CAPITOLE DE SACRAMENTO
Hon. ANGELO ROSSI, Mayor of San Francisco
JT is with great pleasure that I accept the pleasant duty of writing a greeting to the French Junior Chamber of Commerce of San Francisco.
When we pore over the pages of our earHest décade, we cannot wonder why San Francisco was the first American City to give birth to stich an organization, nor why it has grown, during its three years of Hfe, to a membership of one hundred American sons of our great sister republic of France.
The infusion of French blood into the hardy pioneer population of San
Francisco during the late forties and the décade 1850-1860 added greatly to the renown of San Francisco, in ail walks of the life of the City. It tended strongly to the early supremacy of the City by the Golden Gâte, over ail cities on the Pacific Coast of the Western Hémisphère, in the realms of banking, commerce and the arts. The San Francisco directory of 1850 gives a wide insight into this history :
Lazard Frères Avas the first and largest importing house \ve had. The "genius of Alexander, Simon, and Elie Lazard and David Cahn flowered into the development of the strongest bank we knew. Their amazing ability soon put them into the realm of internationall3'-known private banking houses — and today. their old name, Lazard Frères, stands unmiestionably for the greatest bank in France. /'^^ Raphaël \\'eill. cousin of Lazard Frères, soon became the largest retail V dry-goods merchant. His store is now the White House. The house of \ Verdier, Scellier and Lelièvre, now the City of Paris, was another French / concern of transcendent prominence in the merchandising world. f Other illustrions French names that hâve given San Francisco great. j and in most cases international renown in its earliest years were : Pioche, Bayerque, Guy, Baroilhet. Dubédat, Sabatié, Vignié, Godchaux Frères, de Frémery, de Pierris. Chabot and Bocqueraz.
In banking, merchandising, viticulture, the learned professions and especially in enjoyment and patronage of the arts, no nation contributed more to the prestige of San Francisco in its making, than France.
The Roll of Honor carries on, as many names in the membership of our French Junior Chamber of Commerce will attest. Xo one values thèse achievements more highly than your Mayor.
Looking over the scroll of the matchless performance for San Francisco, by her adopted sons of France, ail of us will find new impulse to give our best énergies for the up-building of our beloved city. In our functions for civic betterment. we should strive, in the span of our brief careers. to leave a tangible contribution, where those who went before us left so much.
San Francisco is 1)eset by many problems in this time of financial dépression. It is in such crises that we find civic leadership has developed. It will be my privilège and pleasure to be of every possible service in forwarding the aims of the French Junior Chamber of Commerce of San Francisco.
Our city is destined to hold an even greater place in the commercial supremacy of the Pacific. It is to your génération that we must look, largely, to the hastening of that day when San Francisco shall take her destined place upon which future Western civilization must be set.
As Mayor of San Francisco I wish continued success to the French Junior Chamber of Commerce !
