150 LAND AND LABOR. 



for full forty years had our people in the North been 

 so generally employed, nor so abundantly supplied 

 with all the necessaries and conveniences of life as 

 during the last three years of the war of the rebel- 

 lion, and for a short period after its close. Only one 

 thing marred the general happiness the sickness, 

 wounds, and deaths that war carries to so many 

 households. 



The first half of the year 1865 found all the men 

 and women in our country in active and remunerative 

 employment none were idle. The four years of 

 universal employment in the northern States enabled 

 all to pay the indebtednesses and square the accounts 

 of the period before the war, and enter the second 

 half of 1865 with no private debts, but largely in- 

 creased powers of production and distribution. 



One would think that, with this statement of facts, 

 the future of our people must have been all that could 

 be desired. But with the close of the war there came 

 a change of the greatest importance. During the first 

 months of the year 1865 all were employed and receiv- 

 ing compensations that gave to all a generous support ; 

 but at the close of the year millions had been thrown 

 out of employment into idleness, and left without any 

 industrial means of subsistence. 



I have made an effort to see how great was the 

 number who so quickly passed from well compensated 

 employments into absolute idleness from plenty to 

 penury. 



Whilst in Washington, during the winter of 1878 

 and 79, 1 obtained from the Secretaries of War and 

 the Navy, from the Quartermaster General and heads 



