The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-10-02
IMPRESSIONS OF SAN FRANCISCO
By Lyman Abbott, D. D.


extent OF their devastation with those
experienced in recent times by Boston.
Chicago, and Baltimore. 1t is said
that the redwood is d slow-burning
fuel. Most of the houses are not more
than two stories, or three at the ut
most, in height. and these facts, to-
gether with a little space between the
houses, perhaps render the city quite
as freproof as are those cities which
appear to be- more substantially con-
structed, but in which a fire, once
started, is more difficult to control.
The climate of San Francisco fur
nishes fine opportunity for difference
of opinion. In Southern California they
tell me that men go to San Francisco
from the south in the summer to get
cool; in San Francisco they tell me
that men go from San Francisco in the
summer to get warm. My short ex-
perience in the city indicates that men
might get both warm and cool in San
Francisco on the same day, at least
within the same tWenty-four hours,
without difficulty. The lovers of San
Francisco count it's climate almost the
best in the world. because of its album
dant sun and its cool hreezes. Pro-
fessor Royce, in his History of Cali
fornia," gives a different impression:
THE almost treeless peninsula, at
such times, was a place to which an
chorites might we'll have resorted to
mediate in windy solitude upon the
woes and sins of an accused world,
amid this monotonous wilderness Of
low shrubbery. of drifting sand, and
steep hill-slopes. Even now, with all
the cheerful noise and strife of an ex-
ceptionally active city to distract ones
mind from gloomy topics, summer
afternoon out-of-doors, in San Fran
cisco, is a bitter penance to every one
but the most devoted of San Francis
cans We did not find a spring after
noon out -of-doors in San Francisco a
penanee. We found the air invigorat-
ing, the sunshine pleasant, and the
wind not furnished with that serrated
edge with which Boston winds in
March are equipped.
On the whole, the first impressions of
San Francisco We're of an unattractive
city. despite it's splendid situation; but
the city grows upon US the longer we
remain in it. 1t is not too late now to
save the environing hills from the hand
of the destroyer. If some great land
company would take possession of
them, and lay them. out with graded
roads and terraced banks. the imme-
date suburbs of San Francisco might
be made to possess an almost unparal-
leled beauty. Possibly even the city
itself might achieve this result if it
could secure wise, predetermined, and
progressive administration, or success
sion of administration, working out
a definite and measurabIy harmonious
plan, as Boston and Chicago have done
with their parkways, and as to some
extent New York is doing in the Bronx
and in the districts lying in the north
western portion of Manhattan Island.
San Francisco inpresses me both by
its enterprise and its lack of enterprise.
The daily newspapers in San Francis
co seemed to me the least enterprising
newspapers of any important Amer
lean city. naturally wished, while in
San Francisco, to know what was go
ing on in the city and in the State.
Neither the Calf nor the Chronicle
gave me much information on this
subject. The Californians seemed to
me to possess a great deal of local
pride and public spirit, but local pride
and public spirit were conspicuously
absent from the columns of these two
ed in the promotion of Californian i'm
dustries made a tour of five days
through the state while we were in San
Francisco. A similar delegation, if it
were from New York or Boston, GER
tainly if it were from Chicago, would
be accompanied by representatives OF
the Leading newspapers, which would
have every morning telegraphic let
ters representing the experiences of
the tourists. If the Chronicle which
was the daily paper 1 chiefly read, had
any reference to this exploration of
the State in the interests of its in
dustries, it was so insignificant an
account that it escaped my attention.
A great Methodist Missionary Confer
ence was held in San Francisco while
was in the city. 1t was still in ses-
sion the day I left. 1 found a better
account of it in Chicago newspaper
on my way East than I found in the
San Francisco newspapers. Bishop
Fowler, of the Methodist Church, gave
at this Conference an address on the
war in the Orient, and the relations of
this country to the two contending
parties. and the effect of the war on
our commercial and industrial inter-
by an audience which packed one of
the largest halls of San Francisco to
its utmost capacity. One paper gave. |
by actual count, five lines about it, and |
.