Some Cities San Fran. Resurgam | Page 9

natural advantages with like limitless opportunity. As to location,
city sites are seldom chosen by convention, or the fittest spots favored.
Chicagoans assert that a worse place than theirs for a city cannot be
found on the shores of Lake Michigan. New York would be better up
the Hudson, London in Bristol channel, and San Francisco at Carquinez
strait. Indeed, it was by a Yankee trick that the sand-blown peninsula
secured the principal city of the Pacific.
It happened in this way. General Vallejo, Mexican comandante residing
at Sonoma, upon the arrival of the new American authorities said to
them: "Let it bear the name of my wife, Francesca, and let it be the
commercial and political metropolis of your Pacific possessions, and I
will give you the finest site in the world for a city, with state-house and
residences built and ready for your free occupation." And so it was
agreed, and the general made ready for the coming of the legislature.
Meanwhile, to the American alcalde, who had established his rule at
Yerba Buena, a trading hamlet in the cove opposite the island of that
name and nucleus of the present San Francisco, came Folsom, United
States army captain and quartermaster, to whom had been given certain
lots of land in Yerba Buena, and said: "Why not call the town San
Francisco, and bring hither ships which clear from various ports for San
Francisco bay?" And so it was done; the fine plans of the Mexican
general fell to the ground, and the name Benicia was given to what had
been Francesca. A year or two later, with five hundred ships of the
gold-seekers anchored off the cove, not all the men and money in the
country could have moved the town from its ill-chosen location.
Opportunity is much the same in various times and places, whether
fortuitous or forced. More men make opportunity than are made by it,
particularly among those who achieve great success. Land being
unavailable, Venice the beautiful was built upon the water, while the
Hollanders manage to live along the centuries below sea level.
The builders of Chicago possessed varied abilities of a high order, not
least among which was the faculty of working together. They realized
at an early date that the citizens and the city are one; whatever of
advantage they might secure to their city would be returned to them by
their city fourfold.
"Oh, I do love this old town!" one of them was heard to exclaim as,

returning from the station, his cab paddled through the slushy streets
under a slushy sky. He was quite a young man, yet he had made a large
fortune there. "It's no credit to us making money here," he added, "we
couldn't help it." So citizenized, what should we expect if not unity of
effort, a willingness to efface self when necessary, and with intense
individualism to subordinate individual ideas and feelings to the public
good? In such an atmosphere rises quickly a new city from the ashes of
the old, or a fairy creation like the Columbian Exposition. Imagine the
peninsula of San Francisco covered by a real city equal in beauty and
grandeur to the Chicago sham city of 1893.
The typical West-American city builder has money-created, not
inherited, wealth. But possession merely is not enough; he gives. Yet
possessing and giving are not enough; he works, constantly and
intelligently. The power which wealth gives is often employed in
retarding progress when the interests of the individual seem to clash
with those of the commonwealth; it is always lessened by the absence
of respect for its possessor. But when wealth, intelligence, honesty, and
enthusiasm join hands with patriotism there must be progress.
Time and place do not account for all of Chicago's phenomenal growth,
nor do the distance from the world's centres of population and industry,
the comparative isolation, and the evil effects of railway domination
account wholly for San Francisco's slow growth toward the end of the
century. For, following the several spasms of development incident to
the ages of gold, of grain, and of fruit, and the advent of the railway
incubus, California for a time betook herself to rest, which indeed was
largely paralysis. Then, too, those who had come first and cleared the
ground, laying the foundations of fortunes, were passing away, and
their successors seemed more ready to enjoy than to create. But with
the opening of a new century all California awoke and made such
progress as was never made before.
Coming to the late catastrophe, it was well that too much dependence
was not placed on promises regarding rehabilitation made during the
first flush of sympathy; the words were nevertheless pleasant to the ear
at the time. The insurance companies would act promptly and