THRILLING PERSONAL EXPERIENCES--CONTINUED.
=Hairbreadth Escapes from the Hotels Whose Walls
Crumbled--Frantic Mothers Seek Children from Whom They
Were Torn by the Quake--Reckless Use of Firearms by
Cadet Militia--Tales of Heroism and Suffering.=
For two weeks or more tragedy, romance and comedy crowded the lives of
women and children survivors homeless in the city of ashes and in
Oakland, across the bay, the city of refuge. In this latter place
thousands separated from their loved ones were tearfully awaiting
developments, and every hour in the day members of families were
restored to each other who had been lost.
On record in the Chamber of Commerce at Oakland, which was the
headquarters of the Oakland Relief Committee, some queer stories were
told. Not a day passed but there were from two to eight marriages in
that office. Homeless young couples met each other, compared notes and
finally agreed to marry.
At the registry bureau in Oakland scores of women, young and old,
worked gratis. One applied for work to relieve her mind. She said she
had seen her husband and eldest son killed and had fled with her baby.
During the rush of people she lost her baby.
One of her first duties was to copy names of the lost and found. In
one of the lists she believed she recognized the description of her
baby. An investigation was made and the child proved to be hers.
[Illustration: Copyright 1906 by Tom M. Phillips.
=COOKING IN THE STREET.=
A familiar scene in San Francisco after the disaster.]
[Illustration: Copyright 1906 by Tom M. Phillips.
=WING OF CITY HALL.=
Two policemen were buried under walls.]
[Illustration: Copyright 1906 by Tom M. Phillips.
=CATTLE KILLED.=
A view showing a drove of cattle killed by falling walls.]
[Illustration: Copyright 1906 by Tom M. Phillips.
=ST. JOHN'S CHURCH.=
Mission Street looking west.]
A grief-stricken mother came in crying for her child, which she had
not seen since the day of the disaster. A member of the relief
committee was detailed on the case and he found the baby. The same
day, while walking on the street, he saw a woman carrying a baby in
a pillow slip thrown over her shoulder. Two hours later he again met
the woman. The pillow slip had ripped and the baby had fallen out
unknown to the mother. When her attention was called to this fact the
mother fainted.
Again the young man set to work and found the baby two blocks away,
but upon returning could not find the mother.
One man escaped with his two babes as he saw his wife killed in a
falling building. He seized two suit cases and placed a baby in each
and started for the ferry. When he reached Oakland he found both
smothered. He became violently insane and was put in a strait-jacket.
Hermann Oelrichs of New York, ten times a millionaire and husband of
the eldest daughter of the late Senator Fair of California, arrived in
Chicago on a scrap of paper on which was written a pass over all
railroad lines. The scrap of paper was roughly torn, was two inches
square, but upon it in lead pencil were written these magic words:
"Pass Hermann Oelrichs and servant to Chicago upon all lines. This
paper to serve in lieu of tickets.--E. H. Harriman."
Mr. Oelrichs described some of his experiences after he was driven
from his quarters in the St. Francis Hotel by the earthquake. He said:
"It was heaven and hell combined to produce chaos. I have a bad foot,
but I forgot it and walked twenty miles that day, helping all I could.
Mayor Schmitz had a meeting in the afternoon at the shaking Hall of
Justice and appointed a committee of fifty, of which I was one. He
gave me a commission as a member of the Committee of Law and Order,
which, together with my policeman's star and club, I shall hand down
to my son as heirlooms."
"I am proud of that," said Mr. Oelrichs. "That is the Mayor's own
signature and he has proved himself every inch a man. Lots of people
thought the Mayor was just a fiddler, but they think differently now.
"The regulars saved San Francisco. The militia got drunk and killed
people. The hoodlums south of Market street were all burned out and
they swarmed up in the swell quarter. The report was that they meant
to fire the houses of the rich which had not been destroyed. Every
night a west wind blows from the Pacific, and they meant to start the
fire at the west end. That had to be guarded against."
Mr. Oelrichs had fitted up apartments in the St. Francis, packed with
curios and rarities to the extent of $20,000. These were all burned.
The operators and officials of the Postal Telegraph Company remained
in the main office of the company at the corner of Market and
Montgomery streets, opposite the Palace Hotel, until they were ordered
out of the building because of the danger from the dynamite explosions
in the immediate vicinity. The men proceeded to Oakland, across the
bay, and took possession of the office there.
Before the offices of the telegraph companies in hundreds of cities
excited crowds of men and women surged back and forth the morning of
the catastrophe, all imploring the officials to send a message through
for them to the stricken city to bring back some word from dear ones
in peril there. It was explained that there was only one wire in
operation and that imperative orders had been received that it was to
be used solely for company purposes, press dispatches and general
news.
Mr. Sternberger of New York was on the fourth floor of the St.
Francis, with his wife, son and a maid. After hurriedly dressing he
and his family rushed into Union square.
"We had hardly got seated," said Mr. Sternberger, "when firemen came
along asking for volunteers to take bodies from the ruins just above
the hotel. There was a ready and willing response. It was a low
building on which had toppled a lofty one, and all in the former were
buried in the debris. We heard the stifled cries and prayers, 'For
God's sake, come this way,' 'O, lift this off my back,' 'My God, I'm
dying,' and others, nerving us to greater efforts.
"Finally we got to some of them. Bruised, bleeding, blinded by smoke
and dust, terrified past reason, the poor fellows who fell in the
street fell from utter exhaustion. Those that were penned away below
we could not reach, and their seeming far-off cries for mercy and life
will ring in my ears till death."
Henry Herz, a New York traveling man, after a terrible experience,
made his escape and constituted himself a traveling relief committee.
At Sacramento he organized a shipment of eggs. At Reno he set the
housewives to baking bread, and in Salt Lake City he had raised a
potato fund of $400. Mr. Herz crossed the bay in a launch. The boatman
asked him how much money he had, and when he replied, with a mental
reservation, $46.60, the boatman charged him $46.60 and collected the
money in advance.
Worn by the exposure, hardships, and terrors of a two days' effort to
escape from the stricken city, Mrs. D. M. Johnson of Utica, N. Y., and
Miss Martha Stibbals of Erie, Pa., passed through Denver.
"The first that we knew of the earthquake was when we were awakened in
our room at the Randolph Hotel by a terrific shaking which broke loose
fragments of the ceiling," said Miss Stibbals. "There followed a
tremendous shock which shook the building sideways and tossed it about
with something like a spiral motion. When we reached the street people
were running hither and thither.
"Fire was breaking out in hundreds of places over the city and the
streets were becoming crowded with hurrying refugees. Where they were
unable to procure horses, men and women had harnessed themselves to
carriages and were drawing their belongings to places of safety. As we
passed through the residence district where wealthy people lived we
saw automobiles drawn up and loaded down before houses. Their owners
remained until the flames came too near, and then, getting into the
machines, made for the hills.
"We saw one man pay $2,000 for an automobile in which to take his
family to a place of safety."
"I climbed over bodies, picked my way around flaming debris, and went
over almost insurmountable obstacles to get out of San Francisco,"
said C. C. Kendall, a retired Omaha capitalist, upon his arrival home.
"I arrived in San Francisco the night previous to the earthquake. I
was awakened about 5:15 in the morning by being thrown out of my bed
in the Palace Annex. I rushed to the window and looked out. The houses
were reeling and tumbling like playthings. I hurried on clothing and
ran into the street. Here I saw many dead and the debris was piled up
along Market street.
"I went to the office of the Palace Hotel and there men, women, and
children were rushing about, crazed and frantic in their night
clothes. The first shock lasted only twenty-eight seconds, but it
seemed to me two hours.
"A few minutes after I reached the Palace Hotel office the second
shock came. It was light, compared with the first, but it brought to
the ground many of the buildings that the first shock had unsettled.
"Fires were breaking out in every direction. Market street had sunk at
least four feet. I started for the ferry. It is only a few blocks from
the Palace Annex to the ferry, but it took me from 6 a. m. to 10:15
a. m. to cover the space.
"Men and women fought about the entrance of the ferry like a band of
infuriated animals.
"I made my escape--I do not remember how, for I was as desperate as
any of them. As the boat pulled over the bay the smoke and flame rose
sky high and the roar of falling buildings and the cries of the people
rent the air."
J. C. Gill, of Philadelphia, told his experiences as follows: "Mrs.
Gill and myself were in a room on the third floor of the hotel. We
were awakened by the rocking of our beds. Then they seemed to be
lifted from their legs, suspended in the air, and as suddenly dropped,
while the plaster began cracking and falling. We arose and left our
room after putting on a few clothes. We felt that with every step we
were treading on glass and that the ten stories above us would fall,
not allowing us to escape alive. But once outside the building and
with our friends I began to realize what had happened.
"I made my way back to the room and carefully packed our suit cases. I
came across a valuable necklace and pearls that my wife in her haste
had left behind.
"With hundreds of others we roamed in the park in front of the hotel
several hours. When we saw the fire was hemming in the lower part of
the city we walked toward the outskirts. Early next morning we decided
to leave the city, and started to the ferry. Policemen would stop us,
and it was with difficulty and much trepidation that we walked through
the burned district, and arrived at the wharf at 5:15, just fifteen
minutes before the boat left.
"The scenes we passed through were sickening and indescribable. I
fancy that scores of men, wharf rats, who had looted wholesale liquor
houses and were maudlin drunk, were burned to death without being the
wiser, because of their condition."
"I had been stopping at the Metropole in Oakland," said Frederick
Lemon of New York, "and Tuesday night went to Frisco, where I stopped
at the Terminal hotel, at the foot of Market street. The first shock
threw all the loose articles around my room and I attempted to run
unclad from the hotel. Just as I walked out the door I was struck by
some heavy beams. I was stunned and while I lay there some one from
the hotel brought me my clothing.
"At that time the streets were like bedlam. Soldiers were in control,
and while the regulars were almost perfect in their attempts to
maintain order the militia men lost their heads. They shot some men
without provocation, and never thought to cry 'halt' or 'who comes
there?'"
Henry Kohn of Chicago told of a horrible experience he had. "I had a
room on the fifth floor of the Randolph Hotel, Mason and O'Farrell
streets," he said. "The first quake threw me out of bed. By the time I
reached the second floor the building had ceased shaking, and I went
back, got my clothes, and went into the street. In the building across
the street twelve persons were killed. About 11 o'clock in the morning
we were in the public square, with about 1,500 other refugees, when a
severe shock was felt. People became panic stricken; some prayed,
women fainted, and children shrieked and cried.
"The stream of people going up Nob and Telegraph hills all Wednesday
was a pitiful sight. Many were barefooted and lightly clad. There was
nothing to eat or drink."
Sol Allenberg, a New York bookmaker, was with Kohn at the St. Francis
Hotel. "I was sick in my room when the shock struck us," he said, "and
my friend helped me out to a boarding house on the hill. There I had
to pay $7 for a room for the rest of the day.
"It was two miles from the fire and I thought I was safe enough when I
got into my bed at noon, but about two hours later they awoke me to
tell me that the fire was only two blocks away, and we got out only a
short time before the house went up in flames.
"No exaggeration of the horrible scenes on the street is possible.
There was one poor fellow pinned to earth with a great iron girder
across his chest. It in turn was weighted down by a mass of wreckage
that could not be moved. He could not be saved from the flames that
were sweeping toward him, and begged a policeman to shoot him.
"The officer fired at him and missed him, and then an old man crawled
through the debris and cut the arteries in the man's wrists. The crowd
hurried on and left him to die alone."