Williston graphic. (Williston, Williams County, N.D.) 1895-1919, 1900-08-16
) Broke in San Francisco
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

"0NE of these rainy evenings I'm
~ I'm going to sit down and write
the first few chapters Of that book
I've had in mind for long time past
Towns I've Been Broke In said a
Washington man who's now pretty
sedate and prosperous citizen. ''rhe
information that I've picked up at first
hand on this general topic ought to
make pretty readable and instructive
information. I've been broke all the
way from here to Shanghai and back;
not for very long perioos at a stretch,
it is true, but fatty and unqualifiedly
broke, without much of an apparent
chance of winning out, at that; and I
think I could put down a pretty accu-
rate tabulation of the hardest towns
!. on the globe in which to be broke.
1ncce are lot of mean towns in
the United States for man to go
broke in. Oddly enough, when you
consider what mean town New York
is in most other respects, l never
found it as bad as lot of other ones
when it came to the mater of going
broke. I always found something do
ing over there when things got right
down to bed rock. Chicago's an ada
mant proposition, though-real flint
for man who's broke. Philadelphia s
pretty frosty; man hasn't got much
of show if he's broke in New Or
leans; St. Louis is grueling into the
soul of the broke man; but for real
cragginess and hopelessness and no.
way-outness just you try going broke
in San Francisco once and see how
near you'll get to jumping off the
dock!
''The reason why San Francisco's
such bad job when it comes to 60
ing broke there is that it's so hard to
break away from the place. You see,
that bunch of mountains between
Frisco and the Mississippi river is
there to stay. You can't walk over
'em, either. It's case of ride when
you want to leave San Francisco, and
it's case, likewise, of paying for your
ride. If you don't happen to have the
little pasteboard when the conductor
comes around and looks you in the
eye off you go, and you're pretty liza
BILE to go off in a nest of cacti or patch
of sagebrush or bit Of desert, just
about 272 miles from nowhere at all.
The conductor doesn't care for your
sensibilities at all. Conductors who
run over the mountains-and-desert
trains from San Francisco are real
cruel, heartless persons, so they are.
They don't mind it in the least if they
have to pass by your bleaching bones
on their trains 365 days in the year.
They're calloused to all that. You can
generally stow away on one of the
Panama boats, but then you're ditched
when you get down to the isthmus. and
it's pretty hard to stow away on one
of the up boats on the eastern side of
the isthmus. I ought to know, but
that's another story.
''The last time found myself broke
in San Francisco was about y years
ago. I don't think I was ever broke
worse in my life. Everything I'd pos
sessed that the man behind the coun-
ter of three-ball house would so much
as look at passed into his possession
without any parley whatsoever as to
terms, and there came an evening when
walked along Kearney street with
nothing between me and the large,
wide Pacific as shroud than an awful
weird hankering to continue right on
living-and eating, could l only find
some place to eat! 1t was a raw, chilly
evening, characteristic San Francisco
evening, for the glorious climate of
California doesn't include San Fran.
cisco. which has the darkest, clam
miest chilliest, foggiest climate south
of Labrador. had pretty good front
left and mastodonic appetite. ]
hadn't had thing to eat that day
I'd walked around all day trying to get
job, without making it stick. San
Francisco has more restaurants than
my city Of its size on this continent