ston was sadly shaken twenty years ago, but her streets are not
deserted. Senator Tillman still speaks vigorously as the
representative of her wide-awake and increasing population.
Some of us have not forgotten when we saw Chicago burning in 1871, the
doubts and fears of our own hearts regarding the future of our city.
Jeremiads were oracularly and dolefully uttered by many a prophetic
pessimist that Chicago would never be rebuilt, that it would be burned
again if it should rise from its ashes. Well! it did rise. It was
again sadly burned. It again arose. It has been rising and growing
ever since. And it is now ready to send its millions of dollars and
more if needed to the stricken cities on our Pacific coast.
Not in fear then, but in hope, must our homes, our churches, our
schools, our manufactories, our marts of trade, our bank buildings,
our office buildings and other needed structures be established.
San Francisco will be Rebuilt.
The prophets of evil may croak as dismally as they may desire and
predict that the earth will again shudder and quake and imperil if not
destroy any city man may attempt to create on the now dismantled and
disfigured site. But San Francisco will as surely be rebuilt as the
sun rises in heaven. No earthquake upheaval can shake the determined
will of the unconquerable American to recover from disaster. It will
simply serve to make him more rock-rooted and firm in his purpose to
pluck victory from defeat. No fiery blasts can burn up the asbestos of
his unconsumable energy. No disaster, however seemingly overwhelming,
can daunt his faith or dim his hope, or prevent his progress.
San Francisco occupies the imperial gateway of the Pacific. Her
harbor, one of the best in the world, still preserves its contour and
extends its protecting arms as when Francis Drake found his way into
it nearly four hundred years ago. The finger of Providence still
points to it amid wreck and ruin and smoldering ashes as the place
where a teeming city with every mark of a splendid civilization shall
be the pride of our Western shores. Her wailing Miserere shall be
turned into a joyful Te Deum.
Not for a moment after the temporary paralysis is past will the work
of reconstruction be delayed. We know not when another shock may come
or whether it will come again at all. No matter. The city shall rise
again. And with it, shall the other cities that have suffered from the
earth's commotion rise again into n
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