USA > California > San Francisco County > San Francisco > San Francisco, a history of the Pacific coast metropolis, Volume II > Part 44
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In the beginning of the period 1883-1905 the Western Union Telegraph Com- pany was practically the only medium of electric communication with other parts of the state, and with the East and rest of the world. In 1883 it was subjected to the rivalry of the Sunset Telephone and Telegraph Company, organized by George S. Ladd. The latter occupied all the territory on the Pacific coast out- side of San Francisco which was subleased to it by the Bell Telephone Company. In 1900 the Pacific State Telephone and Telegraph Company was organized and took over the properties of the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company in San Francisco and certain territory in Oregon and Washington. The business of the corporation expanded with great rapidity, and the 170 telephones in San Francisco in 1880 had at the close of 1905 increased to many thousands, and the long distance facilities were extended to all the principal cities of the coast, patrons in this City being enabled to converse with persons in Portland, Seattle and other promi- nent places, and with Los Angeles and San Diego in the south. Of equal impor- tance in the development of communication was the entrance into the telegraphic field of the Postal Company, which was organized in 1886 chiefly through the instrumentality of John W. Mackay, whose capital had been acquired in the ex- ploitation of the bonanza mines on the Comstock. Mackay's enterprise was a bold one and represented an attack on a well intrenched monopoly, but the Postal ex- tended its business rapidly and constantly broadened the field of its operations in the United States and in the Dominion of Canada.
In 1901 the company obtained a charter authorizing it to lay and operate a submarine cable from California via the Hawaiian islands to the Philippines. Con- gress for a time had under consideration a project of this sort but finally abandoned it when the Postal Company boldly entered upon the undertaking. The shore end of the Postal cable was laid in San Francisco on December 15, 1902, and on June 19, 1903, the "Colonia" arrived at Midway, establishing communication between Midway and Guam, thus connecting them with the systems of the world, leaving only a small section between Midway and Honolulu to be completed. This cable has four great ocean stretches of 2,276, 1,254, 2,593 and 1,490 miles respectively. The result of the construction of this cable was to effect a great reduction in rates which had been as high as $2.35 a word to Manila. The Postal Company bound itself to charge $1 per word from San Francisco to China; $1 a word from San Francisco to Manila and 50 cents a word from San Francisco to Honolulu.
The construction of the Postal cable recalls the purpose once entertained by the Western Union Telegraph Company of establishing telegraphic communica- tion with Europe by means of a line through Alaska and under Behring Strait and over Siberia, and thus into Europe. An expeditionary force explored Alaska and
Improved Telegraphic Facilities
Submarine Cable to Philippines
An Aban- doned Cable Project
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Siberia with that object in view in 1865 and 1866. The success of the direct ocean cable between the American Atlantic coast and Europe caused the abandon- ment of the enterprise. The exploration, however, was not without its benefits, as the scientists who accompanied the costly expedition were much impressed with and made known many resources of Alaska which previous to that time had attracted little attention.
CHAPTER LXII
VARIED PHASES OF LIFE IN SAN FRANCISCO
THE AMERICAN PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION-JAPANESE IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS-DOC- TOR O'DONNELL AND THE CHINESE LEPERS-CHINESE QUARTER A SORE SPOT-THE BUBONIC PLAGUE SCARE-COMMISSION INVESTIGATES AND FINDS NO CAUSE FOR ALARM-HEALTH CONDITION GOOD-NEIGHBORHOOD SETTLEMENT AND OTHER UP- LIFT WORK-THE ASSOCIATED CHARITIES-RISE OF WOMEN'S CLUBS AND THEIR ACTIVITIES-SOCIAL CLUBS AND FRATERNAL ORGANIZATIONS - AMUSEMENTS - SHIFTING OF AMUSEMENT CENTER-THE LAST LAY OF THE MINSTRELS-SUCCESSFUL SEASONS OF GRAND OPERA-RESTAURANTS AND NIGHT LIFE IN SAN FRANCISCO- ORIGIN OF MOVING PICTURES-NEWSPAPER SENDS OUT WEATHER WARNINGS-SAN FRANCISCO METEOROLOGY- THE RACING GAME AND OTHER SPORTS-THE BICYCLE CRAZE-AUTOMOBILES DISPLACE CARRIAGES-EDUCATION FACILITIES-PUBLIC AND OTHER LIBRARIES-JOURNALISM-LITERATURE AND WRITERS-EASTERN CRITI- CISMS OF SAN FRANCISCO SHORTCOMINGS-ABNORMAL FEATURES OF SOCIAL LIFE- CONTRACT MARRIAGES - CELEBRATED CRIMINAL CASES - CHINESE CRIMINALS - TECHNICALITIES AND THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE.
HE details of the material prosperity of a city, and the causes which produce it, may be dry reading, but their OF T presentation is essential if we wish to comprehend the YES * life of a people. The saying that "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" has a significance of its own which S may be properly heeded; on the other hand the observer who notes that it is all play and no work for Jack is likely to conclude that the young man is being unevenly developed, and that in after life he may not scintillate as brightly as if he had varied his sports with a few essays at usefulness. San Francisco has suffered in the estimation of the out- side world at times from the undue prominence given to some of its peculiarities. It has been regarded in some quarters as an amusement-loving city, so devoted to pleasure that in the pursuit of it more important matters have been neglected. It has been charged with being absorbed in commercialism to such an extent that the graces and amenities of life have been subordinated to money getting. It has been indicted for alleged indifference to outside criticism, and it has been extolled as the most hospitable city in the country with an almost village-like desire for appreciation. Perhaps these conflicting judgments have done the City no harm. Certainly it suffered no material injury from the undeserved reputation bestowed upon it by singling out its municipal shortcomings as exceptional. If anyone has
Contradictory Accounts and Impressions of the City
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ever been deterred from visiting it, or making San Francisco his home because some absurd generalizer has branded it as the wickedest city, his absence will not be mourned by a people who have never taken kindly to intolerance.
American Protective Association and Father Yorke
San Francisco must not be judged by aberrations, but by the orderly course of the lives of her citizens. She has had her moments of popular disturbance, but so have other American cities. In the earlier chapters in dealing with certain phases of political life in California reference was made to the "Know Nothing" or Native American party which gained a sufficient foothold to secure several impor- tant offices. This manifestation of illiberality was of short duration, and while ' it lasted was absolutely unaccompanied by lawless acts. The fact needs to be emphasized because at the time in many staid Eastern cities the agitation assumed a virulent form and was attended with rioting and church burning. Nothing of the sort happened in San Francisco, although the Know Nothings were numerically strong in the City. After the wave which produced the uprising in the Fifties had subsided little or no attention was paid to the extremists, and people in San Francisco unfamiliar with American political history knew nothing of the "Know Nothings" and their early antagonisms. Toward the close of the decade 1880 there was something in the nature of a recrudescence in a mild form of the earlier illiberality, but it was shared by a limited number, and would in all probability have failed to attract public notice if importance had not been attached to it by an over-zealons priest, Father Peter Yorke, who took up the cudgels against the A. P. A.'s, and by noticing them gave their movement a vitality which it would not otherwise have gained. Yorke was an eloquent speaker, and an acute dialecti- tian, and succeeded for a time in producing a great deal of bad feeling which, how- ever, never manifested itself in any overt acts. He addressed large audiences at various times during the Nineties, and stirred up his hearers very greatly, but as his assaults were directed against a foe whose strength was more imaginary than real his efforts were wasted. Even under the stimulus of his blows there was not enough vitality in the "Know Nothing" movement to permit its revival, and A. P. A. ism ceased to be referred to excepting on the vaudeville stage where it is still occasionally made to do service as a joke.
It would have been extraordinary if the antipathy to foreigners which gave rise to the "Know Nothing" movement could have endured long in the atmosphere created in San Francisco by the presence of a population drawn from all quar- ters of the globe, the foreign element of which was numerically preponderant, but which, in the melting pot of the public schools, and other institutions of learning, was being fused with the native element into a homogeneons population which cordially embraced all that could be assimilated. That San Francisco like the rest of California was insistent and persistent in its opposition to Oriental immigration, may seem to contradict this assertion, but no one in the slightest degree acquainted with the facts will think of disputing the claim made by the people of the Pacific coast states and territories, that the Orientals with whom they were called upon to deal were absolutely nonassimilative. This, however, did not prevent the exer- cise of tolerance on the part of the dominant race, who while insisting on a policy of making impossible the creation of an imperium in imperio lived peacefully side by side with those already introduced and permitted them every opportunity to trade, and even provided facilities for them to acquire a Western education through the medium of the public schools. This phase of San Francisco's dealings with
Orientals Fairiy Treated
RUINS OF THE SEVEN-MILLION-DOLLAR CITY HALL
THE FAIRMONT HOTEL AND THE FLOOD MANSION AFTER THE FIRE
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the Oriental peoples who made their home in the City was grossly misrepresented at the East by statements put forward at the instance of Theodore Roosevelt when president, who made it appear in public documents and a message to con- gress that the Japanese were the victims of oppressive treatment, and that the result might be to invite an attack on the United States by the warships of Japan.
After the passage of the Chinese exclusion law there was little or no appre- hension felt that the question of Oriental immigration would be revived. Al- though the law was at times evaded, and corrupt officials often permitted the entrance of Chinese not entitled to land, the number in the City and state was visibly diminishing. The expected impediment to the development of the fruit industry due to the assumed difficulty of obtaining laborers to work in the orchards had not materialized. Growers complained of a scarcity of help, but the output of fruit kept on enlarging year after year at a prodigious rate, and they finally ceased to prophesy disaster, and forgot that there ever was a Chinese question, and that they had predicted that the chief industry of the state would come to a standstill if they were excluded. In the legislature of 1885 an endeavor was made to supplement the national legislation, but the effort received no encourage- ment. In 1886 there was a recrudescence of the agitation which took the form of an attempted boycott of the products of the local Chinese, but it was a mere flash in the pan and failed as previous efforts had, to disturb the people at whom it was directed because it was almost wholly a "paper" boycott, the workingmen who were the chief consumers of the boycotted products buying them as freely as though no interdict had been placed upon them by their own organizations. Spo- radic instances of aroused interest in the presence of the Chinese occurred at intervals after 1886, as in the case of the attempt of a malpractitioner named C. C. O'Donnell who attempted to forward his political ambitions by posing as the champion of the white race in an effort to save it from the awful scourge of leprosy which he declared was being introduced by the undesirable Oriental.
That there were cases of leprosy among the Chinese in San Francisco there is no doubt. There was a lazaret in their quarter in which two or three lepers were isolated, and they were described by various persons. Charles Warren Stod- dard, who had visited the colony at Molakai in the Hawaiian islands saw those in the Chinese pest house in San Francisco, and wrote about them at some length. He said they were not all alike, but he found specimens as astonishing as any that had ever come under his observation, yet he had morbidly sought them from Palestine to Molokai. O'Donnell, whose political aspirations were varied, at one time seeking the coronership, and at another the chief magistracy of the City, in his personally conducted campaigns, was in the habit of driving a wagon covered with enlarged photographs of the victims of the awful disease, and at con- venient points he would expatiate on its horrors to considerable audiences which were easily collected. He was a charlatan, had been expelled from the constitutional convention to which he was elected as a delegate of the workingmen, was repeat- edly charged with malpractice, but despite all these drawbacks he secured enough of the ballots of his fellow citizens to secure the office of coroner, and on two oc. casions when running for mayor he received a formidable number of votes. Al- though it was assumed that his candidacy in the mayoralty contests were simply intended to be diversions on one occasion he came very near being elected, dis- satisfaction with the candidates of the two regular parties causing a large num- Vol. II-20
Chinese Question Ceases to Interest
Chinese Lepers
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ber of voters to throw their strength for the notorious abortionist as an expression of disgust with the existing political condition.
Chinese Quarter a Sore Spot
Despite the undoubted presence of leprosy in the Chinese quarter it is note- worthy that the disease was not communicated to whites nor did it spread among the crowded Orientals. At no time did it occasion any concern, but the promulga- tion of its existence had a pernicious influence. It served to add another to the many features of life in Chinatown in which the stranger in the City took a morbid interest, but which the inhabitants of San Francisco disregarded, or at least looked upon as one of the necessary evils connected with the presence of an alien com- munity whose mode of life could not be regulated. It was this feeling more than any other which produced the indifference that resulted in the disgustingly un- sanitary condition existing in the Chinese quarter before the fire of 1906. China- town was a sore spot which the municipal authorities had come to regard as in- eradicable, and which they hesitated to attempt to regulate because efforts in that direction had been repeatedly frustrated by the interference of the federal au- thorities who were always ready to interpose when any special effort was made to cure its evils. Repeated checks of this character had created a spirit of indiffer- ence, and the Chinese were allowed to stew in their own filth, and their densely crowded quarter, the product of a pronounced gregariousness, and the practice of an extreme economy, became a show place out of which the class ready to profit by such exhibitions made much of as one of San Francisco's attractions. There was negligence on one side, but there is every reason to believe that the parade of vice; the opium smoking, the gambling dens, the houses of prostitution, all of which were exposed without reserve to the curious stranger, were not greatly re- sented by the Chinese themselves who made money out of the visits of the despised visitors.
In the earlier part of the controversy over the undesirability of the Oriental as an immigrant the Japanese were not heard of at all. There were comparatively few in the City before 1900, and their presence did not become noticeable until after the defeat of Russia in her war with Japan. Prior to that event, however, the "Chronicle" had published a series of articles which anticipated the immigration movement. A little later the legislature memorialized congress on the subject. The opposition to Japanese immigration was based on the same objection as that urged against the Chinese but there was a pronounced disposition to attribute to the subjects of the Mikado an aggressiveness which was not charged against the earlier Oriental immigrant who was more tractable. This aggressive trait pro- duced friction of a kind unheard of during the period when the Chinese were com- ing into the country in large numbers. The latter though desirous of securing for their children a Western education did not generally endeavor to procure it for themselves. Adults to some extent endeavored to do so by attending Sunday schools, but in the main the Chinese were content to acquire a knowledge of Eng- lish by ordinary intercourse. The Japanese who came to the country prior to 1900 and after that date, especially those who remained in the City, pursued a conspicuously different course. Many of them entered domestic service with an understanding that they were to be permitted to attend school, and considerable numbers were admitted to the primary grades in which the sexes were not sep- arated. The result caused discontent, as grown men were thrown in contact with girls of tender age, and on May 6, 1905, the board of education passed a reso-
Japanese in Public Schools
--
REFUGEES FROM THE GREAT FIRE DRAGGING THEIR BELONGINGS TO THE PRESIDIO
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lution to the effect that it was desirable to effect the establishment of separate schools for Japanese and Chinese pupils, not only for the purpose, as stated in the resolution, of relieving the congestion that then existed in the public schools of the City, but also for "the higher end that our children should not be placed in any position where their youthful impressions may be affected by association with the pupils of the Mongolian race." On October 11, 1905, another resolution was passed directing that in accordance with Article X, Section 1662 of the School Law of California, principals should send all Chinese, Japanese and Corean children to the Oriental public school situated on the south side of Clay street between Powell and Mason.
These resolutions excited little attention at the time, but later President Roose- velt made them the basis of a message to congress, and the subject of a special investigation, the result of which will be told in the chapter on rehabilitation. Meantime as negativing the assumption that the resolutions were inspired by undue race prejudice it may be mentioned that Japanese were admitted to the higher institutions of learning in California in considerable numbers, and that the people of that race trading in San Francisco were among its most prosperous business men. The University of California's course had been more than liberal. Its re- gents had made it perfectly clear that Japanese were welcome, and that their pres- ence was desired at the Leland Stanford Jr., university was made equally plain. The whole matter was one which directly concerned the management of the public schools of the State of California, and the interference of the president was en- tirely unwarranted. As in another case which had occurred a little earlier, San Francisco was made to feel that the authorities in Washington were interesting themselves in the affairs of the City in a manner not entirely agreeable to its inhabitants.
In the early part of 1901 there was a revival of comment on the alleged exist- ence of bubonic plague in San Francisco. A couple of years earlier, in July, 1899, two Japanese were drowned while attempting to swim ashore from a quarantined ship. It was said that the disease referred to was located in their bodies, but the statement made no impression. Later Dr. Kinyoun, the quarantine officer, made an autopsy on a body in which he declared that unmistakable evidence of plagne had been discovered. No alarm was caused in either case, the community being well satisfied from previous experience that whatever its effects in other lands the climatic, and other conditions existing in San Francisco made it immune to visi- tations of the disease. In January, 1901, however, there was evidence of an at- tempt to create the impression that San Francisco was an unhealthy port, and that the government's transport business, which had centered in the harbor from the time of the outbreak of the Spanish American war should be transferred to Puget Sound. This led to the belief in San Francisco that the persistent rumors concerning the existence of plague were due to the efforts of the people of Seattle to secure the transport service, but subsequent developments show that while it was contemplated sending a delegation from that city to the national capital the talk was kept alive by emissaries of the Marine Hospital Service whose head had conceived the idea of creating a national health body, which was to have a place in the president's cabinet. Recognizing the gravity of the matter Governor Gage arranged a conference with San Francisco citizens to discuss the steps that should be taken to arrest the course threatened by the United States health authorities
Roosevelt's Unwarranted Interference
A Worked-Up Plague Scare
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whose stand had impelled the State of Texas and several foreign countries to raise quarantine barriers against California.
Commission Sent to Washington
At this meeting the governor disclosed the fact that he had been in com- munication with the United States treasury department and had indicated the willingness of the state to do anything that might be demanded of it by the anthori- ties, but it appeared from the correspondence in the case that what was really required of him was to practically turn over the business of caring for the health of the state to the Marine Hospital Service. As the misunderstanding seemed to be on the point of reaching the acute stage the governor decided on the ap- pointment of a commission which should visit Washington and lay before the fed- eral anthorities the facts and remove the impression that obstacles were being placed in the way of the Marine Hospital Service taking precautions to prevent the spread of the disease which its doctors alleged existed. This commission reached Washington on March 7th and on the following morning waited on the secretary of the treasury, who was informed that the state was desirous of co- operating with the health authorities in making their investigations, and in taking such measures as would serve to allay any apprehension that might have been created outside of California by alarmist reports which had been telegraphed all over the world. The head of the Marine Hospital Service was present at this interview with the secretary of the treasury, and stated that the department had received petitions from several states in the far West asking that the whole State of California be placed in quarantine, and he intimated that this drastic measure might have to be taken "unless Governor Gage and other authori- ties in California should come out with a frank recognition of the alleged existing situation." He also demanded a similar admission of the existence of the plague from the commission appointed by the governor.
At this juncture in the proceedings President McKinley was communicated with by Charles A. Moore, of New York, who had interested himself in the case, and had accompanied the commission to Washington. Mr. Moore explained the situation and President Mckinley promptly telephoned that the assurances of the commission of the sovereign State of California that any steps indicated by the health authorities as necessary to carry on its precautionary work should be ac- cepted by Surgeon General Wyman, and that no admissions should be exacted from its members. The presence of the commission in Washington did not pass unnoticed, but was made the pretext for the publication of alarmist reports which were invariably accompanied by the statement that the people of San Francisco were making efforts to suppress the facts. These statements were directly traced to the Marine Hospital Service, and called forth a rejoinder in which it was shown that on January 9th preceding, Surgeon General Wyman had telegraphed to Dr. J. H. White, advising him to take his measures in such a manner as not to excite alarm, and that publication would be unnecessary. As a matter of fact there was no attempted suppression, but there was a pronounced disagreement respecting the gravity of the situation, and the necessity of the interference of the Marine Hospital Service. The commission objected to the expression of the opinion that the disease discovered was the dreaded bubonic plague which destroyed lives by the million in India and other parts of Asia, and insisted that even though the cultures may have proved that the plague had been found San Francisco's climate was inhospitable to the disease, and that over half a century of close relations with
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