Click image to open full size in new tab
Article Text
SWEEP OF THE FIRE the other moth BY S. S. OLYMPIA. Oakland, and is being distributed in the north end of town by the relief SAN FRANCISCO, April 19.-With each succeeding hour the devastation parties organized by Mayor Schmitz. THOUSANDS SLEEP ON HILLS. and destruction in this stricken and prostrate ruin of a city, grows and Thousands of people are sleeping on grows. At 6 o'clock tonight it seemed the hills tonight, or standing, gazing with grim faces on the lurid scene beas if nothing could save the comparalow them. Women and children and tively small portion of the city that yet remains unburned. little babes in arms are huddled toThe entire business and wholesale gether with the injured. district is now only a glowing furnace In Golden Gate park the people are huddled together, with gnawing hunwhile the giant tongues of fire have ger the companions of all. The wail of reached westward far beyond Vani Ness the injured, and the calls of frantic suravenue and are wiping out buildings vivors for friends and relatives who and seeking more to devour. are missing are most pitiful. These At 4 o'clock Mayor Schmidt and Chief crowds are constantly increasing, and Dinan saw that the only hope of saving the relief committees are doing all in the Western addition with B forest of their power to get bedding and food for frame dwellings, and the Richmond the homeless. district with its thousands of homes, Oakland, Berkeley and Alameda are was to check the cruel march of the short of food, and in a few days will wall of fire at Van Ness avenue, which themselves be in a serious shortage crosses the city from north to south, unless relief comes from the outside. where the retail store and fine apartExpressmen are charging from $10 to ment house district ends, and where $5 Oto haul a load of baggage or give the residences begin. This avenue is any aid at all to refugees. ninety feet wide and the possibilities When the mansions on Nob hill, the of checking were hopeful to those who Fairmont and Marks Hopkins Institute were seeking ways and means in the were approached by the flames today, hour of awful horror. many attempts were made to remove Orders were given to concentrate evsome of the priceless works of art from ery fire engine in the city at this avethe buildings. nue, to marshal troops of soldiers A crowd of soldiers was sent to the there, the police and all the army of Flood and Huntington mansions and workers and make one last determined Mark Hopkins Institute of Art to resstand to save the remainder of the cue the paintings. From the Huntingcity. ton home and the Floo dmansion canCANNON CAUSE HAVOC. vasses were cut from the frames with The co-operation of the artillery was knives. The collections in the three secured and huge cannon were drawn buildings are valued in the hundreds to the avenue by the madly dashing of thousands. Very few were saved horses to aid the dynamiters in blowfrom ther avages of the fire fiend. ing up the mansions of the millionaires This afternoon the cadets from the 011 the west side of Van Ness inforder University of California to the number to prevent the flames from leaping of 500 entered the city to aid the miliacross the highway and starting on tia and regular soldiers in their work their unrestrained sweep across the of enforcing martial law. Western addition. LONE BANK IS LEFT. Every available pound of dynamite was hauled to the spot and the ;night The only institution on Market street was one of stupendous and appalling able to do business, according to a rephavoc as the cannon were trained on utable business man who reached the the palaces and the shot tore into the ferry late tonight, is the Market street walls and toppled the buildings in bank, occupying the lower floor of the crashing ruin. Grant building, at Seventh and Market At other points the dynamite was streets. Although the upper part of used and house after house-dwellings thsi building and every building near worth millions-were lifted into the it was wiped out, the space occupied aid by the power of the blowing blast by the bank was practically undamand dropped to the earth a mass of aged. A sign posted in the window dust and debris. stated that the bank would be open for The work was necessarily dangerous business as soon as it was considered and many of the exhausted workers, safe. kept going and working through a The greatest suffering among the stretch of forty-eight hours, without thousands of homeless people was from sleep and scarcely any food. through thirst. Although the earthquake has force of instinctive heroism alone, may broken water mains in probably hunhave been killed while making this last dreds of places, strange to say no wadesperate stand. Many of the workter, or very little at least, appeared on ets in placing the blasts took chances the surface of the ground. that spelled injury or death. Public fountains located on Market street gave no relief to the thirsty All efforts to check the spread of the thousands. At the corner of Powell flames proved fruitless. The fire here and Market streets a small stream of at 6 o'clock extends a mile along the water spurted up through the cobbleeast side of Van Ness avenue, from stones and formed a muddy pool. From Pacific street to Ellis, Alb.behind this, excepting the Russian hill region and this pool hundreds of people knelt and drank, women as well as men. a small district along the north beach, In many places men took as many has been swept clean by the flames bottles of liquor as they could carry and great shafts and spires have been out of grocery stores, but few of them dropped into the molten mass of debris succeeded in getting away with them like so much melted wax. Wherever the soldiers saw a man with The steady booming of the artillery a bottle of liquor they forced him to and the roar of the dynamite above give it up at the point of the bayonet the howl and cracking of the flames and immediately smashed it on the continues with monotonous and dazing ground. regularity. Such noises have been bomThe work of the regular soldiers in barding the ears of the panic stricken suppressing disorder, preventing lootpopulace since the earthquake of fortying and in rescuing persons from daneight hours ago. These have ceased to gerous positions is worthy of the greatheed sound and rush pell mell, drownest praise. Everywhere they show the ing their senses in a bedlam of their own creation. highest degree of courage. They did not hesitate to shoot whenever they Sufferers are invading what few found any one looting, and probably buildings remain in the hope of finding twenty victims fell before them during something to eat. They only desist the day. when warned or shot by soldiers, At 11:30 o'clock tonight the flames At the ferry building a crowd of a were slowly, but steadily, moving on to thousand people gathered, begging for the sections of the city still untouched food and transportation across the The sky in all directions presented a bay. Hundreds had not even the 10 lurid picture. The strongest fire tocents fare to Oakland. Most of the renight seemed to be in the western end fugees at this point were Chinamen of the city, while the volume of flame and Italians, who fled from their in /the Mission district would indicate burned tenements with little or no perthat the conflagration was less severe sonal property. than during the day Tonight the suffering to many from There seemed to be an irresistible hunger is extreme. On the water front power behind the flames that even the what bread is to be had is sold for a dollar a loaf, and in some instances at desperately heroic measures being taken at Van Ness avenue could not stay a much higher price. At 5 o'clock a While the heroic fire fighters were mob of a hundred or more mobbed a making their last stand at the fire line bread wagon and took the contents. on Van Ness Avenue, panic reigned The police made an attempt to interamong the survivors in other part3 of fere but were powerless. Bread is bethe city. ginning to arrive from Berkeley and
