purposes. We will
thus have less to fear from the destruction of the land mains. The whole
point with all of us who own property down there is that we have to
build. To let it lie idle, piled with its ruins, would mean the throwing
away of money, and I am sure none of us intends to do that. The city
will go up like Baltimore did, and Galveston, and Charleston, and
Chicago, and there will be no lack of capital. California spirit and
California enterprise, which are always associated with the State of
California, will rise superior to this calamity."

George Crocker, elder brother of William H. Crocker; Archer M.
Huntington, son of Collis P. Huntington; Mrs. Herman Oelrichs, Mrs. W.
K. Vanderbilt, Jr., members of the wealthy Spreckels family and others
all expressed, before the great conflagration had ceased burning, the
confident expectation that the city would rise, Phoenix-like, from its
ashes and become more beautiful and prosperous than it had ever been in
the past.

So complete was the calamity that the Government of the United States
lent a hand in the earliest work of restoration. On April 20th, two days
after the earthquake, Congress took immediate steps to repair or replace
all the public buildings damaged or destroyed in San Francisco. The
willingness of Congress to assist those in need of work by immediately
beginning the reconstruction of the Federal buildings was indicated
when Senator Scott, chairman of the Committee on Public Buildings and
Grounds, introduced a resolution calling upon the Secretary of the
Treasury for full information as to the exact condition of the various
government buildings in San Francisco, and instructing him to submit an
estimate showing the aggregate sum needed to repair or rebuild them.
The resolution suggested that steel frames be used in any new buildings.
This resolution was adopted. It was soon learned that the new Post
Office, the Mint and the old Customs House were practically undamaged.
The branch of the United States Mint, on Fifth Street, and the new Post
Office at Seventh and Mission Streets, were striking examples of the
superiority of workmanship put into Federal buildings. The old Mint
building, surrounded by a wide space of pavement, was absolutely
unharmed. The Mint made preparations to resume business at once.
The Post Office building also was virtually undamaged by fire. The
earthquake shock did some damage to the different entrances to the
building, but the wa