Francisco, which a merciful providence has five times burned, the
original shacks and their successors, the last time thoroughly, giving
the inhabitants the opportunity to build something better.

All this time the matchless bay and inviting shores awaited the coming
of those who should aid in the accomplishment of their high destiny.
Situated on the Pacific relatively as is New York on the Atlantic, the
natural gateway with its unique portal between the old East and the new
West, the only outlet for the drainage of thousands of square miles of
garden lands and grain fields, a harbor in the world's center of highest
development, with no other to speak of within five hundred miles on
either side; dominator of the greatest of oceans, waters more spacious
than those of Rio, airs of purple haze sweeter than those of Italy,
hills islands and shore lines more sublime than any of Greece-all this
time these benefactions of nature have awaited the appreciation and
action of those who for their own benefit and the benefit of the nation
would utilize them. Are they here now, these new city-builders, or must
San Francisco wait for another generation?

They must be men of broad minds, for this is no ordinary problem to be
worked out. It is certain that in the near or distant future there will
be here a very large and very wealthy city, probably the largest and
wealthiest in the world. The whole of the peninsula will be covered, and
as much more space beyond it, and around the bay shores to and beyond
Carquinez strait. Viewed in the light of history and progressional
phenomena, this is the only rational conclusion.

Always the march of intellectual development has been from east to west,
the old East dying as the new West bursts into being, until now west is
east, and the final issue must here be met. In the advent and progress