USA > California > San Francisco County > San Francisco > San Francisco, a history of the Pacific coast metropolis, Volume II > Part 36
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The most of the shortcomings of urban communities can be traced to the pro- pensity of the weak and inefficient, of the unwilling worker and the ambitious and capable to make their way to the crowded centers carrying with them one dominant hope-that of getting through life more comfortably and with less toil than in those places where exacting Nature demands incessant effort. If this were not true it would be easy to determine why a people continually agitated by reform movements, some of them almost revolutionary in character, should at one period ferment and stew, and at another be as dormant as a hibernating bear. The annals of a peaceful village present, as a rule, an unbroken record of civic vir- tue. A dominating personality or two direct its course and trouble is reduced to a minimum. In the City conflicting interests produce complexities which baffle the understanding of the most acute observers of political conditions and call forth innumerable contradictory explanations. Like the so called financial crises they appear to be due to a state of mind oftener than otherwise produced by economic causes. The intimate connection of national politics, and the prosperous or depressed condition of the country has often been noted, but few have sought to establish a relation between the economic conditions of a great city and its fluctuations between civic virtue and corruption. Perhaps there may be excep- tions to the rule, but San Francisco's experience seems to demonstrate that if the ardor for good municipal government had been as intense in times of great pros- perity as in those of adversity much of its history would be written in different terms.
Complexities Produced by Urban Development
ELECTRICAL EFFECTS AT MIDWINTER EXPOSITION IN 1894
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CHAPTER LX
FREQUENT ALTERNATIONS OF ACTIVITY AND DEPRESSION
INDIVIDUAL ACTIVITY EFFECTIVE-PROGRESS IN SPITE OF POLITICAL DRAWBACKS-AD- VERSITY AND PROSPERITY WELL BALANCED-GRIEVANCES SOON FORGOTTEN- GREAT INCREASE IN SAVINGS BANKS DEPOSITS-RESOURCES OF COMMERCIAL BANKS ENLARGED-ACTIVITY FOLLOWS SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR-THE MIDWINTER FAIR OF 1894-THE RAILROAD RIOTS OF 1894-TRANSMUTING CLIMATE INTO GOLD- SAN FRANCISCO HARSHLY CRITICIZED THE KLONDIKE GOLD DISCOVERY AND THE RUSH TO ALASKA-A MILD REVIVAL OF MINING SPECULATION-HYDRAULIC MINING STOPPED BY COURTS-GOLD DREDGING-EXPANSION OF GENERAL MINING INDUSTRY -AGRICULTURE-RAPID URBAN DEVELOPMENT- IMPEDIMENTS TO MANUFACTUR- ING GROWTH-FIGURES THAT DECEIVED-TRADES UNION RESTRICTIONS-MANUFAC- TURES IN 1904-IMPORTANCE OF HABROR RECOGNIZED-HARBOR COMMISSION A POLITICAL MACHINE-CORRUPTION AND WASTE ON WATER FRONT-CITIZENS" COMMITTEE FORMULATE PLANS OF IMPROVEMENT-IMPROVED SHIPPING FACILITIES -HAWAIIAN AND ALASKAN TRADE-FAILURE OF A BIG WHEAT DEAL-LUMBER AND COAL TRADE-THE OIL INDUSTRY-DOMESTIC SHIPPING INDUSTRY-THE UNION IRON WORKS-WAR SHIPS BUILT-OTHER SHIPBUILDING CONCERNS.
HE political histories of municipalities, like those of states when they are allowed to occupy too much attention T may easily convey the impression that the people are chiefly occupied in quarreling about the method of regu- lating their affairs, and that the net result of their dis- A SEAL OF SA FR CO putes is confusion and ineffectiveness. Compared with other achievements of men, those accomplished when acting in a collective capacity do not show up favorably. The management of the affairs of a municipality such as San Francisco was at opening of the fiscal year 1912, when a budget was framed which provided for the expenditure of a sum a little in excess of $15,000,000, deserves to be considered as important, but after all the combined operations of the City seem insignificant, viewed from a business standpoint, when contrasted with the multitudinous activities of the community which in the course of the year reach a total approaching two and a half billions of dollars. Some one has intimated that if permitted to write the songs of a people he could come nearer to shaping their destinies than law makers. He might do so now and have them set to the best or most popular ragtime music without achieving any political result of consequence. The campaign song, like the torchlight procession, has gone out of fashion and will never regain its oldtime
723
Collective and Individual Activities Contrasted
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potency. But there is one custom which does not weaken with age, and that is the habit of politicians drawing on the provident. It is from the latter that the means to carry on government must be derived. No matter what subtleties of argument may be advanced to prove that in the last resort the people generally bear the burden of taxation, the fact remains that it is the thrifty who are called upon to settle with the tax collector, and it is the energies of that class, and the skill with which they use their opportunities, that determine whether a city shall progress of retrograde. England, until recently, was undisputably preemi- nent in the commercial world, and her name will go down in history as a great empire builder, yet her publicists are in the habit of complaining that her states- men are constantly blundering, and that their mistakes cost the country dearly, yet in some manner the nation manages to "muddle through" its troubles, and in the end things come out all right.
Progress Despite Political Drawbacks
Turning from the ineffectiveness of city governments, and closing our eyes to contemporary complaints, and concentrating our attention on the accomplishments of the people as a whole, the most captious critic will find little in the record as made up to justify adverse criticism. Like the sea which is troubled at times, San Francisco has had its storms, but when they had passed the damage wrought was found to be infinitesimal, comparatively speaking. One hundred years hence, if the historian chooses to take a comprehensive survey, he may find it as easy to pass over the vicissitudes of the first sixty years or so of the Pacific coast metropolis, as the chroniclers of nations do when they condense into a paragraph the story of an unwarlike period, and convey to their readers an impression of continuous advancement by showing that the population had increased, and that the wealth of the people was greater at the end than at the beginning.
Universal history is necessarily treated in that fashion, and when the infinitude of incident in the daily life of the people of a city is considered, much of which absorbs public attention one day and is forgotten the next, the question arises whether any particular benefit or even amusement is derived from recounting blunders and sufferings. If it could be shown with such positiveness that there could be no dispute, that the departures from the normal were real mistakes, a moral might be pointed, the force of which would serve to regulate conduct in the future; but no such consensus of opinion can be hoped for in the present stage of human progress. The only real purpose served by detailed recital is the possi- bility that its presentation will establish the mutability of human opinion, and that it may suggest that it is the part of wisdom to refrain from innovation until the proposed change has been considered in all its aspects, and especially to avoid a seeming novelty which has already been tried without producing the expected result.
Adversity and Pros- perlty Well Balanced
But there is no possibility of difference of opinion being engendered by re- counting the ups and downs of trade and the drawbacks to which life in a great and growing city is subjected. Mankind considered in the large is philosophic. Its accumulated experiences, while not rendering it indifferent to disaster makes it rise superior to all vicissitudes. There are calamities which would be appalling if consciousness of the ability to repair them did not exist; therefore it is well for a people to know all that their predecessors have passed through in order that no difficulty may seem insurmountable. This information to be reassuring must embrace the prosaic recital of the good fortunes of the community as well
Mutability of Human Opinion
NATIVE SONS HALL, Before the Fire ST. LUKE'S CHURCH, Before the Fire
CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, Before the Fire OLD HALL OF JUSTICE, Destroyed by the Fire
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as the story of its misfortunes. The recovery from a mercantile depression, or relief from oppression, as a rule, is not much dwelt upon. While times are bad the air is filled with plaints; when they are good men go about their affairs con- tentedly, and have little to say, and that little, if it partakes of the nature of gratulation, is easily mistaken for what is called "booming." But the record of these felicitous periods is essential to a correct understanding of what the people have gone through, and it is fortunate for the peace of mind of succeeding genera- tions that San Francisco's banking and other institutions in their reports present abundant evidence that the days of adversity have been well balanced by those of prosperity.
In a previous chapter the effects of the currency troubles at the East in 1893 were dwelt upon. It was shown that the close relations established with the people on the other side of the Rocky Mountains had created a condition on the Pacific coast which made business in San Francisco as sensitive to the influences affecting the centers of the Atlantic seaboard as though the City were one of them. The agitation which preceded the construction of the San Joaquin valley railroad was described at some length, and the temporary closing of many banks whose solvency was beyond question was brought out. The figures showing the shrinkage of mercantile business, and the labor troubles of the period were dwelt upon. The data for these descriptions was abundant. The newspapers were filled with accounts of the differences between labor and capital and of the dis- orders ensuing in consequence; column after column was devoted to the complaints by merchants of the oppressive tactics of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, and with plans to escape from its clutches. Pamphlets, voluminous reports and even books were published to emphasize the difficulties of the situation. If they had survived, unaccompanied by other evidence, it would have been impossible to draw any other inference than that the City was in an acute state of pessimism. But as will be shown later, there was no serious interruption of the social or other activities, and that in some directions they were actually extended during what seemed the darkest moments.
Concerning this recrudescence to better times the literature is comparatively scant. Much is left to be inferred. A book was published to extol the uprising of the merchants and their demand for a railroad which would penetrate the great interior valley, and thus create the conditions which would compel San Francisco to make the best possible use of its splendid harbor facilities, but the sequel prom- ised never appeared. With the disappearance of the monetary troubles, and the recovery from the depression the grievance of two or three years earlier was forgotten, and only a slight sensation was created when the project to put San Francisco in a position to compel the transcontinental railroads to respect its com- petitive facilities was abandoned in 1895, and it was seen that all the hullabaloo was raised for the purpose of procuring entrance to the City for a member of the Transcontinental Association. It is not probable that any considerable num- ber of those who primarily interested themselves in the San Joaquin valley rail- road project were conscious that they were being used to carry through a clever scheme of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Company, but on the other hand it is nearly certain that there were some who did, and who thought the method adopted was justifiable.
Clouds With Silver Linings
Grievances Soon For- gotten
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SAN FRANCISCO
The Southern Pacific for years had used its power unscrupulously to exclude all rivals from San Francisco and it was only by a resort to some such device as that adopted that a transcontinental railroad could hope to gain its object. The Santa Fe had succeeded in reaching the southern part of the state but was prac- tically halted at Mojave. Any open movement to accomplish its purpose would have been frustrated by the tools of the Southern Pacific in office. Its rival com- prehended this perfectly, and as in the case of other places where obstacles had been placed in its way it succeeded in overcoming them by finesse rather than by making a direct attack. In this instance it took advantage of the quarrel between the shippers and the Southern Pacific, and converted what was ostensibly put forward as a purely local undertaking into a part of its transcontinental railway system, and incidentally secured terminal facilities of great value on the water front which it might have failed to obtain under other circumstances. When it finally developed that the San Joaquin valley railroad was to be turned over to the Santa Fe there was little adverse criticism. People took the liberty of doubting the assertions of those who declared that such a course was made neces- sary by the discovery of the alleged fact that the road could not be made to pay. No effort had been made to test the possibilities, and there were no signs that there ever was any intention to do so. Nevertheless, despite what appeared to be sharp practice, there was general satisfaction with the outcome and a dis- position to believe that the entrance of a rival road into the City would furnish competition of service even though no other beneficial result ensued. The con- nection of the Santa Fe with the Transcontinental Association was ignored, and the arguments urged when the San Joaquin valley road scheme was first mooted were speedily forgotten. The members of the Traffic Association ceased to be keen concerning the desirability of making it impossible for the overland roads by their machinations to destroy competition, and taking it all together there was a strong disposition to make the best of conditions, and to even think that they were likely to be greatly improved.
How much of this complacency was due to the fact that there were signs of the passing of the business depression it would be difficult to state, but the in- difference synchronized with the return of prosperity. The clearings of the banks of the City, which had fallen from $892,426,712 in 1891, to $658,526,806 in 1894, in the latter half of that year began to increase in volume and in 1895 they amounted to $692,079,240. From that time forward to the eve of the great calamity in 1906 there was a constant expansion. In 1902 clearings were double those of 1894, reaching $1,373,362,025, and in 1905 they aggregated $1,834,549,788. The bank clearings of a city can sometimes be made to represent a condition that does not exist, but in San Francisco, owing to the practice of settling daily balances in coin, and to the fact that there is much conservatism in the use of checks, the habit of making collections by calling on debtors being retained, the volume of business is under rather than overstated by clearing house footings.
Savings Banks Deposits Increase
Although there were many industrial disturbances between 1895 and 1906 the condition of the laborer must have been vastly improved, for the deposits in the savings banks and the operations of those institutions clearly demonstrated that the workers were laying by money, and that many of them were investing in small properties and providing themselves with homes. The deposits in the San Francisco savings institutions which had dropped from $55,871,000 in 1875 to
Santa Fe Secures Entrance to San Francisco
Passing Df the Business Depression
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$42,323,000 in 1881, increased from the latter figure to $63,154,000 in 1888. After that date they continued to mount steadily until 1892, when they fell off some, but after 1895 they again began to reflect the prosperity of the City, reach- ing $115,588,000 in 1900, and in 1906 they totalled the large sum of $169,538,- 000. These figures hardly convey their full significance unless accompanied by comparisons which show that no other city in the Union could make near so good an exhibit, and that San Francisco at that date was the great financial reservoir of the state. Outside of the City the combined deposits of all the savings banks in 1906 was only $91,756,000, as against the $169,538,000 in those of the metropolis.
The condition of the commercial banks was equally indicative of the increas- ing expansion of business. In 1896 the resources of financial institutions of that class in the City amounted to $68,339,005 and the deposits to $30,178,548; in 1906 the former had increased to $157,156,723, and the deposits to $101,901,- 692. The major part of this expansion occurred after the year 1900, the resources rising from $76,543,241 in that year to $157,156,723 and the deposits from $46,- 270,737 to $101,901,692. The creation of banks as well as the condition of those existing at a given time, may be regarded as a sure sign of the general diffusion of prosperity. For several years prior to 1906 owners of capital manifested no strong disposition to embark in the banking business. In the late Eighties and during the Nineties a few institutions were added to those already doing business, among them the California National bank, which had a brief career of one year, failing in December, 1888. In 1893 the Union Trust Company was formed with I. W. Hellman as president. It was first classed as a savings bank. The Columbian Banking Company was organized in the same year; the Swiss Ameri- can in 1896, and the Italian American by A. Sharbono and a number of friends in 1890. The Mercantile Trust Company was incorporated with a $1,000,000 capital in that year. In 1901 the Yokohama Specie, the Western National and the Canadian Bank of Commerce were added to the list. A couple of years later several euphemeral concerns started and were closed after a brief career. In 1905 there was a rush for bank privileges. Some of the institutions created at that time perished in the stringency of 1907, and others were forced out of busi- ness by the requirements of a new banking law.
Much of this activity was attributed to the Spanish-American war in 1898, when San Francisco became the great depot for troops and supplies destined for the Philippines. A camp was established in the district bounded by the park, and stretching northward towards California street and west of Laurel hill cem- etery. Recruits from all parts of the country were assembled there and prepared for the field. A city of tents covered the unoccupied tract which a few years later became one of the chief residential sections of the City. A large commissary and quartermaster's depot was established, and a transport service started with fre- quent sailings. During the entire period of hostilities there was much activity and bustle, and the City took on a military air. The streets were enlivened with soldiers passing to and fro, and there was incessant movement. At this period, however, no trade was carried on with the Philippines excepting that of supplying the troops dispatched to the islands to conquer and hold them; but subsequently a commerce of considerable importance, much of which passes through San Fran- cisco, was created, but it did not attain proportions of consequence until after the fire of 1906. San Francisco exhibited its patriotism in a marked fashion during
Increasing Resources of Commercial Banks
Activity Follows Spanish- American War
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the continuance of hostilities. It contributed more than its proportion of volun- teers to the cause, and its inhabitants, perhaps because of their keen appreciation of what the future might bring forth, took a livelier interest in the fortunes of the war than those of most other sections of the Union.
Recovery of Business Precedes the War
But it would be a mistake to date the recovery of San Francisco from the depression of 1893 to causes operating as late as 1898. There were other cir- cumstances which tended to bring about the better state which was reflected in the increased clearings of the banks after 1896. It is true that the needs of the troops were largely supplied with the products of the great interior valley, but their demands after all were inconsiderable compared with those which were made upon California by the people of the East, who were coming more and more to depend upon California for their supplies of fruits of all kinds, and various other products. The rural population was increasing with tolerable rapidity in conse- quence of the enlarged opportunities which the breaking up of the big ranches afforded, and the City was feeling the impulse caused by the increase. In 1894 in the midst of the depression a fair was held in San Francisco which by the audacity of its conception and the time chosen for holding it procured for the state a great deal of advertising of a desirable character. The project owed its inception to M. H. de Young, proprietor of the San Francisco "Chronicle," who had been appointed a commissioner to, and was acting as vice president of the Columbian Exposition in 1893, and who while in Chicago in that year conceived the idea of holding an exhibition in San Francisco at the conclusion of that at Chicago.
.The suggestion was favorably received by the people of San Francisco. A sum of money exceeding $350,000 was raised by subscriptions of private citizens, but no aid of any sort was extended to the enterprise by the state or municipality. As the main purpose of the exhibit was to emphasize the climatic attractions of the City and state the name Midwinter Fair was bestowed upon it. The com- mittee called into existence at a public meeting elected M. H. de Young director general, and he devoted his attention to making the affair a success. Although preparations for the event were only begun on August 24, 1893, when in the presence of seventy or eighty thousand people the first shovelful of earth in the work of grading was thrown, operations were pursued with such vigor that on the announced day of opening, January 1, 1894, the buildings and grounds were in readiness and most of the installations of exhibits were made. The in- closure of the fair embraced an area of nearly two hundred acres in Golden Gate park, within which were constructed over a hundred buildings, all of which were erected within a period of five months. The main buildings were only excelled in size by those of the two great exhibitions hitherto held in the United States, and the displays made were attractive and interesting although absolutely no assistance was rendered by the federal government, some departments of which actually placed obstacles in the way of success by creating difficulties for foreign exhibitors at Chicago who desired to transfer their exhibits to San Francisco.
Fair Proves a Financial Success
The portion of the park selected for holding the exposition was at the time a waste of sand dunes and scrub brush, and the jealous custodians of the people's pleasure ground were reluctant to change its appearance, but the pressure of public opinion compelled them to yield. The outcome was the conversion of one of the most forbidding parts of the park into what is now conceded to be its
Midwinter Fair of 1894
BATTLESHIP "OREGON" ON DAY OF RETURN TO PACIFIC COAST AND SAN FRANCISCO AFTER THE FAMOUS RUN TO SANTIAGO
.IT OAKLAND
THE FERRY "OAKLAND" CROSSING THE BAY
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most attractive section. The main buildings were erected about the depression now surrounded by the classic music stand, the Japanese tea garden, the Mid- winter Fair Memorial Museum and walks and drives which are made interesting by statuary and other attractive objects. The amount subscribed by the citizens was $361,000, but before the gates were opened the committee had made improve- ments which cost over $730,000, and concessionaires and counties, and the Pacific coast states had also expended large amounts. Up to the date of the final clos- ing of the gates on July 9, 1894, the attendance aggregated 2,255,551. The affair was admirably financed and interest was maintained from first to last by a suc- cession of entertainments which attracted large numbers of people despite the fact that the business depression throughout the country was very severe, and that there were other things to distract popular attention. The museum, as its name implies, is a reminder of the success of the exposition. The surplus was devoted to adding to the collection installed within its walls shortly after the closing of the fair, and to this work M. H. de Young devoted untiring attention for years.
It was designed to formally close the Midwinter Fair on the Fourth of July, and an attendance of 120,000 was confidently expected, but the admissions only reached 79,082 owing to the distracted state of the public mind induced by the railroad strike troubles in the East which had assumed alarming proportions, and finally necessitated the calling out of the National Guard of San Francisco. The strike began during May, 1894, in the shops of the Pullman Car Company and rapidly extended to the coast, a sympathetic strike being ordered by the Amer- ican Railway Union which took the form of the railroad men refusing to handle Pullman coaches. The sympathetic strike commenced June 26, and on July 2 a sweeping injunction was granted by the federal courts against Debs, president of the American Railway Union, and others, restraining them from obstructing the United States mails, but before this time the conditions in Chicago had become so riotous that Cleveland ordered 2,000 federal troops to that city. The situa- tion in Illinois was aggravated by the attitude of the socialistic Governor Alt- geld, who protested against the sending of United States soldiers to Chicago, but the president firmly maintained his position and declared that he was acting strictly in accordance with the constitution of the United States.
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