STABILITY OF AGRICULTURE. 5 



As the regiments disbauded, many of the men who were 

 formerly workers and producers entered into trade and 

 speculation, increasing the great army of non-producing men 

 to a wonderful extent. 



All at once business, like a train of cars under full speed, 

 reached a rotten bridge, and the train was ditched. Jay 

 Cooke's failure brought the business community to a realizing 

 sense of its condition. It was not Jay Cooke's failure that 

 ruined the country, or that brought ruin upon the country ; 

 but it was that failure that stopped this mad career of 

 speculative enterprise, and turned the current of thought in 

 a healthier direction. 



While the manufacturers had been amassing fortunes, and 

 the merchants had surrounded themselves with princely 

 luxury by their speedilj^-made gains, an element of life, 

 always found in every community, had been developed to a 

 most unhealthy and portentous extent. 



Every man's pocket was overflowing with money. The 

 mechanic had trebled his price of labor ; the operative in the 

 mill and the shop had approximated the mechanic, and the ordi- 

 nary laborer, who toiled from day to day without thought or 

 skill was commanding two or three times his legitimate earn- 

 ings. 



Great leaders in finance started new lines of railroads 

 through unpopulated districts of country, bought coal lands, 

 sunk oil wells, established and opened copper mines; and 

 men who were never heard of in finance imitated their 

 example, by incorporating companies for the manufacture 

 and sale of patent articles and patent rights, until, in fact, 

 the only class of producers left, whose labor was really 

 needed and a'bsolutely useful, was that of the farmer, miner, 

 artisan and mechanic. 



The press, by its wide-spread influence, carried this spirit 

 far and wide, until it permeated every town and school 

 district in the country. The religious press, with its great 

 influence, published the advertisements of these great leaders 

 in scheming finance, and thousands whose legitimate gains 

 might have been a blessing to themselves and their children, 

 were influenced to part with their money and accept therefor 

 worthless pieces of paper. 



