| OCR Text |
Show The Spirit of The People. Speaking of the earthquake in San Francisco, the Nation says: "The climate of California, the abundance of its fruits and vegetables, the excellence excel-lence of its public schools from the kindergarten to the state university, aro irresistable attractions attrac-tions both to native Americans and to emigrants. Plenty of sane people will continue to regard California with its earthquakes as better than any other place without." f l Therein lies the certainty of California's fu ture. The, calamity would have been pretty well forgotten now except for the Are. If the city had used reasonable precaution and had some reservoirs reser-voirs on the hillsides, lined with riveted boiler iron that the earthquake might have twisted but not have broken, so that the fires could have been put out in their incipiency, the work of restoration would have been going on lively now, for the spirit down there is very much as was shown by 1 a man in Sacramento when the great fire of 1851 swept the city. Li There never was such a country for rats as ( California was in the early fifties. This man had :! made a little fortune in the mines. He took his jj money, went to Sacramento, bought lots of land ! and erected a block of three-story buildings. He I opened business in one story and all the re3t of his building was rented, and he was on the direct upward way to making a fortune. The buildings were all wood; there were few facilities for fighting fight-ing fire, and when the flames swept over ana enveloped en-veloped his block, as he stood in the street watch-' watch-' ing It he suddenly burst out laughing. A friend thinking his mind was shaken by the blow, said anxiously to him, "Why, what are you laughing at?" He replied, "I was thinking, isn't that going to give those rats up there hell." That is, he had no doubt but that he would make, another stake in the mines and complete another building there. At the same time the sense of humor in him was so strong that he could not help but rejoice that the rats which ate his supplies, which loped across his blankets at night, were getting the worst of it. There have been tremblors in California in the past. There will doubtless be more in the future, but the gold in the mines is only just tapped. There is plenty more. There will be a million generous harvests gathered from the wonderful won-derful soil. The new San Francisco will bo liner than the old, and so long as" the big ships can come into San Francisco bay and. sail out without obstruction, it will be the center of interest, the center of wealth, the center of attraction for the whole Pacific coast. This will temporarily lielp Seattle and Portland Port-land but they aro six and eight hundred mile3 away to the north. There .is ample country to make them both great cities, but they will not much interfere with San Francisco, for behind San Francisco is a richer country than behind any other city in the world, the climate is a perpetual per-petual tonic, and in the golden west the center of industry will in future as it always has in the past be inside the Golden Gate. The old giants are almost every one gone, but now ones will rise up, for the spirit of the old days is still there, the confidence that there Is more good, more wealth, more pleasure and more hope in California and in San Francisco than in any other state and city has not been much shaken. It will not be long before it will be fully restored. |
