(from Paul Rink,
A. P. Giannini: Building the Bank of America)
AT 5:13 A.M. on April 18, 1906, a titanic earthquake shook San Francisco. “There was a deep rumble,” reported a policeman on duty, “deep and terrible, and then I could see it actually coming up Washington Street. The whole street was undulating. It was as if the waves of the ocean were coming towards me, billowing as they came.” Said another who staggered through the quake: “It was as though the earth was slipping quietly away from under our feet. There was a sickening sway, and we were all flat on our faces.”
“Trolley tracks were twisted, their wires down, wriggling like serpents, flashing blue sparks all the time. The street was gashed in any number of places. From some of the holes water was spurting; from others gas.”
Earth waves two to three feet high rocked buildings. Brick chimneys toppled and crashed through ceilings. Walls crumbled. Towers and cornices fell. Plaster dust filled the air. Wooden houses heaving and falling sounded like the squeak of nails when a packing crate is pried open. Church bells clanged—tolling calamity. “Everywhere there was the noise, like thousands of violins, all at a discord. The most harrowing sound one could imagine.”
Rubble was everywhere. Fires broke out. Water mains turned to dribbles. As the fires spread for three days, soldiers from the Presidio were summoned to augment the police. The mayor authorized the troops and police “to KILL any and all persons found engaged in Looting or in the Commission of Any Other Crime.” Without water to fight the fires, the firemen were helpless. Blocks of buildings were dynamited. Eventually the fires burned from the waterfront (sparing only Telegraph Hill and Russian Hill) as far west as Van Ness and southwest to the Mission District, and well below Market Street. Consumed were Union Square and the St. Francis Hotel, the Fairmont and Palace Hotels, and Nob Hill.
In this midst of chaos stood Amadeo Peter (A. P.) Giannini, a successful vegetable-commission merchant turned banker. Two years earlier he had opened the Bank of Italy. On the morning of April 18 two employees headed for Giannini’s small bank to find that it was spared the initial destruction of the quake. But as they soon found out, fires and riotous mobs presented a greater danger. This passage from A. P. Giannini: Building the Bank of America by Paul Rink, tells the story of how Giannini’s quick thinking both saved his bank and played an instrumental role in helping San Francisco rebuild from destruction.
AFTER PAUSING A MOMENT, Avenali and Pedrini hurried on to the Bank. They were amazed to find the building still intact. They pondered a moment, trying to decide what to do. Should they open up the bank or not?
Already clean-up squads were busy sweeping up the broken glass from the streets and gathering the tumbled bricks into piles. Businessmen greeted each other and joked about the early morning eye-opener. Gradually the doors opened; life began to seem once again peaceful and quiet. The big quake would be something to talk about for a long time; but right now it was over, and the morning was swiftly returning to normal.
Avenali and Pedrini looked at each other. The same thought passed through their minds: What would A.P. do? The boss was still far away in San Mateo, presumably enjoying a tranquil breakfast.
“What would A.P. do if he were here?” asked Avenali more of himself than of his companion. The Bank of Italy was still in diapers, but so strong was the spirit and personality of its founder that already everyone connected with it unconsciously tried to mold thought and action after his pattern.
“I think A.P. would say that a little thing like an earthquake shouldn’t stop the bank from opening,” said Pedrini.
Avenali laughed. “You’re right. Let’s go.”
In a few moments the two had hitched up a bouncy little white mare to a snappy buggy and were rattling through the debris-filled streets to the Crocker National.
The imposing bank was still closed, but the official in charge let them in and passed over three heavy canvas bags filled with $80,000 in gold and silver, which amounted to every penny of the Bank of Italy’s hard cash. Avenali and Pedrini quickly counted the money, loaded it under the seat of the buggy, and returned to their own bank. They opened the doors and were ready for business, provided anyone was interested.
They stood in the doorway, thumbs in vest pockets, looking out into the bright morning. Somehow, now, with all the Bank’s money in their sole custody, they didn’t feel quite so sure of themselves. The morning had taken on a kind of ominous quality. The streets were filling with restless people. There was a nervous, apprehensive tension in the air. Fire engines rumbled continually through the debris, bells clanging, belching smoke. Already a thin brown pall from scattered fires rose into the sky, cut the sunlight, made everything seem a bit unreal. There were ugly rumors, too, of fighting and looting, of roaming gangs of hoodlums.
The two Bank employees gazed behind them, thinking of the stacks of silver and gold behind the teller’s wicket. The men were aware of the very dubious protection of the “cracker boxes without tops,” and wondered if perhaps they hadn’t been too hasty in taking the money out of Crocker’s massive steel vaults.
Seventeen miles away in San Mateo, A.P. and his wife took hurried stock of their situation. The big frame house had been badly shaken but had suffered little actual damage. Even at that distance from San Francisco the jolts had been heavy enough to toss them and the children from their beds, break some chinaware and cause chimneys to crumple; but other than these things, the Gianninis were in very good shape. They decided that the place for A.P. at this moment was in San Francisco. Clorinda and the children would be perfectly all right by themselves.
A.P. needed five hours to cover 17 miles. Only occasional trains were running, and these thumped their way at a snail’s pace through a countryside jammed with people and filled with rumors of the wildest kind. The closer the train got to San Francisco, the thicker were the mobs. Refugees pouring from the city blocked the way of those who were trying to reach it.
Finally beside himself with the delay, A.P. abandoned the train and started walking, hitching rides on wagons when he could. He arrived at the bank exactly at the stroke of noon. Pedrini and Avenali felt the weight of the world roll from their shoulders as they saw the massive, tall man picking his way through the rubble in Columbus Street.
By now the situation had utterly changed. A dense cloud of dirty brown smoke rose and billowed over the entire stricken city. All the watermains were broken and split, and there was nothing with which to fight the flames except in those few places where engines could pump salt water directly from the bay. Nothing, that is, except dynamite and artillery. Ceaselessly explosions rumbled and thudded as desperate men tried to choke the fires by knocking into rubble whole blocks of buildings.
There was no thought now of business as usual. The streets were boiling with panicky crowds trying to get themselves and a few possessions to safety. Men, women, children, horses, pets, wagons struggled for passage in a confused mass. Gangs of toughs roamed at will, and already martial law had been declared. Squads of soldiers from San Francisco Presidio were deploying with orders to shoot at sight anyone looting or pillaging. They were not yet spread widely enough, however, throughout the doomed city to be much protection.
Only an insane man would open a bank on a day like this; and when A.P. saw the wide-swinging doors of the Bank of Italy, his first reaction was angry dismay.
“You should have left the money at Crocker,” he rumbled in his gravelly voice. “At least, there it would have been safe.”
They explained. They’d gotten the money when there had been no fire. The quake was over. Only the best interests of the Bank had prompted them to open. A.P. glanced at them briefly. The justice of what they said cooled him. He cast an anxious glance skyward at the always thickening cloud of smoke.
“What’s done is done. Now what do we do?” He closed and locked the doors. “Let’s see for ourselves and then make up our minds.”
Pedrini was left in charge of the money, with the trusty, $10 six-shooter for protection. A.P. and Avenali started out through the town to see for themselves.
The fire was gaining headway fast. Fanned by brisk winds from the Pacific, it roared and crackled through the matchstick jumble, destroying whole buildings and debris with equal ease. Before it was done, little beside the edges of one of the world’s great cities would remain standing. Over 28,000 buildings were to be destroyed, 500 people were to die, and 250,000 were to be left homeless. Property loss was finally to be reckoned at nearly $500,000,000.
By five in the afternoon, A.P. had seen and heard enough. The fires were racing absolutely without hindrance. The Palace Hotel was a roaring mass of flames. The beautiful new eighteen-story Call building was a column of fire against the evening sky. His mind was made up. They were getting out.
Quickly he gave his orders. Other employees and anxious stockholders of the bank had arrived and he set them all to work.
Three men were dispatched to the commission district to the warehouse of L. Scatena & Co. “Bring back two heavy fruit trucks,” he commanded. As they rushed off, he shouted after them, “Pile on some crates of produce—oranges, apples, tomatoes, anything.”
With two other men he started piling the bank’s fixtures on the sidewalk. There wasn’t much—typewriter, a few chairs, some records. Inside, another man started sweeping the gold and silver coins from the counters back into the bags.
Soon the two wagons were back. Keeping a sharp lookout for hoodlums, who would have lost no time attacking this rich plum had they known about it, A.P. piled the money in the bottom of one of the trucks, along with the records, and everything else that looked as though it had come from a bank. On top he stacked the fruit—crates of oranges and apples.
A.P. looked at the little Bank, then quickly turned his face ahead. There was no use looking back now.
Whips cracked over the heads of the nervous draft horses, who were glad to get moving.
A.P. headed toward the house of Clarence Cuneo, his brother-in-law. Cuneo’s house was on the edge of town and might be safe for a while longer.
They needed two hours to cover the few miles. People were clawing madly to get themselves and whatever of their belongings they could salvage out of the city. Night had fallen and the wagons bumped and clattered over the cobbles and bricks and tumbled lumber, with only the lurid glare of the flames for light.
Mrs. Cuneo gave them all a quick supper and then A.P. stripped the house of its furnishings. Rockers, mattresses, bedding, bureaus, chairs—all were piled on the wagons to give the appearance of a refugee caravan.
By eight o’clock they were on their way out of San Francisco headed for San Mateo. The trip was a nightmare. The flames rose higher and higher into the sky, reflecting in weird and frightening patterns from the night fogs. The city and the roads leading from it were choked with people, filled with lawlessness and quick death for the unwary. To avoid as much of the crush as possible, A.P. chose a long, roundabout way out; it was seven in the morning when the weary horses and men plodded into the driveway at Seven Oaks. Mrs. Giannini gave the exhausted “refugees” breakfast, and they fell into bed—all except A.P.
First things first. He had $80,000 of other people’s money in three canvas bags. What to do with it? The bags were finally hidden in the ashpit beneath the fireplace in the living room. All the Bank of Italy’s cash companionably nestled among the ashes and cinders!
Over Clorinda’s protests, A.P. hitched up another horse to a light buggy, headed it toward the city, and gave the mare her head. Then he promptly went to sleep, jogging and bouncing in total weariness on the driver’s seat.
In two hours the horse picked her way through the strewn streets of a destroyed and disorganized city. The fire was at its peak. Soldiers everywhere were trying to keep order. Stunned people were camped in the parks, along the beaches, on the sidewalks. The entire business section was gone. The Bank of Italy was a charred mass over which rose threads of smoke. The huge Crocker National was burned to the ground, its fireproof vaults a sizzling hot mass of steel that would need weeks to cool sufficiently to be opened. If A.P. ever looked backwards, surely at this moment he gave thanks that Avenali and Pedrini had removed the cash.
Consider the position of the Bank of Italy at this moment. Giannini had $80,000 in available cash to cover deposits of $846,000. The owners of this money had every right to it; and if they all demanded it at once, which was very likely, it is easy to imagine the catastrophe that could take place. On the other hand, A.P. recognized instantly the tremendous opportunity for the bank to earn money, and its obligation to help rebuild the ruined city.
Before the fires had burned themselves out, San Francisco’s bankers were holding meetings, trying to decide what must be done. Every one of them recognized his responsibility. The people of the city must be helped. Money was needed to do the job. Unfortunately, most of the money was in vaults so hot they couldn’t be opened.
These staid and conservative gentlemen seemed to be at a loss for ideas. Not one of them came up with any really helpful plan; and in all truth, there was probably very little that could be done. What they did decide upon was useful; but in a way it was negative, rather than truly constructive. A bank holiday was declared; a moratorium on debts was put into effect. Eventually a clearing house in the United States Mint was organized and issued scrip to a small limit per person to cover withdrawals against such time as they could be made. No hard money changed hands, and this scrip did not have the confidence of the masses of the people. It did little actually to help the situation.
Giannini attended a couple of meetings but quickly decided he could do more to help the stricken city by personally looking after his depositors. If the rest of the bankers were dispirited, at loose ends, and shillyshallying, Giannini was not. There was nothing discouraged about A.P. and his plans. He had confidence in himself, in his bank, and in the people of San Francisco.
This confidence was reflected in a circular letter sent out from San Mateo to all the depositors on Sunday, the 22nd, while the city was still burning. It announced that the Bank of Italy was full of life, ready to go, and that offices for the conduct of business would be set up at the office of Dr. Attillio Giannini on Van Ness Street.
A “branch” to facilitate business was also established on a plank laid across two barrels at the Washington Street wharf. Checks would be cashed, loans made, and deposits accepted. The Bank of Italy was in full operation and it was the only bank in San Francisco that was.
Each morning a buggy arrived at the wharf carrying $10,000 in gold from the “vault” in the Giannini fireplace at San Mateo. Back of the plank counter, A.P. radiated confidence and courage. His faith and his enthusiasm were infectious. San Francisco had to be rebuilt, and the Bank of Italy was ready to supply the wherewithal. His distressed and hard-hit customers found they had made no mistake in putting their faith in him and his Bank.
He effectively forestalled any possibility of a run on the $80,000 by voluble good humor and stern insistence that any withdrawals or loans had to be used for the purpose of rebuilding.
If a man requested $5,000, A.P. offered him half that. If another requested $3,000, he talked him down to $1,500, suggesting that elbow grease and determination make up the rest.
“Look,” he would say in his deep booming voice, waving a huge sheaf of loan and withdrawal requests in his hand, “we’ll supply half of what you want. You’ll have to make do with that. If we gave everybody all they want, there wouldn’t be enough to go around. Everybody needs a chance.”
He worked fast. Not only were most of the other banks without any cash, but they were in most cases hampered by the loss of their records. Giannini didn’t need any records. He knew intimately every man who was a customer of his Bank. He knew all about the customer’s credit rating, his capacity for work, his reliability, what property he owned. All this information was in his head, and no time was lost when a loan was requested.
The chaotic city was also badly in need of construction materials, and Giannini did his best to alleviate this situation. He roamed the waterfront, collared captains of schooners he had known and with whom he had done business in his produce commission days. He shoved the cash at them, saying, in effect, “Get to sea. Get up north and come back with lumber!” The first shiploads of lumber to arrive in the city came as a result of Giannini’s fast thinking and action.
He also immediately sent men into the charred homes of North Beach, and among the Italian refugee groups, prying more hoarded cash out of them. Funds salvaged from ruined homes, hidden in wagons and sewn into the lining of clothes saw the light of day. In this way thousands of extra dollars were deposited in the Bank and became available for the work of reconstruction. Many a hitherto reluctant Italian was at last only too glad to turn his money over to the driving, energetic head of the Bank of Italy and get it out of the barely secure hiding places of the refugee camps. The original $80,000 was thus spread thin and wide and made to do the job of a sum many, many times greater.
Such enthusiasm and courage, coupled with such real practical help, could have but one effect: the North Beach area recovered from the quake and fire far sooner than any other part of San Francisco.
North Beach, and San Francisco as a whole, never forgot the friendly, neighborly help that the Bank of Italy made available to them during the disaster. If the growth of the Bank before the fire had been merely healthy, afterwards it was nothing short of phenomenal. San Franciscans, it seemed, had at long last found out what a good bank, a people’s bank, could accomplish. They backed the bank that had backed them when they needed it.
By the end of 1906, all the other banks were, of course, back in operation. They were doing a volume of business slightly above that of the previous year. The Bank of Italy practically doubled its business by the end of the year. Assets stood at nearly $2,000,000. Deposits had doubled and stood at $1,355,000. The most impressive statistic from the point of view of the Bank’s popularity, however, was the number of depositors. The number of savings accounts had risen from 1,023 to 2,644, while commercial checking accounts rose from 280 to 451. Truly the Bank of Italy was on its way …to become the Bank of America!