Daily Kennebec journal., 1906-04-19
San Francisco.


flashed over the wires yesterday from
the city Of San Francisco. The great
ard prosperous metropolis of the
Pacific slope. the beautiful Queen who
sat enthroned overlooking the Golden
Gate lies this morning smoking,
crumbling ruin. Even from the VIVID
us. it is hard to grasp the extent OF
1.-The terrible disaster which fell upon
the city, one of the most crushihs
Gala mites that a city has ever eX-
perianced in the whole range OF recoru-
ed history. beginning with terrible
earthquake shock. perhaps the most
severe and destructive ever felt upon
this continent, the horrors of a great
fire followed. adding immeasurably to
the less. and intensifyins the terror
which must have griped the heart OF
every person for many miles around
The story of the terrible disaster is
told i'm detail IN the news columns OF
the Journal. Such u thing in any city
on the earth would seem bad enough
but this comes closer home to us here
in Maine than would such a disaster i'll
many eastern cities. from the fact that
Maine and California have long been
boun1 together by ties particularly
strong. with thousands of Maine peo-
t,Ie and their descendants now residing
there, a large part of whom reside in
San Francisco The figures as to the
loss of life and property can he but lit
tie more than guess work, until the
search of the ruins is completed. and
careful estimates made when the
smoke has cleared away and the ashes
cooled but we know that hundreds and
hundreds of lives were sacrificed and
that millions and millions of dollars
worth of property were destroyed. No
that San Francisco will promptly rally
from the blow. 1t is a true American
city and when the first shock of the
great tragedy is over. when the dead
arc buried and the day of btterest
grief is past. it will promptly ana
hopef,llly set about the work of clear
ing away the ruins and building anew
According to the census of 1900, San
Francisco ranked 9th among the cities
Of the states having then population
of 34a,7S2. giving it about half as many
reople as reside in the whole State OF
Maine.
As calamity. it will rank with the
Jolnstown flood. the destruction OF
Galveston by the tidal wave, and the
hlcttins out of St Pierre by the lava
ana ashes of Mt. Pelee. No other
cities uI,on this continent has ever sui
fered blows to be compared with these
The burning Of Chicago in 1871. the
Rosion fire of 1872 and the destruction
of RaItimore's whole business section
hy fire in 1904 take first place among
American confla grations, but their
combined loss of life was nothing com
pared with that resulting from the san
Francisco earthquake and fire. AS
terrible "A thing as the burning of a
great city must he under any circum-
stances. it is worse when it comes IN
connection with an earthquake. when
mighty structures of granite rrumblc
like houses made of cards and when
the violent trembling of the earth
wrecks the water mains, so that the
city is utterly helpless and without
means to fight the flames. Then there
is also something especially terrifying
and appalling in the mysterious nature
of IN earthuuake shock and this one
coming in the early morning hours
when the city was asleep may we'll
have driven the great city to frenzy
with its deStructivenesS and its terrors.
Scientists will probably attempt to
| connect this earthquake with the re-
cent outbreaks of Nesuvius. How
such things impress us with the little
ness and helpleSSncsS of man.