TONIGHT San Franciscans are going to do themselves proud by attending the monster rally to be held at the Valencia Theater to commemorate the dedication of the Lincoln ocean-to-ocean highway. The executive committee of the Lincoln Highway Association, composed of many of the leading good roads advocates in America, selected San Francisco as the Western terminus of the proposed transcontinental causeway, and while dedication exercises are to be general tonight from the Atlantic to the Pacific Coast, San Francisco is going to show her appreciation of being chosen the terminus by a unique celebration in which oratory and musical numbers will make up the programme.

The exercises will be a fitting Halloween celebration, but overshadowing all the goblins and ghosts of the evening there will be the spirit of the great national boulevard that is to be constructed during the next three years. The importance and extent of the undertaking may be best imagined from the fact that the programme in New York and many another Eastern city will be ended as San Francisco listens to the introductory address of President J. A. Marsh of the San Francisco Automobile Dealers' Association.

Believing that there is no portion of the city's population that is not interested in San Francisco's advancement, no invitations to the celebration have been issued, and it is to take the form of an indoor mass meeting, with a programme equally divided between musical numbers and brief addresses by prominent speakers. The State, the city and the United States Chamber of Commerce will be represented, as well as every commercial and promotion organization on the peninsula. There will be a delegation from the San Francisco center of the California Civic League and other women who are taking an interest in the Lincoln Highway project.

Leoncovallo, composer of "I Pagliacci" and "Zingari," has given permission to use his new patriotic work, "The United States Forever," and will be among those present. The patriotic composition will be a special number of the concert to be given by the Municipal Band, and during the evening two prima donnas, Miss Beatriz Michelena and Mrs. Roy Lee, are also to contribute.

The programme is as follows:

Introductory remarks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . J. A. Marsh
        President Motor Car Dealers' Association of San Francisco.
Relation of Highway to Panama Canal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  J. J. Dwyer
                        For State of California.
San Francisco's Appreciation. . . . . . . . . . . Supervisor William McCarthy
                        For the City Government.
The Roads of the Nation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  E. F. Trefs
                    United States Chamber of Commerce.
Abraham Lincoln. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Samuel M. Shortridge
Relation of Highway to Panama-Pacific Exposition. . . . . . . .  Colvin Brown
Work of the Future. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  E. P. Brinegar
                       Lincoln Highway Association.
Solos. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Miss Beatriz Michelena, Mrs. Roy Lee
Concert. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Municipal Band

The celebration has been arranged by President Marsh of the Dealers' Association, assisted by William Hughson and Frank Carroll.

Originally published in the San Francisco Chronicle, Friday, October 31, 1913.

Last modified on October 7, 1998 by James Lin