HE LINCOLN HIGHWAY

CHAPTER I

With what a strange thrill I look out from my stateroom window, early
one April morning, and catch a glimpse of the flashing light on one of
the green promontories of the Golden Gate! I dress hurriedly and run out
to find that a light is flaming on the other promontory, and that we are
entering the great Bay of San Francisco. It has taken a long preparation
to give me the feeling of pride and joy and wonder with which I come
through the Golden Gate to be in my own country once more. A year of
touring in Europe, nearly a year of travel in the Orient, six months in
Australia and New Zealand, and after that three months in Honolulu; all
this has given me the background for the unique sensation with which I
see the two lights on the long green promontories of the Golden Gate
stretching out into the Pacific. Our ship moves steadily on, past
Alcatraz Island with its long building on its rocky height, making it
look like a big Atlantic liner built high amidships. There are the green
heights of the Presidio and the suburbs of the city of San Francisco. On
the left in the distance is Yerba Buena Island. Far ahead of us, across
the width of the Bay, are the distant outlines of Oakland and Berkeley.
Later I am to stand on the hilly campus of the University of California
and look straight across the Bay through the Golden Gate which we have
just entered. The tall buildings of San Francisco begin to arise and we
are landed in the streets of the new city. What a marvel it is! In the
ten days that we were there I must say that still the wonder grew that a
city could have risen in nine short years from shock, and flood, and
fire, to be the solid, imposing structure of stone and brick, with wide
bright streets and impressive plazas, that San Francisco now is. In the
placing of its statues at dramatic points on the streets and cross
streets, it reminds one of a French city. The new city has fine open
spaces, with streets stretching in all directions from these plazas.
There are many striking groups of statuary; among them one whose
inscriptions reads:

DEDICATED TO MECHANICS
BY
JAMES MERVYN DONAHUE IN MEMORY OF HIS
FATHER, PETER DONAHUE

The most striking figure in this group, one of five workmen cutting a
hole through a sheet of steel, is the figure of the old man who
superintends the driving of the bolt through the sheet, while four
stalwart young men throw the