The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-06-17
WILLIAM MARION REEDY
In The National Magazine

| in the multitudinous, gorgeous, risque restaurants never ceased a strain. and
 the women walked with an adder lure in their motions and a deeper softness In their eyes, and. as in the old fable. Love and Soul blent to make the climax
 of pleasure, and the town was rapt in a voluptous, semi-oriental autolatry and Then the earthquake came. And food
 And fire. And death in his most fantastic disguise burst in on the dream that came | through the ivory gate of dawn. The pas | sional city learned to pray. Suffering
 paid In flash for each pulse of joy. But the men of the city met in their
 ruined forum and said: "The city shall ! rise again more beautiful than before. !" i The hungry, the tatterdemalion crowd shelterless, wan, haggard, smoke -grimed | joked the soldiers over their dole of | bread and water The women rallied
 each other on their bizarre, bisexual I garniture. Life had been pleasure. Ruin was fun. Death-well to have died in | the fall of Frisco was something like | coming home from battle on the Spartan shield.
 Will Frisco stay fallen? No. A new | Frisco shall uprear itself and laugh at
 the sea, and when old Atlas again shifts the globe a little on his shoulders 1t will
 laugh and dance and fight and drink and
 
 | among its other claims to greatness is
 that of having met and counquered a
 calamity that stilled and stilled the
 whole worlds heart for a day Before the crash and flame Frisco was
 beginning to protest at being called any | thing but San Francisco. Yet Frisco clung; it held some winking. sly hint of frisky. Even the great black headlines
 over the evil news used the dminutive abbrevation-like touch of light in the cloud, a sort of fresh smiling rose on ! the pail. speaking of resurrection. The foundations of the city went wobbling at the end of the Easter feast almost. Twas and 'tis an omen.
 Frisco fallen shall flower again from disaster and desolation and death, and it shall realize the dreams not only of those who have vowed their dreams shall not be defeated. but the thrilled am bitions of those lovers of the city who went down in the ruin of the realm where Is not light, nor laughter nor song nor weeping nor dreaming more
 It will be a great city. for 1t is great city even today, though never rise again one stone of it upon another. It has given. 1t still gives us the joy of life, the throb of passionate story the sense of love of beauty in all forms. the thrill of an unparalled catastrophe. the in spiration of indomitable cheerfuness before the most implacable fate. There's something in 1t of the spacious older world, and yet something, too, that is unforgettably American in it's peoples recovery to a mood of readiness. the poet said, Ito match with Destiny for beers"
 Vale ct Ave Frisco the beautiful, the glad, the strong. the stricken. the invin- rfhle Down with her went our hearts,
 Up with her will go our souls The country's hope and faith and love are more fixed than the shuddering earth.
 and all these are in the tear-brightened eyes of Frisco looking out from the
 wreck over the Pacific where lies the future big with mighty fates for her be- yond all prophecy.