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source this is, hardly needs to be told. The people of San Francisco have been accumulating property, not only in their own city, but outside of it, for more than half a century. The great sum lost by fire, even after it shall be reduced by insurance payments, will still represent only a fraction of the value attached in one way or another to the Yerba Buena Peninsula. A multitude of individual fortunes, great and small, stand in such relationship to San Francisco that they are practically pledged to its restoration. Take, for example, the case of any one of the great estates like that of the Crocker family. The losses have been very great, but there remains a vast wealth, every penny of which, with the credit which attaches to it, must be employed in the effort to redeem what has been lost. No other course is possible in any business view; practically no other course is thinkable. What is true of the Crocker, or the Sharon, or Fair or Tevis estates is true of many others on a large scale; and it is true of thousands upon a smaller scale.

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San Francisco has still another potent resource in established lines of transportation by land and sea in which enormous capital is invested. Railway and steamship lines are powerful supports of any community to which they are lated as established factors, because they represent forces which must lend their efforts for the preservation of their own interests. Take the Southern Pacific railroad system which, with its connections, is so adjusted as to make San Francisco a great general focus of its operations. The investment in this property alone runs into the hundreds of millions of dollars, every dollar of which is a separate pledge of the restoration of San Francisco. There is no possible escape, even if escape were desired, for the great investments of this transportation company. Its interest is bound up in the future of the city by the Golden Gate. All its resources of capital, of energy, of initiative, of corporate and personal force, must of necessity be given fully and completely to the great work of renewing the destroved citv.

In this connection I may be permitted, I hope, to speak of a condition which, while not unrecognized, has not been as

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widely understood as it deserves. fer to the developments of the past four cr five years of the transportation system by which San Francisco and California are directly connected with the centers of the East. The central route across the continent is, as all the world knows, shorter in miles than any of the several other highways which traverse the continent, but it is only within a comparatively recent time that this natural advantage has been made the most of as related directly to the interests of San Francisco. So late as 1901, it looked as if, in spite of the natural advantages of the great central route, a very large proportion of transcontinental traffic, and particularly of that part of the traffic related to Pacific Ocean commerce, would be diverted to the Northern route. A man of great energy and resource had practically consolidated two northern transcontinental railroads, had built one of them upon the most modern lines, and had equinned the other for speedy and economical service. In addition to these important doings he had brought into co-operation with them a sufficient fleet of trans-Pacific steamers. The North had succeeded in gaining over California the larger part of the Oriental flour trade, which is so important a factor in Pacific commerce; and in addition to these advantages the State of Washington was able to supply the commodity of lumber, another important factor in trans-Pacific freights. At that time the central line across the continent was under a multitude of embarrassing disadvantages. It was not, like the northern route, a united and continuous property dominated by a single hand and a single purpose, but was under separate ownerships, not always mutuall" harmonious. At many points it failed of co-operative and effective service. It is further to be said that the several links, which together formed the central line, were relatively obsolete in tvoe. They were built at a time when the art and the practice of railroad construction were less advanced than now, at a time when less attention was given to matters vital in connection with competition. They were faulty as to location, difficult as to grades, abounding in curves, and both difficult and costl at many points of operation. The ad

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• What San Francisco has to Start With." Residences on Broadway, Sun Francisco.

vantage of a shorter distance was indeel with the central route-this advantage could not be nullified-but measured by artificial conditions, this route did not compare favorably with the Northern route.

It was at this time that Mr. E. H. Harriman came into a dominant relationship to both the Union Pacific and the Southern Pacific systems. What he did in connection with these systems is familiar recent history. What had previously been practically independent sections of the through line between San Francisco and Chicago he welded into a single system. He set on foot a colossal process of reconstruction-reducing grades, cutting out curves, replacing light and obsolete work with the best and the heaviest modern construction. At one point alone-by a short cut across Salt Lake-he cut out 44 miles of distance, and hewed down 1600 feet of aggregate elevations. The gross result of an expenditure which ran largely into the millions was to bring the central route across the continent, the route that leads directly to, and which supports the commercial life of San Francisco, to a parity in its artificial character with its incontestable natural advantages. How important this fact is to-day as related to the future of San Francisco does not need to be pointed out.

Geography, a strong productive backing, fixed connections, accumulated capital-these things are, of course, powerful forces in the general resources of a city. But there is another kind of force equally important that of men. Of what value is a million dollars in money, or a hundred millions, if there be behind it no element of personal force, no capacity to comprehend and grasp conditions, not courage, no initiative? The question answers itself. Without effective personality all else comes to nothing. It is precisely at that point that San Francisco, in my opinion, is likely to be a tremendous gainer, even through disaster.

Every city tends to the accumulation of what may be called dead wood in its human organization. Much of its accumulated wealth passes inevitably into impotent hands. Fortunes, large and small, by one course or another, fall into the hands of the incapable and the in

ert. San Francisco had her full share of dead wood. Now there has come a mighty shaking up of conditions. Much that was of great value has been wiped out of existence. What earthquake and fire left untouched can only be restored to productiveness by policies in which foresight, courage and energy are combined. It follows, of course, that much of the property that now lies encumbered with rubbish and worse than useless, must pass from the possession of those who lack the power to make it productive, into the hands of those who can make the most of it. There are many who, by their necessities or their lack of business initiative, will be compelled to let go their holdings. Before the records of the disaster are completed there must be તે very considerable transference of property from weak hands to strong hands. with an immense gain to the city in the element of vital force. Again, there exist in every established community certain established relationships, having to those who hold them the value of capital, and vet vielding nothing to the advantage of the community itself. Every community carries a vast amount of dead wood in its business and professional life in the form of individual reputation and prestige, all of which turns to the account of individuals as distinct from the community itself. All, or most of this intangible species of capital, has been wiped out in San Francisco. There must come a new deal all around-a deal giving to capacity and energy opportunities which the old conditions denied as against established reputation. Here, again, San Francisco is bound, in my judgment, to gain a new element of effectiveness. I have somewhere recently seen San Francisco described as a "city of incomparable opportunity." The statement is not too large; it is literal truth. Where else may be found such conditions of established commerce, such assurances of restoration and re-development under circumstances. that afford room on the ground floor for every sure-footed adventurer?

There is no plainer lesson to be drawn from general observation and experience than that great convulsions which break down old conditions and set up new ones invariably mark the beginnings of progressive periods. progressive periods. Who is there with

any knowledge of history who does not know that wars, at least in modern times, have vastly stimulated the life of those countries which they have seemingly devastated? We need go no further than our own recent history to see the effect of this species of stimulus. Almost every aspect of what we call modern progress has found its largest development since our Civil War. Our manufactures, our general commerce, our unparalleled railway building these things followed the war, and in large part grew out of the conditions which were made by the war. We have only to turn to San Francisco to see how new conditions, developed through our little war with Spain, less than a decade ago, became a tremendous factor in the development of a city. We have only to turn to another disaster comparable with our own, the great London fire of 1666, to see not only how a devastated city arose from its ashes, but how in doing so it established itself in new and more effective relations with the world. London was indeed a great city before the fire, as was San Francisco before hers, but the unquestioned dominance of London, her supreme position in Europe, dates from the period following disaster, when she attracted to herself and incorporated with her organic forces. the strongest men and the most powerful interests of the period.

Even to-day we may see the beginnings of special activities in San Francisco that are bound to operate upon a vast scale within the coming half-dozen years. We shall see energies of reconstruction work upon a scale beyond precedent in history. We shall see the Yerba Buena peninsula a veritable bee-hive of constructive activities. It is said that twenty thousand men are now busy in the burned district; before long we shall see that number multiplied five times over. We shall have a situation in which anywhere from a quarter to half a million dollars per day will be paid out in the form of wages. It goes without saying that this enormous flood of ready money, added to the ordinary earnings of such business as is now reestablishing itself, will create in San Francisco a condition of immediate local prosperity.

I can only add to what is written above

that I look not only to see San Francisco arise from this great disaster, but to see her stronger, more populous and more effective than ever before.

jpm F. Herrin

"Location and resources make great cities possible; nothing short of a complete annihilation of these can destroy us.”

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O one whose opinion is worth a rap entertains a doubt as to San Francisco's future. It was written long before the foot of man ever trod the shores of her magnificent bay and is but emphasized by the spirit that has arisen out of her recent calamity.

Had our harbor dried up; had the fruitful valleys tributary to us been destroyed; had the vine and the fig refused longer to grow upon our hillsides; had the gold, the silver and the copper in our mountains been spirited away; had the ocean receded, leaving us miles inland; then might the real San Franciscan have begun to worry about the future. But with our every resource untouched; with our valleys and hill-lands fat with ripening crops; with our mines unaffected; with the commerce of the world passing through the Golden Gate; and with a sturdy, self-reliant, vigorous, progressive and irrepressible people; none but the sad-of-speech or the croaking pessimist could for a moment doubt the future.

Location and resources make great cities possible; nothing short of a complete annihilation of these can destroy us. When San Francisco was but three years old, the last of six great fires swept over it and destroyed more property more homes and more business houses-proportionately, than did our recent conflagration. History tells us that before the ashes of the great fire of 1851 were fairly cool, rebuilding was vigorously commenced by the argonauts that day. That their supreme faith was wisely founded, the world now knows. They had the croaker in those days, too, but he surviveth not, for the croaker is a sporadic creature that lives his short life in the wake of lost opportunities. Blazoned upon the municipal seal of San

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TIREY L. FORD, Solicitor-General for the United Railways. "No one whose opinion is worth a rap entertains a doubt as to San Francisco's future. It was written long before the foot of man ever trod the shores of her magnificent bay, and is but emphasized by the spirit that has arisen out of her recent calamity."

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