1 



Ca lifor nia 



GEORGE C. PARDEE:, GoTemor of California 



W^ WOULD NT live in California for all the world," said a New Yorker 

 to me the other day. 



''Why not?" I asked. 



"I don't like your earthquakes. Look at San Francisco," was 

 his reply. And then I preached him a little sermon about as follows: 

 "I have lived in California all my life, and I know all about earthquakes 

 and a little, from reading the papers, about cyclones, sunstrokes, floods, i 

 blizzards, lightning, storms, and all those other death- and destruction- i 

 dealing things with which California is so unfamiliar, except as she reads 

 in the newspapers of those whom they annually kill and the property 

 they annually destroy. And, remembering these things, I'll take my 

 chances with the earthquakes every time and all the time. 



"I remember very well the great earthquake of 1868, thirty-eight years 

 ago. If I remember rightly, Charleston was shaken down after that and 

 a hundred times more of her people killed than were killed with us in 

 '68. Our last great shake, that of April 18, 1906, occurred in a city 

 of well-nigh half a million of people; yet Charleston, with but one tenth 

 that number of people, lost nearly one half as many of her citizens from 

 her earthquake as we did in ours. And her property loss was greater in 

 actual dollars than was ours on the morning of April 18, 1906. 



"Charleston, contemporary history tells us, was practically shaken 

 down; San Francisco, we know, suffered but little; the fire was what dev- 

 astated us. Yet Charleston is, as San Francisco was, is, and will continue 

 to be, a busy, growing, wealthy city. 



"Yes, San Francisco was burned, not shaken, down. But great fires 

 in American cities are no new things. Chicago had a great fire; but Chicago 

 is nevertheless a great city. Boston also was visited by a fiery ordeal; so 

 was Baltimore. Each of those great fires was, as those of Boston, Chicago, 

 and Baltimore were, and ours of 1906 is, followed by dire prophecies of 

 absolute ruin and a future devoid of hope. Yet, as I say, Boston, Chicago, 

 and Baltimore still exist, and San Francisco has recovered five times from 

 great disasters, and will for the sixth time rehabilitate herself." 



At this point my New York friend interrupted by saying, "Yes, that's 

 all very fine; but how about the earthquakes?" 



"Well," I replied, "don't you think you would be, on the whole, safer 

 In San Francisco, even if we did have an earthquake every thirty-eight 

 years, where nobody dies of sunstroke or freezes to death; where there is 

 no use for lightning-rods; where a cyclone cellar is absolutely unknown; 

 where the word 'blizzard' is used only in the newspaper accounts of the 

 misfortunes of less-favored localities; where the rigors of snowy winters 

 are not welcome surceases from the discomforts and dangers of oppressive 

 summers; where howling storms do not take their annual toll oiF victims 

 to their fury; where every man can work with hand or brain, or both, all 

 day and every day in every year, — don't you think you would be safer in 

 San Francisco, even with her earthquakes, than almost anywhere else in 

 the world?" 



" 'San Francisco dauntless,' will rise again, better, more attractive, 

 stronger, wealthier than even her most loyal child dares picture her. Backed 

 by the myriad resources of the Golden State, whose mines, orchards, vine- 

 yards, and orange, lemon, fig, and olive groves are sending their products 

 by the trainload to other and less-favored places; whose millions of fertile 

 acres offer homes for all who seek them; whose genial climate, mild sum- 

 mers, and spring-like winters make it a very joy to live; whose giant forests, 

 beautiful lakes, and lofty mountains have charms that are their very own; 

 whose seacoast, great valleys, and foothills offer situations for even the 

 most exacting,— San Francisco, backed by California, will rise again. And 

 her uprising offers such opportunities for enterprising men and women as 

 were not equaled even in the argonautic times of California's golden 'Days 

 of '49'." 



