The 'Frisco Calamity.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 8193, 21 May 1906, Page 5

The 'Frisco Calamity.

A Call lor Assistance. Generous Assistance by a Mster City. The Dead Robbed. MM People Shot in the Streets.

(By Sperrcer Clapham.) PORTLAND, OREGON, April 25. Hundreds of refugees have arrived in Portland from San Francisco yesterday and to-day. The station is crowded long before each train arrives by relatives and friends of those who are fleeing from the stricken city. Policemen keep'the eager throngs m check, but as the poor fugitives, leave the trains with all their worldly belongings tied up in a handkerchief, or some small bag, their friends break through the line and rush to their side. To-day I saw one young man waiting around the station with a look of keenest anxiety on his face. Later as the line of refugees came forward he recognized his mother among the throng. SVie had come to him from the jaws of death, and they rushed into each other's arms, mingling their tears and sobs. A week of anxiety, wearying anxietv it has been for hundreds here m Portland. No one before realised how close is the relationship of these two Pacific Coast towns. There is always more or less rivalry between the two, but the awful tidings that reached us last Wednesday morning, banished every thought of commercial strife, and every heart was distressed with the thought of friends or relations who might have been crushed to death in the crumbling buildings or who might be wandering without food and shelter in a homeless, hopeless condition. Portland like every other city came to the rescue immediately. There was one though prdom'nate. " How can we help those in distress?" ■ There was a general rush to the telegraph, and to the long distance 'phone companies. " Communication entirely cut off," was the reply. All Wednesday morning -people waited almost breathlessly. Then a little news began to filter through. News that the whole world was waiting t:> hear. Subscription lists were soon forthcoming. One Bank responded with 25,000 dollars. Public and private institutions piled up the amount till this city with its 142,000 inhabitants had given no less than 250,000 dollars.

But something more than money was required. The people of San Francisco were actually needing supplies, and these would have to be provided in the quickest possible time. It required organisation. A committee was formed —the Eelief Committee —which acted with the Commercial Club, and every effort was directed towards gathering together food, clothing and bedding. Before the city had time to think of any difficulty in getting their supplies to San Francisco word was received from A. H. Harriman, who owns that great belt of railways which takes m Chicago, New Orleans, 'Frisco, Portland and Ogden, that the lines and all officials and men in his employ were available without cost to help in the rescue work or m relief work. Nothing could have been more welcome to all the cities between Portland and 'Frisco than this knowledge. The spirit of Harriman was caught by every man in the company and the officials worked night and day, sparing neither expense nor effort. Mr Harriman, himself, gave 200,000 dollars in actual cash in addition to the incalculable help rendered by his lines. The Eelief Committee in Portland had no trouble getting supplies. Merchants and others gave without a selfish thought. One of Portland's chief bakers told me that he had orders for all the bread that he could bake that day for the Belief Committee. He said "I do not think we bakers ought to charge anything for our bread. We are giving them only something to keep them alive, but think of it. ■ 'lhink of it! They have lost everything, everything !" He turned to go, his eyes filled with tears. The American gets a name tor worship of the dollar. The other side of the American nature came into strong relief at this call from the distressed. The armoury Here was turned into a depot of supplies, and in a short time a train load of provisions left the city, the first, it is claimed, to start from any city. Eight through Oregon, the smaller cities kept adding cars of provisions, till when the train reached the boundary of California it was of enormous proportions. To-day there is hardly a bed to be bought m the whole city. San Francisco has them all. Yesterday and today the refugees have been arriving. All kinds of preparations have been made. Those who had no friends were met by the relief committee, a branch of which had set up a kind of office in the large waiting room at the station. There sat at a long table Mr Tom. Eichardson (manager of the Commercial Club) with his secretary, Mr C. L. Crissey, both of whom narrowly escaped death so recently in the Commercial Club lire. Around about the room fitted a corps of helpers—angels of mercy, who met everyone who entered the room with a kindly greeting, and asked what your needs were before you had time to express them. Thoughtfulness and often tender care was bestowed upon the poor dirty travellers who entered the room in line clad in whatever they were able to pick up in their hurried leaving, smelling of the smoke of doomed San Francisco. Many of those who crowded in for relief were of a poor miserable class. Of course there were some who were of the better class who had been unfortunate and lost everything. But these..had sent to relatives and friends for temporary relief, while the really helpless crowded the relief office till hardly standing room was left. But the relief angels were not deterred by unsightly clothes, nor the sickening odours. Cheerfully and tenderly they sorted out the refugees, those who wanted meal tickets, bed tickets, bath tickets, clothing tickets, those who wanted to send messages ; all were qu'ukly attended to. Mr Strong, one of Portland's leading attorneys, stood high on a counter, and from time to time gave the refugees directions. His cheery way in-

spired the refugees with confidence and courage. For a whole week tbev had been utterly deprived of comfort. They had not had one good night's sleep. Many had not been undressed. They had slept in the open or amongst crowds of other refugees. This afternoon, for the first time, thoy found themselves within reach of a bath, good comfortable clothing, and a good night's sleep. And as these facjes were au-

nounced from the counter their faces lighted lip and they uttered murmurs of gratitude and satisfaction. One man had spent most of the time in Oakland, across the bay from San Francisco. " I had great difficulty in getting fhere," he said. " There was an awful struggle at the ferry wharves on the day of the earthquake. The sights were heartrending. I saw a poor little fellow—a newsboy—lying, covered with ar sheet, on the side of the road as soon as I left the place where I was staying. He was one of the first boys out with the papers and the falling bricks caught him. At the ferry the crush was dreadfully great, and women were weeping everywhere. Strong men, too, were distracted, and gazing into the faces of everyone, hoping against hope that some loved one might perchance have escaped. I can't bear to think of it. It was harrowing then. It is dreadful yet." _ j The ladies who worked on the relief committee were the women of leisure ; in the city, some of the richest and I most influential women, who came out of palaces to humbly do deeds of mercy. They did their work intelligently, cheerfully, nobly. Sometimes a female refugee, was found with several little children. These would have to be clothed and fed and cared for, and the best homes in the city here afforded

them temporary relief. As for the men they were offered work by the hundred. One woman of Portland gave up a farm to the relief committee for twelve months. This spontaneous proffer of help, this unanimity of action,, has had its humanising influence. Everyone is grateful for it. The whole city feels better for it. Misanthropists stand reproved. Here is satisfactory evidence that in spite of its commercialism, the strife for a higher civilisation, which after all is the dominant key in American life, is having its effect. On the other hand the San Francisco horror has revealed to the nation the effects of bad government. It reveals the presence in American communities of a section of people who are too utterly depraved to rank along with human beings. They are the ghouls who rob the dead and the living in ; times of great social disorder and distress. When the terrors of an awful earthquake and the horrors of an unchecked and raging fire threatened every home in the city, these men were endeavouring to rob and pillage wherever opportunity presented itself or could be made. One man was found with his pocket full of human fingers taken from the dead. He intended to finish his gruesome work and remove the rings later. It is some satisfaction to relate that he was shot. One lady who arrived at Denver yesterday with her hand bound up, told how she had come out from a swoon on the day of the shock with one of her fingers removed. New Zealanders who have not been in America cannot know what these fiends are like. Thanks to isolation, immigration laws, minimum wage acts, factory acts, and general capacity for good government, a holocaust in New Zealand could never have these additional horrors; they need never fear these human vultures, a veritable nightmare in themselves. Turning to one of the refugees at the station I asked as he stood in line, " How have vou fared for food since the earthquake?" "Well," he said, "we have had enough to eat. I was out at the park and supplies were brought. We had to wait in line an awful time and then they gave out bread and tinned beef. It became very monotonous." " Were the nights cold ?" " No. We did not suffer much. We slept under the trees." " How much of the residential district was destroyed by fire ? Surely there has been no total destruction of the city?" "Well, of the city proper, yes. But be} T ond that the houses did not suffer except from the shock and many of them not badly." " Then were not the people who lived in them able to entertain the homeless ?" " No. They were not allowed to use their houses for cooking. They could not light fires or even have a light. The lights were out of order, as were the sewage mains. So while many of them returned to their own homes at night to sleep, they locked their houses during the day and lived out at the park and in the streets. But there was very little disorder. The provisions were brought out in waggons and distributed by officials. When the opportunity came we went over to Oakland and then got passage to Portland." I questioned them about the shooting of the people by the soldiers—not the regular soldiers but the civilian soldiers. " Yes, indeed, they would shoot you if I you did not obey them at once. Why, sir, one man was asked to scrape bricks off the street. He took no notice. The soldier asked him a second time, and when he went to move away the soldier ran him through with a bayonet." Such stories are persistently told by refugees, and there is evidently much truth in them, for serious cause for complaint has been given by the citizen soldiers. The story of the death of Major Tilden, of Governor Pardee's staff, lends all other stories of the kind credence. The fact that he and another were shot while m their automobile, protected as he was by the sign of the lied Cross, just because he would not slow up for every guard along the street, is a pretty clear indication of the tyrannical spirit of those irresponsibles " dressed in brief authority." It would also show how little mercy world be shown by them to the casual wanderer should he resent their officiousness.

A week has passed since the earthquake came and the fire became free to | ravage the city. People are now beginj ning to speculate on what San Francisco j is going to do. They will not long be I left in the realm of doubt. San Francisco will build a better city, a cleaner | city. The loss of life, though appalling, will not apparently affect the city. The departures through fear will be chiefly those who can best be spared, those having little property. The benefits will be felt chiefly in the cleaning out by the fire of many sections that were civic ulcers—sections m which the greatest loss of life occurred, for in this section many of the houses were unsafe and crumbled with the earthquake, burying their unfortunate Many of those who were buried were probably travellers located in the cheap hotels, and their identity will never be known. Their bodies were burned to ashes in the great fire. Although the fire was limited to a section, pictures reveal how very clean a sweep it has made, considering the nature of the buildings. Dynamite did much of this work. But the results are the same. 'Frisco will build flue steelstructures where the old-fashioned places fell, and while the beauty of the citv has always been San Francisco's

pride, that beauty tttll be more appreciated by visitors now that the un» ! sightly and almost dangerous parts have been destroyed. ' America will look to San Francisca to rebuild her city, and the Government is already offering its assistance. There is a great deal of city pride, too. Taere is one reason why San Francisco's calamity called forth more sympathy than perhaps a similar disaster in any other city, and that is on account of the popularity of San Francisco's people. They are perhaps the most genial, most hospitable of American, people. Their western isolation and their climate has contributed somewhat to this. But whatever the cause the fact is recognised. In Portland during last summer the San Francisco people distinguished themselves by these lovable traits of character, and the rest of America will give them words of cheer and something more where necessary to help them rebuild their city on a grander and more beautiful scale.