IIMETHODS OF DISTRIBUTION

[20]For plan of the Executive Commission, seeAppendix I,p. 391.[21]SeePart I,p. 49, andPart II,p. 115. The first registration was begun during the week following the disaster.

[20]For plan of the Executive Commission, seeAppendix I,p. 391.

[21]SeePart I,p. 49, andPart II,p. 115. The first registration was begun during the week following the disaster.

Recommendation was made by the Commission that all executive work should devolve on it, and that it should be held responsible for initiating relief measures.

The Finance Committee approved the plan in general, with the exception that the question of special relief be left for future decision and that no action be taken on housing until further information had been collected. It did decide, specifically, that the rehabilitation work should continue in charge of Dr. Devine as representative of the Red Cross, and should not be transferred to the Executive Commission while final decision was pending.

The first bakery rebuiltA cheerful kitchenSupplying Food Under Difficulties

The first bakery rebuilt

A cheerful kitchen

Supplying Food Under Difficulties

The Executive Commission got rather beaten round thebush. It was permitted to expend certain appropriations for sanitation, the care of camps, and the distribution of food, clothing, and other supplies, under direction of its chairman and a group of army officers. The relation of the army to the new Commission was practically what it had before been to the Red Cross representative. Under the military régime Major A. J. Gaston was commanding officer of permanent camps; under the new régime he was general superintendent of camps with authority to appoint all camp employes.

In the latter part of June Mr. Phelan, acting on Dr. Devine’s suggestion that the Finance Committee should appoint a Rehabilitation Committee of its own to supersede the work of the special Rehabilitation Bureau, did appoint such a committee with Dr. Devine as chairman and Archbishop Riordan,[22]Bishop Nichols,[23]Rabbi Jacob Voorsanger, O. K. Cushing, F. W. Dohrmann, and Dr. John Gallwey as members. Its scope was defined as including “all aid” to be given to individuals or families other than food or ordinary clothing. It superseded, as has been already stated,[24]the Red Cross Rehabilitation Bureau and took over the latter’s unexpended balance. The Bureau had expended $18,599.70 for 840 applicants.

[22]Delegated his position to Rev. D. O. Crowley.[23]Delegated his position to Archdeacon J. A. Emery.[24]SeePart I,p. 15.

[22]Delegated his position to Rev. D. O. Crowley.

[23]Delegated his position to Archdeacon J. A. Emery.

[24]SeePart I,p. 15.

The Rehabilitation Committee met in Hamilton School July 2, two and a half months after the beginning of the relief work in San Francisco. Mr. Bicknell was elected secretary, Mr. Cushing, treasurer, the latter, with the chairman, having authority to sign checks in the name of the Committee. When Dr. Devine returned to New York, August 1, Mr. Bicknell was appointed a member of the Committee and Mr. Dohrmann then became chairman, a position he was to hold from the first of August, 1906, until the close of the rehabilitation work.

During June and July, to repeat, the pressure to give food and temporary shelter was yielding to the pressure to furnish permanent shelter and other means of rehabilitation. The problem of housing was very complicated. No one knew how far shelter would be provided by private enterprise; no one knew whethermanufacturing plants and wholesale and retail business would seek old locations; no one knew where the shifting population would settle. There was delay in collecting insurance, uncertainty as to the land, labor, and materials available and as to the future street car service and water and sewer connections. There was difference of opinion as to whether the subsidized building should be of a permanent or temporary character, of scattered individual dwellings or large blocks, as to whether financial aid should be in the form of bonuses or of loans.

One of the minor notes of irony in this mid-summer situation lies in the fact that the Finance Committee referred to its own Rehabilitation Committee for consideration and report the housing suggestion of one of its members, M. H. de Young, and that the report that followed, July 10, was signed by Dr. Devine as chairman both of the Rehabilitation Committee and of the Executive Commission.[25]

[25]See Original Housing Plan,Appendix I,p. 393. See alsoPart IV, Housing Rehabilitation,p. 212ff.

Mr. de Young’s suggestion was that a donation, or as it was commonly called, a bonus, of not more than $500[26]in any case, be made in behalf of any resident whose house had been destroyed, provided that the $500 represented not more than one-third of the value of the house to be built, and that it be paid to the contractor after the house was completed and was clear of liens.

[26]For class of people who benefited by the bonus plan, seePart IV,pp. 218,239.

The resultant report as submitted stated that the Executive Commission had, with the approval of the Finance Committee, appointed a board of consulting architects and builders who offered their services as expert counsel on general plans and on designs for suitable dwellings. It also stated that the matter had been carefully considered by the Rehabilitation Committee and the Executive Commission, and that the bonus plan was recommended for such workingmen as could not secure sufficient funds from banks, building and loan associations, or from other business or private sources.

Attention was called to the fact that the Rehabilitation Committee was already studying the general situation so as to estimate how many loans[27]were likely to be called for. It wasfurther stated that there was no anticipation that the bonus plan would carry far in providing shelter for the families living in tents, and that no inclusive plan could be framed to provide housing for all the homeless.

[27]For method of carrying out the loan plan, seePart IV,p. 253ff.

It was recognized, moreover, that first in order of importance came provision of shelter for the aged, the infirm, the invalided, and the other adult dependents who had become permanent city charges. For these the recommendation was to erect permanent buildings on the cottage pavilion plan to house 1,000 persons; the cost of building to be met from the fund, the maintenance to be left to the city. It was recognized that there were two possible alternate plans; namely, to care for the dependent group in existing private institutions, or to board its members in private families. A marked advantage of the first plan was that it provided a permanent addition to the city’s charitable institutions. The suggestion was intended to supplement what was already being done in the way of giving care to the sick in hospitals.

It was further recognized that there should be quick effort made to supply dwellings for the 5,000 persons who before the disaster had paid moderate rentals, but who were housed in tents or other temporary shelters. It was also necessary to make provision for a possible 5,000 persons who were out of the city. No accurate estimate had been or could be made of those who, independent of aid, had readjusted themselves.

The proposal made in behalf of the possible 10,000, a proposal that touched the kernel of the big relief problem, was to use money lying idle to build houses which should be sold on the instalment plan, or rented to families that had been living in San Francisco on April 17. Shelter had to be provided against the rainy season in order that there might be held in San Francisco a population of working people. The proposal was intended also to carry to a workingman the opportunity to own a house of such character as should serve to set a standard for sanitary and attractive dwellings. Through the carrying out of this scheme there were to be brought into happy co-operation the architects, the builders, the municipality, and the Finance Committee itself. The first would supply skill and taste; the second, quick and moderate priced building; the third, suitable conditions of light,sanitation, ventilation, and fire protection; the fourth, capital and business security. To assure the last provision there was a suggestion of the creation of a new corporation to consist of the mayor, the chairman of the Finance Committee, the representative of the American National Red Cross, and representatives from the Executive Commission and the Rehabilitation Committee, all of whom were to be named by the Finance Committee.

The need to incorporate became more imperative when the plans to furnish shelter took, by July 15, the following definite shape:

1. To build a pavilion on the almshouse tract[28]for 1,000 homeless persons.

[28]For account of Ingleside Camp and the establishment of the permanent Relief Home for the aged and infirm, see Part VI, p. 319 ff.

2. To appropriate $150,000 to construct and to repair temporary shelters in the public parks for the use of the homeless during the winter of 1906-07.3. To appropriate not more than $500,000 to carry out the bonus plan.[29]

2. To appropriate $150,000 to construct and to repair temporary shelters in the public parks for the use of the homeless during the winter of 1906-07.

3. To appropriate not more than $500,000 to carry out the bonus plan.[29]

[29]For discussion of the Bonus Plan, seePart IV,p. 239ff.

4. To appropriate a second $500,000, to be used for loans to persons who had owned or rented houses within the burned district.[30]

[30]For discussion of the Grant and Loan Plan, seePart IV,p. 253ff.

5. To set aside $2,500,000 for the acquiring of suitable and convenient land on which to build dwellings that might be sold for cash or on the instalment plan to residents who were in business or had other employment.

Before passing on to the matter of the incorporation of the funds, one must record the final act of the Executive Commission. On July 31, after six weeks of precarious, and one might almost say uneventful life, the Commission voted to turn its records over to the corporation just created, and to make an inventory of its supplies and equipment for transfer to the same body.

June and July mark a clearly defined transition period. In spite of the politically directed episode of the abortive Commission, rehabilitation plans were being successfully shaped, even though the ordeals of the withdrawing of the army as a factor inrelief administration and the introducing of the political appointees were being faced. In spite of temporary set-backs, the work was getting on a strictly business basis. Delays meant suffering, yet ultimate community gain, because the Rehabilitation Committee, in keeping outside the province of the Executive Commission, drew to itself the best experienced service that was available, and escaped the danger of being directed or diverted by any force other than that controlled by right motives.

Now to return to the suggestion of incorporation. From as early a date as May 4 the question of the incorporation of the relief funds had been discussed within and without the Finance Committee. The New York Chamber of Commerce as a large custodian of relief funds had the matter brought personally to the attention of members of the Finance Committee through its representative, James D. Hague, and in writing by its president, the late Morris K. Jessup. The latter stated, however, that the determining of the question of incorporation lay with the Finance Committee. Correspondence in early July with Mr. Hague, the returned envoy, showed that there was in contemplation the incorporating of an independent body of men, the majority of whom should be appointed by the chairman of the Finance Committee. To this proposed corporation it was suggested should be transferred the $500,000 then held by the Chamber of Commerce, with such other moneys as might be entrusted to it.

If such a plan had been carried out there would have been two authorized bodies administering relief with an encouragement to other foreign custodians of funds to create similar independent agencies. The pressure to incorporate came therefore from without because of the jealous guardianship of funds by the non-local contributors; from within because of the exigency of the situation itself.

In the month of July, as has been said, the imminent need was known to be to provide suitable shelter against the fall and winter rains. The members of the Finance Committee considered the question of incorporation from the standpoint of the provision of a body legally empowered to acquire land and to loan moneyfor building purposes. As a committee, therefore, it decided on July 13 to carry out the recommendations made in the letter written by Dr. Devine to its chairman, three days earlier, which recommendation, it should be recalled, embodied the earlier bonus plan suggestion made by one of its own members.

The certificate of incorporation[31]was issued July 20 to hold for a period of five years. The president of the corporation, the “San Francisco Relief and Red Cross Funds, a Corporation,” was James D. Phelan; the first and second vice-presidents, F. W. Dohrmann and W. F. Herrin; the secretary, J. Downey Harvey. The president and first vice-president, with M. H. de Young, Rudolph Spreckels, and Thomas Magee, formed the Executive Committee. The personnel of the Corporation, with the exception of the governor of the state and the mayor, who were ex officio members and directors of the Corporation, was identical with that of the Finance Committee of Relief and Red Cross Funds which it superseded, and whose funds it immediately took over.

[31]SeeAppendix I,p. 398.

The newly incorporated body held its meetings at the St. Francis Technical School on Geary and Gough Streets, which took the place of the Hamilton School as headquarters for all departments of the relief work. Later a warehouse was added to the building to hold the remaining supplies. The meetings were open to the press, and to officers and employes; and others with whom the corporation had business were invited as was deemed expedient to meet with the Executive Committee. At the third meeting, held late in July, five departments were created:[32]

A. Finance and PublicityB. Bills and DemandsC. Camps and WarehousesD. Relief and RehabilitationE. Lands and Buildings

[32]SeeAppendix I,pp. 399-400. See also Diagram of Organization,p. xxv.

Each chairman was required to make an investigation of and report on any undertaking of his department that called for an appropriation. Each chairman was also a member of the Executive Committee and was responsible for the appointment of his employes.He was further responsible for preparing monthly budgets and for the printing and distribution of all printed matter.

From the plan of organization it is to be seen, of course, that housing as a reason for incorporation had yielded to the pressure to make inclusive the treatment by one incorporated body of all divisions of the many-sided work.

The experiments of the preliminary and transition periods had tried out many men and methods, so that on the newly incorporated body were found men of affairs who in the relief work itself were ready to act in harmony and with method and to come together in small groups for frequent meetings. If one looks at thediagramof organization presented,[33]one sees how gradually through the trying three months there had been a shaping through experiment that made the San Francisco Relief and Red Cross Funds itself a fruition that in germ lay in the union of official effort and private initiative.

[33]Seep. xxv.

Step by step the confidence of the public at home and abroad had had to be won. Only through the selection and trying out of generous-minded and capable men could the suspicions of those who controlled the contributions in the east have been dispelled.[34]Only after the abortive effort to make political capital out of positions of relief administration had fallen flat could the work itself get into its steady swing. The lessons are clearly written, however, that there must of necessity be in any great sudden emergency the creation of public confidence in the administration of the relief, and that along with a force of persons trained from within and without to act quickly and with definiteness must be the voluntary services of men and women on whom the community itself has learned to rely.

[34]SeePart I,p. 99ff.

A few notes of later date are added here to round out the account of organization.

On August 1, 1906, Mr. Bicknell succeeded Dr. Devine as the representative of the American National Red Cross, and he in turn was succeeded on October 1 by Mr. Dohrmann.[35]

[35]For positions held by Mr. Dohrmann and Mr. Bicknell on the Rehabilitation Committee, seePart I,p. 21.

Early in the year 1907 the County Medical Society urged that the balance of the relief fund should be used for the erection and endowment of a free hospital. Impelled by this and similar requests the Corporation did in February consider seriously the possibility of closing the work.

One year after the fire (April, 1907):

The Department of Bills and Demands had completed its work.

The Department of Finance and Publicity was working with a greatly reduced force as it was relieved of the accounting connected with claims and subscriptions.

The Department of Camps and Warehouses had under care a camp population of about 17,614, but no longer distributed food or other supplies.

The Department of Relief and Rehabilitation had finished the bulk of its work. The general taking of applications had ceased for some time. Those on file were being passed upon and closed as rapidly as possible. The final estimates and appropriations for this work had been made. From this time on only exceptional cases, and those few in number, were received. The Housing Committee still had some work to do in connection with the completion and inspection of houses granted by it, and with the payment of the bonuses which it had guaranteed to pay to certain applicants on the completion of houses which they were building for themselves. The work of the Bureau of Special Relief was almost finished. The work of the Hospital Bureau had to continue.

The Department of Lands and Buildings had completed its building work, with the exception of the Relief Home. The Home was expected to be finished in May.[36]A few hundred applications were on file for allotment of bonuses from the second appropriation. The first appropriation was exhausted.

[36]For reasons for delay, seePart VI,p. 321.

Two years after the disaster (April 18, 1908):

The Department of Lands and Buildings had completed its work.

Tent camp, opened May 9, 1906CottagesCamp No. 10, Potrero District

Tent camp, opened May 9, 1906

Cottages

Camp No. 10, Potrero District

The Department of Finance and Publicity, with a small force,was making the settlements incidental to the closing of the camps and the refunding of instalments to tenants. It was also preparing its financial report.

The Department of Camps and Warehouses had removed cottages from all the public squares but Lobos, where but 479 cottages and 1,287[37]persons remained. This camp sheltered the poorest refugees.[38]Stricter sanitary measures could be enforced here and care be given more cheaply than if the inmates had been removed to cottages on private land. Bubonic plague in this camp as well as elsewhere in the city had made precaution necessary.

[37]The number being the same as that given inPart VI,p. 324, as the total number of persons at Ingleside Camp, is a mere coincidence.[38]SeePart I,p. 85.

[37]The number being the same as that given inPart VI,p. 324, as the total number of persons at Ingleside Camp, is a mere coincidence.

[38]SeePart I,p. 85.

The Department of Relief and Rehabilitation had become a supervising agency. It supervised the collection of housing loans, assisted the Executive Committee in making grants to charitable institutions, and advised the Associated Charities which was administering the greater part of the relief needed in moving people from the camps.[39]

[39]SeePart I,pp. 85-86.

The closing chapter of the complicated story of organization was reached when, acting on the suggestion of its special representative, Mr. Dohrmann, the American National Red Cross sent Mr. Bicknell in January, 1909, to San Francisco to confer about final plans. Mr. Bicknell had then accepted the recently created position of national director of the American National Red Cross. The creation of this position may be said to be one of the results of the San Francisco relief experience. As a result of conferences[40]between these two men who had played such a determining part in San Francisco’s struggle to help its people wisely to regain their old standing, the Board of Trustees of Relief and Red Cross Funds was formed in February, 1909.

[40]For statement of action taken, seeAppendix I,p. 401ff.

Thecomplicated story of organization seems comparatively unimportant when one’s mind is full of questions as to what was to be distributed, and how many human beings were in need of immediate relief. That there was general, quick recognition of the need is shown by the quantities of supplies hurried to San Francisco. Five thousand cars were reported April 28 to be on the road. General C. A. Devol, who had charge of receiving and unloading all supplies, states, however:[41]“The stores that arrived for the relief of San Francisco up to July 20 amounted to 1,702 carloads and five steamship loads, a total of approximately 50,000 tons. At the height of the operations about 150 carloads were delivered into the city daily, in addition to stores arriving by steamers.” The chairman of the Finance Committee reported to Mr. Taft, president of the American National Red Cross, on November 28, 1906, that the estimate of total receipts in kind was 1,850 carloads of food supplies, and 150 carloads of bedding, tenting, clothing, and so forth.

[41]Devol, Major (now General) C. A.: The Army in the San Francisco Disaster. Journal United States Infantry Association, Vol. VI, No. 1. pp. 59-87 (July, 1907). Further quotation from this article will be found inAppendix I,p. 381, of this volume.

During the first two weeks after the disaster the Southern Pacific Railroad brought 1,099 carloads of relief supplies into the city. Under orders of its president, right of way was given to trains carrying these cargoes, and express time schedules were used for the sake of speed. These receipts were not all direct donations, as the contents of a number of carloads had been purchased by the Finance Committee and by the army from an appropriation of $2,500,000 made by Congress[42]to be distributed under the direction of the officers of the Pacific Division. There were also many donations that were sent to agencies other than the Citizens’ Committee, the Red Cross, and the army. These cannot be included in any estimate as there was no complete record of the amounts.

[42]See Sixth Annual Report American National Red Cross, 1910.

Transportation Routes about San Francisco

Larger map(200 kB)

It was found to be difficult to protect the mass of the rations in the railroad yards and in transit to the warehouse against seizure by ordinary thieves and by those who felt justified in disregarding the usual rights of property. Goods were stolen, in quantities that could not be reckoned, by those who expected to realize a profit as well as by those who considered that they had the right to seize what they felt was destined to meet their need. Some of these confiscated boxes were addressed not to the relief authorities but to specified persons and groups of persons in San Francisco or at other points about the bay. A further incentive to confiscate lay in the action of the police who, as was generally known, acting on the orders of the chief of police, had broken open about 100 grocery and provision stores that were doomed to be destroyed by fire. The police, after making a rough estimate of the value of the stock, distributed freely to the destitute.

When the cars reached San Francisco, along with the bulk of the shipments which were addressed either to the quartermaster of the army, who was designated to have charge of all supplies sent to the American National Red Cross, or to the Citizens’ Committee, were boxes addressed to the mayor, to the churches, to other organizations of all kinds, and to individuals. It would have interfered seriously with the work of relief if an effort had been made to find the persons to whom special boxes were directed. The American National Red Cross through its representative, in whose care many boxes with specific directions were sent, did all that was possible to carry out the intent of the donors, but it could not in every instance find the intended recipient. Many inquiries were received as to barrels and boxes which had not reached their destination, but the cost of tracing these and the cost of making special deliveries under the then existing conditions were often greater than the value of the packages themselves.

An illustration of the difficulty of delivering special packages is the story of eight cases of bread pans which were addressed to the “Relief Committee” and were quickly distributed among the refugees. When the manufacturing company that shipped the cases learned on inquiry of the bakers for whose use they were intendedthat they had not received them, it threatened to file a claim for loss. The trouble, however, lay in the fact that a letter of instruction addressed to the mayor got effectually separated from the boxes.

No complete record of cash contributions can be made. Some of the committees throughout the country expended part of their funds to purchase supplies to be forwarded to San Francisco or to relieve refugees at home, or failed to collect all the money reported to have been contributed. The money reported as subscribed in the state of California is far from representing the actual value of relief contributed. Being so near the scene of disaster the California communities wisely contributed supplies in large quantities for immediate use and also cared for large numbers of refugees who came to them. The official reports of contributions cannot therefore give credit to all communities for all the relief furnished by each, nor can they show the amounts contributed by the smaller cities when these forwarded their contributions through the larger city committees. Nor can a record of contributions sent to the American Red Cross be found in the published list of contributors to the committee in San Francisco.

TABLE 1.—CASH RECEIPTS OF THE FINANCE COMMITTEE OF RELIEF AND RED CROSS FUNDS, AND ITS SUCCESSOR, THE CORPORATION,[43]TO JUNE 1, 1909

[43]The San Francisco Relief and Red Cross Funds, a Corporation. SeePart I,p. 25ff.

The total cash donations, $8,921,452.86, given inTable 1, donot include the $2,500,000 appropriated by Congress, which was disbursed in the first two months for food, clothing, bedding, shelter, etc., nor an estimate of the numerous independent funds which were probably expended within the first month, nor of the enormous quantity of supplies donated by the people of the country. These supplied the first needs of the destitute and enabled the Committee to save its cash for later and more permanent forms of relief.

TABLE 2.—CASH CONTRIBUTIONS FOR THE RELIEF OF SAN FRANCISCO, TO JUNE 1, 1909, RECEIVED BY THE FINANCE COMMITTEE OF RELIEF AND RED CROSS FUNDS, AND ITS SUCCESSOR, THE CORPORATION, AND BY AMERICAN NATIONAL RED CROSS, BY COUNTRY OF ORIGIN

The donations mentioned inTable 2do not include $100,000given to the University of California Hospital by the Massachusetts Association for the Relief of California.

It appears from the figures of the two preceding tables that while on June 1, 1909, money to the amount of $9,116,944.11 had been contributed for the relief of San Francisco, $8,921,452.86 had been received by the Finance Committee of Relief and Red Cross Funds and by the Corporation. This difference between the amount donated and the amount received by the local organizations to which the work of relief had been entrusted is explained by the fact that not all the money contributed through the American National Red Cross had been paid over to the Finance Committee or to the San Francisco Relief and Red Cross Funds by June 1, 1909. The disposition made of the money contributed through the American National Red Cross is shown inTable 3.

Back to Index Next