Chapter XVI: Part I: , p. 25 ff (2)

On April 25, a committee on transportation was organized informally by the officials of the various railroads and the men in charge of relief work, in order to prevent an abuse of free transportation. The new committee, which was recognized as authoritative by the Citizens’ Committee, had for chairman William Sproule of the Southern Pacific Railroad, for secretary and executive, Oscar K. Cushing. On April 26, a transportation bureau was opened in a small office on Fillmore Street near Franklin Hall. The secretary was given power to issue orders for passes and part-rate tickets, which because of his experience in railroad business and in social work he could be relied upon to do with discretion. Each applicant in the long file which day by day stretched down Fillmore Street and around the corner to Sutter, a perplexed, restless file of men, women, and children, eager to be out of the city, was interviewed personally by him to determine whether the applicant were able to pay any part of his fare, whether the best way to restore him to self-support was to grant him transportation, and whether he would be a charge upon the community to which he wished to go. When letters of recommendation or personal interviews failed to give the information desired, a quick investigation was made. If the applicant were able he paid something toward his ticket but never more than at the rate of half fare.

On May 10 the railroads stopped the issue of free and reduced rate tickets as a relief measure. This marked the end of the second short period of regulated free transportation work. A week later, on May 18, the transportation work was merged with that of the Bureau of Special Relief and Rehabilitation,[60] and when Mr. Cushing became executive head of the joint work no material change was made in the method of caring for transportation cases.

[60] See Part I, p. 14.

During the third period, beginning May 10, the period of united effort, the committee guaranteed to pay in certain cases reduced railroad rates, at first a half-fare rate, later a one-cent-a-mile rate. The railroads in their discretion gave in other cases free passage provided the committee made a brief statement of the circumstances of the applicant with a recommendation for free passage.

When the permanent Rehabilitation Committee was organized, July 2, 1906, the transportation bureau was again merged, which marked the beginning of the fourth period of its work, the period of completed organization. During the fourth and last period, which ended June 2, 1908, when the last transportation grant was paid, the transportation methods held unchanged with but occasional variation of rates and with a rapidly decreasing number of cases to be considered.

The relative importance of the transportation work to the other rehabilitation work, on the basis of the number of individuals concerned, steadily decreased from one-half in the first two weeks to about one-eighth in the middle of July.

Many a case was brought to the attention of the Committee by a distant relative or friend. For instance, a man wrote from a little town in Illinois as follows:

“Dear Kind Friend,--I have an aunt by the name of ---- ----. You will
do me a favor if you will send Mrs. ---- to Chicago, Ill. I would send
the money to pay fare but as I have not got it to spare I cannot do
it. I hope you will be kind-hearted enough to send her to Chicago.
Also arrange to get her meals on the train for her. You can call on
her, Mayor Schmitz, at ---- and have a talk with her. Please get my
Aunt Clara to come back if you can do so.----If there is anything I
can do for your City please let me know and I will try and help you
folks at once. There are tears in My eyes as I think of the beautiful
City you once had that is now in ashes. Reply at once.”

“Aunt Clara” could not be found.

An inquiry addressed to a man in whose behalf the Committee had been asked for help by a Chicago clergyman brought this terse and satisfactory reply:

“Dear Sir,--We are no longer in need of relief and we do not desire
transportation to Chicago. I have so informed Rev. ----.”

Vague plans, or plans that did not commend themselves, led to refusal. There were, for instance, a man who thought he would like to try his fortune in Nome; a Syrian who had an idea he might get on better in Portland, Oregon, though he had no relatives there and no prospect of work; a Scotch Australian with a large family, known to the Associated Charities for years, who looked hopefully to Australia, though he had left it because he was a failure there; two girls, domestic servants, who wanted to go back to Ireland because they “were afraid of the shakes”; an old man whose only reason for returning to Europe was his desire to see his son ordained a priest; a widow, “saleslady” by occupation, who asked to be sent to Los Angeles on the strength of a letter from a friend, apparently a traveling man living in a hotel, whose mildly expressed concern for her welfare she took as a promise to provide a home. A stonemason wanted to leave his family without resources and try his fortune in Canada. A man whose family had been sent to Massachusetts in the early days to leave him free to get a start got tired of trying and wanted to join them. Another man merely wanted to go away on a visit, leaving his family behind. After the middle of June, requests that wife and children be sent away for a visit while the man stayed behind at work, were refused, though in the abnormal conditions of the earlier days they were frequently allowed. In a considerable number of cases, as of carpenters, shoemakers, domestic servants, and laundresses, transportation was refused because it was known that nowhere else in the country was the opportunity so good for work and good pay in those occupations.

In looking over the records one finds many reasons given for leaving San Francisco. Jewelers, inventors, masseurs, hair dressers, producers of “art work,” said they could find little demand for their services in the first few weeks after the fire. Acrobats, mental science lecturers, teachers of elocution, music, Hebrew, religion, and higher mathematics, could find no one to demand their teaching. Saloonkeepers and barmen had lost their shops through the closing of the saloons, and when they opened July 5, conditions would be hard because a higher license was to be asked. It seems like a jest of fate that at a time when thousands of people were living in tents a tent-sewer could find no occupation. It also seems curious that physicians and nurses should have wished to leave the city, but it is a fact that the demand for their services was decreased rather than increased by the disaster. Physicians suffered perhaps as much as any other class of persons, for they lost not only their offices, libraries, and instruments, but also a large proportion of their patients,--the profitable, well-to-do ones left town, and the poorer ones were stimulated by the out-of-door life, plain food, or by necessity, into unusual good health.[61] Bakers, grocers, and lodging-house keepers asked for transportation because, though there was a demand for their services, they had no capital with which to make a new start. Tailors, dressmakers, milliners, printers, and a number of others could not, or would not, wait for the demand which came for them a few weeks later. In the middle of May, for example, it was thought that ladies’ tailors could not expect to make a living for six months; early in June employers could not begin to get the number they wanted. In but few cases could lack of occupation be accepted as the sole justification for leaving the city. Carpenters and laborers who could not get work in San Francisco in June could hardly be expected to get it anywhere.

[61] In Part IV the chapters which discuss condition and status of
families in camp cottages, and of those who took advantage of the
bonus and loan plans, show that the handicap of ill health was heavy
after the first few months.

Sickness was a reason for transporting some of the refugees. A man who had been hurt in the earthquake was sent to relatives as soon as he was able to leave the hospital. Another man, whose little store had been wrecked by the earthquake, he himself injured, and his wife and one child killed, was sent to his sister in Chicago, his other children having been provided for by a charitable organization. A woman suffering from cancer was taken to her sister in Brooklyn by a nurse who was also being assisted to reach her destination. It was not uncommon in the earlier days to find a woman so nervous that her physical condition was a menace to the prospects of her family. One such woman would not allow her husband to do any regular work; another was so irritable that desertion seemed imminent. In such a case as the last the only hope of saving the family seemed, paradoxically, to lie in temporary separation. More than one woman who begged to be sent away for a visit was told, “We are doing this, you understand, because we are sorry for your husband and want to give him a chance to get on his feet here; but please encourage him by writing every week.” The policy, in spite of these instances, was definitely laid down that families should be kept together.

There were numerous examples of that re-distributing of responsibility for dependents which takes place when losses come to families individually. An aunt or grandmother in Nevada or Missouri or New York would offer to take care of a little boy or a young girl, in order to relieve the family in San Francisco. An epileptic woman whose daughters had lost their work on account of the fire was given a home by a cousin in Massachusetts. This cousin, with unnecessary caution, wrote to the woman: “I will not let him (Dr. Devine) know you have any daughters--only that you are without a home and in poor health.” A woman had been visiting her married daughter in San Francisco, and the daughter, after the fire, could neither entertain her longer nor pay her fare home. Still another instance was that of a Roumanian, seventy-seven years old. He had had a home with his granddaughters for the previous two years, but they were burned out and his only refuge was the old home in Roumania. Unfavorable surroundings as a reason for granting transportation may be illustrated by the case of a young girl who had been living in a basement with twenty refugees, men and women. She was sent to her father in Ohio.

The willingness of relatives and friends to receive refugees determined the transporting of a large number of persons. The letters that found their way to the files of the Rehabilitation Committee as evidence that the would-be travelers would not be unprovided for at the end of their journeys form a unique body of testimony. They give a glimpse of those obscure wells of charity in which we all believe, on account of frequent individual instances, but into whose depths we are seldom allowed to look. The open-hearted offers of hospitality that went out from humble homes all over the country were, in fact, a contribution to the relief fund, though they found no place in the list of donations, the quality of their mercy being too subtle. They may be given recognition by a few quotations from many letters:

From Delancey Street, New York, to a Jewish tailor with a wife and six children:

My dear brother,--I have received your letter, also dispatch, and in
spite of all my efforts I send you only ten dollars. I cannot send you
more for the present. I advise you to come over as soon as you can
with your family, on my responsibility, as there are plenty of work
for you. Don’t spend the time with nothing but come as soon as you
possible can.

From a woman in Council Bluffs, to her sister:

You must and had better come here. J---- can work at his trade here
and you can stop with us until you can do better.

From a little California town:

My dear cousin,--I am awfully sorry to hear you and all the family
lost everything. But let you and Jennie and all the family come right
up and stop with us. You will want for nothing as we have plenty for
all and as many more. Hoping you will come right away, ------.

From a Russian woman in Chicago:

Beloved sister,--You shall not think about anything but come to
Chicago------. You shall not worry about anything. Everything will be
provided for you when you arrive here. You shall also get work.

A mother in Michigan wrote to her daughters, who had been in domestic service:

Girls, for my part I wouldn’t have any desire of living side of the
Pacific ocean any longer and you know we would feel better to have you
back here with us.

Another Michigan letter, from the brother of a refugee:

I want you to come with all your family and share our home until you
get all rested up and see what is best to be done. Old frozen Michigan
ain’t the worst place after all.

A woman in Spokane who offered a home to a friend and her little girl wrote, with a naïve appreciation of her own generosity and of the happy combination of disposition and circumstances to which she was able to refer:

I write to extend my sympathy to you and you know I have a big heart
and a large house and would be only too glad to have you come and stay
with me as long as you want to and it would not cost you one cent.

A man in Nevada who had secured work for a former business associate, wrote to him:

Through the kindness of friends (and I may say myself), we have
furnished you and wife with a home furnished complete, so if you can
get means to come up you will be O. K., as your rent is paid for a
couple of months.

There could be no doubt that the boy whose mother in Los Angeles had found work for him, and who wrote him as follows, would be looked after:

A Mrs. T---- to whom I appealed for you gave me as a loan on the sly
five dollars for your fare down, which must be returned as soon as
possible so please do not use it unless you fail to get a pass.

Some friends in southern California offered a home to three sisters, working girls:

If you can get passes, which no doubt you can by applying to Mayor
Schmitz, as I have written to him, asking for you, come down and stay
with us for as long as you wish. We have a house in our yard which we
can fix up for you without any inconvenience to us. You can live there
as long as we stay here.

The great majority of these people who were assisted to leave the city seem to have been those that could easily be spared from San Francisco during its period of reconstruction. They were, on the whole, lacking in physical vigor or in mental qualities of courage and initiative, or in attachment to their city. They did, however, give the impression that, under less exacting circumstances, they would have been able to get along creditably. It seemed fair to expect that in nearly all the cases the substitution of a more favorable environment would have results so satisfactory as to justify transportation as a rehabilitation measure, while the burden of dependence, whatever it might be, would be so distributed as not to bear heavily in any one place. The policy of those responsible for decisions was not to send to other cities persons that were likely to become dependent on charity. The transportation agreement of the charity organization societies of the largest cities was respected. The prompt answers to telegraphic inquiries given by all the eastern cities was a very important help. It was reassuring to find that the plan that was satisfactory in ordinary times proved indispensable in the emergency.

For the second period of the work of transportation, which seems to represent about the average, Table 13 is given.

TABLE 13.--DESTINATION OF PERSONS SENT FROM SAN FRANCISCO BY THE TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE, FROM APRIL 26 TO MAY 10, 1906, INCLUSIVE[62]

=======================+=====================================
Destination |PERSONS SENT TO DESTINATION SPECIFIED
+-------+---------+----------+--------
| Men | Women | Children | Total
-----------------------+-------+---------+----------+--------
California | 122 | 541 | 379 | 1,042
Oregon | 28 | 103 | 40 | 171
Washington | 20 | 85 | 57 | 162
Colorado | 11 | 46 | 35 | 92
Nevada | 2 | 40 | 11 | 53
Utah | 9 | 26 | 11 | 46
Montana | 5 | 13 | 13 | 31
Arizona | 4 | 8 | .. | 12
Idaho | 2 | 3 | 3 | 8
Wyoming | .. | 3 | .. | 3
New Mexico | .. | 1 | .. | 1
East (including Europe)| 188 | 553 | 322 | 1,063
-----------------------+-------+---------+----------+--------
Total | 391 | 1,422 | 871 | 2,684
-----------------------+-------+---------+----------+--------

[62] Compare date with date given in heading of Table 12. “April 26”
appears in official reports as included in each of the first two
periods, and probably was actually so included.

These figures are based, not on a study of individual cases, but on lists and registers kept by the various committees in charge of transportation. Although they probably are not absolutely correct, they are sufficiently exact for the present purpose. The term Pacific States in the following table includes the tier of states from Montana to New Mexico; all east of them is called East. Alaska and British Columbia destinations are included in Pacific States, and eastern Canadian and European points are included in East. The number of persons sent to such points was very small.

The following table shows the number carried for all periods, exclusive of those carried to suburban points.

TABLE 14.--PERSONS SENT FROM SAN FRANCISCO, BY PERIOD AND BY GENERAL DESTINATION, APRIL 26, 1906, TO JUNE, 1908[63]

=================+=======+=================================+=======
Period | Total | PERSONS SENT TO |Average
| number+------+-------+----------+-------+ number
| of | Cali-| Other | East | Other | of
|persons|fornia|Pacific|(including|foreign|persons
| sent |points| States| Europe) | points| sent
| | | | | |per day
-----------------+-------+------+-------+----------+-------+-------
1906 | | | | | |
2d Apr. 26-May 10| 2,684| 1,042| 579 | 1,063 | .. | 179.0
3d May 11-Jun. 30| 1,015| 212| 193 | 609 | 1 | 20.0
4th July | 365| 97| 70 | 193 | 5 | 11.8
August | 350| 221| 23 | 106 | .. | 11.3
September | 90| 32| 3 | 55 | .. | 3.0
October | 128| 13| 45 | 57 | 13[64]| 4.1
November | 77| 10| 2 | 13 | 52[64]| 2.6
December | 37| 11| 3 | 17 | 6 | 1.2
1907 | | | | | |
January | 37| 7| 6 | 19 | 5 | 1.2
February | 31| 6| 7 | 18 | .. | 1.0
March | 21| 3| 3 | 10 | 5 | [65]
April | 22| 9| 3 | 10 | .. | [65]
May | 8| 1| 4 | 3 | .. | [65]
June | 3| ..| 1 | 2 | .. | [65]
July | 4| ..| .. | 4 | .. | [65]
December | 2| ..| .. | 2 | .. | [65]
1908 | | | | | |
June | 2| ..| .. | 2 | .. | [65]
-----------------+-------+------+-------+----------+-------+--------
Total | 4,876| 1,664| 942 | 2,183 | 87 |
-----------------+-------+------+-------+----------+-------+--------

[63] Exact information relative to the number of persons sent from San
Francisco during the first period, from April 18 to April 26, and
their destination, is not available. The figures showing the number of
and destination of persons given free transportation by the Southern
Pacific Railroad are given in Table 12, p. 58.

[64] Sent to Porto Rico in October, 9; in November, 50.

[65] Fewer than 1 per day.

TABLE 15.--TERMS OF TRANSPORTATION OF PERSONS SENT FROM SAN FRANCISCO IN SECOND AND THIRD PERIODS

=================================+===============================
Terms of transportation | PERSONS TRANSPORTED
+---------------+---------------
|April 26 to May| May 11 to June
| 10, inclusive | 30, inclusive
+------+--------+------+--------
|Number|Per cent|Number|Per cent
---------------------------------+------+--------+------+--------
Carried free by railroads | 2,096| 78 | 136| 13
Low rate paid by Applicant | 588| 22 | 188| 19
Committee | ..| .. | 597| 59
Applicant and Committee jointly| ..| .. | 94| 9
---------------------------------+------+--------+------+--------
Total | 2,684| 100 | 1,015| 100
---------------------------------+------+--------+------+--------

TABLE 16.--DESTINATION OF PERSONS SENT FROM SAN FRANCISCO IN SECOND AND THIRD PERIODS

==========================+===============================
Destination | PERSONS SENT TO DESTINATIONS
| SPECIFIED
+---------------+---------------
|April 26 to May|May 11 to June
| 10, inclusive | 30, inclusive
+------+--------+------+--------
|Number|Per cent|Number|Per cent
--------------------------+------+--------+------+--------
California points | 1,042| 38.8 | 212 | 20.9
Other Pacific Coast states| 579| 21.6 | 193 | 19.0
East | 1,063| 39.6 | 609 | 60.0
Various foreign points | ..| .. | 1 | .1
--------------------------+------+--------+------+--------
Total | 2,684| 100 |1,015 | 100
--------------------------+------+--------+------+--------

TABLE 17.--VALUE AT REDUCED RATES OF TRANSPORTATION FURNISHED THROUGH THE COMMITTEE

=========================+===================================
Terms of transportation | VALUE OF TRANSPORTATION FURNISHED
+----------+-------------+----------
|May 11 to |July 1, 1906,| Total
| June 30, | to June 2, |
| 1906 | 1908 |
-------------------------+----------+-------------+----------
Paid by applicant | $4,987.27| $585.47 | $5,572.74
Paid by Committee | 10,878.32| 30,921.70 | 41,800.02
Estimate of contribution | | |
by railroads | 42,369.40| 5,015.70 | 47,385.10
-------------------------+----------+-------------+----------
Total |$58,234.99| $36,522.87 |$94,757.86
-------------------------+----------+-------------+----------

5. PROVIDING SHELTER

In April in San Francisco, the weather being temperate and dry, shelter for the homeless may properly be considered an easy third in order of importance in the supplying of relief. The first night after the earthquake the people who had been driven from their homes by fire or by fear of another shock, sought rest in the public squares and parks, in vacant lots and in military reservations. Bedding was the necessity carried from their homes by many refugees who expected to return to them after the danger was past. Each family took possession of the first spot available. The more fortunate separated themselves from other families by means of trunks or boxes, or by a sheet or blanket thrown over a pole that rested on two stakes driven into the ground. As the hours passed a few real tents were secured, and shacks were made out of loose boards, tin cans, and sheet iron. Soon, tents from the army stores and from private sources were provided in increasing numbers and were set up with varying degrees of order.

Two hundred thousand persons came out from the burned district homeless, of whom possibly 75,000 left the city. These latter are included in the number of refugees that sought transportation, as shown in the preceding section. Shelter was found in some parts of the city for a large number through the hospitality of friends or strangers, through payment for lodging in cash or credit, or through the use of unoccupied houses. Two thousand persons found shelter in vacant houses through the efforts of the police. The capacity to house the needy was swelled by the use of basements, attics, and barns. The number of the homeless was increased to some extent by the general rise in rentals, which was great in certain parts of the city and which forced a small number of people into the ranks of applicants for shelter. During the first two weeks perhaps a thousand persons had no shelter but what they could find in the burned district amid the ruins or on wharves.

Tents were provided in the first days by voluntary agencies, by the sub-committee on housing the homeless, by the army, and by the American National Red Cross. The first named committee, which was one of those hastily appointed by the Citizens’ Committee immediately after the disaster, also built barracks. It set to work with great energy, but with complete independence of any other committee, especially of the Finance Committee and of the committees on relief of the hungry and on transportation, whose work it therefore overlapped. It appointed another sub-committee, on roofing the homeless, which canvassed the city for vacant houses and rooms and then induced but few persons to make use of its finds. It formulated plans for the construction of two permanent camps and made recommendations to the army to place all the homeless in Golden Gate Park, to which park it had as early as April 20, assisted by an army officer, hauled lumber for the building of barracks, for the flooring of tents, and for latrines.

Camp No. 6, The Speedway, showing barracks

CAMPS IN GOLDEN GATE PARK]

This committee was discharged from duty, on request of its chairman, two weeks after its appointment, but its members continued to incur unauthorized expense for at least four weeks longer. The committee made such a fine showing for speed that its work got ready recognition, speed in those first days being at a premium; but its lack of deliberation led to the embarrassment of the relief authorities. The barracks could not be connected with street sewers because they were situated on low ground, so later there was difficulty in disposing of waste and surface water. One of the camps, Camp 6, could not be given fire protection, and both camps had to have heavy additions made to the initial expenditures to secure greater privacy and protection against drafts. In them the refugees were brought into an association so close as to be either demoralizing or humiliating. Both camps would probably soon have been closed if the authorities had felt justified in abandoning them after the large expenditure made. The initial mistake was to erect barracks during the emergency period. Tents, which the army and the American National Red Cross stood ready to provide, were much more practical. They could be moved at small expense from place to place, and until the rainy season set in they furnished sufficient shelter. Tents, not barracks, were the need of the emergency period.

The two barracks built in Golden Gate Park by the committee on housing the homeless were No. 1, known later as Camp 5, near the Children’s Playground, and No. 2, known later as Camp 6, or the Speedway Camp. Camp 5 consisted of 18 buildings with 16 two-room apartments in each, separated by a partition only 8 feet high. The rooms were 10 feet square--a front room with a window and a door and a rear room with no window or outside door. Camp 6 was of the same type of construction and consisted of 10 barracks and separate buildings for hospital, laundry, and other general purposes. The barracks of Camp 5 were occupied from the first of May to the middle of December; those of Camp 6 from June 1 to the latter part of August of the following year.

As late as the end of May General Greely reported that he could not get sufficient data on which to base housing recommendations. The first registration had shown that a little over a fourth of the applicants to the food stations were living at the same address when they were registered as on April 17, the day before the earthquake. In a few cases these people were no doubt housed in tents or shacks on the site of their burned homes. But most of them had not lost their homes or personal effects, though they had been affected by the disaster in other ways. They had lost their work, or had suffered some injury in health from the shock, or, merely demoralized by the general confusion and the abundance of free provisions, had assumed a mental attitude of dependence not really justified. Most of this last class, to be sure, did not survive the registration, but there were no doubt some who were not weeded out until after the canvass had been made. Sixteen per cent more are known to have been living in houses at the time of the registration, but as their addresses on April 17 were not given, it is impossible to know whether or not they had been driven out of their homes by the disaster.

TABLE 18.--HOUSING OF REGISTERED FAMILIES, BY CIVIL SECTIONS, MAY, 1906. NUMBERS

=====================+=========================================+======
Residence at time of |NUMBER OF FAMILIES HOUSED AS SPECIFIED IN| Total
registration | CIVIL SECTIONS |
+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII |
---------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+------
Same as on April 17 | 856| 225| 572|1,105| 197| 424|1,955| 5,334
Tent or shack | 741| 79|1,407| 272|1,082| 467| 317| 4,365
A house different | | | | | | | |
from that of April 17| 640| 294| 669| 924| 681| 945|2,168| 6,321
A house; uncertain | | | | | | | |
whether the same as | | | | | | | |
or different from | | | | | | | |
that of April 17 | 336| 191| 329| 257| 215| 999| 804| 3,131
---------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+------
Total whose addresses| | | | | | | |
in May were given |2,573| 789|2,977|2,558|2,175|2,835|5,244|19,151
Addresses in May not | | | | | | | |
given | 17| 24| 120| 19| 45| 41| 21| 287
---------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+------
Total registration|2,590| 813|3,097|2,577|2,220|2,876|5,265|19,438
---------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+------

TABLE 19.--HOUSING OF REGISTERED FAMILIES, BY CIVIL SECTIONS. PERCENTAGES, BASED ON THE TOTAL NUMBER OF FAMILIES WHOSE ADDRESSES IN MAY, 1906, WERE GIVEN

======================+=========================================+=====
Residence at time of |PER CENT OF FAMILIES HOUSED AS SPECIFIED |Total
registration | IN CIVIL SECTIONS |
+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII |
----------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
Same as on April 17 | 33.3| 28.5| 19.2| 43.2| 9.1| 15.0| 37.3| 27.9
Tent or shack | 28.8| 10.0| 47.3| 10.6| 49.7| 16.5| 6.1| 22.8
A house different from| | | | | | | |
that of April 17 | 24.9| 37.3| 22.5| 36.1| 31.3| 33.3| 41.3| 33.0
A house; uncertain | | | | | | | |
whether the same | | | | | | | |
as or different from | | | | | | | |
that of April 17 | 13.0| 24.2| 11.0| 10.1| 9.9| 35.2| 15.3| 16.3
----------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
Total whose addresses | | | | | | | |
in May were given |100.0|100.0|100.0|100.0|100.0|100.0|100.0|100.0
----------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----

Less than a fourth of the 19,438 registered[66] were living in tents or shacks. These 4,365 families or parties included some 19,000 individuals. As the population of the “official camps”[67] outside of Golden Gate Park (which was not included in the registration) was less than 8,500 at the time, and as it was wellknown that some of the people in the permanent camps were already providing their own food, it is evident that in the early days of May about one-half of the registered tent and shack dwellers were in the unofficial, unsupervised camps and isolated makeshifts for shelter which were one of the most difficult problems of the situation. The registration card did not ask what the character of the dwelling was, and for this reason, as has already been said, the proportion of persons in tents and shacks was no doubt understated, since the description given by the enumerator of the “permanent location” of the family may not always have suggested, when it should, a tent or a shack to the tabulator.

[66] See Table 7, p. 45.

[67] See Part I, p. 78 ff.

In May about a third of all were living in houses which were not their homes on April 17. These families, together with those who were living in tents and shacks, made up 55.8 per cent of the total. Considerably over half, therefore, of those who were receiving rations in the middle of May had presumably been burned out of their homes, or “shocked out,” as one of them put it. Many of those who had found house shelter were living under very unfavorable conditions. Overcrowding does not show on the registration card, and bad sanitary conditions can only be guessed at. In 206 cases it was stated that the “house” was a basement or rear building; occasionally it was a barn.

The seven civil sections[68] naturally present contrasts in the matter of housing conditions. In Section VII only 6 per cent of the refugees were living in tents or shacks, while in Sections III and V almost half of them were. Section VII shows the highest percentage of families in houses to which they had moved after the fire, and Section IV is not far behind. The facts which come out about Section IV at first seem curious. Although it included about half of the burned area, it had the highest percentage of families living in the same place as on April 17. The unburned part of Section IV at the time of the fire probably was more thickly populated than any equal area in the city, for in other sections there were great areas either not built upon or occupied by factories, etc. This was practically one solid residence section filled mostly with flats and populated by persons employed chiefly in adjacent parts of the burned district, who thus lost employment, if not property. Although it contained several permanent camps, only 10.6 per cent of those who were receiving rations were living in tents or shacks. It is probable that 43.2 per cent who were living “at the same address” included a number of Italians on Telegraph Hill who were already back on the same house lot, though in shelters improvised from tarpaulins, boards, sheets of tin, corrugated iron, and other possible, though unusual, building materials. Most of the Italians and others who lived about Telegraph Hill had taken refuge, however, in Section III, in which a part of the Italian quarter lay.

[68] For section boundaries, see map opposite p. 3.