Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror

by Richard Linthicum; Samuel Fallows; Trumbull White

CHAPTER X.

WHOLE NATION RESPONDS WITH AID.

Government Appropriates Millions and Chicago Leads All Other Cities with a Round Million of Dollars—People in All Ranks of Life from President Roosevelt to the Humblest Wage Earner Give Promptly and Freely.

THE fiery destruction of the beautiful city and the pitiable plight of the survivors who escaped annihilation from quake and fire only to face death in the equally horrible forms of starvation and exposure touched the heartstrings of humanity. The response to the needs of the stricken city and its people was so prompt, so universal and so generous that forever it will appeal to the admiration of mankind. It was a response that did not wait to be asked but in the moment when the need became known voluntarily turned the tide of the abundance of the unstricken to the help of the unfortunate before they had even breath to voice their need.

All over our own land, from every state and city and hamlet, from the president and the assembled congress, dropping all else to turn the nation’s resources generously to the rescue, through all grades of the people the response broke forth spontaneously, generously, warmly, without stint and with such practical promptness that relief for unexampled distress was already on the way before the close of the first fateful day.

From all the seeming sordidness of daily life one turns to this as proof incontestable that humanity is at heart infinitely kinder and better and less selfish than it esteems itself. Even other lands and other peoples when the horror of the calamity became known to them, added to the stream of gold, which had its beginning in the sympathetic hearts of the American people and its ending in the stricken and despairing city. Once more were the lines of the geographer and politician obliterated and there was in the lurid light of the awful hours no north, no south, no east, no west. Once more did those in charge of the coffers of the municipalities raise high the lid and contribute to relieve the woe.

And Chicago, as became the Queen City of the Lakes, and which once in an almost equally dire calamity was, herself, the recipient of generous aid, was among the very first which recognized the need of prompt and generous aid. Almost as soon as the news of the direful plight of the city by the Golden Gate had been flashed over the wires, the Merchants’ Association of Chicago telegraphed to the authorities of San Francisco that it would be responsible for a relief fund of $1,000,000, and that any portion of that sum could be drawn upon at once. Then Mayor Dunne issued a call for a special relief meeting at which a big committee of the leading men of the city was formed and immediately went to work. Fraternal organizations, the newspapers and the clubs became also active solicitors for aid.

For several days the streets of the city presented a peculiar appearance. Upon the street corners stood boxes showing that funds deposited within would reach the homeless of the Pacific coast. Smaller boxes stood in the hotels that the strangers in the city might have an opportunity to contribute. Within the large stores in the business center were other boxes that the shoppers might have an opportunity of displaying their sympathy in something more tangible than words. Upon other corners stood the men and women of the Volunteers of America and the inscriptions above their boxes told that all pennies, nickels and dimes would eventually find their way to the stricken of San Francisco.

But while Chicago was the first of distant cities to pledge a big contribution, other cities throughout the country were not far behind. In Faneuil Hall, Boston, a meeting which overcrowded that historic temple of liberty was held, and Bishop Mallalieu of the Methodist church, at the close of an eloquent address, had a motion enthusiastically passed that the state of Massachusetts raise $3,000,000 for the relief of the earthquake and fire victims of the Pacific coast. In the meantime the city of Boston had already pledged $500,000 of that amount.

The city of Philadelphia at a formal meeting of its council voted $100,000, while the relief committee of the people there had secured $125,000 for the sufferers of the stricken city.