with little delay. This work must necessarily precede any great amount of improvement in the business district, for the workmen must be housed against the coming rainy season, before they can be expected to do work of reconstruction.

The work of rehabilitation of the business section of the city is going on at present much more rapidly than even our citizens imagine. Many of the big class A buildings were damaged but slightly by the fire, and are being put in serviceable condition as fast as men can place material in position. Take the new Chronicle building, for instance. Nine weeks after the morning the fire began the Chronicle had re-established itself, with a complete newspaper plant and all its offices. The Call preceded the Chronicle by a month, and was publishing from the Claus Spreckels' building five weeks after the fire. The Call's large press was uninjured by the fire, and was put in serviceable condition immediately. The building was left in such condition that the lower floors were occupied by the paper within a month. The Examiner building, with all the plant, was completely demolished by dynamite and fire, but already the debris has been cleared away, and preparations are well in hand for the rebuilding of the edifice with all the modern improvements. A complete printing plant for the Examiner was ordered in the East before the fire stopped at Van Ness avenue. The Bulletin has announced its plans for the erection of a new building on Market street, and before the year is out it will be published from a modern building in the center of the business district.

Plans have been made for the new home of the California Promotion Committee on the site of one of the burned buildings near its old home on New Montgomery street. This will be pushed to completion as rapidly as possible, and from it will go to all the world information relating to California and what it has to offer the home seeker and the investor.

These are but a few of the instances showing that the rehabilitation of Market street is already in progress. The rapidity of this work is due to the California spirit which is dauntless under any ad

versity. It is this spirit which will raise the New San Francisco from the old in an incredibly short space of time. It is working to-day as it never worked before, for it expects to accomplish in a few years the restoration of a city which took half a century in building, and which stood the queen of the Pacific. The task is not so enormous as appears at first glance. The world knows of the natural advantages of the city, and from all over the globe there will come men of money and of brains who will be quick to profit by the wonderful opportunities offered for investment and for business enterprise. Not a San Francisco business man has deserted. Merchants, bankers, financiers, all but wait on the action of insurance companies to begin the work of rebuilding.

The foreign trade of San Francisco, which during the past few years has been increasing by leaps and bounds, is unimpaired. The great docks to which come the ships of all the world are ready to receive the goods from the world's marts, and California stands as before, shipping her produce to every nation. That which made San Francisco great is unharmed. The merchants in their temporary structures are carrying stocks of goods as immense as those they had before the fire, and they are just as busy supplying the demands of the people. These very temporary structures and the haste in which they were erected, is one of the best evidences of the rapid rebuilding of the city, for these men will not be content to remain in such condition a day longer than is absolutely necessary.

We

The question is constantly asked: How soon will San Francisco be rebuilt? Such a question is fruitless and impossible of answer. It may be set down as a fact, however, that the rebuilding of San Francisco will astonish the world. not only possess the men and money to rebuild it, but we are blessed with a climate which permits the three hundred and thirteen working days to be utilized to the fullest extent. Nor heat nor cold stops the artisan here, and it is a recognized fact among contractors that this condition has developed the most rapid workmen in the world.

This is the combination which will rebuild San Francisco in record time.

It

Raphael Weill & Company's new quarters on Van Ness avenue and Pine street.

is the combination which will cause to rise a newer city, a grander city-a city purified by fire.

Papuas, Femmings

Secretary of the Reconstruction Committee and Chairman of the California Promotion Committee.

"Calamity can be made a blessing."

I'

F the San Francisco calamity could. be capitalized, it would be worth $200,000,000 to the city if proper advantage is taken of the opportunity that now presents itself. If the citizens will continue their united effort to make a better, more modern and more beautiful San Francisco, the catastrophe which befell us can be turned into a blessing. The secret of the success of Chicago can be traced back to the fire of 1871, when that calamity brought the people together to work for one common end, and that end was the re-building of Chicago to place her in the forefront of the cities of the Middle West and make her what she was for at least a decade,

the second city in importance in the United States, and one of two cities for a live, energetic and forceful business or professional man.

For some vears preceding our fire San Francisco was the third city in importance in the United States; in fact, for four months before the fire real estate sales in San Francisco exceeded the real estate sales of Chicago. To many it will seem incredible that more real estate and of greater value was sold in San Francisco than in Chicago. Yet that fact will give the world some measure of the growth and success of this great city. For the past five years the eyes of the world were on this Western Coast and focused on San Francisco as the center of attraction. San Francisco was going ahead in leaps and in bounds. Our location, our port with the great State of California backing us, sent San Francisco to the front with but very little effort on the part of the people themselves. Now that this unity of spirit and action has arisen out of the ashes, we will couple with our natural advantages the enthusiasm and action of the people working for the common cause of a greater and better San Francisco.

One of the most important works ahead of us is the development of the harbor. San Francisco has only nine miles of docks; New York has four hundred miles of docks. The future of San Francisco lies to the westward, and we must now look to the development of this harbor to encourage commerce, that we may secure the commerce of South and Central America, which naturally which naturally belongs to us, but most of which has heretofore gone to Germany. We should build up a system in the Far East, in South America and in Alaska, which will cause all the business to be done through the port of San Francisco. Mr. Hill has already diverted enormous shipments of steel and cotton and other goods by round-about and tortuous routes to the Far East through Puget Sound. Every bit of that business should have gone through San Francisco. The reason we

lost it is because Mr. Hill went after it while San Francisco stood quietly by confidently boasting of its location, its geographical center and its harbor. Personal effort is the thing that counts in these days, and personal effort must now be made to hold and to build up and

increase the business that can be secured to go through San Francisco, just by reaching out and making an effort to secure it. Some years ago, a Japanese committee went to London to buy rails to build railways in their country. They found they could buy them so much cheaper in London than in America, until Mr. Hill told the Carnegie Steel Co. that they would have to sell the Japanese rails for cost, and that he would transport them to Japan at cost. The result was, that the contract was given in this country, and Mr. Hill started shipments over his roads in enormous quantities. Mr. Hill is now extending the Grand Trunk Pacific from Manitoba through the Peace River country to Port Tuck. His Northern and Great Northern are there, and the Burlington is getting a part of that business, too.

Then there is the Canadian Pacific which is throwing its weight through the North, and Mr. Harriman's line, the Oregon Short Line, is now being built to Puget Sound. This great movement is actually under way, and San Francisco must awaken and look to her laurels. The bulk of the through business to the Far