Chapter 6

[55]SeePart I,p. 53.

A second general registration[56]was made in June by the American National Red Cross staff of workers with the aid of the camp commanders. General Greely appreciated the need of having a more complete case record of the individuals who were making use of the camps, in order that a restriction of numbers might be judiciously and expeditiously made. The relief workers outside the camps, also, realized clearly the need of a more adequate registration as a basis for intelligent rehabilitation work.

[56]SeePart II,p. 115. For registration card, seeAppendix II,pp. 428and429.

The Bureau of Consolidated Relief Stations, acting on the advice of the Finance Committee, opened its first kitchen in Lobos Square about the middle of May to serve hot meals both to refugees and to persons able to pay for their food. From immediately after the disaster kitchens had been established by voluntary relief committees as the best means of feeding the people living in or near the camps. One such committee, that of Los Angeles, sent equipment to furnish five kitchens, with a representative, Mr. Desmond, of the Desmond Construction Company, to put them in operation. They were intended freely to furnish food and they gave timely aid in the early days.

When the Bureau opened its own community kitchens,[57]the experiment was made as a distinctive part of the effort to reduce the long bread lines. The kitchens were intended to test the needs of those applying for free food, because the number of those willing to accept relief in food was expected to suffer diminution when a common eating room was offered. They were also to give a convenient eating place to persons able to pay but not able to provide their own food, with the privilege of sitting at separate tables and of ordering a better quality of food than that furnished at the free tables. They were also to serve to the aged and infirmbetter food than had been supplied to them before. The kitchen system was intended to be economical and sanitary. Sanitary inspection could be made more thorough when in each encampment there should be one general kitchen rather than scattered individual kitchens for the preparing of free rations. Insistence on the first article of the new experiment—the common eating room—made Section VII, in the part of the city known as the Mission, unwilling to open a kitchen. It successfully opposed the step because it was one that the Mission workers felt would degrade the people and tend to destroy the privacy of family life.

[57]For partial list of kitchens and dates of closing, see Sixth Annual Report of the American National Red Cross, 1910, p. 43.

It must be borne in mind that the kitchen system was introduced after the bread line had been reduced to less than one-half its greatest length, and that it threw into conspicuous relief those who were without power to re-establish themselves or unwilling to try to do so.

The hot meal kitchens caused no sudden drop in the amount of food distributed. On May 12 when, as has been already commented upon, there was a marked decrease in the number of persons receiving rations, there were but five kitchens in operation; but the new method did effectively help to weed out those who no longer needed free rations. Colonel Febiger wrote late in June that “by the operation of these hot food camps thousands of dollars were saved for future relief; probably 95 per cent of the 15,000 persons now being supported by food relief were absolutely in need of it, those not in need either having withdrawn or having been forced out.”

The kitchens were at first run exclusively by the Desmond Construction Company under contract with the Bureau of Consolidated Relief Stations; that company, which had already made its experiment, having been the only one willing to undertake what was considered by the contractors to be an undesirable job. When by June 21 the number of kitchens had been gradually increased to 27, two other contractors were operating under the Bureau.

The Bureau and the Red Cross provided police protection, furnished sites for the kitchens, and supplied fuel and water. Each contractor provided his own buildings or tents, equipment, and service. The contractor agreed to furnish a wholesome meal, and to submit his daily menu to the relief officials for approval.

An open air dining roomIn Golden Gate ParkHot Meal Kitchens

An open air dining room

In Golden Gate Park

Hot Meal Kitchens

The following is a typical daily menu:

BreakfastHot Hash, or Hot Mush and MilkBread or Hot BiscuitCoffee, and SugarDinnerHot Soup, or Roast Beef or HashOne Vegetable, BreadCoffee, and SugarSupperSoup, or Irish StewBread or Hot BiscuitsTea, and Sugar

BreakfastHot Hash, or Hot Mush and MilkBread or Hot BiscuitCoffee, and SugarDinnerHot Soup, or Roast Beef or HashOne Vegetable, BreadCoffee, and Sugar

BreakfastHot Hash, or Hot Mush and MilkBread or Hot BiscuitCoffee, and Sugar

Breakfast

Hot Hash, or Hot Mush and MilkBread or Hot BiscuitCoffee, and Sugar

DinnerHot Soup, or Roast Beef or HashOne Vegetable, BreadCoffee, and Sugar

Dinner

Hot Soup, or Roast Beef or HashOne Vegetable, BreadCoffee, and Sugar

Supper

Soup, or Irish StewBread or Hot BiscuitsTea, and Sugar

Meals were supplied to any person who was ready to pay cash or who possessed a meal ticket. The meal tickets were issued daily by the Red Cross and were redeemed by it by payment made to the contractor in cash or in kind from the relief supplies. The original plan was to serve ten-cent free meals with provision for granting an extra five-cent purchase to such persons as might be considered in need of extra food.

Certain kitchens within the Presidio reservation are not reported on later than July 11, when they were furnishing about 1,200 meals a day. One thousand meals a day would probably be a liberal estimate for the remainder of the time, thirty days, that these Presidio kitchens were to remain open, but such an estimate is not included inTable 8.

TABLE 8.—MEALS SERVED BY HOT MEAL KITCHENS, FROM MAY TO OCTOBER, 1906, INCLUSIVE

From the data on hand we can estimate the proportion of ten-cent meals at 12.1 per cent and fifteen-cent meals at 87.9 per cent.

The first report of meals paid for is for June 28. Those who patronized these restaurants paid from 10 to 20 cents for their meals, the average price being 15 cents. The extent to which this opportunity was utilized is shown inTable 9.

TABLE 9.—FREE AND PAID MEALS SERVED BY HOT MEAL KITCHENS ON SPECIFIED DATES IN 1906

The last paid meal was served on September 19, 1906. The last kitchen closed was that at Speedway Camp, where the final meal was served October 10, 1906.

Frequent complaints were made that the kitchens supplied food which lacked in quality and variety, was poorly cooked, and served on fly-infested tables in unsanitary rooms. In some instances the complaints were justified, but the army inspections were thorough, and the contractors on the whole lived up to the contracts. Some of the complaints were made not by those who were using the kitchens but by those who were critical of the kitchen system itself.

It is not possible to estimate the total value of the food distributed. For food and its distribution the Relief and Red Cross Funds expended $1,226,567.16. The army report gives $259,811.20 as expended for subsistence stores, but this is not a complete statement of the disbursements made by it from the appropriation from Congress. These sums do not include an estimate of the value of donations in kind that were used as such and not sold. General Greely in his report stated that in the food donations distributed by the army there were about 2,000,000 complete rations, which had to be increased by substitutions and by purchase to supply the 3,873,745 rations distributed bythe army during May and June. Two commodities that had been donated in excess of need were flour and potatoes.

TABLE 10.—EXPENDITURES OF SAN FRANCISCO RELIEF AND RED CROSS FUNDS FOR PURCHASE AND DISTRIBUTION OF FOOD, TO MAY 29, 1909

TABLE 11.—PERSONS TO WHOM RATIONS WERE ISSUED IN MAY AND JUNE, 1906

CHART 1.—PERSONS TO WHOM RATIONS WERE ISSUED IN MAY AND JUNE, 1906

Among the persons who received rations, as indicated in thetableandchart, are included both those to whom raw rations were issued and those who were served with free meals at the hot meal kitchens.

Of secondary urgency was the demand for clothing. The requests for clothing were fewer than those for food, though many refugees fled from the burned areas with no clothing except nightgowns or calico slips, a poor protection from the cold nights and chilly April mornings and evenings.

The records of distribution are incomplete. General Greely estimated the number of persons who received clothing at 200,000. Much of the clothing donated bore the wellknown mark of the charity gift in kind. The second hand clothing in many cases was, to repeat General Greely’s comment, “more or less of a burden on the Red Cross.” Some was useless; some required to be cleaned and disinfected. The new clothing was, in the words of Captain Bradley, who had charge of its distribution, “of old and dead stock of mediocre and poor quality.” Part of the shoes and articles of clothing supplied from the army stores and charged against the appropriation from Congress were of obsolete pattern. The same criticism was made of some of the household goods donated. A large number of the cots, for instance, were worthless or of poor quality. There was the further handicap to the distributor, of not knowing what donations were to be expected or when they were to be received. This uncertainty meant serious delays in supplying the need and severe criticism of the administrators, but the latter did not feel themselves justified in making purchases of clothing in large quantities when clothing similar to that ordered might, later, be received as a gift.

The memory is vivid to some of those who worked in the refugee camps during the midsummer of 1906, of the children in striped sweaters and gay Tam-o’-Shanters. The caps were not suitable for summer wear, but they had been sent in large quantity with the sweaters to be distributed. The mental picture of Golden Gate Park with its scattered barracks and tents pitched close to ornamental lakes and neglected flower beds is accentuated by the note of high color given by the sweaters and caps.

Distribution of clothing, like the distribution of food, was quickly undertaken by independent groups of volunteers, who collected and gave out what could be got in the city itself. While the fire was spreading the army from its stores in the Presidio gave blankets and quantities of shoes, shirts, ponchos, and other clothing for men. As the donations from abroad began to arrive in large quantities they were quickly handed out without careful discrimination in sorting or adapting to individual needs.

On May 4 the army, in consultation with Dr. Devine, took charge of the organization of the clothing and household distribution. The Crocker School on Page Street was taken for use as a warehouse. A warehouse for second hand clothing exclusively was established ten days later in the Everett Grammar School, on Sanchez Street. Neither was adapted for use as a department store, but nine departments were organized, each in charge of an experienced clerk:

1. Men’s clothing and hats.2. Men’s furnishings and underwear.3. Women’s furnishings and underwear.4. Boots and shoes.5. Children’s clothing and hats.6. Children’s underwear.7. Bedding and furniture.8. Household goods.9. Tentage.

From the departments went during May a daily average of twenty truckloads; during June, eighteen. Among the household goods that had to be handled were towels, sheets, pillows, pillow cases, blankets, comforters, mattresses, stoves, cooking utensils, cutlery, dishes, brooms, wash tubs, washboards, boilers, irons, clotheslines, axes, chairs, tables, and sewing machines.

The method of distribution was similar to that for food. Each civilian chairman made requisition for the articles that were found by the superintendents of the stations to be needed within his section, and each requisition was filled so far as the warehouse stock would admit. The articles were sent to the separate stations for distribution. The army had charge of reception and distribution of goods; the Red Cross, of determining who should be entitled to aid. The first registration was used as a basis for determiningneed, but there was no uniform system of record and various forms are found to have been in use,—an instance of the necessity for a general, accepted form of registration and record.

Soldiers guarding the supply wagonsWarehouse for Second Hand Clothing

Soldiers guarding the supply wagons

Warehouse for Second Hand Clothing

It was planned to complete by the middle of July the general distribution of clothing and household goods by determining whether each refugee at that time had a decent supply which would prevent present suffering. After that date the Rehabilitation Committee was to consider further need of clothing and household goods in relation to general need of rehabilitation. The distribution did end practically on August 1, when those who had requisitions for articles that had not been furnished were given by the Rehabilitation Committee the cash value of the articles called for on their requisitions as far as approved by the civilian chairmen of their sections.

The later development of the methods of distributing clothing shows increased efficiency as greater experience was gained.

After August 15 the Bureau of Special Relief[58]had charge of filling orders for clothing for those living outside the camps whose needs were urgent but not great; the more important cases of need of clothing and household goods were cared for by the Rehabilitation Committee. From August 6 the residents of the camps were supplied with all necessary clothing through the Department of Camps and Warehouses, an arrangement which continued until the middle of October, after which issues of clothing were made by requisition through the department headquarters on the supply of clothing kept in Golden Gate Park. From December, 1906, the Department of Camps and Warehouses sent individual requisitions for clothing to the Bureau of Special Relief. Possibly these were such as it could not itself fill.

[58]See Bureau of Special Relief,Part II,p. 145ff.

All issues of clothing were stopped on May 16, 1907, and the supply on hand was turned over to the Rehabilitation Committee, which distributed it among a number of institutions. It is probable, however, that for a long time only a very small quantity of clothing had been issued to meet the needs of the aged, infirm, and sick at Ingleside.[59]It is to be noted further that as early as August, 1906,issues were limited, and were made only to destitute persons whose circumstances could easily be investigated.

[59]SeePart VI, The Residuum of Relief,p. 319ff.

The rapid exodus of refugees from the city during the first week after the disaster meant a desirable lessening of the task of providing food, clothing, and shelter. The transportation work, which divides itself into four administrative periods, began the first day of the fire, when refugees were given free passage across the bay, down the peninsula, and to points far inland. No special arrangement was made. The transportation companies merely threw open their gates and let the people crowd into the boats and trains. The committee on transportation of refugees, a sub-committee of the Citizens’ Committee, had comparatively little work to do. It told the public that the railroads were ready to carry the people and it made inquiry as to the ability and willingness of other communities to care for refugees. From many communities, some distant, came quick, generous offers to care for definite numbers of people.

When the first period, the period of indiscriminate free transportation, ended on April 26, the Southern Pacific Railroad, the only railroad running out of the city and the one that in normal times carried the greater part of the suburban traffic by ferry and train to towns across the bay, had transported, according to an official report, the following number of free passengers:

TABLE 12.—PERSONS CARRIED FROM SAN FRANCISCO AS FREE PASSENGERS BY THE SOUTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD, FROM APRIL 18 TO APRIL 26, 1906

The value of this service, according to the official report, was $456,000. The report states that on April 19 the refugees,most of whom went to Oakland and adjoining communities, left San Francisco at the average rate of 70 per minute. There is no report from any other transportation company. The 226,000 passengers carried to points around the bay included some thousands of persons that crossed more than once, many to go back and forth daily on public or private business, others, a considerable number, to view the fire and ruins.

On April 25, a committee on transportation was organized informally by the officials of the various railroads and the men in charge of relief work, in order to prevent an abuse of free transportation. The new committee, which was recognized as authoritative by the Citizens’ Committee, had for chairman William Sproule of the Southern Pacific Railroad, for secretary and executive, Oscar K. Cushing. On April 26, a transportation bureau was opened in a small office on Fillmore Street near Franklin Hall. The secretary was given power to issue orders for passes and part-rate tickets, which because of his experience in railroad business and in social work he could be relied upon to do with discretion. Each applicant in the long file which day by day stretched down Fillmore Street and around the corner to Sutter, a perplexed, restless file of men, women, and children, eager to be out of the city, was interviewed personally by him to determine whether the applicant were able to pay any part of his fare, whether the best way to restore him to self-support was to grant him transportation, and whether he would be a charge upon the community to which he wished to go. When letters of recommendation or personal interviews failed to give the information desired, a quick investigation was made. If the applicant were able he paid something toward his ticket but never more than at the rate of half fare.

On May 10 the railroads stopped the issue of free and reduced rate tickets as a relief measure. This marked the end of the second short period of regulated free transportation work. A week later, on May 18, the transportation work was merged with that of the Bureau of Special Relief and Rehabilitation,[60]and when Mr. Cushing became executive head of the joint work no material change was made in the method of caring for transportation cases.

[60]SeePart I,p. 14.

During the third period, beginning May 10, the period of united effort, the committee guaranteed to pay in certain cases reduced railroad rates, at first a half-fare rate, later a one-cent-a-mile rate. The railroads in their discretion gave in other cases free passage provided the committee made a brief statement of the circumstances of the applicant with a recommendation for free passage.

When the permanent Rehabilitation Committee was organized, July 2, 1906, the transportation bureau was again merged, which marked the beginning of the fourth period of its work, the period of completed organization. During the fourth and last period, which ended June 2, 1908, when the last transportation grant was paid, the transportation methods held unchanged with but occasional variation of rates and with a rapidly decreasing number of cases to be considered.

The relative importance of the transportation work to the other rehabilitation work, on the basis of the number of individuals concerned, steadily decreased from one-half in the first two weeks to about one-eighth in the middle of July.

Many a case was brought to the attention of the Committee by a distant relative or friend. For instance, a man wrote from a little town in Illinois as follows:

“Dear Kind Friend,—I have an aunt by the name of —— ——. You will do me a favor if you will send Mrs. —— to Chicago, Ill. I would send the money to pay fare but as I have not got it to spare I cannot do it. I hope you will be kind-hearted enough to send her to Chicago. Also arrange to get her meals on the train for her. You can call on her, Mayor Schmitz, at —— and have a talk with her. Please get my Aunt Clara to come back if you can do so.——If there is anything I can do for your City please let me know and I will try and help you folks at once. There are tears in My eyes as I think of the beautiful City you once had that is now in ashes. Reply at once.”

“Aunt Clara” could not be found.

An inquiry addressed to a man in whose behalf the Committee had been asked for help by a Chicago clergyman brought this terse and satisfactory reply:

“Dear Sir,—We are no longer in need of relief and we do not desire transportation to Chicago. I have so informed Rev. ——.”

Vague plans, or plans that did not commend themselves, led to refusal. There were, for instance, a man who thought he would like to try his fortune in Nome; a Syrian who had an idea he might get on better in Portland, Oregon, though he had no relatives there and no prospect of work; a Scotch Australian with a large family, known to the Associated Charities for years, who looked hopefully to Australia, though he had left it because he was a failure there; two girls, domestic servants, who wanted to go back to Ireland because they “were afraid of the shakes”; an old man whose only reason for returning to Europe was his desire to see his son ordained a priest; a widow, “saleslady” by occupation, who asked to be sent to Los Angeles on the strength of a letter from a friend, apparently a traveling man living in a hotel, whose mildly expressed concern for her welfare she took as a promise to provide a home. A stonemason wanted to leave his family without resources and try his fortune in Canada. A man whose family had been sent to Massachusetts in the early days to leave him free to get a start got tired of trying and wanted to join them. Another man merely wanted to go away on a visit, leaving his family behind. After the middle of June, requests that wife and children be sent away for a visit while the man stayed behind at work, were refused, though in the abnormal conditions of the earlier days they were frequently allowed. In a considerable number of cases, as of carpenters, shoemakers, domestic servants, and laundresses, transportation was refused because it was known that nowhere else in the country was the opportunity so good for work and good pay in those occupations.

In looking over the records one finds many reasons given for leaving San Francisco. Jewelers, inventors, masseurs, hair dressers, producers of “art work,” said they could find little demand for their services in the first few weeks after the fire. Acrobats, mental science lecturers, teachers of elocution, music, Hebrew, religion, and higher mathematics, could find no one to demand their teaching. Saloonkeepers and barmen had lost their shops through the closing of the saloons, and when they opened July 5, conditions would be hard because a higher license was to be asked. It seems like a jest of fate that at a time when thousands of people were living in tents a tent-sewer could findno occupation. It also seems curious that physicians and nurses should have wished to leave the city, but it is a fact that the demand for their services was decreased rather than increased by the disaster. Physicians suffered perhaps as much as any other class of persons, for they lost not only their offices, libraries, and instruments, but also a large proportion of their patients,—the profitable, well-to-do ones left town, and the poorer ones were stimulated by the out-of-door life, plain food, or by necessity, into unusual good health.[61]Bakers, grocers, and lodging-house keepers asked for transportation because, though there was a demand for their services, they had no capital with which to make a new start. Tailors, dressmakers, milliners, printers, and a number of others could not, or would not, wait for the demand which came for them a few weeks later. In the middle of May, for example, it was thought that ladies’ tailors could not expect to make a living for six months; early in June employers could not begin to get the number they wanted. In but few cases could lack of occupation be accepted as the sole justification for leaving the city. Carpenters and laborers who could not get work in San Francisco in June could hardly be expected to get it anywhere.

[61]InPart IVthe chapters which discuss condition and status of families in camp cottages, and of those who took advantage of the bonus and loan plans, show that the handicap of ill health was heavy after the first few months.

Sickness was a reason for transporting some of the refugees. A man who had been hurt in the earthquake was sent to relatives as soon as he was able to leave the hospital. Another man, whose little store had been wrecked by the earthquake, he himself injured, and his wife and one child killed, was sent to his sister in Chicago, his other children having been provided for by a charitable organization. A woman suffering from cancer was taken to her sister in Brooklyn by a nurse who was also being assisted to reach her destination. It was not uncommon in the earlier days to find a woman so nervous that her physical condition was a menace to the prospects of her family. One such woman would not allow her husband to do any regular work; another was so irritable that desertion seemed imminent. In such a case as the last the only hope of saving the family seemed, paradoxically, tolie in temporary separation. More than one woman who begged to be sent away for a visit was told, “We are doing this, you understand, because we are sorry for your husband and want to give him a chance to get on his feet here; but please encourage him by writing every week.” The policy, in spite of these instances, was definitely laid down that families should be kept together.

There were numerous examples of that re-distributing of responsibility for dependents which takes place when losses come to families individually. An aunt or grandmother in Nevada or Missouri or New York would offer to take care of a little boy or a young girl, in order to relieve the family in San Francisco. An epileptic woman whose daughters had lost their work on account of the fire was given a home by a cousin in Massachusetts. This cousin, with unnecessary caution, wrote to the woman: “I will not let him (Dr. Devine) know you have any daughters—only that you are without a home and in poor health.” A woman had been visiting her married daughter in San Francisco, and the daughter, after the fire, could neither entertain her longer nor pay her fare home. Still another instance was that of a Roumanian, seventy-seven years old. He had had a home with his granddaughters for the previous two years, but they were burned out and his only refuge was the old home in Roumania. Unfavorable surroundings as a reason for granting transportation may be illustrated by the case of a young girl who had been living in a basement with twenty refugees, men and women. She was sent to her father in Ohio.

The willingness of relatives and friends to receive refugees determined the transporting of a large number of persons. The letters that found their way to the files of the Rehabilitation Committee as evidence that the would-be travelers would not be unprovided for at the end of their journeys form a unique body of testimony. They give a glimpse of those obscure wells of charity in which we all believe, on account of frequent individual instances, but into whose depths we are seldom allowed to look. The open-hearted offers of hospitality that went out from humble homes all over the country were, in fact, a contribution to the relief fund, though they found no place in the list of donations,the quality of their mercy being too subtle. They may be given recognition by a few quotations from many letters:

From Delancey Street, New York, to a Jewish tailor with a wife and six children:

My dear brother,—I have received your letter, also dispatch, and in spite of all my efforts I send you only ten dollars. I cannot send you more for the present. I advise you to come over as soon as you can with your family, on my responsibility, as there are plenty of work for you. Don’t spend the time with nothing but come as soon as you possible can.

From a woman in Council Bluffs, to her sister:

You must and had better come here. J—— can work at his trade here and you can stop with us until you can do better.

From a little California town:

My dear cousin,—I am awfully sorry to hear you and all the family lost everything. But let you and Jennie and all the family come right up and stop with us. You will want for nothing as we have plenty for all and as many more. Hoping you will come right away, ———.

From a Russian woman in Chicago:

Beloved sister,—You shall not think about anything but come to Chicago———. You shall not worry about anything. Everything will be provided for you when you arrive here. You shall also get work.

A mother in Michigan wrote to her daughters, who had been in domestic service:

Girls, for my part I wouldn’t have any desire of living side of the Pacific ocean any longer and you know we would feel better to have you back here with us.

Another Michigan letter, from the brother of a refugee:

I want you to come with all your family and share our home until you get all rested up and see what is best to be done. Old frozen Michigan ain’t the worst place after all.

A woman in Spokane who offered a home to a friend and her little girl wrote, with a naïve appreciation of her own generosityand of the happy combination of disposition and circumstances to which she was able to refer:

I write to extend my sympathy to you and you know I have a big heart and a large house and would be only too glad to have you come and stay with me as long as you want to and it would not cost you one cent.

A man in Nevada who had secured work for a former business associate, wrote to him:

Through the kindness of friends (and I may say myself), we have furnished you and wife with a home furnished complete, so if you can get means to come up you will be O. K., as your rent is paid for a couple of months.

There could be no doubt that the boy whose mother in Los Angeles had found work for him, and who wrote him as follows, would be looked after:

A Mrs. T—— to whom I appealed for you gave me as a loan on the sly five dollars for your fare down, which must be returned as soon as possible so please do not use it unless you fail to get a pass.

Some friends in southern California offered a home to three sisters, working girls:

If you can get passes, which no doubt you can by applying to Mayor Schmitz, as I have written to him, asking for you, come down and stay with us for as long as you wish. We have a house in our yard which we can fix up for you without any inconvenience to us. You can live there as long as we stay here.

The great majority of these people who were assisted to leave the city seem to have been those that could easily be spared from San Francisco during its period of reconstruction. They were, on the whole, lacking in physical vigor or in mental qualities of courage and initiative, or in attachment to their city. They did, however, give the impression that, under less exacting circumstances, they would have been able to get along creditably. It seemed fair to expect that in nearly all the cases the substitution of a more favorable environment would have results so satisfactoryas to justify transportation as a rehabilitation measure, while the burden of dependence, whatever it might be, would be so distributed as not to bear heavily in any one place. The policy of those responsible for decisions was not to send to other cities persons that were likely to become dependent on charity. The transportation agreement of the charity organization societies of the largest cities was respected. The prompt answers to telegraphic inquiries given by all the eastern cities was a very important help. It was reassuring to find that the plan that was satisfactory in ordinary times proved indispensable in the emergency.

For the second period of the work of transportation, which seems to represent about the average,Table 13is given.

TABLE 13.—DESTINATION OF PERSONS SENT FROM SAN FRANCISCO BY THE TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE, FROM APRIL 26 TO MAY 10, 1906, INCLUSIVE[62]

Back to Index Next