morning, more than seventy-five bodies were taken to-day. There are fifty other bodies in sight in the ruins. This building was one of the first to take fire on Fifth Street.

At least 100 persons are said to have been killed in the Cosmopolitan, on Fourth Street. More than 150 persons are reported dead in the Brunswick Hotel, at Seventh and Mission Streets."

Another statement is to the effect that "at Seventh and Howard Streets a great lodging house took fire after the first shock, before the guests had escaped. There were few exits and nearly all the lodgers perished.

Mrs. J. J. Munson, one of those in the building, leaped with her child in her arms from the second floor to the pavement below and escaped unhurt. She says she was the only one who escaped from the house. Such horrors as this were repeated at many points. B. Baker was killed while trying to get a body from the ruins. Other rescuers heard the pitiful wail of a little child, but were unable to get near the point from which the cry issued. Soon the onrushing fire ended the cry and the men turned to other tasks."

ESTIMATES OF THE DEATH LIST.

The questionable point in those statements is that the numbers of dead spoken of in these few instances exceed the whole number given in the official records issued two weeks after the disaster. Yet they go to ill.u.s.trate the actual horrors of the case, and are of importance for this reason. As regards the whole number killed, in fact, there is not, and probably never will be, a full and accurate statement. While about 350 bodies had been recovered at the end of the second week, it was impossible to estimate how many lay buried under the ruins, to be discovered only as the work of excavation went on, and how many more had been utterly consumed by the flames, leaving no trace of their existence. The estimates of the probable loss of life ran up to 1,500 and more, while the injured were very numerous.

The shock of the earthquake, the pulse of deep horror to which it gave rise, the first wild impulse to flee for life, gave way in the minds of many to a feeling of intense sympathy as agonized cries came from those pinned down to the ruins of buildings or felled by falling bricks or stones, and as the sight of dead bodies incrimsoned with blood met the eyes of the survivors in the streets. From wandering aimlessly about, many of these went earnestly to work to rescue the wounded and recover the bodies of the slain. In this merciful work the police and the soldiers lent their aid, and soon there was a large corps of rescuers actively engaged.

BURYING THE DEAD.

Soon numbers were taken, alive or dead, from the ruins, pa.s.sing vehicles were pressed into the service, and the labor of mercy went on rapidly, several buildings being quickly converted into temporary hospitals, while the dead were conveyed to the Mechanics' Pavilion and other available places. Portsmouth Square became for a time a public morgue.

Between twenty and thirty corpses were laid side by side upon the trodden gra.s.s in the absence of more suitable accommodations. It is said that when the flames threatened to reach the square, the dead, mostly unknown, were removed to Columbia Square, where they were buried when danger threatened that quarter. Others were taken to the Presidio, and here the soldiers pressed into service all men who came near and forced them to labor at burying the dead, a temporary cemetery being opened there. So thick were the corpses piled up that they were becoming a menace, and early in the day the order was issued to bury them at any cost. The soldiers were needed for other work, so, at the point of rifles, the citizens were compelled to take to the work of burying. Some objected at first, but the troops stood no trifling, and every man who came within reach was forced to work. Rich men, unused to physical exertion, labored by the side of the workingmen digging trenches in which to bury the dead. The able-bodied being engaged in fighting the flames, General Funston ordered that the old men and the weaklings should take the work in hand. They did it willingly enough, but had they refused the troops on guard would have forced them. It was ruled that every man physically capable of handling a spade or a pick should dig for an hour. When the first shallow graves were ready the men, under the direction of the troops, lowered the bodies, several in a grave, and a strange burial began. The women gathered about crying. Many of them knelt while a Catholic priest read the burial service and p.r.o.nounced absolution. All Thursday afternoon this went on.

In this connection the following stories are told:

Dr. George V. Schramm, a young medical graduate, said:

"As I was pa.s.sing down Market Street with a new-found friend, an automobile came rushing along with two soldiers in it. My doctor's badge protected me, but the soldiers invited my companion, a husky six-footer, to get into the automobile. He said:

"'I don't want to ride, and have plenty of business to attend to.'

"Once more they invited him, and he refused. One of the soldiers pointed a gun at him and said:

"'We need such men as you to save women and children and to help fight the fire.'