USA > California > San Francisco County > San Francisco > San Francisco, a history of the Pacific coast metropolis, Volume I > Part 34
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A Victim of Exaggeration
243
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ordinary men, and to treat as exceptional conduct which differs in no essential from the performances of other peoples who escape censure by being prosaic, and are happy because they have no annals.
Summary Methods of Dealing with Evil
The Vigilante uprising stands out as a startling manifestation, but the expe- rience which produced it was by no means peculiar to San Francisco. At the time when it occurred there were other corrupt communities, in which venal politicians did pretty much as they liked, and where crime was dealt with no more severely than in San Francisco. The only thing that distinguished San Francisco from them was the summary method adopted to end the trouble when it became unbear- able. The latter was indefensible because a decent regard for civic duty would have averted the necessity of resorting to extra legal methods, yet it was better to have cured the evil in that way than to have gone on winking at it, as the nation persists in doing to this day, an assertion which will not be disputed by those who study the homicidal record of the United States and who read the dia- tribes of statesmen and publicists directed against the laxity of our courts and the failure of juries to perform their sworn duty.
The Exceptional and the Humdrum
A simple recital of the efforts of good citizens to make their environment endurable, and avoidance of the propensity to throw high lights on the exceptional, will effectually dispose of the romances and give the reader a truthful idea of con- ditions as they existed in the Fifties. There was much that was exceptional, but there was more that was humdrum, and sometimes even the exceptional became humdrum, as for instance when the artisan or laborer who received fabulous wages found that the price level of the period made his earnings and his expendi- tures harmonize in nearly the same fashion that they do or did in countries where the scale of compensation was lower.
Labor Troubles
All things are relative, and especially is the saying true when the economic aspects of the labor problem are considered, but the generality is inclined to dis- regard the fact. Because of this latter propensity a tremendous impression was created by the stories which were told of the labor situation in California in the first few years after the discovery of gold. It would have been astonishing had the result been otherwise, for it should be remembered that when there was talk of mechanics and artisans receiving $20 a day in California, the people of the East were verging toward a condition that culminated in a political campaign in which the charge was made that the success of one of the candidates would result in wages of ten cents a day, while the triumph of his opponent would insure to the worker "a dollar a day and roast beef."
In the last analysis of the labor question it always will be found that the getting of the roast beef rather than dollars is of most importance for the worker, and it is more interesting to inquire how much of it the San Francisco worker got than to learn how many dollars a day he earned. The information on this point is abundant and varied, and such as it is it indicates that for a short time at least the man who worked with his hands prospered because of the plethora of gold. The labor question was not troublesome in California before the discovery of gold. During the Spanish and Mexican regimes the disinclination to work was so general that a condition of repose was produced which militated against productivity and permitted decay, but it had its compensations. There was little or nothing done, but there were no strikes or quarrels respecting rates of wages. Occasionally a protest was heard against the enslavement of Indians, but it was never seriously
Condition of the Worker
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enough urged to discommode those who engaged in the practice, probably because the condition of the involuntary worker was a great deal better than it would have been had he been allowed to roam at large. As for the other workers, many of whom by courtesy were called white, money of any kind was so scarce in the country that a wage scale was unnecessary. Those willing to work were usually glad to get subsistence for their efforts, and those who refused to labor managed to subsist somehow.
This situation was not materially changed between the day of the hoisting of the flag over Portsmouth square and the announcement of the find at Sutter's mill, but immediately after that event a revolution in labor conditions occurred. When the rush to the diggings took place it was impossible for a while to procure labor of any sort. The few artisans who were often their own bosses deserted their occu- pations to search for gold, and they were joined by every one who felt able to wash out the precious metal and was willing to undergo the hardship which the trip to the diggings and work in the mines involved. The result of the exodus was to bring the town to a complete standstill for a few months, a condition which endured until the influx of immigrants from the East, and other parts of the world, made some men see that there was as much money to be made by ministering to the comfort and needs of the gold hunters as there was in searching for the metal.
With the rush came a plentiful supply of workers. Perhaps the most of the first immigrants designed going directly to the placers to pick up big nuggets, but not a few of them found that they had miscalculated the expenses of the under- taking and elected to stay in the town where wages were good; and a fair propor- tion had intended to make their home in San Francisco because they believed that the City would grow and that it would offer better rewards to the toiler than could be obtained at the East, where in every other industry than agriculture the compensa- tion was wretchedly small and the opportunity to obtain jobs very slender. To these supplies of labor constant additions were being made by men returning from the mines, whose bad luck forced them to cease their search for gold and take refuge in the City where they could earn some sort of a living.
The conditions produced by the great output of gold, and the pressing neces- sities of the people crowding into the small town were abnormal. There was no scarcity of workers but the means to pay them were temporarily so abundant, and the desire of men to put themselves in a position to trade or otherwise employ their talents to get their share of the gold being extracted from the placers was so great, that for the time being those able to do things could name their own terms. At first, those with capital to invest, accustomed to the insignificant wages of the East and Europe hesitated, but hesitation was soon swept aside, and the man who wished to put up a store, a saloon or a house, or to have a ship unloaded and the goods put under cover, paid what was asked. In 1849 the average daily wage of mechanics was roughly estimated at $20, and the commonest kind of labor was paid for at the rate of $10 a day. Carpenters who at first received $12 a day demanded $16 before the year was over and when refused they "struck." They were not idle long, the employers seeing that it would pay better to push their enterprises than to stand out. Apparently this first strike, although successful, was not an organized affair, but it was speedily followed by efforts in that direc- tion which seem to have been very effective. In the ensuing year sailors, brick- layers and musicians conducted strikes, and in 1851 the printers went out. In 1853
Changed Labor Conditions
Plenty of Workers
Hurry up Wages
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there was an epidemic of dissatisfaction with wages, and a resort to methods on the part of the workers which called forth vigorous protests from the press. The "Alta" in August of that year remonstrated against the action of the striking fire- men and coal passers who insisted on making passengers on the steamers show their tickets to prove that they were not strike breakers.
Before the close of 1856 there were labor organizations, not always called unions, which embraced teamsters, draymen, lightermen, riggers and stevedores, bricklayers, bakers, blacksmiths, plasterers, masons, shipwrights, caulkers and mu- sicians. The latter struck for the enforcement of the union scale in 1856. The bands that held these associations together were, however, by no means as strong as those of later years. The printers who had formed a union in 1850 with 8 mem- bers, which number had increased to 147 in 1852, fell to pieces in that year, was reorganized in 1855 and repeated the experience, but came into the national organ- ization in 1859. The ship carpenters' union was so prosperous during this period that it had to cast about for methods to get rid of accumulating funds, and it be- came an association for social enjoyment rather than an aggressive agency to secure the rights of its members.
On the whole the Fifties may be characterized as a period of comparative amity between employer and employed. The writer of the "Annals" is moved to remark of the condition in 1850 that "labor of any description was highly paid, and all branches of the community had reason to be satisfied with the profits." He also in 1852 contrasted the wages in Australia, where gold had been discovered, and was being taken out in great quantities, with those of California, saying that they were only about half as much in the English colony as in San Francisco, and gave his comparison point by remarking: "Let interested people say what they will, there is no land so well fitted for the comfortable residence of the poor and indus- trious man as California." And what may seem more surprising in view of his repeated assertions in other places, and the excuses made for the resort to extra legal methods by the Vigilance Committee, he added: "Soil, climate, wages and political, religious and domestic institutions here make his position more ennobling and agreeable than he can expect or possibly find in any other country."
The figures of compensation in 1853 bear out the claim that the worker's condi- tion in California was enviable, compared with that of the countries from which he had emigrated. Bricklayers, stone cutters, ship carpenters and caulkers received $10 a day; plasterers $9; house carpenters $8; blacksmiths $8; watchmakers and jewelers $8; tinsmiths $7; hatters $7; painters and glaziers $6; longshoremen $6; tailors $4; shoemakers $100 a month without board; teamsters $100 to $120 a month and feed themselves; firemen on steamers $100 a month; coal passers $75; farm hands $50. These wages were at least five times as high as those paid in the Atlantic states, and fully double those of Australia, where large quantities of gold were also being taken from the soil.
In the early Fifties the influx of Chinese was on a scale to cause alarm, but their presence in San Francisco did not occasion much trouble. In the mines, how- ever, they were a constant menace to the peace of the white workers who regarded them as rivals, and resorted to all sorts of aggressions to make their presence uncomfortable. In the City they were regarded as thrifty, but "feeble in body and mind." They were credited with the virtue of perseverance and "from their union into laboring companies capable of great feats." It was this propensity
Labor Organizations Formed
Relations of Employer and Employe
Enviable Condition of the Worker
Influx of Chinese
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which excited much of the hostility of the miners to the Chinese, and caused repeated aggressions upon them; but these can in no sense be attributed to trades unionism, for the associations in the mining communities were chiefly composed of men working on their own account and who were almost invariably their own bosses.
The cost of living in the early Fifties must have presented more problems for the solution of the worker than it has at any time since in California. He was not only called upon to pay high prices for the things he consumed, he was also con- fronted with variations which must at times have made him wonder whether low wages and a reasonably steady source of supply were not preferable to high wages and recurring scarcities of the things he was in the habit of consuming. In 1848 a brig arrived in the port of San Francisco from New York and discharged her cargo at Broadway wharf. The result was a general fall in prices. On December Ist of that year a barrel of flour sold at $27 in San Francisco; two weeks later flour was selling at $12 a barrel and other commodities experienced the same drop in price.
Although cattle in great numbers roamed the hills of California in 1848 salt beef was brought to San Francisco and was sold at $20 a barrel; salt pork cost three times as much, and butter and cheese were respectively 90 and 70 cents per pound. Brandy which was in moderate demand brought $8 a gallon. Four years later prices were still subject to great fluctuations. Flour which was sold in March, 1852, at $8 a barrel rose to $40 in November of that year. This five fold advance was due to a delay in the arrival of a fleet of clipper ships which did not make its appearance in the harbor until the stocks of the merchants were nearly exhausted. A year later there was a great fall in prices due to excessive imports, but it does not appear that any portion of the community was benefited as the general stagnation in trade, due to the miscalculations of importers who overstocked the markets, caused many failures and made it difficult for workers to obtain em- ployment.
The exceptionally high prices of 1849 have been dwelt upon so much that atten- tion has been diverted from the comparatively speedy change to a better condition of affairs. The fact that in 1849 potatoes and brown sugar were sold at 371/2 cents a pound; that a small loaf of bread which usually retailed for six cents in the Atlantic states demanded fifty cents in San Francisco; that a pair of coarse boots cost from $30 to $40 and a fine pair $100, and that the services of the launderer were only procured by paying from $12 to $20 a dozen for articles large and small has been made use of to such an extent that a distorted idea of the true condition has been conveyed. A very little reflection would save anyone from committing the blunder of supposing that these soaring prices continued for any length of time, or that they told a true story of the pioneers' struggle for existence.
California was a country of relatively high prices for several years after 1849, for labor reluctantly accommodated itself to changing conditions, but all things were not dear. When the placer mines were producing millions worth of gold monthly, the most of which was freely exchanged for commodities, luxuries were in great demand and men were willing to pay handsomely for them, but the staples of life were soon provided by domestic industry and in an incredibly brief period they were as easily obtainable as in the older communities. The abnormalities which many have accepted as typical of pioneer days were soon corrected. Stores
Cost of Living in Early Fifties
Food Stuffs Imported
Speedy Decline of Prices
Result of Domestic Production
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that rented for $3,000 a month in 1849 a very few months after could be obtained at reasonable rates, and long before the gold excitement had completely worn itself out there were many owners vainly seeking tenants for their premises.
Things Reasonably Cheap
Low Price of Gold
Effects of Abundance of Gold
But figures of this sort impart no intelligent idea of conditions. Rentals in some quarters of the modern San Francisco range much higher than they did in the "days of old, the days of gold, the days of '49," without exciting comment, and there is nothing startling in the statement that some dwelling houses in 1854 rented for $500 a month, when it is accompanied by the information that people of modest desires could be accommodated at the rate of $15 to $20 a month. It must be appar- ent to the most superficial that if the writer of the "Annals" could truthfully declare that San Francisco was a desirable place for the honest, industrious and peaceable man to make his home that the bulk of the things consumed by those in that category were reasonably cheap. The price list of San Francisco in 1854 may have appalled the people living in the Atlantic states at that time, but it may be studied by them now without exciting consternation. Some of the quotations may strike one as indicating an excessive cost of living as for instance fresh eggs, which sold at $1.25 per dozen, while their rivals, known as "Boston Eggs" cost only 75 cents. Best cuts of beef were 371/2 cents a pound, and venison 31 cents, prices which compare not unfavorably with those of 1912. Turkeys are spoken of as selling at from $6 to $10 a piece, but buyers about Christmas time in 1911 find no call for the plentiful use of exclamation marks accompanying the 1854 quo- tation, and the butter prices of the early period ranging from seventy-five cents to a dollar a pound are not apt to startle the person familiar with the demands of the modern dairymen.
Observations of the effect of the abundance or scarcity of the precious metals when confined to a limited area are not always illuminating, but the comparative isolation of San Francisco in the early Fifties produced a condition which to some extent bore out the theory that the quantity of money governs prices. The value of gold in the first years after the discovery in California was directly affected, the amount allowed for it in exchange for commodities being considerably less than the ruling rate at the world's money centers, and very much lower than was obtained for the few ounces found in Los Angeles several years earlier, and sent to the mint in Philadelphia to be refined. This discrepancy in the selling price of gold dust was partially explained by the cost of moving it to regions where it could be absorbed, but it is undeniable that the effect of its plentifulness operated directly to force up the price of goods, and the wages of labor, in such a fashion that they presented a marked contrast to those obtaining at the East where, until a large part of the output of the California placers was transferred by trade oper- ations, the precious metals were scarce and prices were low in consequence.
While the output of the California mines remained relatively large this depre- ciation of the value of gold was very marked. But as soon as the mechanism of trade was called into play, bringing improved means of communication, and offer- ing in exchange for the metal great quantities of products of all sorts, the adjust- ment began, and conditions soon became at least not strikingly different from those in the Atlantic states. The change was not effected without abberations, for the early dealings of the mercantile world with the gold diggers were of a highly speculative character, and the result was an alternation of abundance and scarcity of goods which made itself apparent in price lists. The irregularities
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noted were responsible for the spectacular price of $40 a barrel for flour, and for some other manifestations which made a profound impression on chroniclers and lost nothing in the telling. It was much more picturesque to speak of the fabulous sum paid for such a necessary of life as flour, than to tell of the adequate supply which subsequently brought down the price to $8 a barrel ; and it was natural to dwell upon the epicureanism of Sam Ward rather than refer to the sober life of honest and industrious workers.
In that respect the annalists of the days of gold resembled those of Rome who emphasized the gastronomic performances of the actors who provided such dishes as the brains of talking birds for their guests, and delighted to tell about the splendors of the feasts of Lucullus. That tradition has handed down to us the fact that Ward, who afterward passed much of his time in Washington and became more famous gastronomically at the national capital than he was in San Francisco in 1853 and 1854, suggests that he was by no means representative of a type. The description of Ward derived from a deposition pictures him as a man of lively wit, with a knowledge of languages and great culinary skill, and "a rotund, expan- sive appreciation of good wine," which the deponent avers was oftener obtained by the subtle art of flattery than by the expenditure of money earned by himself. Ward's mode of living, and that of his few imitators, was no more illustrative of the real life of San Francisco at this time than that of the man who caused the dancer in a fashionable New York restaurant to divert his guests by pirouetting on the dinner table.
It has been remarked that a single swallow does not make a summer, and it may be observed with equal force that isolated instances are not to be depended upon to illustrate general tendencies, There are authenticated cases of men climb- ing the ladder of fame in the early days of California without putting their feet on the lower rounds. We are told that Niles Searles, who afterward became a jus- tice of the supreme court, took his first case while waiting on the table, and we have a circumstantial relation of the mode by which Lloyd Tevis and his partner, John B. Haggin, laid the foundations of their great fortunes, which is interesting but does not detract from the fact that the most of the lawyers of pioneer days who practiced in San Francisco in the Fifties attained prominence in a humdrum manner, and that the rich men of the City built up their wealth as they did in other communities by taking advantage of circumstances or by making circumstances that they might take advantage of them.
As Lloyd Tevis later became a conspicuous figure in San Francisco affairs it is not amiss to relate that like many others he reached San Francisco in a condition of impecuniosity which compelled a prompt search for work. He wrote a fine hand, and succeeded in persuading the recorder that he would find in him an efficient copyist. At first he merely received what might be termed the overflow of the office, but presently he made a proposition to the recorder that he would do the work performed by two clerks for the salary paid to one of them. As civil service reform and the merit system had not been introduced the recorder was able to make the experiment. Tevis was equal to his profession of ability, kept the job, earned a couple of thousand dollars and joined forces with Haggin and by judiciously loaning their united capital at ten per cent a month they soon had enough to engage in broader enterprises.
Early Epicureanism
How Men Grew Rich
Building up a Fortune
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Dress in San Francisco
Overdressed Pioneers
Disposition to Create Idols
Keeping in mind the adage about the swallow and the summer, and by ignoring the desire to find an "atmosphere" for San Francisco, we may be able to form a more correct impression of San Francisco life in the early Fifties than is conveyed by dwelling upon the exceptional. There were plenty of red shirts in evidence upon the streets of the City in the early Fifties, but garments of that color were as familiar a sight in the big towns of the Atlantic states as on the coast, being much affected by the volunteer firemen of that day and were copied by their admirers. The Bowery boy of New York found their vivid hue particularly appeal- ing. The wearers of the red shirts also were given to sticking their trousers into the longlegged boots which were worn at the time, but it is a matter of record that the men who wore this striking costume were from the mines, and that as a rule, when their luck permitted them to gratify their desire they promptly arrayed them- selves in "boiled shirts" and even ventured upon "plug hats."
Charles Warren Stoddard, whose boyhood days were spent in San Francisco, in one of his delightful papers describing the conditions and scenes of pioneer days tells us that one of the features which impressed him greatly was the pro- pensity to over dressing. This hardly harmonizes with the idea usually conveyed, that uncouthness and disregard of the conventionalities endured for a long period, a view which ought not to have survived the statement of the annalist that as early as 1852, "the day of the blouse, the colored shirt and shocking bad hat had fled never to return." We may overlook the tendency to exaggeration displayed in the further statement that "superb public carriages plied the streets, and beautiful private equipages glittered and glided smoothly along," but we shall make a mis- take if we fail to draw the inference that a vast change had occurred between 1849 and 1852, and that San Francisco in three brief years had progressed so rapidly that it was taking on the airs of a metropolis. Not every man in San Francisco had become a dandy but there were plenty who aimed to dress well and succeeded. The pains taken to describe the peculiarities of the few persons who attained the distinction of being regarded as dandies indicates that they were rare. The gov- ernor who succeeded Burnett, McDougal of San Francisco, undoubtedly earned the appellation. He was accustomed to wearing elaborately ruffled shirts. His panta- loons and vest were buff, and over them he wore a blue coat with shining brass buttons. His resplendant attire in no wise diminished his popularity, perhaps it helped to secure for him the overwhelming majority by which he was elected lieu- tenant governor, thus putting him in the line of succession which made him gov- ernor of the commonwealth of California when Burnett resigned.
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