1 24 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



should be. I had spent three years of my life in 

 faithful work, chiefly carpentering, without much 

 financial advancement and, worst of all, I had 

 gained no valuable experience. All the farmers 

 of that time were in a similar case we were 

 raising products which could not be sold for what 

 it cost to produce them, sometimes not even for 

 one-half. 



The last school I taught in Indiana during the 

 winter of 1 860-61, was in the new schoolhouse 

 that had supplanted the old one where I first 

 taught. A Democrat withdrew his children from 

 the school because I taught that our government 

 was not a pure democracy but a representative 

 democracy and because, worst of all, I had called 

 our country " a republic." During the following 

 summer I found some work at carpentering but 

 all industrial conditions were growing steadily 

 worse because of the War which had meantime 

 begun. 



By this time the firm of Moyer and Roberts had 

 dissolved and the efficient journeymen whom they 

 had employed were scattered gone west, as most 

 people do when they meet with problems that they 

 cannot solve. We are all very much alike when 

 life grows difficult: instead of fighting it out we 



