EFFECTS OF THE WAR ON LABOR. 159 



more frequent and destructive ; still the army of 

 tramps is increasing, and the people are growing more 

 and more desperate. And it must be so, for the forces 

 and influences which made this condition possible arc 

 as active as ever. At this time the amount of idle or 

 unemployed manual labor can not be safely estimated 

 at less than double what it was immediately after the 

 close of the war, with wages at about one third, when 

 employment is obtained. 



Everywhere the evidences are increasing that our 

 people have reached the point where, in the language 

 of Adam Smith : 



" Many are not able to find employment even upon these hard 

 terms, but must either starve, or be driven to seek a subsistence 

 by begging, or by the perpetration of the greatest enormities.'' 

 Wealth of Nations. 



And he emphatically declares that : 



" The scanty maintenance of the laboring poor is the natural 

 symptom that things are at a stand, and their starving condi- 

 tion that they [things in general] are going fast backwards." 

 Ibid. 



These great military and industrial operations were 

 events that did not transpire in a corner, neither did 

 the succeeding incidents. They were of too great 

 magnitude to be hidden ; but were of the most public 

 character and known by all men. Examine the facts 

 and judge of them by the light of the principles above 

 laid down, and see where our folly and madness are 

 dragging us. 



In August, 1878, I filed with the Hewitt Labor 

 Committee a statement of the unemployed in Massa- 



