The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, September 9, 1903, Page 21

n of hallowed wafted over f the Call bulldl uld rub his eyes and wonder! uld see & vast city spreading away m bay to ocean thronged eands away On 1d hacles le streets, the 1a stretch s tangled skeln. of stone , their p! A thousand s would epeed be- s eyes to mscend some impossible w pane. A T he Djin woul of y plles o the a y moving vel Verily the ast: ed Aladdin would say that this was the imperial Bagdad of his @reams, the wizard city of the Thousand and One Teles. He would bow his tur- ban to the street in ot e to the city of cities the Nor would the ad me friend e East be wasted one tittle. He would bow t en power which bad raised & m barren sa~d hills within th k of the Genil forehead der at o lled from every ie the Bagdad of ty of wonders, the the Mecca of true liv- . ve flowers when others have e granite pal the reeking hov- reet which is claimed eir exclusive re lower length n tHe city. heses run on. absolute anom- “rancisco and 3 lies the joy of livin ed sul which arose ys buttoning and He lived in a where there He was ce 10 dence the me e sun. w th conventionalities ir San Francisco life is 1r s spontaneous outpouring L m: its. We st I eager to grasp the of life. We do hard, e and ir ourselves with equal vigor in healthy play. A #pirit of comradery, born of the common of our fathers, the pioneers, still exists as the dominant note of our strong, clean San Francisco life. Another feature of our San Francisco life which has prompted the wondering comment o tern friends is its in- good fellowshir ¥ s extended to nat householder and traveler alike. The city by the Gold- en Gate has long been the favored spot for the assembling of national organiza- tions 1In ton. ernal Christian socleties and business organiza- tions have come here to find a smile, a wreath of flowers and a hearty welcome extended to them by San ¥ sco. T stay has been marked by a genuine en- thusiasm on the part of the municipal bodies and the private citizens, vying, ithe their efforts ous generosi conv orders, one with the other, i to spare nothing for the welcome of the vis- itors. Wooliness Has Departed With Past Days and Culture Reigns. F San Francisco can be kind to others inly ca t do too much for its . Long w » record 1 the aelirium of joy wk of the battle-scarred First California Vol- return from M Sa guns of ever her ad graciously decked the soldler who had embarked shores for wars in distant lands, it w her own sons returned to her, laden with honors of battle, e gave her- self over to a welcome such as has never been accorded any one entering her gates before. T spirit of generous good fellowship, h is characteristic of all California as it is of San Francisco, seems to be born in the blood. Pride of our State, our city, a desire to show our heaven-cast bless- ings to those whom we consider less blessed by nature’s bounty—these feel- ings prompt our sentiments in a measure. But there is behind it all the spirit of. the old argonauts of '49, who made the mountains disgorge their treasure and the val tle with grain fleld and orchard by the travail of long years. They saw that the land was a paradise and wel- comed others to a share of its bounteous become proverbial that an Eng- st to San Francisco always car- Probably back in his club on v he has gravely discussed with companions the possibility of being to dance the high step on Market street by some red-shirted ruffian or hav- 1se he wears a e s0 many of his worthy fellow countrymen, has de- rived all of his knowledge of San Fran- cisco from Bret Ha books. He has a vivid notion of San Francsico of forty years ago. But typical Englishman {s too shrewd to admit his surprise when he comes here and meets gentlemen instead of ruffians—when he discovers that others wear silk hats and still walk the streets unmolested. He finds, Instead of lynching bees and open gambling hells, clubs com- posed of college graduates, art galleries and grand opera seasons. At last he must put his treasured gun awey and get out his frock coat, for the wooliness has passed from our city with the past and we have renounced forever all the ro- mantic distinction which may have been ours in the old days of gold. tourist, you THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 19C3, SHIPS e o, THE .SEVJE)\A;( Inftuence of University Spirit Is Dominant in Our Culture. O near our city as to be justly eone sidered a part of ({ts intellec- tual life are the two great uni- s, California and Stanford. From 3 there Is diffused a culture and esthetic Influenc which strikes di- upon the social and artis- fe of San Francisco. From both in- extension leet courses on ities and sciences are given In co and cities about the bay, university influence is ate our saclety to a re- le degree. A closer look at these stitutions will reveal the s power. of th On April 1 1855, there was incorporated under the | ions of a legislative act the Col of California, situated in a grove of trees in the center of the hamlet of Oakland. Of this infant college Henry Durant and Ma n K Bg, recent- ly deccased, were the pioneer work- By the indefatigable efforts e first freshman class was collect- ed and started on its scholastic career in he fall of 1859. To the lasting credit of few intellectual spirits of the early vs such pressure was by them brought to bear on the Legislature that finally on March 23, 1868, a law was passed Incor- porating the ploneer College of California into the State University of California nd there was thereby launched into the tellectual world of the country a strip- ling which was destined to become a giant. At the present day this Institution, ich was augurated with slender and classes hardly numbering a ie second among American col- in point of attendance and ranked the six leading universities of the It mon untry on the basis of scholarship. rises in its faculty men are nown throughout the scholastic world for their contributions to literature, the classies and science. One grand old man of science, Joseph Le Conte, whom death removed from his labors but) recently, ed the name of the university to a h pinnacle through his labors in sci- e. President Benjamin Ide Wheeler is himself an acknowledged classicist and a prominent figure in the educational world. Smaller in point of numbers but no less great an Institution is Stanford Univer- sity. Situated in the beautiful Santa Clara Valley, with all of the esthetic in- fluence of a great place of learning breathing from its surroundings, the spirit of its president, David Starr Jordan, even the quaint old mission flavor of ils architecture, Stanford ‘University is an ideal spot wherein to live the intellectual life. Stanford University was erected and endowed by the late Senator Leland Stan- ford in tender memory of his son, Leland Stanford Jr., who had died when on the threshold of young manhood. In Novem- ber, 1885, a special act of endowment was passed by the Legislature. Immediately the first of a grand scheme of buildings was erected and on October 1, 1891, the doors of the new university were thrown open. Supported by the income from an enor- mous estate, gradually growing stronger both in point of attendance and high rank of scholarship, Stanford University s now the sister worker with the Uni- versity of California in the great task of educating the young. men and women of the State and making San Francisco the center of a new culture. Our universities are not the only fac- tors in the growth of culture in San Fran- cisco. Some of our own people have arisen from our midst and pointed the way to the joy of living the true life. Joaquin Miller, the Poet of the Sierras, has laid a good claim to recognition as a teacher of the beauties of poesy. Edwin Markham and Edwin Rowland Sill have who sung us songs which will live. .Frank Norris, the young San Franciscan whose short life gave promise of wonderful achievements, in his grim “McTeague,” painted a living picture of his native city which will last for years. Besides our masters of words, painters and sculptors of our city have done their share toward the advancement of our finer natures. William Keith, the master color poet of nature, Yelland, his succ ful disciple, and Miss Clara McChesney now winning fame in New York, have all reflected credit and done benefit to their city. Douglas Tilden and Robert Altkin make the stone and bronze yield to the touch of their skilled fingers and body forth the divine idea of esthetic beauty. Little Italy, a Typical Colony of Altruria in Our Midst. JAN FRANCISCO is pre-eminently a place wherein to study life. No city of the United States offers such a cosmopolitan throng for the pencil of a Hogarth or the pen of a Dickens to depict as does this swarming beehive of every race and con- dition of man under the heavens. From Fishermen’'s wharf to Ingleside, from the Potrero to the Clift House there are housed in tenement and in palace such an olla podrida of God's humankind ds would have delighted Stevenson, that rare teller of tales, or furnished ample ma- terial for the scalpel of that greatest dissector of human life, Emile Zola. Few San Franciscians themselves know what a store of vivid human interest studies there are right here in their midst. It is only the prowling artist or the some- times erroneously self-styled Bohemian who knows the joys of a plate of ravioli and glass of chianti in Luigi’s little kitchen up on Telegraph Hill, or who sees the pitiful drama of decay among the old time mansions of Rincon Hill. The typical San Franciscan knows not the terra in- cognita of the water front; he never watched the happy members ofsa Slavic social club swing through strange reels to the wild strains of some Hungariah melody up in a dysty hall at North Beach; he does not know Natoma street; vet it is all of these things which give to the life of San Francisco a dash.and a piquancy which makes it the most bizarre city of America. 1f one would learn a lesson in optimism and the true laissez faire mode of living, let him betake himself to that part of town where the houses totter on spind- ling props over yawning chasms, and the sidewalks are cleated like the gangplank of a river steamer—little Italy. Here, on the shaggy sides of Telegraph Hill, will he find the most supremely self-zontented and light-hearted people of all San Fran- cisco. On the sunny slope of the hill and down to the bay shore is San Francisco's colony of Altruria. By day, when the swarthy ltailan fish- ermen are all dipping over the waves out by the Farallones, the rocky streets and goat trails of the hill are given over FRANCISCO 1re - AMFERICA. to swarms of tumbling, shouting chil- dren. Little tots with big, grave eyes and smeared faces block the cracked side- walks with their hop-scotch, thLeir jack- stones and their flea-bitten puppies tied to soap box carts. Rollicking boys play baseball on streets so steep that carts cannot be driven on them, the lucky bats- man knocking the ball on the tops of the houses half a block below. Often a troop of ragged urchins bedecked in mock array of priesthood, and swinging tomato cans as censers, will be seen gravely conduct- ing a first communion procession. An in- verted ash barrel, gayly draped with a cambric flag and a bunch of glaring mari- golds, is the altar. Care-free as their youngsters, comfort. able matrons gather in groups before the bread shops and paste makers' stores to knit and chat and bask in the sunshine the whole day through. From Louse to house the cheery ‘badinage of turbaned Margaritas and Lucias is passed, while each is taking the air on her flower decked balcony. Like the dwellings in old Naples or Turin, a house in the It- alian quarter is not complete without its balcony. The balcony serves as a recep- tion parlor or a place from which to string the family washing. It is at night when the men have re- turned from their labors of the day that the quarter is riotous with singing and hearty laughter. After the clattering of knives and the chatter of voices in the restaurants has ceased, the harp and fid- dle in the wine shops and the wailing accordion of the wandering troubadours in the streets take up the refrain of mirth and jollity. The marionette theater re- sounds with the crash of mighty battles between Rolando and Il Gianto. In Gar- ibaldi Hall the Beneficenzia Society is holding forth with dancing and a bounti- ful supply of good red vino. Everywhere is there happiness and spirits bubbling over. Tragedy of Lost Glory Marks the Solitude of Rincon Hill. ‘N painful contrast to this ]and effervescent bright spot in the great city's wilderness of houses, Rincon HIll raises itself in the widow's weeds of its departed grandeur. There the very gables of the old stone mansions are drooping in de- jection at the ever present spectacle of the evil days which are now upon them. Rust and soot have swathed the once glistening marble columns in mourning bands. Some of the streets which once resounded with the wheels of gayly paint- ed carriages now §ind weeds and grass forcing their way through the crevices between the cobbles. Years ago, when the full tide of the gay soclety of the new city carried crest- ed millionaires on its flood, old Rincon Hill was made the chosen place of luxury, Stone mansions, brought in the holds of gay 21 BAGDAD ships from China, lined Harrison and Bryant streets. Old South Park was the promenading place for dandles of the sixties and their bell-skirted ladies. Many were the routs and balls given by gilded princes in the mansions on the hill But fickle fashion decreed a change. The elite gradually forsook the hill and began to build new palaces on a new hill. Nob Hill blazed forth and the old places of the charmed circle slipped into decay. Now encroaching foundries and brewer- fes belch their grimy fumes into the aris- tocratic old faces of the forgotten man- Too often a clothes line stretches trom the convenient finger of the cherub in the fountain to the carved griffin on the gate post. Drays thunder along the streets where dainty barouches used to roll. A saloon stands where once a fash- fonable flower garden supplied lilies of the valley for the corsage of a belle of the olden days. Yet with it all some of the gallant old sions. mansions still would be deemed aristo- cratic as of yore. Like some seedy old gentleman of a past a whose shiny green tile and rusty black stock show the marks of constant brushings, the old Rincon Hill houses carry themselves with an air. Despite the broken glass of their conservatories, despite the shut- ters swinging askew on one hinge and all the other shameful signs of their decay, the grimy old mansions live on and on in the pale halo of the memory of past grandeur. Within a stone’s throw of Rincon Hill lie part of the docks, a link in the great clam of wharves, slips and moles which embraces the water front in a great cres- cent from t-e Potrero away around to Meiggs wharf. There is a-great, hust- ling, clamoring world by itself. There the strident voice of commerce gives itself tongue without ceasing in the creak of pulleys, the snort of tugs, the rumble of laden trucks and countless other dins. There feverish activity alone finds place. With their noses all nuzzling the wharves lie ships of all kinds—ships from every clime. The round-bellied egg scow from Petaluma rubs shoulders with the slender little yacht from the South Seas with its fragrant cargo of pineap- ples. A makeshift river steamer with teet- ering smokestack and asthmatic cough lies cheek by jowl with a giant coal ship from New Zealand. Natty army trans. ports, slovenly tramp steamers, imper- tinent little tugs—all the various messen- gers of commerce are tied there in rows like horses in their stalls. Roaring Doice of Trade Makes a Bedlam of the Water Front. ITH the rattle of truck and slithering shriek of pulley and clank of chain, an army of stevedores are overrunning the vessels from the least to the greatest. Each dark hold Is either disgorging the treasures of other lands or receiving In its cavernous maw the pro- ducts of our own shore to be carried to the four corners of the earth. Various as the cargoes are-the types of men who make the water front their Typical Bits of Local Color of Odd Corners habitat. From the bellowing, red-faced captain of a limejuicer to the colored cook of a Bolinas butter boat there is rep- resented every variety of race, color and present condition of servitude. The florid, loud-swearing British skipper, with his great sea coat and oakum tuft of whisk- ers, puts his foot on the bar rail of some “saflors’ snug harbor” and drinks his por- ter with the keen-eyed, hatchet-faced New Bedford Yankee, who has given up the fishing smack for the whaler. Gentle voiced, soft-eyed Kanakas and brown men trom Pago Pago mingle with the raw- boned Norweglans from the deep sea craft. Swaggering men-o'-warsmen, in bell-bottomed trousers and open blouses, roll down the line of swinging green doors, burying their bronzed faces in foaming schooners. Delights of Horseshoe Fraternity Members on Dock’s End. F the water front by choice Q o vv_protesion. ihers some cannot be looked by the saunterer along rves. These are the fruit the gentlemen members eshoe Club and The dregs of a great only to the morphine filends and rum drinkers of Chinatown, these lost souls who make the docks their home are nev- ertheless types. The Horseshoe Club is a collection of choice mortals whose raging thirst is their only mutual bond sympathy. Very rarely they act as stevedores for an hour or two until the price of several beers is theirs and then they stretcn themselves on the friendly couch of hay offered at the docks' end and dogze until the beer call from their besotted throats rouses them to action again. “The bitter drainings from empty beer kegs often have to serve as their stirrup cup when no prized nickel is in hand. Famous among the Horseshoe Club was a character, now in the potter's field, who claimed pre- cedence among his fellows through the merit of a Harvard degree. Near brothers to these types are the members of the confraternity of fruit rustlers. Beer is also the mainspring of their existence, but it is gained by hov- ering around the fruit and vegetable boats from the Sacramento Valley and watching a chance to turn an honest penny. Should a crate of pears, hoisted in midair by the steam donkey, suddenly collapse and spread its contents over the wharf, instantly will the wily fruit rus- tler dart upon the scene and gather enough of the fruit to exchange with some huckster for the price of a beer. In the dearth of such opportunities, he will search the piles at low tide for a certain variety of boring worm which he can sell to the dealers in fish baft and thus en- compass the object of his burning desire. With these bright spots of local celor and others of as interesting a character does San Francisco lay claim to being the cosmopdlitan ecity of the United S.ates. She has enclosed within her boundaries the life of the world. She has within .er !imits all of the component par.s which go to make up that great product of the modern age—an American citizen. over- the rust- the ther kindred spirits. city, nearly akin