The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1906-05-20

- SilS III all Ills lily Ilt itplltu.
Yes but she is not crying for the loss
of property. She is recovering from an
attack of epilepsy. and she would have
had this attack whether San Francisco
burned or did not burn"
Cheerfulness Amid Ruins.
Now what is the great practical gos-
pei deduction of this universal cheerful
ness and thankfuness which | saw amid
the smoldering ruins of San Francisco?
1t is this: Most of the things you and
| complain about are not in the least es-
sential to true happiness. Let a man
come home from business and find his
dinner late and there is no end of grim-
bling. OF course | do not allude to your
home, but to your neighbours. On ac-
count of the late dinner the business man
growls at the cook, and he growls at the
children, and he growls at everything.
Let a man lose few thousand dollars
i'm a business deal and he is on the verge
of nervous collapse and feels that he is
heading toward The porhouse. Let man
have an attack OF Indigestion and pessim-
ism will find one of its best disciples to
preach the doctrine of total depravity"
and to tell how the whole human race Is
going to complete destruction. But let
man be caught In a San Francisco
earthquake and tossed about like a shut
tleeock; then let the fire start and make
him run like a hunted rabbit; let him
be compelled to sleep out of doors, with
out a blanket or a covering, for two
nights; then let his home and store and
all his investments burn up; then, instead
of going around with lugubrious counte-
nance, he will meet you with a smile
upon his lips and say: THANK God.
am alive, Thank God, my wife and chill
dren are alive! Thank God, we are all
well and togetherv' The simple fact Is
some of us are complaining today not be-
cause we have too many troubles, but
because we have too few troubles. In all
the great city of San Francisco, amid
its ruins and its tents, its parks and Its
homes still standing, | saw not one sad
face nor heard one complaint. The
THANK Gods rendered everywhere had
the most marvellous intonation I ever
heard. May God help us to be grateful
for his mercy and kindness in our little
troubles, San Francisco is grateful to
him amid the ruins of her best streets
and her finest properties.
A Clean City
| The second great fact which [ heard
amid those smolderng ruins was that
when the better element of a city want
it TO be morally clean that city instant
ly becomes clean and the bad element
runs TO cover as quickly as the tigers
and the jacakals flee to the iungles and
as the prairie dogs tails disappear into
4 their holes at the hunters approach
When the buildings of San Francisco fell
as fiat as the walls of Jericho at the
| blast of the rams horn then San Fran
cisco arose In her moral and spiritual
strength. San Francisco was never as
free from sin as on the first few nights
following the awful conflagration.
No sooner did those huge office build
/ ings and apartment houses and man.
moth hotels tremble and totter in the
grip of that horrible earthquake like an
aspen leaf shaken in the winds than at
once the thieves and the robbers and the
/ libertines and the ghous of the night
i clapped their hands and began to cry:
AHA. Now for our harvest All the
! wealth of San rFnacisco is lying where
| our hands can clutch It," But these
| thieves and robbers congratulated them
| selves too soon. No sooner did these
| moral lepers start to loot than at once
| the soldiers rifles shot them down like
| mad dogs No sooner did they try to en-
ter the tumbled down stores and pick
up the gold from amid those ruins than
| they were halted at the point of the bay
| onet. 1t was only necessary to kill half
| dozen of the mlscreants. Then these
| cowardly marauders-for they are always
| cowardly at heart-crouched in fear and
| begged for mercy and ran away from
! San Francisco by scores and hundreds to
F, find safer quarters In other towns where
| justice was not so quickly dealt out.
A Safe City.
Thus as l kept walking up and down
those streets where I felt as safe as a
little child would feel in his mother 8
arms, ! kept saying to myself: with the
fallen walls of San Francisco as an OBJ
ject lesson why will other cities any long
er trihe with evil doors? Why will CITY
like Chicago allow the holdup men TO
prowl about his back alleys? Why will
they allow the lecherous hands of its
ruffans to stretch forth and destroy its
fairest and purest women? Why will we
not do as Diaz did in the capital of Mex
leo and as San Francisco is doing TODAY?
Why will we not make it a capital pun
ishment for any man to put the pistol of
a highwayman to our foreheads and de-
nand our money? Why will we also not
make it a capital punishment for auy
man to try to destroy the purity and sa-
credness of the home?'' II the holdup
crimes were dealt with as quickly and
as severely in our eastern cities as they
are today in the Pacific metropolis our
streets would not only be safe, but the
women-our wives and mothers and sis
tiers and daughters-would be able TO
walk out at any time and be held as sa-
cred as they are by our own fresides.
But the quick cessation of robbery and
theft in San Francisco was not the only
lesson of good government to be learned
amid those smoking ruins. The new laws
or the martial laws not only declared
'sirhou shalt not steal but they also af-
| firmed, 'rhou shalt not be an extortion-