EFFECTS OF THE WAR ON LABOR. 163 



est, by and through all of which we have sunk to a 

 point where values and business are twenty per cent, 

 below that of 1860, the period of the greatest depres- 

 sion and distress before the war. And still our course 

 downward does not pause nor diminish ; still the wa- 

 ters of our deluge of idleness are rising higher and 

 higher. 



The concrete wisdom and experience of all ages 

 have crystallized into the proverb, that "idleness is 

 the root of all evil." Certain it is, that the starting 

 point of our present distress was the enforced idleness 

 that followed the close of the war ; the end when 

 and where shall we reach it ? 



The facts here presented have been obtainable by 

 any who desired them, and require no high coloring 

 to fully exhibit their hideous features. Yet these 

 great factors are studiously hidden, ignored, misrepre- 

 sented, and falsified. Our national, state, and muni- 

 cipal politicians, hounded on by the class of political 

 economists who control a large portion of the press, 

 are in full cry for a greater reduction in salaries and 

 wages, greater reduction in working force, especially 

 of those who now obtain the least compensation, in 

 all departments of government employ, and among 

 the clerks, the workmen, the teachers in our schools, 

 our laborers in every place where another worker 

 can be forced into idleness, or another dollar can be 

 taken from his scanty income. In every possible way 

 driving our people into deeper depths of idleness and 

 poverty, and our country more rapidly to perdition 

 all upon the plea of retrenchment and economy. 



