A fine article from John Sandgren on the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake as an opportunity for capital to rebuild entirely in its own interests, what might now be called ‘disaster capitalism’ but has always been a feature of the creature.

‘The Reconstruction Of San Francisco’ by John Sandgren from the Daily People. Vol. 6 No. 315. May 12, 1906.

Recently we San Franciscans, that is, the newspapers who speak for the capitalist class, have flattered ourselves so flagrantly, that under different circumstances we would have excited the ridicule of the world. And the capitalist papers of the whole country have joined in the chorus. We are “dauntless’, “lion-hearted”, “courageous”, “have the blood of 49 and the Argonauts in our veins”, all because the capitalist papers have declared that “San Francisco shall rise Phoenix-like out of the ashes”, “the new and Greater San Francisco shall surpass the old in wealth and splendor”, “we are here to stay,” etc., etc., words and phrases which are worn to a frazzle, concerning every town which has been the victim of a calamity.

The fact of the matter is that there is nothing of “dauntlessness” or “courageous” about it. Sentiment will not have one iota to do with the reconstruction of San Francisco, when that work begins. The new San Francisco will, barring another severe earthquake in the near future, come into existence in obedience to the economic interests of the capitalist class. That, and that alone, will build a new city by the Golden Gate.

As soon as possible after the earthquake and fire, more than half of the population of San Francisco took to the woods as fast as trains could carry them, not so much because they lacked “courage”, but because it was to their material interest to do so. Most of these fugitives had nothing at stake in the city since their personal belongings were lost. Other fugitives had thousands and millions at stake, which they had the “courage” to leave in the hands of their financial agents. Practically all the wealthy people are now sending their kith and kin to the summer resorts or to other towns or countries, until San Francisco again can offer them the comforts and luxuries to which they are accustomed.

There might be “courage” in the gambler who, having lost his fortune on red, stakes his last 1000 on red again, but our financiers do not stake anything; they are cool calculators, who draw up a balance sheet and stay by its credit side like a religious fanatic to his “credo”.

When Harriman, the railroad magnate, threatens to rebuild San Francisco, if he has to “pitch bricks himself”, and backs up his speech with an offer to lend one hundred million dollars to those who want to build, it is not the “lionheartedness” of the man that roars. When Hellman of the Wells Fargo Nevada Bank pledges thirty million dollars for the same purpose, it is not love of California climate, or defiance of fate that rumbles. No, the roar and the rumble are the secondary earthquakes, the financial earthquake, the debris of which shall consign to oblivion the aspirations of financial dwarfs and enthrone modern, giant capitalism.

Between the Straits of Magellan and Pt. Barrow in the Arctic there is not another harbor like San Francisco harbor. This fact has made San Francisco the heart of the Western side of this hemisphere. The arteries of the great commonwealth, the United States, the transcontinental railroads converge here and clasp hands with the mighty Orient. Nothing but a cataclysm could alter these facts. A local disturbance cannot do it.

The economic factors which made the now extinct San Francisco one of the nerve centers of the world are still at work, unruffled, unperturbed. Quake or no quake, San Francisco is “there to stay”. So far the capitalist press is right. But it is reserved for the press of the class conscious part of the working class to see events as they really arc, divested of “sentiment”, bogus sentiment, drummed into the service of capital on its own chosen battlefield. Naturally, during the period of reconstruction, before the city becomes fully able to resume the role she is by nature destined to play, other important towns will profit by the discomfiture. Portland, that aspiring agricultural community on the Willamette, will blossom up; Tacoma will add a metallic ring to her voluble crowing. But Seattle, which only has the misfortune of being the younger brother in the Pacific Coast family, will permanently displace San Francisco in certain respects. Seattle has all the harbor facilities of San Francisco and is the natural outlet of a territory as immense and as rich as that surrounding, and tributary to, San Francisco. It will take a decade or more before San Francisco reaches again its former place in the chain of cities on the Pacific Coast.

It should not be forgotten that San Francisco has three important suburbs across the Bay, Alameda, Oakland, and Berkeley. Of these Oakland will, nolens volens, be ushered into the world as a city of some importance due to the present emergency. This emergency will leave its traces for the future. Oakland will, instead of being merely a residence suburb of some 50,000, becomes more or less of a factory town, a sort of Californian Hoboken or Jersey City.

It might be asked, what kind of a town the new San Francisco will be. Some enthusiasts might hope that men will take advantage of this matchless opportunity to found a city such as we working men will build when we have the economic power, a city clean, a city useful, a city beautiful; a city with wide streets and shade trees; a city of homes, earthquake-proof, fire-proof, and surrounded with lawns and flowers; a city with artistic and majestic public buildings, a city of common sense. But, alas, they are mistaken. The new San Francisco will be built on essentially the same lines as the old one. Some of the alleys and narrow streets may be dispensed with, some grades will be lowered, but inside five years we shall again have a rickety and crowded proletarian quarter and deep sky scraper valleys. The fate of the city lies in the hands of the millionaire real estate owners, and they have already spoken through their mouth pieces, the Real Estate Board, and the capitalist papers. The essence of their edict is “private rights and private initiative should no the interfered with,” and “the immediate re-establishment of business must take precedence over the City Beautiful’.”

Architects and Engineers, like Burnham, have timidly suggested changes, but they are unceremoniously snowed under by arguments which border on abuse. They ought to know by this time that their skill, experience, and genius has no place in our society, except in so far as it fits in the plan of our ruling class for their economic aggrandizement.

The point of paramount importance just now to those who hold the destiny of San Francisco in their hands is to restore as much as possible of their shaken fortunes by maintaining real estate “values”. For this purpose they have put every available agency in mtion, and first of all the press of the country. It is made to appear that the earthquake was of slight significance, that it was only an unpleasantness which is apt to occur in “any part of the world with a chain of mountains along the coast. They even got the weather forecaster McAdie to state that “the” danger of further heavy shocks is now over.” (An open question to Mr. McAdie: If you can tell anything in advance about earthquakes, why did you not warn us of the one which destroyed the city where you live?) In fact, these advertising sheets of the real estate owners are falling all over themselves to prove that there was next to no earthquake at all. If it were not for the still remaining blocks of houses which look as if they were returning from a bachelors’ dinner party, and for the holes and jump-offs in some of the streets, they would probably declare that the earthquake was nothing but a bad dream. Anything to inspire “confidence” and boost the real estate market.

But at no time are these papers so crowded but that they have some space left for foul calumny and malicious insinuations against the working class. At judicious intervals there are interspersed in the text statements such as “200 men wanted here,” “400 men wanted there,” and “5,000 wanted” some other place. And then follows a bald statement that “out of 400. men in the bread line only four wanted to go to work”; “idlers must cease to eat at the public crib”; “loafers must leave or go to work”; “tramps are having the time of their life at the expense of public sympathy”; “social unrest! There is no such a thing. It is imaginary. The untutorod orators and blatant demagogues are no longer haranguing their bathless audiences in the public streets. They are now lazily lying on their backs in grassy parks, while the millionaires, whose wealth they would equally distribute (!) are working night and day on the relief committee to supply them with the necessaries of life.” There would be some satisfaction to know that the millionaires and their prostitute journalists felt that way about it. But they do not. They know they are lying and that such stuff is nothing but dust to throw in the eyes of the numbskulls among the workers, in order that those may think that their distress is all. their own fault. These are critical days, and it is important to impress the workers with their general worthlessness and impotency, and to extoll the ability and useful devotion of the masters. All this abusive language about the rather rebellious workers of San Francisco may be the indication of a possible transformation into bull pens of the “reconcentration” camps where they are now receiving their provender.

For the rest it is apparent how closely interwoven the various capitalist interests are, and that the political organizations, Municipal, State and National, are nothing but the executive committee of the capitalist class economically organized.

The President may give orders, the Governors may send out proclamations, the mayor may issue instructions, but these orders, proclamations and instructions are sent out like the electric wires which conduct capitalist interest.

The President, through his subordinates, transfers the U.S. Mint in San Francisco to a “clearing house bank” for the banks of San Francisco, and furnishes them with money, “until they can realize on their securities”, which, in other words, means that the U.S. Government rushes to the aid of the stranded financial buccaneers, in order to save their water operations from such collapse and exposure as would disturb the “confidence” of the timid lambs to be sheared, and lay bare the hollowness of the prosperity joke.

For the same reason the Governor of California keeps on declaring a legal holiday from day to day, at the behest of the all-powerful bankers’ association

For the same reason the extraordinary councillors of the Mayor (“Labor Mayor” Schmitz) consist of the executive officers of the United Railroads of Sen Francisco, the Southern Pacific Railway, the Water Company, the Real Estate Board, the Merchants’ Association, etc.

To insure the execution of the edicts issued by these great financial interests, we have nearly 5,000 regular soldiers on hand, which spells martial law in this language. The outward forms of subordination to “Labor Mayor” Schmitz, is the civil authority, are scrupulously observed by the able General Funston. It must be immensely pleasing to our capitalist errand boy, “Labor Mayor” Schmitz, the infamous Labor strutter, to be so “powerful”. If he did not possess in such a remarkable degree that faculty of the professional labor skate, the faculty of accommodating himself to circumstances, he surely would be in a dilemma now. As it is, he is THE pet of organized capital. Nobody would ever suspect Schmitz of being a “Labor Mayor”, unless he were told.

New York Labor News Company was the publishing house of the Socialist Labor Party and their paper The People. The People was the official paper of the Socialist Labor Party of America (SLP), established in New York City in 1891 as a weekly. The New York SLP, and The People, were dominated Daniel De Leon and his supporters, the dominant ideological leader of the SLP from the 1890s until the time of his death. The People became a daily in 1900. It’s first editor was the French socialist Lucien Sanial who was quickly replaced by De Leon who held the position until his death in 1914. Morris Hillquit and Henry Slobodin, future leaders of the Socialist Party of America were writers before their split from the SLP in 1899. For a while there were two SLPs and two Peoples, requiring a legal case to determine ownership. Eventual the anti-De Leonist produced what would become the New York Call and became the Social Democratic, later Socialist, Party. The De Leonist The People continued publishing until 2008.