When all has been said that may be regarding the present and the future,
regarding purposes and potentialities, the simple fact remains that the
city of San Francisco will be what people make of it, neither more nor
less. The fruitful interior and the pine-clad Sierra; the great ocean,
its islands and opulent shores, with their fifty thousand miles of
littoral frontage, and every nation thereon awaiting a higher culture
than any which has yet appeared; the Panama canal, the world's highway,
linking east and west, all these will be everything or nothing to those
who sit at the Golden Gate, according as they themselves shall
determine. For the glory of a city is not altogether in its marble
palaces and structures of steel, though these have their value, but in
its citizens, its men and women, its men of ability, of unity, of
energy, and public spirit, and its brave and true women. And has not
this city these? Surely, if in the late catastrophe all that is noble,
benevolent, and self-effacing did not appear in every movement of our
people, then no such qualities exist any-where. The manner in which they
rose to meet the emergency argues well for the city's future. Before the
calamity was fairly upon them they sprang to grapple it and ward it off
so far as possible. It was owing to them and to the military that the
city was saved from starvation, anarchy, and disease. It also speaks
well for men so severely stricken to be the first to send aid to a
similarly stricken city, the metropolis of Pacific South America.

All this leads us to the highest hopes for the future. What we need most
of all is a centralization of mechanical industries around the shores of
this bay. Let everything that is made be made here, and the requirements
of all the peoples facing this ocean here be met. The Panama canal will
be a blessing or a curse to California in proportion as she rises to the
occasion and makes opportunities. Manufactures and commerce tell the
whole story. Let us have the city beautiful by all means-it will pay;