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 assumes 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 surpassed 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 passage 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 passed 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 circumstances 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 shore.
There also were accepted such advertisements 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 advertisements, and in a sixteen-page paper published by the Chronicle at least fifty per cent. of its space 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.