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PROCEEDINGS ON THE OCCASION OF THE 
 PRESENTATION OF THE GOLD MEDAL 
 TO THE CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO BY 
 THE REPUBLIC OF FRANCE AT THE HANDS 
 OF HER AMBASSADOR HIS EXCELLENCY 
 JEAN JULES JUSSERAND. 
 
 

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 PROCEEDINGS 
 
 ON THE OCCASION OF 
 
 THE PRESENTATION OF 
 
 THE GOLD MEDAL 
 
 TO THE CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO 
 BY THE REPUBLIC OF FRANCE 
 
 AT THE HANDS OF HER AMBASSADOR HIS EXCELLENCY 
 JEAN JULES JUSSERAND 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO 
 1909 
 

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 Printed br 
 San Francisco 
 
PROCEEDINGS ON THE OCCASION '^r- ttlE 
 PRESENTATION OF THE GOLD MEDAL TO 
 THE CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO BY THE RE- 
 PUBLIC OF FRANCE AT THE HANDS OF HER 
 AMBASSADOR HIS EXCELLENCY JEAN JULES 
 JUSSERAND 
 
 At half-past ten o'clock in the morning of Saturday, the 
 fifth day of June, 1909, a large assemblage of the people 
 of San Francisco gathered at the Orpheum Theatre for the 
 purpose of viewing the presentation of the Gold Medal 
 which had been designed and struck by order of the French 
 Government as a gift to the City of San Francisco and to 
 the American people in commemoration of the resurrection 
 of that City from the great disaster of 1906. 
 
 There were seated upon the stage the Governor of the 
 State, the Chief Justice and Associate Justices of the 
 Supreme Court of the State, the Judges of the Appellate 
 District Court for the First District, the Judges of the 
 Superior Court for San Francisco, the public officials of the 
 City, the Consul General of France for California and other 
 members of the Consular Corps. 
 
 The proceedings were opened by the orchestra rendering 
 the overture to the opera of Robespierre. 
 
 The Mayor of the City, Edward Robeson Taylor, pre- 
 sented the Ambassador in words, as follows : 
 
 -^5! 720 
 
r^tl^c^DijIdf • Sin, Frahcisco : 
 
 We are here assembled for the purpose of manifesting 
 our appreciation of the honor about to be conferred upon 
 San Francisco by the Republic of France through her dis- 
 tinguished Ambassador — an honor, I venture to assert 
 without parallel in the history of cities. I therefore 
 take great pleasure in introducing him to you. Citizens, I 
 present to you His Excellency Jean Jules Jusserand, 
 Ambassador from the Republic of France to the Republic 
 of the United States. 
 
 Thereupon, the Ambassador spoke as follows: 
 
 I bring to you a message from France. 
 
 Since the early days of American independence no great 
 event has happened in this country without awakening a 
 friendly echo in distant France. The earliest message came 
 from that noble-hearted young officer La Fayette who said : 
 "When I heard of American independence, my heart en- 
 listed." The heart of France herself enlisted then, officers 
 and privates, soldiers and civilians. 
 
 The feelings thus begun have been happily continued; 
 as has been shown from year to year by such events as the 
 French National Assembly suspending its sittings at the 
 news of Franklin's death, as the whole French nation going 
 into mourning with flags at half mast when Washington 
 died, as the United States asking from France New Orleans 
 and receiving Louisiana, as the sorrow felt at the death of 
 Lincoln and a popular subscription being opened in France 
 for an appropriate token of admiration and sympathy to 
 be offered to his widow ; and by many other proofs of per- 
 severing friendship. 
 
America has reciprocated these feelings, the intimacy be- 
 tween the two nations has ceaselessly grown, especially since 
 a similitude in institutions has brought closer together the 
 two greatest Republics of the world. When La Fayette 
 died in 1834, ^^ same honors were rendered in the United 
 States to his memory "as were observed," we read in Presi- 
 dent Andrew Jackson's General Orders, "upon the decease 
 of Washington, the Father of his country, and his contem- 
 porary in arms." France will ever remember that when 
 she celebrated by a Universal exposition in 1889, the anni- 
 versary of French liberty, only one nation officially took 
 part in the great concourse and that was the United States. 
 She will never forget that when the unprecedented catas- 
 trophe of Mont Pele at Martinique swept to death 35,000 
 of her sons, no nation came so quickly and so generously to 
 the rescue as the United States. And she will also remem- 
 ber what took place three years ago when according to a 
 law of Congress a medal was struck to commemorate, on 
 the three hundredth anniversary of Franklin's birth, the way 
 in which France had received him when he had come to tell 
 the woes of the struggling thirteen States. As dearly as 
 the gift itself, will ever be cherished in France the words 
 by which one of the wisest, best and greatest of your states- 
 men, the then Secretary of State Elihu Root, presented it 
 to the representative of France : "Take it, he said, for your 
 country, as a token that with all the changing manners of 
 the passing years, with all the vast and welcome influx of 
 new citizens from all the countries of the earth, Americans 
 have not forgotten their fathers and their fathers' friends. 
 Know by it that we have in America a sentiment for France ; 
 and a sentiment, enduring among a people, is a great and 
 substantial fact to be reckoned with." 
 
Deeply moved by such words I rose to reply, and as I 
 was expressing French gratitude, surrounded as I was by 
 men and women representing all that was best and most 
 beautiful in the nation, gathered together at Philadelphia, 
 in the midst of that warmth, friendship and splendor, the 
 thought flashed on me that at that very moment, on the 
 shores of the Pacific, San Francisco was dying. Filled as 
 well as all my nation with sympathy for such misery, I 
 expressed the hope that the next token of the friendship 
 between our two republics might commemorate, not the 
 disaster, but the resurrection of your city so as to recall 
 not only the American nation's sorrow but her unfailing 
 heroism and energy. 
 
 When I had thus spoken, on the 2oth of April, 1906, we 
 knew but very imperfectly in the East what was happening 
 in the West, but I knew too well the American temper to 
 have any doubt as to what fight against adversity your 
 shores were then seeing, and as to what resurrection they 
 would see later. 
 
 It was soon learnt that the inhabitants of the stricken 
 city had behaved indeed in such a way as to make the whole 
 nation proud of them. When an unexpected danger or 
 catastrophe overtakes a man he has sometimes not the tenth 
 part of a second to make up his mind and decide what to 
 do; and the question is an awful one: Will he be a hero*? 
 Will he prove a mean thing*? His reason, his intelligence, 
 his heart even, have no time to look the circumstances in 
 the face and decide. What is it then that decides? It is 
 his past life. 
 
 The past life of a city where pluck, energy, fearlessness 
 are more common than even gold in her banks supplied the 
 decision. In one short hour before dawn all civil life had 
 
been abolished, all wealth had been annulled, all men and 
 women were on a level, dispossessed of everything; it was 
 really the equality of after death that was beginning among 
 the living. All behaved as men and women of heart and 
 honor. Each helped the other. Owing to that inborn gift 
 of Americans, the readiness to organize, a sort of order rose 
 out of chaos; the few troops available under General 
 Funston and General Greeley, who never hesitated to 
 take at the proper moment the proper decision, did, like 
 their commanding officers, splendid work; unsurpassed was 
 the work done by private citizens. The page written by the 
 inhabitants of San Francisco on the moving ashes of their 
 dead city is not one that any wind will ever sweep away. 
 
 One of the testimonies which struck me most came from one 
 of my compatriots, unknown to me before, Mr. Thouroude, 
 and it struck me so forcibly not because he was a compatriot, 
 but because he had every reason to be displeased with fate; 
 and not to take an over optimistic view of things. An agent 
 of his company, the "Chargeurs Reunis," he was returning 
 from the Far East; he had lost in the catastrophe all that be- 
 longed to him, including the result of the hard work of 
 months; he had to live like so many others under a tent in 
 a state of superabundant companionship. With all those 
 reasons for not seeing things under especially roseate colors, 
 he wrote me: 
 
 "Having been one of the witnesses — and of the victims 
 — of the disaster I am in a good situation to tell you of 
 the admirable courage displayed by the inhabitants of San 
 Francisco. I do not think that any people better seized 
 a greater occasion to show their world famous energy, their 
 indomitable faith in the future, their scorn for obstacles 
 and difficulties." Here follows a description of the whole 
 
population of the great city made suddenly homeless, bread- 
 less, clothesless, workless: the complete series of circum- 
 stances usually leading to troubles and riots. "Instead of 
 troubles," my compatriot continued, "of troubles which 
 would have added to the horror of the disaster, we saw the 
 entire population, all those elements so dissimilar, so little 
 bound as it seemed to show consideration one to another, 
 united in the same quiet preoccupation of saving the little 
 that could be saved, superlatively respectful of other peo- 
 ple's belongings. Many trunks of inmates of the great 
 hotels were to be seen stranded and abandoned in Union 
 Square; they could be seen days after still abandoned and 
 still imtouched. . . . Martial law, to be sure, proclaimed 
 from the first day, the destruction of stocks of spirits, the 
 closing of saloons, were wise and useful decisions. But 
 let me assure you that a handful of soldiers in so vast an 
 area would have been helpless if there had been nothing 
 more : the real, the foremost, the all powerful protectors of 
 order and property, were before all the people of San Fran- 
 cisco. This is an homage I was anxious to render, as a true 
 witness, to the Americans of the West, for deeds of which 
 the Americans of all America can be proud. All this should 
 be more widely known and I can give you the names of a 
 number of French people of San Francisco who were my 
 companions in misfortune and who would confirm, if there 
 was need, all that I state." 
 
 When I had been speaking at Philadelphia, I had not 
 yet received this letter, and I did not know exactly what 
 was going on at San Francisco. I felt sure however that 
 it would be what it turned out to be. And I had no more 
 doubt either as to the future than I had as to the present. 
 
 What I thought and said, happened to be so well in 
 
accord with the sentiments of my compatriots that the 
 Government of the French Republic took my words to the 
 letter. I had spoken of a medal to be struck to commemo- 
 rate the resurrection of San Francisco; the resurrection has 
 become a reality and the medal too ; and I have been ordered 
 to cross the continent and offer it to you in person. 
 
 And now, let me do so, and permit me, Mr. Mayor, to 
 place in your keeping this work of which one single copy in 
 gold has been made destined "to the American people and 
 the town of San Francisco." One side emblematically shows 
 your city rising from her tomb, and, powerful and handsome 
 as ever, throwing off her shroud; on the other side, the 
 figure of France is seen, presenting a branch of laurel to 
 America. 
 
 Accept this gift, Mr. Mayor, and receive it you all, 
 American citizens, in token that what once was, still is; 
 that we French continue, as of old, to feel with you in your 
 moments of happiness or of anguish, and if I may be per- 
 mitted to appropriate the words of Mr. Elihu Root, let me 
 say, in my turn, that "we have in France a feeling for 
 America; and a sentiment, enduring among a people, is a 
 great and substantial fact to be reckoned with." 
 
 Long live your city, and may continuous prosperity be 
 the lot of the American nation. 
 
 At the conclusion of the Ambassador's speech the casket 
 containing the Medal was handed to the Mayor. 
 
 The orchestra then rendered the Marseillaise, everyone 
 standing during its rendition. 
 
The Mayor then spoke as follows: 
 
 Mr. Ambassador: 
 
 With feelings of pride and gratulation I accept, on behalf 
 of the City of San Francisco, the beautiful medal which your 
 government, through you, has presented to my City, in com- 
 memoration of her resurrection from the great disaster which 
 overtook her in April of 1906 — a disaster of such vast mag- 
 nitude as to carry the woe of it around the world, and to 
 set the heart of a common humanity pulsing with new and 
 unexampled emotion. Then, indeed, did the sufferers feel 
 to the deepest depths of their being the insignificance of 
 human power in presence of the titanic forces of nature; 
 and at the same time did they experience, beyond all imagi- 
 nation of theirs, the boundless riches of humanity in the 
 presence of appeal when rising from the ashes and wreck 
 of a great city. So spontaneous, so prompt and immediate, 
 were these riches not only of needed material things, but 
 of heart-appealing sympathies, that ruin itself became for 
 the time supernally glorified. No wonder, therefore, that 
 with new strength and vigor, and keenly appreciative of the 
 certain great destiny of San Francisco, her sons immediately 
 set to work to restore what had been lost. And fired with 
 noble ambitions and great desires they have gone beyond 
 mere restoration: they have called upon all that is best in 
 modern architecture useful as well as beautiful; they have 
 dared to build with far greater amplitude than before; 
 they have incurred a large debt to replace the destroyed 
 municipal buildings; they are constructing a new sewer 
 system, and are greatly improving the streets ; they are pro- 
 ceeding to secure additional water supplies, and as auxiliary 
 to these they are now rapidly building a fire protection 
 
plant which will forever prevent the recurrence of their 
 great disaster. 
 
 In commemoration of these restorative labors, unparal- 
 leled in the history of cities, you are here bearing in your 
 hands this medal, so beautifully and appropriately designed, 
 and so perfectly and artistically wrought, and with eloquent 
 and sympathetic word you have laid it at the feet of our 
 City — that City which will treasure it as beyond all value 
 and beyond all price. The Atlantic claims Bartholdi's co- 
 lossal "Liberty Enlightening the World," bom of French 
 munificence, and now the Pacific, by virtue of the same 
 munificence, proudly claims this medal, which, though not 
 colossal in size, is yet superb in art. We shall ever hold 
 in grateful remembrance the medals which France has 
 heretofore bestowed upon our country in commemoration 
 of great events, but this one is peculiarly and distinctively 
 our own, and we shall perpetually keep it as such. 
 
 Our hearts swell on such an occasion as this with emo- 
 tions that bear thoughts beyond adequate expression in 
 words. Here the two great Republics of the world clasp 
 hands with new fervidness, with a deeper appreciation of 
 each other, and with a sincerity beyond all challenge, while 
 they see in each other's eyes an undimmed brightness be- 
 speaking all that is best for the future of mankind. And 
 in this our French fellow citizens, who have played such 
 noble and worthy part in all matters of civic concern, join 
 with hearts brimming over with enthusiasm and admiration. 
 
 It is altogether fitting, Mr. Ambassador, that you should 
 be the bearer of this medal to us — not alone by reason of 
 your official station, but by reason as well of your valuable 
 literary labors in our own tongue. And in this connection 
 I cannot forbear thanking you for your historic recital of 
 
the principal events in the life of Major Pierre I'Enfant 
 given in your recent address at Washington City on the 
 occasion of the reinterment in Arlington Cemetery of the 
 body of that distinguished man who rendered so many ser- 
 vices to our country, not the least of which was the planning, 
 at the instance of General Washington, of our beautiful 
 national capital. 
 
 San Francisco begs you will assure your government that 
 it is in no perfunctory spirit she receives this medal, but with 
 a spirit of gratefulness, and indeed of exultation, that so 
 great a country as yours should deem our City worthy of 
 its especial regard and favor. At the same time we cannot 
 but realize that while this medal is given to our own City, it 
 is in large measure a gift to the people of the United States, 
 and truly symbolizes that warm and enduring friendship 
 which has for so long a time existed between your country 
 and mine. Indeed, France and the United States are so 
 bound in the golden coils of that friendship as to make the 
 breaking of them inconceivable. What American can bring 
 to mind the virtual close of the Revolutionary War at 
 Yorktown, where Washington, La Fayette and Rochambeau 
 so perfectly and so successfully co-operated to a glorious 
 result, without being thrilled to the utmost recesses 
 of his being? The alliance of France with the States in 
 their struggle for independence was so inestimable, that 
 even now we are prone to shudder when we think what 
 might have happened had we been without it. 
 
 Well may we stir at the name of France — France, that 
 burst the chains wherewith the centuries had bound her, 
 and with an enfranchised people victoriously fronted all 
 Europe in arms; France, that flimg athwart the welcoming 
 heavens the noblest political ideal ever seen by struggling 
 
humanity — Liberty, Equality, Fraternity; France, the suc- 
 cessor of ancient Greece in appreciation of the value of 
 form, and by reason of this, of her many great men, and of 
 her Academy, influencing Art and Literature so widely and 
 so profoundly, that no other country can be mentioned as 
 a rival ; France, whose drama touches every chord of our be- 
 ing, and whose music rolls in waves of triumph throughout 
 the world; France, that gave us the almost superhuman 
 Balzac who alone, of all the sons of men, can be named with 
 Shakespeare; France, that produced in the person of Des- 
 cartes the father of modem philosophy; France, that has 
 surveyed from innumerable mountain peaks the far, out- 
 reaching territories of Science; France, whose recuperative 
 power in every century of the past, no matter what loss of 
 blood and treasure was hers, has amazed the world; France, 
 whose language is unrivalled in precision of statement, the 
 integrity and purity of which are maintained through the 
 admirable device of her Academy; France, whom every 
 Muse has blest; France, the land of illustrious men whose 
 names are set in the empyrean of the ages, immortal as the 
 stars. To this France, laurel-crowned, and shining resplen- 
 dent in the forefront of nations, we give the homage of our 
 minds and hearts. 
 
 At the conclusion of the Mayor's speech the orchestra 
 rendered The Star Spangled Banner, everyone standing 
 during its rendition. 
 
 The audience thereupon dispersed. 
 
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