The San Francisco calamity by earthquake and fire eBook
Charles Morris
Multitudes of persons besieged the telegraph offices,
and the crush became so great that soldiers were stationed
at the doors to keep them in line and allow as many
as possible to find standing room at the counters.
Messages were stacked yards high in the offices waiting
to be sent throughout the world. Every boat from
San Francisco brought hundreds of refugees, carrying
luggage and bedding in large quantities. Many
women were bareheaded and all showed fatigue as the
result of sleeplessness and exposure to the chill
air. Hundreds of these persons lined the streets
of Oakland, waiting for some one to provide them with
shelter, for which the utmost possible provision was
quickly made. No one was allowed to go hungry
in Oakland and few lacked shelter. At the Oakland
First Presbyterian Church 1,800 were fed and 1,000
people were provided with sleeping accommodations.
Pews were turned into beds. Cots stood in the
aisles, in the gallery and in the Sunday school room.
Every available inch of space was occupied by some
substitute for a bed.
As the days wore on the number of refugees somewhat
decreased. Although they still came in large
numbers, many left on every train for different points.
Requests for free transportation were investigated
as closely as possible and all the deserving were
sent away. Women and children and married men
who wished to join their families in different parts
of the State were given preference. The transportation
bureau was on a street corner, where a man stood on
a box and called the names of those entitled to passes.
Along the principal streets of Oakland there was a
picturesque pilgrimage of former householders, who
dragged or carried the meagre effects they had been
able to save. The refugees who could not be cared
for in Oakland made an exodus to Berkeley and other
surrounding cities, where relief committees were actively
at work. Utter despair was pictured on many faces,
which showed the effects of sleepless days and nights,
and the want of proper food.
Oakland was only one of the outside camps of refuge.
At Berkeley over 6,000 refugees sought quarters, the
big gymnasium of the State University being turned
into a lodging house, while hundreds were provided
with blankets to sleep in the open air under the University
oaks. The students and professors of the University
did all they could for their relief, and the Citizens’
Relief Committee supplied them with food.
The same benevolent sympathy was manifested at all
the places near the ruined city which had escaped
disaster, this aid materially reducing that needed
within San Francisco itself.
