Transcripts For CSPAN3 History Bookshelf 20150531

So this coming april, next april marks the 100 Year Anniversary of the San Francisco earthquake, which was an event that until up to fairly recently, was arguably the worst Natural Disaster in American History. However, what is often overlooked by those unfamiliar with the history of the 1906 earthquake is that the quake itself, measuring somewhere around 8, i believe on the Richter Scale, actually played a lesser role than some may think in the ensuing catastrophe. As dennis will surely explain, fire was the culprit of much of the devastation that came afterwards. And in the wake of recent events, it seems particularly timely to look to the 1906 quake for lessons in dealing with those catastrophes. And their aftermath, particularly the social and psychological consequences. So just to tell you a bit about dennis before we start, he is a former new york city firefighter. Now one of the leading historians on the subject of firefighting, and hes also the editor of fire house magazine. In addition, hes the best selling author of 11 books including the report from ground zero, report from Engine Company 82, and a song from mary. And he lives in new york city. So having said that, lets give dennis a warm welcome. [applause] dennis ok. If i can put this on. I think thats ok. My notes are interesting because as you all know, we began communications as human beings by writing paintings on the wall by drawing paintings on the wall in places like caves in europe. And then we developed language and words and now were back to just pictures again, because i found that i can deliver a story of 1906 much better without words at all. I just have picture after picture and it gives me a sense of where i am in this story. And its a very big story. On the on the morning of april 18, 1906, at 5 12, the earth began to rumble. And we estimate it was about an 8. 2 earthquake on the Richter Scale. Now of course, there was no Richter Scale in those days. There was something called the rossiferal scale. And it was a skill that will scale that judged earthquakes by the amount of damage the earthquake did. And the scientists found that much damage in earthquakes was caused by fire and other consequence collapses, and not just due to the earthquake. And so the rossi for a rossiferal scale was not a very satisfactory one. Then they developed the Richter Scale, which was satisfactory, a little better. And in todays world, they use something called the mm scale, the momentary magnitude scale, which more accurately measures earthquakes, particularly above the 8. 0 level. These are important distinctions because earthquakes are important to all of our futures and the more we understand them the better well thanks. The more we understand them the better well all be. I think i think that maybe yeah, that will be fine, thank you very much. On that morning when the earth shook, it shook for 40, about 45 seconds. And in that 45 seconds, it caused a terrific amount of damage. It broke the water pipes all over San Francisco, first of all the earthquake had a, had a ruination in the immediate vicinity of San Francisco, but up and down the coast for about two miles. It also severed most of the gas pipes in the city. It knocked over every candle and every morning fire. It displaced all the flutes and so the heat had no place to go but in the ceiling. So it created in the first few minutes after the fire, at 52 recorded fires in the city of San Francisco. And the San Francisco firefighters did an extraordinary job in containing these 52 fires in the very beginning of the day. Now San Francisco, in this great catastrophe, experienced two pieces of very bad luck. And the first piece was that general greely, in charge of the Pacific Division of the army edwin sent their had been sent, had gone to chicago to a wedding of his daughter, so consequently because he was out of the city, the next military person in charge was general funstine. And general funstine was a breeder in he was a brigadier and he was a man who had created for himself a very noteable reputation in the philippine war. He had won the metal of honor. He was a very distinguished military man. And that morning in San Francisco, he was, he arose like everybody else to the shaking, and went out to the streets to see what was wrong. And he immediately realized, i guess, that general greely was not in town and it was his responsibility. He in fact took over the management for, you know everybody agrees that everybody acquiesced to general funstens management prerogative. The other piece of bad news, bad luck was the chief of the Fire Department, Dennis Sullivan, was rendered unconscious in the first 90 minutes i am sorry 90 seconds of the earthquake. And, he had been at a third alarm fire earlier on that evening, and he had just got an few hours rest when this earthquake occurred. He was living in the top floor of a fire house on bush street. And the California Hotel next to it had a cuppola or a sort of a steeple that in the earthquake fell over and went down through the roof of the fire house through the fourth, third, second, and first floor of the fire house. Well, Dennis Sullivans wife tucked safely in her bed, fell with the steeple down into the basement of the fire house. And the bed miraculously landed on all four beds. And mrs. Sullivan was then covered with debris but still tucked into her bed. Although cut and bruised, she was relatively unhurt. And, relative certain to a her husband, who had come into her room looking for her in the first seconds, did not see the hole in the floor, and fell into it. And he was he was not as lucky. He fell down four stories and landed next to the boiler. Now, on the boiler of the fire house, the shaking had displaced several of the pipes and it was shooting steam. And that steam severely burned Dennis Sullivan, rendered him unconscious, although he did almost miraculously arise from the ashes of the plaster, and walk into the Firefighter Rescue team. They were quite amazed by his presence and then he collapsed. And when he collapsed, he never again regained consciousness and the died four days later. He died four days later. He died four days later. Now, why is this bad lubbling . Its bad luck buzz a fire chief in San Francisco had in an emergency. It was his baby. He had full control, and that was certified by law in an earlier case when the mayor had an administration, in which he sued the fire chief buzz the fire chief had thrown him off the fire ground of a fire one day when gearry thought he could run it better than this fire chief could. And the mayor lost and the court result resolved that the fire chief had complete control at the scene of an emergency. So Dennis Sullivan was not involved. There were two fire chiefs who were next in line. Amount of little bit of a conflict both of them have a little bit of a conflict because daurtry had already put his retirement in, and he realized that if he retired at a chief salary, he would have a very increased pension. So he wanted to do everything that he could do sympathize with and acquiesced to the demands of the mayor. So he was not willing to take full control. The other chief, a very young chief and he wanted the top job because he had a long career in front of him. So he didnt want to assert himself as being in full control. And the mayor finally appointed dauherty at acting chief, had no legal responsibility. And the mayor took incident demapped. But the mayor was under the influence of general funstine, without a doubt. There is much evidence to assert this. And, the reason why Dennis Sullivans loss was so vital to the city is because all reading about him has shown me that he was quite an intelligent man. He was an engineer. He was specifically a hydraulic engineer. He understood water systems. He came from boston, he was educated. He was the youngest chief in the history of the San Francisco Fire Department. He certainly would have known of the great baltimore fire four years preevetly in 1902 in the city of baltimore, in which dynamite was used at great costs to the city, because it was tremendously unsuccessful use of dynamite. And sullivan would have known that. He would not have permitted the sort of wanton use of dynamite that occurred in 1906. So, that is the first piece of bad luck. The second was funstine. Now, funstine was a great military man, and as i say, its not easy for me to indict a man who served our country so well. And, but but i do think that its safe to say that it is mostly under funstines direction that the whole fire of 1906 was mismanaged. Where was it mismanaged . Well, first of all, these 52 fires i mention to you were valiantly fought by the San Francisco firefighters. They did a great job, they contained just about all of them, except for one fire, which we now refer to as the chinese laundry fire, in which there were great men with irons , ironing sheets and pillow cases of the hotels. Those fires that we used to heat the irons were all displaced in the shaking and created an extraordinary fire. And when they found, when the firehouse on Howard Street responded, that they had no water. And so, and one of the ironic side bars to this story is that just a couple of blocks away were two million gallons of wine which were attached to hoses and pumps because they, in the wine warehouse they pumped the wine from one vat to another. And wine was warehoused in the city of San Francisco because it was temperature control. The city of San Francisco has a very level temperature. It hardly goes up or down and when it goes up its the most beautiful place in america and when it goes down its a little chilly. So, they storted the stored the wine in the city and they had the capability of using it as an extinguishing agent. It could have fought the fire as well as any other liquid. And they never realized that it was there. So one of the great ironies of the fire. And yet, right across the street from the chinese laundry fire was the place where firefighter oneil died. And he died because the sidewall of the firehouse fell down on top of him. He was the second fatality of the San Francisco fire force after Dennis Sullivan. So that fire did get out of control because there was no water. Nobody fires in the meantime you fires in the meantime now be fighters in the meantime now the fires in the meantime in the financial district, and there were quite a few fires there. And, were pretty much under control by the firefighters because they had systems there and they also had some water supply coming, so the idea that San Francisco was absolutely without water is not true. And they they did a really great job in holding the fire in the financial district. And then, at about 10 00 in the morning, there was a fire, the hayes valley fire which the holy paramedics fire which they called the aromatic fire the ham and eggs fire because a woman got up, and she put the breakfast on, she started the fire in the stove, and she didnt realize that her fluid had been displaced in the shaking. By the way, many people arose to the shaking in San Francisco and went back to bad. Many, many people. And i do write about one woman who went back to bad not realizing that the gas lamp had surged in her room and had put out the gas lamp and it got light just as the shaking began and so she didnt realize that the gas lamp had gone out and it was just that the light had gone out and the gas was emanating throughout her room and she died of asphyxiation because of that. And im sure there are many stories like that. So, the hayes valley fire got out of control rather quickly because it was absolutely without water in that part of the city. But yet, the firefighters fought diligently, and for the next couple of days. In the meantime, general funstine had come in early in the morning on the wednesday morning of the 18, the first day, and he had a meeting at about 7 00 with the mayor. And, im guessing at this point he realized that the city had to be it was in a disaster and it had to be controlled in some way. And i feel that he told the mayor at this point that he better, you know, have some command of the situation. An issue of proclamation that says if there is any looting there will be a shoot to kill. This is technically illegal, immoral and unethical. Yet, there was a proclamation issued and it was tacked to the doors. It was a shoot to kill order. Because of that, many people in San Francisco, all the evidence shows, and the newspapers as well, believed that marshal law had been declared in the city. Now of course it had not been declared because only the president of the United States can declare that. It had only been declared three times up until 1906. What they did was completely illegal. I think general funstine probably realized that and in his accounts, he had two differing accounts of his experience there. Both of them suggested that there was such widespread violence and rioting in the city and firefighters were confronted by raging fires without any water, all of which was pretty untrue. And, but yet, funstine let everybody assume that marshal law was in order. Because he was a military law, he brought a military sensibility to this emergency. He came into the city thinking that the city needed to be controlled, because his military experience told him that that is what Occupying Forces do. You control a community or a population. So he brought 17 troops, 1,700 troops into the city with fixed bayonets. When i feel very strongly that he should have brought 1,700 with work gloves and pails. Because had Dennis Sullivan lived, he would have recognized that without water you would have to revert a more traditional way of fighting fires. There is no water delivery system, so what do you do . So in any situation, particularly downtown, youre only five or six, or seven, or eight blocks from the water, from the bay, and with the amount of men and women who were available in San Francisco during those days, they could have easily set up those sort of bucket brigades that existed. Ill tell you this, because on 9 11, just as a sidebar. On 9 11 when we were searching in the first day of error first day there and the second and third day, we used bucket brigades. We had hundreds of men lined up putting pieces of steel and debris into the buckets. Clearing space so we could search for victims. Dennis sullivan certainly would have thought of that. He was a very bright man. Again, he was a great leader the firefighters loved him they thought he was a great inspired leader. But, general funstine instead thought that the city needed to be contained and then evacuated block by block. This was also a great mistake, because in the evacuation policy , people had no opportunity to preverve their homes. The soldiers went out and theres much, again, many, many accounts where soldiers at gun point push people out of their stores and businesses, men and women who wanted to stay there and fight the fire, whatever came. And on the other side of it, every story that i have found where people circumnavigated the soldiers and got back to their establishments and homes actually preserved them. With their meager amount of water that they had stored, or even in one case on the top of telegraph hill, a family they were making wine in the basement of their home, and they put it in buckets and they saturated their house with wine and that preserved their home because the radiant heat was not able to light it up. So, if you look at the photographs, and i have photographs in the books that show you, as the fire came up on Market Street and was going towards the cole building, the 18 story building, the talest building west of the mississippi. I suppose its worth saying now that San Francisco at that time was the fourth largest city in america. It was the city that was undoubtedly going to be the great metropolis in the western part of the United States. Without a doubt, it was the Commerce Center west of the mississippi. It was filled with entrepreneurial people that were starting businesses left and right, building was going on all around. All the photographs show that. But, as the fire spread through San Francisco, and you see it going up Market Street and you see the Call Building and the fire and the smoke going into the building, you also see hundreds of men standing there watching with their hands in their pockets. Now, any leader in an emergency knows that in an emergency you have no Second Chance really. Emergency, First Responders know this. When you go to the scene of an emergency you have to make decisions where you dont get a Second Chance. And your decision often will determine whether youre going to save a life or not. And here they saw this incredible accessability of manpower and they failed to utilize it. Why did they fail . Because i think general funstine thought all you had to do was evacuate the area and try to dynamite the building and create a fire space so the fire wouldnt jump from building to building. It was a wrongheaded policy, it did not work Dennis Sullivan would have never done it. In the meantime, in the first hour of the emergency, 700 policemen were utilized to go around the city and close every liquor selling establishment every bar, every liquor store was closed and locked up by the 700 police officers. And that is to me, a sinful misappropriation of manpower and a very malfeasance order and again, much manpower that could have been used to fight this fire, building by building, was misused. So, the dynamite situation. As i said, Dennis Sullivan absolutely would have realized in this time that dynamite did not work in baltimore just a few years previously. That the city had a terrible situation, it created more problems than it helped. That morning general funstine called for dynamite to be brought into the city, and there wasnt a lot of dynamite, but i tell you what they had a lot of, they had a lot of gunpowder and black powder. And these two things are tremendously volatile. And incendiary. So they used instead of dynamite, gunpowder and black powder to take the buildings down. When they made a plan to take every building down on van ness avenue, on the Southeast Side of van ness avenue, and as they did that, every building they brought down created more fire s. And so again, as i looked at it. I went through this step by step with it with an important fire chief here in San Francisco scott peeples. And we looked at how the fire extended, building to building. I was just absolutely overwhelmed that this dynamite probably added to a third of the burning in the city. This city burned 28,000 buildings during this four days of fire. Now who saved San Francisco . Undoubtedly the firefighters saved San Francisco, without a doubt. There is no monument to the firefighters in the city. There is a monument that was created for the firefighters in 1880 in washington square. Its a beautiful statute you of firefighters. I love it. I adore it, actually. But there is no monument to the firefighters in 1906. Why . Well, its a part of a Bigger Picture of people wanting to forget what happened in 1906. They did not want america to understand that this situation in San Francisco existed. That it was a dangerous place, that the earthquake had created this terrible devastation cons consequent in fires. They just didnt want to bring notice to it. So all of the accounts of the time, they mention the fires but they never mention the earthquakes. And they felt that for the country to feel that this was an earthquake prone place that would destroy a city in the way it destroyed it in 1906, they would not get the eastern bank s to refinance the city. They would not get the Insurance Companies to reinsure these buildings that were going up. So there was a rational for suppressing the idea of the catastrophe in this city. But, you know, now that were coming up to the 100 Year Anniversary, perhaps its time to take a look at what those firefighters did and put a proper monument up. Now in this city there is a general funstine avenue and a statue of general funston in city hall. As i told you, i thought he was a great american. He had a very illustrious career before San Francisco and after San Francisco. The only thing is that im fully convinced that during San Francisco he was a good man who made very bad decisions. And so i think there should probably should be a statue named after Frederick Freeman in this city as well. Now who was Frederick Freeman . He was a naval officer attached to the island just north of here. He was on a torpedo destroying boat and he came into the city earlier that morning. In fact i have a photograph that was taken from the bridge of his boat. And when he got here, he realized that he, the city was burning furiously, and that he had to try to save the lifeblood of the city. The lifeblood of the city, of of course being the wharf area, the piers, because if they werent saved, it would take this city much longer to come out of this terrible emergency and disaster. And he did. In the next four days, lieutenant freeman, this great military naval lieutenant, led his men, which were mostly sailors, some marines and some firefighters as well joined them, and they completely stopped the fire at the water front area and they completely stopped the area at the rail road sheds, which was open where lincoln hill used to be. And he did a very, very commendable job. Now, in the history of San Franciscos heroes, theres a huge photograph and 400 people in this photograph and general funstine is in the middle of it, and mayor schmidt is in the middle of it and boss roof is in it, but theres no lieutenant freeman who did this Extraordinary Service in four days. Now why . I feel that because the military people of the time realized that in all great situations theres only room for one name. You know, and there is plenty illustration of this in history. Every battle has one person attached to it. For instance, like custer or macarthur, any of the generals in the revolutionary war. Here, there was room for only one military person. I think that everyone agreed that that military person should have been general funstine. Why . Because he was in control. And thats what happened. So freeman got completely marginalized. I felt. Though he did more work than any single individual in the city except for the firefightering force. At that time, mayor schmidt, you jean schmidt you jean schmidt, eugene schmidt, who was a violinist he was the head of the musicians union, and he was the first union party Labor Union Party to control municipality in america. Unfortunately, he was controlled himself by abraham roof. He was a young man who was an intellectual prodigy, spoke many languages, but he also, as they said among other corrupt politicians, i saw my opportunities and i took them. Well that was sure true of abraham roof because you could not do anything of any consequence in the city unless you hired abraham roof as a consultant. And abraham roof normally wanted 200,000 and this is all evident in the trials that came out of it. And of the 200,000, he and mayor schmidt would keep half and the other half they would divvy it among the 19 board of supervisors. So the whole city was corrupt. The man who had been mayor before schmidt also he became a senator, United States later on. He was a man of great wealth. His father founded the earliest Gold Reserve Bank here in San Francisco. And he was a man of great privilege and great education. And he was also committed to the city beautiful movement, which was something that grew out of the white City Movement of the worlds fair of 1891, i think it was in chicago. And the other person who was very civic minded was a guy named rudolph spreckles. His father was the sugarcane in america. Sugar caneking in america. The family owned the oceanic lines of every ship that went from San Francisco to hawaii and to australia belonged to them. They owned the largest building west of the mississippi. They owned the evening call newspaper. Owned fullly one third of one of the islands in hawaii. One of the biggest Sugar Producers in america. A very wealthy family. So spreckles went because he saw the vast corruption around him went to a guy named older who was the editor of the evening bulletin here. And older was fairly wellknown editor and much respected, and he went to washington. He got an appointment with president roosevelt. And he met with roosevelt and told him of this extraordinary corruption in the city and had to be cleaned up. You couldnt do any business in San Francisco that didnt cost you fortunate. Cost you a fortune. And, roosevelt said, ok, lets try to clean it up. I can give you john burns, who is the guy who created the Burns Detective Agency afterwards. John burns was a federal employee, he was a g man. He was a great investigator and every serious government investigation during roosevelts term was led by john burns. He came to San Francisco, but it cost a great deal of money. And the president said its going to cost a great deal of money to do this, lead this investigation. And rudolph wrote a check for 200,000, which in todays world is like 4 million perhaps in value, which was a great amount of money, and it was a great act of Civic Responsibility and determination. He was accompanied by james d. Fallon, and older and burns, and together they attacked the corruption in the city and created a whole series of corruption trials, which started actually, just two days before the earthquake, and when they found first evidence of corruption in all of the citys barrooms, what they called the french restaurants, for lack of a better term, which were restaurants of a questionable virtue. In order to get a license you had to have abe roof as your lawyer. And that kind of thing. They had evidence of this, that was two days before the earthquake. The trial came on in the following year, and, everybody was indicted. I mean, the whole board of supervisors, all 19 people were indicted, the mayor was indicted, boss roof was indicted. The mayor went to jail and he served about a year in a holding situation, rather than going to a prison, because he continually was appealing. He finally won on appeal because in the original indictment they failed to mention he was mayor of the city of San Francisco which conveyed to him certain legal entitlements evidently, so he was let out of prison. Boss roof on the other hand, was kept in prison for seven years, and he did his time and he came out and he owned a building right on montgomery street, which is today columbus avenue, and in the doorway of his building, it said when he came out of prison, abe roof ideas. So that was the way he approached his rehabilitation after his prison time. It was a terrible mess. But during the corruption investigations themselves, it was a little bit ironic because rudolph spreckles belonged to the very prestigious clubs in San Francisco. The Bohemian Club and the Union Pacific club and many others as well. And soon they were being ostracized in their own clubs. Why . Because it makes two to make an act of corruption. And rudolph spreckles felt very strongly that the corruptors should be indicted and sent to prison as well as the corrupted. And, of course, the corruptors were the people in the clubs who owns the Business Enterprises in the city. And think felt that although they were a part of the corruption, they felt that they were really not guilty because you couldnt do business in the city of San Francisco, in any way, without being involved in some way in corruption. So they both lost a lot of friends during this period of time. The people that they wanted to go to jail never went to jail. Not one board of supervisors went to jail. The mayor did go to jail for a little bit. Roof went to jail. But the corruption in the city of San Francisco did end because of the determination of these two very civic people. Now, the fire finally, it burned for four days, and there are many, many examples of people who circumnavigated the soldiers and the evacuation orders and went into their own homes. And establishments and saved their properties. At the end of the in the beginning of the fourth day when the fire actually ended on 19th street and mission in that area, they they had a huge pumper a very big pumper that they had to get up this incredible hill. To what they call the golden hydrant today. There was water there, in that hydrant, miraculously. And to get this pumper up there, there were no horses. They got they rallied over 200 men who were civilians and bystanders during that. The bag of time during that. By period of time to push this pumper up that huge hill. Its just another example of the good citizens of San Francisco rallying in defense of their own city. And so, in conclusion, i would like to say that the city of San Francisco is one of the most loved cities in the world. I mean, its reputation is certainly as big as the reputation of paris or london or new york or new orleans. It is a city that people love to come to visit, annually or every once in a while. And for the people who live here, they love living here. So what does it mean in todays world . It means that we have to be vigilant, its that simple. And i cry and i try to tell this story from a very personal narrative and i cry i cry i try to show you how peoples lives were affected in a very tragic way, essentially by mismanagement. Because good people made bad decisions. We as citizens in this city have to be vigilant of those in control of our destiny in emergency situations. We should look closely at them. We should demand in the senate for example, that the senators and congressmen who have a role in the appointments to the head of our emergency organizations and there are many of them where the senate has an advising consent role. We should demand that they consider only people who have Emergency Service experience. And, knowledge. Because it takes more than being an intelligent person who has a managerial overview in an emergency. It takes much more than that. It takes the person who understands the culture of Emergency Services and understands what its like to put lives on the line and put the people you work with on the line. With regularity. And that kind of consciousness of emergencies and understanding the culture of emergencies is very important, very important quality that ought to be found in leadership. Unfortunately it often is not. And so, we as citizens have the responsibility to look more closely at this because if we dont do it, who will . So, that is the story of the San Francisco fire. Id be pleased and honored to answer any of your questions, yes, sir . The current flap in the city is the difference in the size of the nichols on the hydrants. Dennis i read that in the paper yes. That we are very powerful and able to maintain size x when everybody is size one, etc. , etc. The chronicle did a little survey and found that we fit is about every 800 large, which in a sensible budget is moot. Whats your dennis , you know, in a sense it is peanuts. Probably 800,000, if you took that much money out of a school, you would have to close it. So one way of looking at it is which school do you want to close . I didnt think, quite frankly it was a question of money so much. It is a question of adapters. All the firefighter departments around the surrounding area of San Francisco should have it. My understanding is that about 100 of them do. And they are fairly inexpensive, less 100. So to me its not a very important issue. But its topical and its one in which the community can look a little closer at the Fire Department with some questioning because of what has gone on in texas and louisiana, mississippi, alabama in the last month. So, were all a little more conscious and leery of these things. I mean, perhaps, convey to them more importance than they actually have. But that particular problem, i could talk about it at length i must tell you. Because i know it came out of the the state legislator that mandate to change those valves to two and a half inch and San Francisco has three inch. Generally. Anyway, yes, sir . If i just, i am sorry, what is the actual dennis the question is the actual casualty figure. And for many, many years we thought it was 450, about. And they came to that figure because of the bodies that they had reclaimed in the hospitals and the infirmaries. And those that were picked up from the streets. But, Gladys Hanson took it on her own to investigate all the deaths during that period of time and try to attribute cause to those deaths. And she found that the number now, with reliability, is about 3,000. And she feels that the number could go to 4000. So there was a great deal of life loss at the time, and i think that the life my goodness oh im so sorry. Well, fortunately were in an emergency conversation, that was very close to an emergency. [laughter] dennis gladys has the number going up to 4,000. Yes . There must have been a lot of serious burns. Were the hospitals and clinics able to handle emergencies and other Health Care Needs for these people . Dennis the question is about serious burns. And there were, and as i was going to elongate the previous answer, were not certain about how many people died in the earthquake and how many people in collapses, building collapses. We know for instance, that one that the Valencia Hotel collapsed and that there were 40 people who expired in that collapsed so we have that number, 40 in valencia, and that was in a collapsed building. On lincoln hill, there was an extraordinary fire, that hill doesnt exist anymore on San Francisco. At that time it was quite a steep hill. Mostly impoverished people who lived there and the fire came up both sides of it and trapped many people. So we know a sizeable amount of people died there in fires. How many people were not sure. But probably, you know somewhere between a dozen and a few dozen. The nurses, again, did a great job. There were nurses that there were nurses who came in from all parts of california to work and to assist and help. They said the military, the army, under general funstine did an absolute fabulous job in terms of mitigation after the event. In terms of creating these hospitals and creating food systems and Transportation System and dwelling systems. There was much to be proud of in the rebuilding of San Francisco. Just much to be proud of. People really chipped in. Even harriman who owned the Southern Pacific Railroad and give an order of the first day saying anybody in San Francisco can use any ship i own, any rail road i known. Best i own i own. They can go anywhere they want in the country. And about 200,000 people took advantage of that. They got on these trains and went to ohio, went to texas and went to wherever they could go. Very similar to what happened in new orleans recently. You need to evacuate, and where do you evacuate . You evacuate essentially toward the place, where robert frost said home is the place where they always have to let you in. And in a sense when you are evacuating, you go to people you know where they will let you in. Your friends and your relatives. And that can be anywhere. So harriman was a great help during this period of time as well. So, yes, sir . Was there a fire in oakland or anywhere else . Dennis san jose suffered terribly in the fire. In fact in san jose was pretty great. I dont know what it was exactly. There were many fires in oakland but they werent, they did not have the water problem. That San Francisco had. So they contained those fires pretty easily. Oakland, the oakland Fire Department, are the way, by the way sent three fullly manned , companies and steamers over to San Francisco early in the event. They were very helpful. You know, i see references to them going in and out of the fires. The interesting thing about this is that the records are so poorly preserved of 1906, that the committee of 50 to control Business Leaders because they recognize that they needed people to take over things like getting communications, getting the transportation up, getting electricity back up. All the things they assigned to individual leaders of the city. And among them was a professor from berkeley who was charged with creating the history of the time, and to gather all of these historic documents and to do a verbal histories. To record them. Unfortunately, and that man worked for over a year on that project. And everything he accomplished was lost for some reason and hads never been found. The Fire Department, in the companies, there were about 50 companies at the time, and only about a third of their, only about a third of their records , their reports, are extant. And i read every one of them. But the ones that i really wanted, like engine one and so on i couldnt fine. Couldnt find. Everyone has looked for them and we dont know where they are. Maybe somebody has a copy. Maybe someone will see this and send it to the San Francisco Fire Department. These records are the living proof that San Francisco, you know, consisted of people. Mostly men in those days and did a great job. And without those records, you know it sort of dishonors all of , that work that those men did. And i hope that my book sort of reevaluates all of that. And people will look back at this, these terrible four days with a new version of a community that in fact worked together. That there was no rioting, no pandemonium. That there were people who were very sensible and sound and prudent people who came together to help wherefore they could. And that is, i think, a verifiable history. Yes . Having read your book, you must see parallels between what happened in San Francisco and what has recently happened to new orleans with the lack of communication between the people in charge. Dennis well the question is about new orleans and San Francisco of a hundred years ago. And certainly it is true that there were people who were in charge who seemed to be over their head. And this sort of speaks to the point that i was making before about demanding that those people who are leading the bureaus and the departments in our governments that have their responsibility of Emergency Services come indeed out of the Emergency Services. And i dont want to disdain or , you know, any group of people but we pick people to lead these organizations generally because they come out of the political field. They worked on somebodys campaign so they get these big jobs in government, whether municipal government or State Government or federal government. And they shouldnt be there. And the rationale is that theyre intelligent people. They understand management, they see the topographical needs. Again, i dont think its enough. You need to have people that have internalized the extraordinary circumstances that occur in emergency. Because thats what will protect you in the future. Yes . Whats your next project . Dennis oh, my next i dont know. I think i wish i knew my next project im sure will be another book and be kinder to my friends, i think. More loving to my children. You know, there are all kinds of nice things i can do. Pave the streets with groodness. If there was a statue, a memorial statue to the firefighters of 06, where would you put it . Dennis here in San Francisco . Oh boy. What a good question. I think that the greatest stand made by the firefighters in this city was on montgomery street, which is now columbus avenue. They the firefighters did an extraordinary job because they completely extinguished the fire on the first day. On the second day it circled around again and took the whole block and then took chinatown. So, i think somewhere in that area, i mean, not to diminish the value of anything in the city, but i passed the other day a public building with a culture on the front of it but i just could not understand. Such a beautiful building, grecian temple style that was built in the 19th century and they had this really ridiculous sculpture in front of it. And i thought, why would somebody do this . Somebody should be challenged to see to it that the firefighters of 1906 are remembered. Well, look, i want to thank you all. I want to thank the people, thank you so much. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] you are watching American History tv every weekend on cspan3. Follow us on twitter for information on the schedule of upcoming programs and to keep up with the latest history news. To mark the 40 of anniversary of the end of the vietnam war in 1975 New York University hosted a discussion on the lessons of the conflict. Former congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman gives the keynote address, arguing that escalating be vietnam war was a mistake and asserting that the u. S. Committed war crimes during the conflict. The program is a little more than an hour. Elizabeth holtzman im honored to be at this conference. Im honored to be asked to be keynote speaker