of Industrial Arts, and the California School of Design. In sculpture and painting not much has yet been done to adorn the city.
The self-sufficingness of San Francisco, long forced upon it by the great distance from the older culture of the Eastern States, has thus far shown itself particularly only in the general features of society. Few names belong by exclusive right to San Francisco's literary annals,—the most noteworthy being those of Bret Harte, Joaquin Miller and Henry George; but perhaps a score among the better known of the more recent writers in the country have done enough of their work here to connect them enduringly with the city. The Bohemian Club is a famous centre of literary and artistic life. Among the daily newspapers the San Francisco Examiner (Independent-Democratic, 1865), the Chronicle (Republican, 1865), the Call (Republican, 1856) and the San Francisco Bulletin (Independent-Republican, 1855) are chiefly important.
Suburbs.—The city suburbs are partly across the bay and partly to the north and south on the peninsula. Oakland, Berkeley, the home of the State University (damaged by the earthquake), and Alameda, all eastward just across the bay; Burlingame, San Mateo, Menlo Park and Palo Alto, wealthy and fashionable towns southward on the peninsula; Sausalito and San Rafael, summer residence towns on the northern peninsula across the Golden Gate; all lie well within an hour of San Francisco, and are practically suburbs of the metropolis. Many excursions into the surrounding country are very attractive. Mt. Tamalpais has already been referred to. The railroad in making this ascent makes curves equivalent to forty-two whole circles in a distance of 8½ m., at one place paralleling its track five times in a space of about 300 ft.
Climate.—San Franciscan climate is breezy, damp and at times chilling; often depressing to the weakly, but a splendid tonic to others. In a period of 32 years, ending December 1903, the extremes of temperature were 29° and 100° F.; the highest monthly average 65°, the lowest 46°; the average for January, March, June, September and December, respectively 50°, 54°, 59°,61°, and 51° F. The average rainfall was 22.5 in., falling mostly from November to March. Every afternoon, especially from October to May, a stiff breeze sweeps the city; every afternoon in the summer the fogs roll over it from the ocean. Though geraniums and fuchsias bloom through the year in the open, an overcoat is often needed in summer.
Communications and Commerce.—San Francisco Bay is the most important as well as the largest harbour on the Pacific coast of the United States. There is a difference of a fathom in the mean height of the tides. Deep-water craft can go directly to docks within a short distance of their sources of supply, around the bay. In 1909 extensive improvements to the water front were under way, and land has been purchased west of Fort Mason for the construction of wharves and warehouses for the United States Transport Service. The largest craft can always enter and navigate the bay, and there are ample facilities of dry and floating docks. Steamer connexions are maintained with Australia, Hawaii, Mexico, Central and South America, the Philippines, China and Japan. San Francisco in 1909 had much the largest commerce of any of the Pacific ports. For 1909 the total imports of merchandise for the port were valued at $51,468,597 and the exports at $31,100,309. From 1891 to 1900 San Francisco dropped from the fifth to the eighth rank among the customs districts of the United States in point of aggregate commerce (the ports of Puget Sound rising in the same period from the twentieth to the tenth place). From 1893 to 1903 the yearly imports averaged $37,968,152, exports $33,658,266, and duties collected $6,642,173. The vessel movement for 1909 amounted to 4,959,728 tons arrivals and 4,974,922 tons departures. The foreign trade is chiefly with British Columbia, South America, China and Japan, and there is a considerable trade with Europe, Australia and Mexico. Trade with the Philippine Islands and the Hawaiian Islands and Alaska is important, while the coast wise trade with Pacific ports exceeds all the rest in tonnage. Lumber, grain and flour, fruits and their products, fish, tea and coffee are characteristic staples of commerce. While the export grain business had by 1909 shifted to ports in Oregon and Washington, San Francisco is the great receiving port for cereals on the Pacific Coast. San Francisco's permanence as one of the greatest ports of the country is assured by its magnificent position, the wealth of its “back country,” and its command of trans-Pacific and trans-continental commercial routes. It is very nearly the shortest route, great circle sailing, from Panama to Yokohama and Hongkong; the Panama Canal will shorten the sea route from Liverpool and Hamburg by about 5500 m. and from New York by 7800. Three trans-continental railway systems—the Southern Pacific (with two trans-continental lines, the Southern and the old Central Pacific), the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé, and the Western Pacific—connect the city with the Eastern States; and besides these, it has traffic connexions with the three trans-continental lines of the north, the Canadian Pacific, Great Northern and Northern Pacific. Lines of the Southern Pacific and its branches connect the whole state with the city, a number of smaller roads—of which the most important is the North-Western Pacific—joining it with the surrounding districts. On the 1st of July 1900 the first train of the Santa Fé left San Francisco for the East; a significant event, as there had before been practically only one railway corporation (the Southern Pacific) controlling trans-continental traffic at San Francisco since 1869. Only one railway, the Southern Pacific's lower
coast route, actually enters the city. Some ten other roads, great and small, have their terminals around the bay.
Manufactures.—San Francisco in 1900 held twelfth place among the cities of the Union in value of output; in 1905 it ranked thirteenth. The total value of the factory products of the city in 1905 was $137,788,233 as against $107,023,567 in 1900. The leading products and their value in 1905, where given, were: sugar and molasses refining; printing and publishing, $9,424,494 (of which $5,575,035 was for newspapers and periodicals); slaughtering and meat packing (wholesale), $8,994,992; shipbuilding; foundry and machine-shop products, $8,991,449; clothing, $4,898,095; canning and preserving, $4,151,414; liquors (malt, $4,106,034; vinous, $53,511); coffee and spice roasting and grinding, $3,979,865; flour and gristmill products, $3,422,672; lumber, planing and mill products, including sash, doors and blinds, $2,981,552; leather, tanning and finishing, $2,717,542; bags, $2,473,170; paints, $2,048,250. The development of the petroleum fields of the state has greatly stimulated manufactures, as coal has always been dear, whereas the crude oil is now produced very cheaply. The Union Iron Works on the peninsula is one of the greatest shipbuilding plants of the country.
Government.—Charters were granted to the city in 1850, 1851 and 1856. By the last the city and county, which until then had maintained separate governments, were consolidated. Under this charter San Francisco throve despite much corruption, and it was because the provisions of the State Constitution of 1879 seemed likely to compel the adoption of another charter that the city decisively rejected that constitution. After many years of notorious “boss” rule, the city in 1896 elected a reform mayor. This was the most important movement for good government in its history since the Vigilance Committee of 1856. It was followed by the adoption (1898) of a new charter, which came into effect on the 1st of January 1900. Elections are biennial. The inclusion in the charter of the principle of the “initiative and referendum” enables a percentage of the voters to compel the submission of measures to public approval. The city's control is centralized, great power being given to the mayor. He appoints and removes members of the fire, police, school, election, park, civil service, health and public works commissions of the city; his veto may not be overcome by less than a five-sixths vote of the board of supervisors, and he may veto separate items of the budget. Taxation for ordinary municipal purposes is limited to 1% on property values, extra taxes being allowed for unusual purposes; but the city cannot be bonded without the affirmative vote of two-thirds of the electorate. Civil service is also provided for. There is a highly developed license system. The board of public works, composed of engineers, controls streets, sewers, buildings and public improvements. In 1885 the assessed property valuation of the city, on a basis of 60% of the actual value, was $223,509,560; in 1905, $502,892,459;[1] in 1910 the total was $492,867,037. The net bonded debt on the 30th of June 1909 was $10,130,062.32. The water-supply system was greatly improved after the earthquake of 1906; whereas before the earthquake one main supply pipe brougnt all the water to the city, there have since been installed five systems which work independently of each other. Provision is made for filling the mains with salt water from the bay if necessary in fighting fire. While the supply had been furnished by a private corporation, the city was in 1910 planning for the ownership of its water-system, the supply to be drawn from the Sierras at a cost of some $45,000,000. Water was at that time in remote parts of the city drawn from artesian wells. In 1903 almost ten-elevenths of the street railways were controlled by one Eastern corporation, which was involved in the charges of municipal corruption that were the most prominent feature of the recent political history of the city. The electric power and light are drawn from the Sierras, 140 m. distant.
Population.—The population of San Francisco increased in successive decades after 1850 by 67.6, 16.3, 56.5, 27.8, 14.6 and21.6%. The population is very cosmopolitan. Germans and Irish are not so numerous here, relatively, as in various other cities, although in 1900 the former constituted 30.1 and the latter 13.6% of the total population. There is a large Ghetto, a so-called Latin Quarter, where Spanish sounds and signs are dominant, a Little Italy and a Chinese quarter of which no other city has the like. Chinatown, at the foot of Nob Hill, covers some twelve city blocks, and with its temples, rich bazaars, strange life and show of picturesque colours and customs, it is to strangers one of the most interesting portions of the city. It was completely destroyed in the fire of 1906, and its inhabitants removed temporarily across the bay to Oakland, but by 1910 the quarter had been practically rebuilt in an improved manner, yet retaining its markedly oriental characteristics. The new Chinatown gained considerably in sanitation and in the housing of its commercial establishments. San Francisco has naturally been the centre of anti-Chinese agitation. The success of the exclusion laws is seen (though this is not the sole cause) in the decrease of the Chinese population from 24,613 to 13,954 between 1890 and 1900.
- ↑ For the fiscal year 1906-1907 the assessed value was $375,932,447, indicating the drop in values immediately after the earthquake and fire, and, by comparison with the 1910 figures, the extent of recovery.
