The Spirit of 1906 | Page 2

awakened from a sound sleep by a continuous
and violent shaking and oscillation of my bed. I was bewildered, dazed,
and only awakened fully when my wife suddenly screamed,
"Earthquake!" It was a whopper, bringing with it a ghastly sensation of
utter and absolute helplessness and an involuntary prayer that the
vibrations might cease. Short as was the period of the earth's rocking, it
seemed interminable, and the fear that the end would never come
dominated the prayer and brought home with tremendous import the
realization of our insignificance, of what mere atoms we become when
turned on the wheel of destiny in the midst of such abnormal
phenomena of nature's forces.
It was 5:15, broad daylight, and as I glanced at my watch those figures
were indelibly fixed in my memory for the rest of my existence. The
terror and horror which suddenly sprang like a beast of prey out of the
gray dawn and grasped our heart strings, came unheralded from a day
that otherwise promised all that should make life worth living. The
night had been particularly warm and inviting. So vivid was this
impression of the glory of the morning that I was possessed by a
feeling of irony that such a beginning should herald the inception of so
bitter a calamity. Fascinated, I stood gazing at a weathervane on the top
of a house across the street. It swayed to and fro like the light branch of
a tree in a heavy gale. I was jarred out of my inanition by a terrific
shock. The house lurched and trembled and I felt that now was the end.
It was afterward discovered that this crash and jar was caused by the
falling of a heavy outside chimney, attached to the adjoining house. It
had broken and struck our dwelling at about the first floor level and
torn away about twenty feet of the sheathing, some of the studding and
left a big hole through which the dust and sound poured in volumes,
adding to the already almost unbearable confusion.
The first natural impulse of a human being in an earthquake is to get
out into the open, and as I and those who were with me were at that
particular moment decidedly human in both mold and temperament, we

dressed hastily and joined the group of excited neighbors gathered on
the street. Pale faced, nervous and excited, we chattered like daws until
the next happening intervened, which was the approach of a man on
horseback who shouted as he "Revere-d" past us the startling news that
numerous fires had started in various parts of the city, that the Spring
Valley Water Company's feed main had been broken by the quake, that
there was no water and that the city was doomed.
This was the spur I needed. Fires and no water! It was a call to duty.
The urge to get downtown and to the office of the "California"
enveloped me to such an extent that my terror left me. Activity
dominated all other sensations and I started for the office. As all street
car lines and methods of transportation had ceased to operate it meant a
hike of about two miles.
My course was down Vallejo street to Van Ness avenue, thence over
Pacific street to Montgomery. When I reached the top of the hill at
Pacific street where it descends to the business section, a vision of
tremendous destruction, like a painted picture, opened before my eyes.
I saw fires on the water front, fires in the commercial district and also
portentous columns of smoke hovering over the southern part of the
city. Then like a blow in the face came the realization that all fire
fighting facilities were nil owing to the lack of water. One short hour
previous, San Francisco was sleeping peacefully in its prosperity, and
now the sight was appalling. Devastation, far as the eye could see, was
spelling death and destruction.
My route was down Clay street from Montgomery to Sacramento. In
that one block I counted twenty-one dead horses, killed by falling walls.
They had belonged to the corps of men who bring in to the market with
the dawn the city's supplies. When I reached the corner of California
and Sansome streets (the California office being one block away on
California and Battery) I found a rope stretched across from the Mutual
Life Insurance Company Building to the site where the Alaska
Commercial Company building now stands. All beyond was policed. A
soldier of the regular army was on guard and no one was permitted to
pass. Arguments and beseechments to get to the office were of no avail.
The necessity and the emergency, however, stimulated my
determination and aroused my ingenuity. Suddenly, I ducked under the
rope