OCR Text |
Show H Disturbing Conditions H HTHE work of the eastern manufacturers con- H tinues unabated and the managers are steadl- H 'ly advancing the wages of operatives to increase H their products. Some are running their mills far H into the nights and say they would not close down H at all at night except for the impossibility of ob- H taining enough employees. H Such, a situation is filled with forebodings, for H the mind runs forward to that time in the future, H and it must be the near future, when the orders H for more products will be shut off, and when at H the same time thee will come multitudes of new H laborers who will have no means to obtain bread H save by earning it. Where are they to obtain it? Hj And how are those who are now obtaining double H wages going to adjust themselves to a conditon H when they will bo receiving perhaps no wages at H Worse still, when for every place there will foe H one very poor who must have work at such wages M as they can obtain in order to live? H Many people are speculating as to what Eng- H land, France and Germany will do when the war H A much more serious thing to consider is what H our multitudes of skilled and unskilled laborers H are going to do. Hj The most serious question of those who have H our general and state governments in their keep- H ing, Is to try to anticipate what conditions will H confronnt us then, and how they aro to dg met. M Like a steam boiler a nation ought always to H keep its safety valve in repair. M In 1849 our nation was exceedingly poor. The K volume of money in the country was so small that l prices were at the lowest. H( Men on tho farms worked for $10 a month; 1 good board could bo obtained for $2 per week ana overything else was in like proportion. Transportation was mostly limited to, stage coaches, canals and the Great Lakes and a littlo back from every lino of travel, people lived in a simplicity which to look back upon now seems almost unbelievable. Gold was found in California. Men began to tend that way. One old ship after another that had lain in ooze of New York harbor for years, was hauled out, cleaned, repaired, loaded and sent away around Cape Horn. In tho Mississippi and Missouri valleys a thousand primitive expeditions ex-peditions were fitted out to move west in the spring; a thrill ran through the few manufacturing manufactur-ing enterprises of the country ibecause of tho new expected demand; the movement was constantly gaining in power and momentum; the old ships were supplemented by new ones of marvelous construction; con-struction; from the Father of Waters to the Pacific, Pa-cific, tho whole mighty space was sanctified by the swear words of tho ox and mule manipulator, and the changes wrought in that first decade did away forever with the methods that had previously previous-ly prevailed. When tho change began, as a rule everyone was poor. There were tout two men known as millionaires in the land and they were always referred, re-ferred, to as wonders. Now millionaires are thicker than blackberries, so much money is carried to tho banks that it has become a burden; men aro searching for investments in-vestments In every direction, but this same volume vol-ume of money so enhances prices that thousands of the poor do not know which way to turn. What is needed is a safety valve. 'Could there be a new California found, the way out would be clear in a minute. Could our government in conjunction con-junction with our banks, ship builders, manufacturers manufac-turers and great merchants, make an arrangement with say Columbia to open roads and mines there and set all its latent forces in motion; it might do. That is a state of marvelous, undeveloped mines, of marvelous soil all it needs in the transformation transforma-tion which an energetic race, backed by capital, could bring around in five, years. And she is but six days sail from New York. And she is but one of a dozen states that wait such transportation. transporta-tion. And we are in danger of a congestion which will be filled with calamities if it comes. |