Toward midnight a black, staggering body of men began to weave through the entrance. They were volunteer fire-fighters, looking for a place to throw themselves down and sleep. These men dropped out all along the line, and were rolled out of the driveways by the troops. There was much splendid unselfishness here. Women gave up their blankets and sat up or walked about all night to cover the exhausted men who had fought fire until there was no more fight in them.
The common destitution and suffering had, as we have said, wiped out all social, financial and racial distinctions. The man who last Tuesday was a prosperous merchant was obliged to occupy with his family a little plot of ground that adjoined the open-air home of a laborer. The white man of California forgot his antipathy to the Asiatic race, and maintained friendly relations with his new Chinese and Japanese neighbors. The society belle who Tuesday night was a butterfly of fashion at the grand opera performance now assisted some factory girl in the preparation of humble daily meals. Money had little value. The family that had had foresight to lay in the largest stock of foodstuffs on the first day of disaster was rated highest in the scale of wealth.
A few of the families that could secure wagons were possessors of cook stoves, but over 95 per cent. of the refugees did their cooking on little campfires made of brick or stone. Battered kitchen utensils that the week before would have been regarded as useless had become articles of high value. In fact, man had come back to nature and all lines of caste had been obliterated, while the very thought of luxury had disappeared. It was, in the exigency of the moment, considered good fortune to have a scant supply of the barest necessaries of life.
As for clothing, it was in many cases of the scantiest, while numbers of the people had brought comfortable clothing and bedding. Many others had fled in their night garbs, and comparatively few of these had had the self-possession to return and don their daytime clothes. As a result there had been much improvisation of garments suitable for life in the open air, and as the days went on many of the women arrayed themselves in home-made bloomer costumes, a sensible innovation under the circumstances and in view of the active outdoor work they were obliged to perform.
The grave question to be faced at this early stage was: How soon would an adequate supply of food arrive from outside points to avert famine? Little remained in San Francisco beyond the area swept by the fire, and the available supply could not last more than a few days. Fresh meat disappeared early on Wednesday and only canned foods and breadstuffs were left. All the foodstuffs coming in on the cars were at once seized by order of the Mayor and added to the scanty supply, the names of the consignees being taken that this material might eventually be paid for. The bakers agreed to work their plants to their utmost capacity and to send all their surplus output to the relief committee. By working night and day thousands of loaves could be provided daily. A big bakery in the saved district started its ovens and arranged to bake 50,000 loaves before night. The provisions were taken charge of by a committee and sent to the various depots from which the people were being fed. Instructions were issued by Mayor Schmitz on Thursday to break open every store containing provisions and to distribute them to the thousands under police supervision. A policeman reported that two grocery stores in the neighborhood were closed, although the clerks were present. “Smash the stores open,” ordered the Mayor, “and guard them.” In towns across the bay the master bakers have met and fixed the price of bread at 5 cents the loaf, with the understanding that they will refuse to sell to retailers who attempt to charge famine prices. The committee of citizens in charge of the situation in the stricken city proposed to use every effort to keep food down to the ordinary price and check the efforts of speculators, who in one instance charged as much as $3.50 for two loaves of bread and a can of sardines. Orders were issued by the War Department to army officers to purchase at Los Angeles immediately 200,000 rations and at Seattle 300,000 rations and hurry them to San Francisco. The department was informed that there were 120,000 rations at the Presidio, that thousands of refugees were being sheltered there and that the army was feeding them. One million rations already had been started to San Francisco by the department. But in view of the fact that there were 300,000 fugitives to be fed the supply available was likely to be soon exhausted.
FOOD FOR THE HUNGRY.
Such was the state of affairs at the end of the second day of the great disaster. But meanwhile the entire country had been aroused by the tidings of the awful calamity, the sympathetic instinct of Americans everywhere was awakened, and it was quickly made evident that the people of the stricken city would not be allowed to suffer for the necessaries of life. On all sides money was contributed in large sums, the United States Government setting the example by an immediate appropriation of $1,000,000, and in the briefest possible interval relief trains were speeding toward the stricken city from all quarters, carrying supplies of food, shelter tents and other necessaries of a kind that could not await deliberate action.
Shelter was needed almost as badly as food, for a host of the refugees had nothing but their thin clothing to cover them, and, though the weather at first was fine and mild, a storm might come at any time. In fact, a rain did come, a severe one, early in the week after the disaster, pouring nearly all night long on the shivering campers in the parks, wetting them to the skin and soaking through the rudely improvised shelters which many of the refugees had put up. A few days afterward came a second shower, rendering still more evident the need of haste in providing suitable shelter.
All this was foreseen by those in charge, and the most strenuous efforts were made to provide the absolute necessities of life. Huge quantities of supplies were poured into the city. From all parts of California trainloads of food were rushed there in all haste. A steamer from the Orient laden with food reached the city in its hour of need; another was dispatched in all haste from Tacoma bearing $25,000 worth of food and medical supplies, ordered by Mayor Weaver, of Philadelphia, as a first installment of that city’s contribution. Money was telegraphed from all quarters to the Governor of California, to be expended for food and other supplies, and so prompt was the response to the insistent demand that by Saturday all danger of famine was at an end; the people were being fed.
WATER FOR THE THIRSTY.