Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror.
by Richard Linthic.u.m and Trumbull White and Samuel Fallows.
PREFACE
In presenting this history of the San Francisco Earthquake Horror and Conflagration to the public, the publishers can a.s.sure the reader that it is the most complete and authentic history of the great disaster published.
The publishers set out with the determination to produce a work that would leave no room for any other history on this subject, a task for which they had the best facilities and the most perfect equipment.
The question of cost was not taken into consideration. The publishers wanted the best writers, the best ill.u.s.trations, the best paper, printing and binding and proceeded immediately to get them. The services of the two best historical writers in the United States were secured within an hour after the first news of the catastrophe was received. The names and historical works of Richard Linthic.u.m and Trumbull White are known in every household in the United States where current history is read. They are the authors of many standard works, including histories of recent wars and books of permanent reference, and rank among the world"s greatest descriptive writers.
A large staff of photographers have supplied ill.u.s.trations for this great historical work depicting every phase of the catastrophe from the first shock of earthquake to the final work of relief. These ill.u.s.trations have special interest and value because they are made from actual photographs taken by trained and skilled photographers.
This history of the most recent of the world"s great disasters is beyond all comparison the most sumptuously and completely ill.u.s.trated of any publication on this subject. So numerous are the ill.u.s.trations and so accurately do they portray every detail of the quake and fire that they const.i.tute in themselves a complete, graphic and comprehensive pictorial history of the great catastrophe.
The story as told by the authors, however, is one of absorbing interest that thrills the reader with emotion and depicts the scenes of terror, destruction, misery and suffering as vividly as if the reader were an eye-witness to all the details of the stupendous disaster.
The history of the Earthquake and Fire Horror is told consecutively and systematically from beginning to end.
"The Doomed City" is a pen picture of San Francisco while its destruction was impending.
The four days of the conflagration are described each in separate chapters in such a way that the reader can follow the progress of the fire from the time of the first alarm until it was conquered by the dynamite squad of heroes.
A great amount of s.p.a.ce has been devoted to "Thrilling Personal Experiences" and "Scenes of Death and Terror," so that the reader has a thousand and one phases of the horror as witnessed by those who pa.s.sed through the awful experience of the earthquake shock and the ordeal of the conflagration.
For purposes of comparison a chapter has been devoted to a magnificent description of San Francis...o...b..fore the fire, "The City of a Hundred Hills," the Mecca of sight-seers and pleasure loving travelers.
The descriptions of the Refuge Camps established in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio and other open s.p.a.ces depict the sorrow and the suffering of the stricken people in words that appeal to the heart.
The magnificent manner in which the whole nation responded with aid and the conduct of the relief work are told in a way that brings a thrill of pride to every American heart.
"Fighting the Fire with Dynamite" is a thrilling chapter of personal bravery and heroism, and the work of the "Boys in Blue" who patrolled the city and guarded life and property is adequately narrated.
Chinatown in San Francisco was one of the sights of the world and was visited by practically every tourist that pa.s.sed through the Golden Gate. That odd corner of Cathay which was converted into a roaring furnace and completely consumed is described with breathless interest.
The "Ruin and Havoc in Other Coast Cities" describes the destruction of the great Leland Stanford, Jr., University, the scenes of horror and death at the State Asylum which collapsed, and in other ruined cities of the Pacific coast.
"The Earthquake as Viewed by Scientists" is a valuable addition to the seismology of the world--a science that is too little known, but which possesses tremendous interest for everyone.
The threatened destruction of Naples by the volcano of Vesuvius preceding the San Francisco disaster is fully described. The chapters on Vesuvius are especially valuable and interesting, by reason of the scientific belief that the two disasters are intimately related.
Altogether this volume is the best and most complete history of all the great disasters of the world and one that should be in the hands of every intelligent citizen, both as a historical and reference volume.
THE PUBLISHERS.
INTRODUCTION
BY THE RT. REV. SAMUEL FALLOWS, D. D., LL. D.
A bright, intelligent unbeliever in the Providential government of the world has just said to me in discussing this greatest of calamities which has occurred in our nation"s history, "Where is your benevolent G.o.d?" I answered "He still lives and guides the affairs of men."
Another said, "The preachers would do well not to meddle with the subject." But the reply was made, "It is precisely the subject with which they, more than others, should concern themselves."
It is for them, when the hearts of men are failing to confidently proclaim that G.o.d has not abdicated his throne, and that man is not the sport of malign and lawless forces.
All events are ordered for the best; and the evils which we suffer are parts of a great movement conducted by Almighty power, under the direction of Infinite Wisdom and Goodness. G.o.d"s creation is a perfect work. The world in which we live is the best possible world on the whole; not the best possible to the individual at any given moment, but the best possible on the whole, all creatures considered and all the ages of man taken into the account. This is the affirmation of a triumphant optimism.
John Stuart Mill averred that a better world could have been made and more favorable conditions for man devised. But before this hypothesis can be sustained, the skeptic from the beginning of time must have scanned the history of every individual and studied it in its minutest details. He must have explored every rill and river of influence entering into his character. He must have understood every relation of the individual to every other person through all the ages. He must have mastered all the facts and laws of our earth. And as it sustains a vital connection with the solar system, he must have grasped all the mysteries which are involved in it.
As this system is related to the still grander one of which it is a part, he must have known the law and workings of its every star and sun. Still more, he must have gone from system to system with their millions of worlds and become familiar with every part of the vast stupendous whole. He must have learned every secret of all Nature"s forces, and have penetrated into the interior recesses of the Divine Being. He must have taken the place of G.o.d Himself.
A Divine Providence.
Amid all our doubts and distresses we must hold fast to the belief that there is a G.o.d who maketh the clouds His chariot and walketh upon the wings of the wind--a G.o.d who is present in every summer breath and every wintry blast, in every budding leaf, and every opening flower, in the fall of every sparrow and the wheeling of every world. His Providence is in every swinging of the tides, in every circulation of the air, in all attractions and repulsions, in all cohesions and gravitations. These, and the varied phenomena of nature are the direct expressions of the Divine Energy, the modes of operation of the Divine Mind, the manifestations of the Divine Wisdom and the expressions of the Divine Love.
The very thunderbolt that rives the oak and by its shock sunders the soul from the body of some unfortunate one purifies the air that millions may breathe the breath of life.
The very earthquake which shakes the earth to its center and shatters cities into ruin, prevents by that very concussion the graver catastrophes which bury continents out of sight.
The very hurricane which comes sweeping down and on, prostrating forests, hurling mighty tidal waves on the sh.o.r.e and sending down many a gallant ship with all its crew, bears on its destructive wings, "the incense of the sea," to remotest parts, that there may be the blooming of flowers, the upspringing of gra.s.s, the waving of all the banners of green, and the carrying away of the vapors of death that spring from decaying mold.
Man the Conqueror.
Pascal said "man is but a reed, the feeblest thing in nature, but he is a reed that thinks." The elemental forces break loose and for the time being he cannot control them. Amid nature"s convulsions he is utterly helpless and insignificant.
It is but for a moment, however, that he yields. He knows that he is the central figure in the universe of worlds. "He is not one part of the furniture of this planet, not the highest merely in the scale of its creatures but the lord of all." He is not a parasite but the paragon of the globe. He has faith in the unchangeableness of the laws he is mastering while suffering from them. He confidently declares there is nothing fitful, nothing capricious, nothing irregular in their action. The greater the calamity the more earnest his effort to ascertain its causes and learn the lessons it teaches.
Fearlessly man must meet the events of life as they come. Speculations as to future cataclysms and fearful forebodings as to the immediate end of the world must all be given to the winds. There will be at some time an end to our globe. It may be frozen out, or burned out, or scattered into impalpable dust by the terrific explosion of steam generated by an ocean of water precipitated into an ocean of fire. But cycles of millenniums will intervene before such an apocalypse takes place.
In the spirit of Campbell"s "Last Man" we must live, and act;
"Go sun, while mercy holds me up On nature"s awful waste To taste the last and bitter cup Of death, that man must taste: Go, say thou saw"st the last of Adam"s race On earth"s sepulchral clod, The darkening Universe defy, To quench his immortality Or shake his trust in G.o.d."
Wickedness not the Cause of Destruction.
There are among us men who seem to suppose that they have been let into the counsels of the Almighty and have the right to aver that this calamity so colossal in its proportions and awful in its character is a judgment upon our sister city for its great wickedness. I heard similar declarations when Chicago was swept by its tornado of flame.
Neither Chicago nor San Francisco could claim to be pre-eminent in righteousness, but, that Divine Providence should visit the vials of His wrath in an especial manner upon them because of their iniquity, is utterly repugnant both to reason and Holy Scripture. Only by a special revelation from the Most High, accompanied with evidence corresponding to that which substantiates the claims of an Old Testament prophet can any warrant be given to any man to declare that a great catastrophe is the consequence of the moral sins of a given community.
The Book of Job gives the emphatic denial to the claim that specific human misery and suffering are the sure signs of the retribution for specific guilt or sin. The Great Teacher and Divine Savior of men reaffirmed the truth of the teachings of that ancient poem by a.s.serting that the man born blind was not thus grievously afflicted because he himself or his parents had been guilty of some peculiar iniquity. He declared that the eighteen persons who had been killed by the falling of the Tower of Siloam (probably from an earthquake shock), were not greater sinners than those who were hearing him speak.
The Unity of Humanity.