James Hopper

“ And this marks the true character of the city’s agony. Especially in the populous district south of Market Street, but also throughout the city, hundreds were pinned down by the débris, some to a merciful death, others to live hideous minutes. The flames swept over them while the saved looked on impotently. Over the tragedy the fire threw its flaming mantle of hypocrisy, and the full extent of the holocaust will never be known, will remain ever a poignant mystery. ”

“ I followed it till I came to a place where the whole hall was intact, and there, as upon a platform amid the ruins, a woman with long, disheveled hair was pacing to and fro, repeating in a long-drawn wail, over and over again, “Oh, my husband is dead, and a young man is dead, and a woman is dead; oh, my husband is dead, and a young man is dead, and a woman is dead!” ”

“ We could not make it. The scarlet steeplechaser beat us to it, and when we arrived the crushed structure was only the base of one great flame that rose to heaven with a single twist. By that time we knew that the earthquake had been but a prologue, and that the tragedy was to be written in fire. We went westward to get the western limit of the blaze.
Already we had to make a huge circle to get above it. The whole district south of Market Street was now a pitiful sight. By thousands the multitudes were pattering along the wide streets leading out, heads bow, eyes dead, silent and stupefied. ”

“ Up Market Street the great buildings writhed like so many live beings in the agony of fire. The entire wholesale district from the bay to Sansome and north to Washington was burning. As they burned, the buildings crashed down upon what the earthquake had thrown, and the streets were as those of a barricaded city in the throes of its last assault. ”

“ By eight o’clock the Kohl and Mills Building and the Merchants’ Exchange flamed like torches and the destruction of the business blocks of the city was complete.
At seven o’clock the staffs of the Call and the Chronicle met for a conference in the editorial rooms of the Evening Bulletin. The pink glow of the fire, near-by on three sides now, was the only light. The orders given to the Chronicle men was: “The men of the Chronicle will meet at the Chronicle Building to-morrow at one o’clock, if there is any Chronicle.” ”

“ After turning in my copy, I went up Post Street to my room in the Neptune Hotel, six blocks away. It was two o’clock in the morning, and that is San Francisco’s fairest hour. The blustering sea-breeze has ceased at that time; from the land comes a breath of air already dawn-scented. ”

“ Later we learned that behind those iron doors men had lived through the maelstrom of fire, had lived and fought and had saved the building. West of it, a long white sky-scraper towered, still untouched. ”

“ Its destruction was in keeping with the picturesque reputation of the district. The low brick buildings built in the pioneer days had nearly all thrown their fronts into the narrow streets, and their interiors were shown cross-sectioned like the doll houses you see in toy stores. The house of Henry Laffler, the writer, was so, his bookcase, writing-table, and bed showing like furniture on a stage. Beneath the pyramid of bricks that had been the front of the building a dead Chinaman lay, one long yellow hand stretching out of the loose sleeve of his blouse. ”

“ There were 125 wounded inside and eight dead. Among the wounded was Chief Sullivan of the Fire Department. A chimney of the California Hotel had crushed through his house at the first shock of the earthquake, and he and his wife had been taken out of the débris with incredible difficulty. He was to die two days later, spared the bitter, hopeless effort which his men were to know. As we were leaving, two men came to the gate. They were pulling along the street a sheet of corrugated iron upon which lay an old woman with both feet charred. ”

“ There it had leaped Market Street toward the north, and was roaring, a maelstrom of flame, through the wholesale district, before the southeastern breeze. We circled to the north, through the Latin quarter, picturesque in its ruins as it had been in life. I remember passing six dead horses under a pile of bricks on Washington Street. We went up toward the Hayes Valley district, in which heavy volutes of smoke announced another conflagration. In passing I stopped at The Neptune, where I had been at the time of the earthquake, five hours before. The fire had not yet reached it. ”

“ Hopper’s, EVERYBODY’S feels secure in the belief that its readers will find the final word on the destruction of San Francisco. The note of tragedy has always had powerful expression in the work of James Hopper. ”