manufacturing. All sorts of raw material can be gathered here from every
quarter of the earth at small cost, lumber, coal, iron, wool, and cotton
for a hundred factories, and mineral ores for reduction. Likewise labor
at a minimum wage, congress and the lords of labor permitting. Add to
these advantages a climate cool in summer and warm in winter, where work
can be comfortably carried on every day in the year, and a more
desirable spot cannot be found.

Industrially San Francisco should dominate the Pacific, its firm land
and islands, upon whose borders is to be found more natural wealth,
mineral and agricultural, than upon those of all the other waters of the
earth combined, and the exploitation of which has scarcely begun. Here
in abundance are every mineral and metal, rich and varied soils, all
fruits and native products, fuels and forests, for some of which we may
even thank earthquakes and kindred volcanic forces. Manufactures compel
commerce, and the commerce of the Pacific will rule the world. The
essentials of commerce are here. Intelligence and enterprise are here
and open to enlargement.

For the late severe loss the city may find some compensations-as the
cleansing effect of fire; much filth, material and moral, has been
destroyed. Yet one is forced to observe that the precincts of Satan
retain their land values equal to any other locality. The greatest
blessing of the destruction, however, is in the saving from a life of
luxury and idleness our best young men and women, who will in
consequence enter spheres of usefulness, elevating and ennobling, thus
exercising a beneficial influence on future generations. Already work
has become the fashion; snobbism is in disgrace; and some elements or
influences of the simple life thus reestablished will remain.