and afterward in the rotunda of the Capitol at Washington, where they were received with impressive ceremonies. His body was interred in the cemetery at Canton.

To President McKinley there was accorded a spontaneous tribute of universal grief such as no one in our history, since Washington, had ever yet received. Americans sorrowed both for the ruler and for the man; and their sorrow was the more poignant because of the false hope which had been given them by the premature and quite unjustifiable optimism of his physicians. In it all there was nothing official, nothing studied or insincere. Its most impressive feature was found in its quiet intensity, the intensity of a feeling too sacred and too profound for utterance in mere words. At the hour when the simple ceremonial in Canton was proceeding, a great hush came over every city and hamlet in the land. The activities of seventy millions of people ceased.

He died at an hour that was friendly to his fame. A foreign war had ended in the triumph of the American arms. The Republic of the West had at last assumed its place among the greatest nations of the earth. Political bitterness had spent itself in the electoral contest of the preceding year, and there had succeeded a lull which brought with it good will and tolerance. Extraordinary material prosperity had enriched the nation, so that men might at some future day look back upon those years as to a Golden Age. And finally, the tragic ending of a useful, honorable life stirred all the chords of human sympathy, and seemed to cast upon that life itself the pathos and the splendor of a consecration.

THE EARTHQUAKE AND FIRE IN SAN FRANCISCO

(1906)

CONTEMPORARY DESCRIPTIONS AND

COMMENTS1

Three-fourths of the city of San Francisco have been destroyed by earthquake and flames. Three hundred thousand people have been rendered homeless, and are facing, for the moment, want and misery. The Federal Government, the States,

1 From a summary made for The Literary Digest of April 28, 1906, by Henry James Forman.

Several earthquakes, but they were of small importance, had occurred in California before 1906. Three of these at San Francisco have been described as "destructive," and four as "exceptionally severe," but the worst caused only five deaths and injured only about a dozen old buildings. The earthquake of April 18, 1906, followed by a fire lasting three days, practically destroyed all the business part of the city, and some adjoining districts besides. Elsewhere in California damage was done by this earthquake along the coast region in a belt about fifty miles wide. The damage done in San Francisco by the earthquake itself was small compared with what the fire produced. During the progress of the fire, it was estimated that 200,000 persons camped in the parks and 50,000 others in the military reservation. The fire could not be brought under control because the earthquake had cut off the water supply. The loss in buildings was estimated at $105,000,000, and in property of all kinds at from $350,000,000 to $500,000,000, of which $235,000,000 was covered by insurance. In aid of the sufferers, Congress voted $2,500,000, and the people of the country subscribed about $10,000,000. Within three years the city was practically rebuilt.

and the cities, newspapers, societies, and individuals are urging and hurrying aid to the sufferers of the greatest calamity of the kind in American history. No one is blind as to the extent of the disaster. Yet, from every quarter comes that word of cheer and encouragement, of sympathy and friendship, that is so helpful in times of distress, so typical of the American character. Fortunately, says the New York Journal, "it is certain that the spirit of 'Forty-nine' lives in California to-day. The same courage that changed a wilderness into a great State, and a strip of land by the sea's edge into a beautiful city, will do that work again. And from the ashes and the ruins, the blasted hopes, the broken fortunes, there will arise another San Francisco, more beautiful, more worthy of a brave people-a great monument to the courage, the everlasting determination of the West.

In 1871 Chicago had only about 300,000 inhabitants; the loss she suffered by her great fire was about $200,000,000. San Francisco had a population of 400,000, and her monetary loss will far exceed Chicago's figure-a catastrophe perhaps "without a parallel in history," the New York Tribune calls it. The work of devastation, as the story is gleaned from the newspaper accounts, began at 5:13 o'clock on the morning of Wednesday, April 18, when a quaking of the earth shook the business portion and the neighboring tenement district of the city into a mass of ruins. Great buildings, except those newer ones built on steel frames, collapsed like houses of cards. Tenement houses crumbled, and, indeed, the entire city quaked and rocked. Fires broke out immediately in the ruined portion, and breaking gas-mains,

helped them on. The breaking of the great watermain rendered the fire department helpless. When the second shock came, three hours after the first, the people were so unnerved that when they felt the first tremor they ran madly this way and that, screaming and crying out, and threw themselves on the ground in agonies of fear. The earth quaked and quivered under them like a jelly, and the air was filled with thunderous sounds. All then joined in a mad flight to the hills and the parks.

And yet, in the very midst of all this panic, the citizens, under the leadership of Mayor Schmitz, organized a committee of safety; General Funston placed the city under martial law and brought the whole garrison of the Presidio with him, and so far as was possible, order reigned in the chaos. But the fire took up the work that the earthquake left undone and proceeded to wipe out the greater part of the city. Many banks were either completely burned or badly damaged, but in almost every case the vaults remained intact and those banks are rapidly resuming business. Most hotels throughout the city, left by the earthquake, were destroyed by the uncontrollable fire. All the great newspaper buildings and the Western Union Telegraph building were destroyed, thus cutting off communication.

Twenty towns in the neighborhood of San Francisco suffered from the shock. San José, Sacramento, Monterey, Stockton, Berkeley, and Palo Alto are among them. Leland Stanford University, the famous seat of learning, situated in Palo Alto, is a ruin. The university has a $33,000,000 foundation and will be rebuilt. At this writing

it is still impossible to calculate the damage. As the New York Sun observes:

"A city dismantled by earthquake and ravaged by fire can give only an incoherent account of the calamity. There are the dead to bury, the injured to succor, and the destitute to be relieved. San Francisco's misfortunes are cataclysmic, and it has no time for exact details. Days must elapse before we have an understanding of the processes of the disaster, or even the extent of it. We know that it is a ruined city, filled with starving and homeless people; but we have no body of facts from which to draw conclusions or read a lesson. How much of the destruction was due to earthquake, and how much to fire has not been determined; and perhaps it never will be.'

The

From the moment the news of the earthquake went abroad scientists in both America and Europe made guesses as to the cause of it. Seismic disturbances are not new to San Francisco. In 1852, 1872, and 1898 San Francisco was visited by pretty severe shocks doing considerable damage. But most scientists agree that the California earthquake had nothing to do with Vesuvius, the two spots being in different geological zones. causes, in the opinion of Professor Ralph S. Tarr, of the Geological Department of Cornell, are rock movements which are the result of mountain growth. Professor James F. Kemp, of Columbia University, thinks the cause is in the slipping apart of two geological deposits, thus creating a rift. Professor Berkey, of Columbia, is of much the same mind. Professor Pickering, of Harvard, and many other scientists, feel certain the San Francisco disturbance was not of volcanic origin.