CHAPTER XXII. ROOSEVELT'S SECOND ADMINISTRATION (CONTINUED) THE SAN FRANCISCO EARTHQUAKE-OUR ISLAND POSSESSIONS. YOU have already been told of some terrible catastrophes within our borders involv You porty, mistr ing great loss of life and property, but we now come to the most appalling disaster known to the annals of American history. On the morning of the 18th of April, 1906, the beautiful and prosperous city of San Francisco, with a population of four hundred thousand souls, was almost entirely destroyed by a violent earthquake and a subsequent fire that followed, causing a loss of many lives and property of an estimated value of $250,000,000. The shock occurred a few minutes past five o'clock, while the inhabitants were in bed, and produced the greatest consternation and terror. The catastrophe came without warning, and in an instant the walls of great buildings were crumbling into shapeless heaps of fragments, burying scores of frantic victims beneath the ruins. The people, many of them half naked, ran hither and thither, dazed and horrified by the awful spectacle of death and destruction that confronted them. As terrible as was the scene after the earthquake had done its awful work, an even more devastating agency was waiting to complete the destruction. Before the people had recovered their senses, and before the clouds of dust from the demolished buildings had cleared away, forked flames, like serpents' tongues, were seen to shoot up into the turbid atmosphere at several points in the business section of the city where the largest and most magnificent commercial and municipal structures were located. It was then discovered that the water mains had been broken by the earthquake shock, thus shutting off the water supply and rendering the fire department impotent in their efforts to check the spread of the flames. Dynamite was then resorted to, and scores of buildings were blown up in the hope of saving others in the fire's path, but the flames leaped over the gaps and continued their work of destruction until three-fourths of the city lay a blackened waste of ruins, and 300,000 people were made destitute and homeless. Great suffering and perhaps famine and pestilence were imminent unless prompt measures for relief were taken. Offers of assistance came at once from all parts of the country, and before the ashes of the conflagration had cooled, money and supplies began to flow into the stricken city. The amount contributed by the entire country reached nearly $30,000,000, including $2,500,000 appropriated by Congress. New York City alone raised nearly $3,000,000. As accounts of eye-witnesses of thrilling events of this kind usually present more vivid pictures of the scene than ordinary description affords, we give place to the following story of the personal experiences of Mr. Louis Honig, a San Francisco newspaper man, published in the N. Y. Evening World: "At 5:13 o'clock on Wednesday morning, according to the big clocks of San Francisco, which still register the fateful time, I was awakened by a heavy shock. Having 270 had some experience with earthquakes, I realized in a moment from the vibrations and general swirling motion that this was no ordinary earthquake. It shook, according to time, less than a minute, but it seemed as if the earth were rocking for fully ten minutes. Fifteen minutes after everybody in San Francisco who could move his or her legs was out in the streets, dressed hurriedly and scantily. Women did not re-enter their homes for many hours after, fearing a recurrence of the earthquake. "While the fear and terror were still in their hearts volumes of smoke began to pour skyward in the business district of the city. It was then that the earthquake was forgotten in the new danger of conflagration. "The earthquake had done tremendous damage. From the business section of the city alarming reports reached persons in the residential districts that the great landmark structures of San Francisco, such as the Call Building, the Chronicle Building and others, had toppled over. This gained ready credence and tended to create a panicky feeling. With the recurrence of slight shocks all San Francisco was prepared for anything, even the crack of doom. Church steeples had been demolished, nearly every chimney in the town had been thrown to the streets, tons of graystone were scattered about the sidewalks, giving the city an appearance of a bombarded town. With such sights as these before their eyes and the alarming reports exciting them to a greater fear it was no wonder that all San Francisco began to prepare for an exodus. "It was the fire that temporarily drove the fear of the earthquake out of mind. Starting in three different sections of the business district at one time, the lines of separation were gradually obliterated and a fire of colossal dimensions gave the crippled fire department a task with which it was impossible to cope. The Grand Opera House and all Mission Street, in the central portion of the city, seemed to be a gigantic cauldron of flame. Farther east the fire was reaching toward the Palace Hotel. If it once crossed Market Street, the bank and office building section of the town was doomed. "Water grew scarcer and scarcer. The earthquake had so demolished the mains. that only a few pipes could be brought into play. But nothing could stem that onrush of flames, and before noon of Wednesday, the day of the earthquake, it was decided to use dynamite with the hope of confining the fire to three square blocks in the very heart of the city. The firemen worked bravely, even heroically, from the very outset. Citizens gave a hand, thinking that their business might be saved. Blast after blast of dynamite, heard to the very ends of the city, apprised all that water had given out and that drastic fire-fighting measures had been taken. "That blasting continued for two full days and the fire, which started early Wednesday morning, was not under control until it had consumed an area approximating ten square miles. The scenes of heroism, especially on the part of the firemen, will never be forgotten by any who saw them work twenty-two hours of the twenty-four. "As the fire crept westward persons in the Western Addition began to fear for their homes. This is the section where the most prosperous classes have built for themselves the prettiest homes to be found in the West. Nob Hill, that eminence of San Francisco on which were built the magnificent residences of Stanford, Huntington, THE CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO DURING THE FIRE This picture was taken before the fire had swept over the city, and shows that while the damage by Flood, Hopkins, and the most beautiful hotel in the world, the Fairmount, seemed sure of safety against the flames reaching below. That was on Wednesday. One day later Nob Hill had been devastated of all consumable material. The marble Fairmount was besmudged and charred from its foundation to its highest point. All within had been mere food for the flames. "Westward went the fire, advancing block by block, driving thousands into the streets toward the safe places in the parks and open spaces. Every kind of wagon was brought into service and San Francisco looked like an army on the move, taking its own provisions. It would take too long to tell of the misery and the suffering, the pathetic side of the rush for safety. Cosmopolitan San Francisco became more cosmopolitan as it camped in the Presidio, in the Golden Gate Park and on the beach. FOLLOWING THE EARTHQUAKE SHOCK, APRIL 18. the earthquake was serious, the loss from this cause alone would have been comparatively small. the roofs, watching the spread of the flames. Chinese, Italians, Mexicans, Armenians, Spanish all became brothers in this stressful time. On every hand some act of kindness, some charity was done. "The temper of the people was the most surprising phase of the earthquake and the subsequent fire. Men who had just lost their homes smiled and shrugged their shoulders. The women, realizing that the fire had shown no favoritism, made the best of the situation, which was black indeed. "Now, once more to the fire. The wind had been blowing slightly from the east, an extraordinary weather condition in San Francisco. Had it been from the west the fire would have been confined to the business district, but with that slight east wind and the lack of water there was nothing but dynamite to save the city. Onward spread the flames until they had reached such a point that wholesale dynamiting had to be undertaken. Van Ness Avenue, the broadest boulevard of San Francisco, was the stopping point. For a block east of Van Ness Avenue and a mile in length tons of explosives were used to shatter the buildings to put a stop to the incinerating flames. It was more like a cannonading and a bombardment than mere fire-fighting. Each one of those blasts made each and every man and woman in San Francisco jump to his or her feet and say, 'What next?' "But it did its work, and the fire burned itself out in the western addition. Out in the Mission it raged for several miles, and was extinguished on Friday afternoon. In the North Beach district, where it had spread after consuming Chinatown, it was not put out until Saturday night. "Never had fire and earthquake in modern times done its work so completely. To look upon the ruins of San Francisco to day is a sickening sight. Every building of note, every landmark has been wiped away. When it is rebuilt it will be another city, and it will take years for San Francisco to regain what it has lost in three days. Not only did the fire consume the material, but with it forever go the color and atmosphere that made San Francisco one of the few distinctive cities of America. "To escape the wrath of the flames 200,000 people fled to the parks and 100,000left town. Stoves were built with the bricks of toppled-over chimneys in the streets and improvised kitchens established. Then came the relief stations and food was distributed, so that all should not go hungry. Everybody pitched in. The dead were pulled out of the ruins and buried, the injured were rushed to the hospitals and the sick were attended to. "Bread lines were formed and a certain sort of order established out of chaotic turmoil. "Martial law had been declared on Wednesday afternoon. Thieves were shot and a rigid guardianship placed on all property. It was military law, well planned and well executed, and the fact that San Francisco to-day is not ridden over by the lawless element is due to the quick establishment of martial law. "A line twenty-six miles long would confine the devastated section of the city. Within, all is a heap of ashes, a few tottering walls and ruin absolute." The damage was not confined to San Francisco alone, but some of the towns south and southeast of the city suffered severely. In Oakland, Alameda, San José, Santa Rosa, Monterey, Salinas, and other places within the zone of the disturbance, all prominent buildings were wrecked or badly injured and many lives were lost. The beautiful structures of the Leland Stanford Jr. University at Palo Alto, costing several million dollars, were nearly all destroyed. Earthquake tremors in the city of San Francisco and vicinity were not uncommon, and in a few instances they had caused some slight damage but never to an extent to cause any fear or apprehension, but this exhibition of the hidden forces of nature literally upset the oldest inhabitant and all his theories of immunity. This violent seismic disturbance on the Pacific coast has been of much interest to geologists and scientists since its occurrence, and all agree that it was largely due to |