The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-05-25
SAUSAL|TO FOOTWAY WAR,
Debate of the Statesmen Of
the Scarborough of Cali
fornia.
All the Vacant Houses Are Filled
Up and a Lively Season Is
In Promise.

The rehabilitation OF Sausalito, the plan
ming of new roads and the establishment of
new grades is weighty work which has
developed much oratory and not a little
engineering science on the part of the
Town Trustees. Their weekly meeting on
Wednesday was devoted to debate on a
sidewalk. 1t appears that the question
which side of Water street, the main
thoroughfare, this footway should occupy
has led to the expression of vastly divided
opinions. The advocates of the east side
holly contended with the cohorts that held
that the west side was the natural and I'M
mistakable place for that footway. The
westsiders sat down on the eastsiders and
declared that they had the Trustees on
their side.
The conflict so long pending came to an
issue on Wednesday. The eastsiders were
led by W. II. Harrison, the westsiders were
martialed by Commodore Harrison. There
were two Harrisons in the field and the
Town Hall was thronged. The populace
were in earnest, but cool Constables Creed
and Gerrighty were deployed on the wings
OF the crowd in case OF violence.
w. H. Harrison opened the debate. Bow
ing courteously to General and Mayor
Dickinson, who was in the chair, the ora
tor declared that the selection of the west
side of Water street for a sidewalk was
holders on the steep hill on the west We're
continually putting up. their property,
keeping it at considerable expense from
sliding into the bay. One gentleman near
San Carlos avenue had half a precipitous
tifty-foot lot in the rear of his dwelling
dumped into his back yard. The cutting
into those hills was, from an engineering
standpoint, a fatal mistake. Moreover,
the pickets of the boundary fence would
be an irresistible temptation to the festive
picnicker to smash them as an exhibition
OF muscular prowess for the admiration of
the females of his species. Horses, shying
at the locomotives on the east side, would
naturally swerve toward the west and en-
danger the lives of the pedestrians on that
footway. The choice was an unwise one
and should not prevail.
When the buriy commodore for the
west side, took the floor he paid glowing
tribute to the manly independence the
Trustees had shown in selecting the west
for the footway. The Portuguese had de-
clared for the west, the intelligence of old
Sausalito had demanded the west, and the
improvement club of Hurricane Gulch had
inscribed upon their banners, ''West--or
no sidewalk" In the face of this mass of
opinion the Trustees could decide but one
way, and that the direction where the
SOluen sun seeks MS DeQ in the bosom of
the great Pacific.
AT this burst of oratory the westsiders
applauded enthusiastically, while shout
of 'Ratsl'' went up from the contempt
uous eastsiders.
The commodore retaliated by the sug-
gestion that the gentleman who had
shouted ''rats" might hunt his hole; that
despite specious arguments and garbled
representations the sidewalk would orna-
ment the west side.
Other and equally eloquent speakers
were prepared to address the meeting, but
were cut short by the Mayors announce
ment that inasmuch as the contract had
been let for the construction of the foot
way on the west side of the street, and that
a large portion of the work had been al
ready done, it was a pity to permit the
escape of oratory which must be Intellectual,
and thus the great west side controversy
was disposed of. The summer visitors are
filling up the vacant houses in the little
town, the Scarborough of California, and
it is anticipated that the population this
season will attain an unprecedented
figure. The railroad people have so in
creased the daily trips and improved the
property adjoining their depot that the sea
port of Marin, with the glory of its new
incorporation on it, is aspiring to metro
politan distinction.