MONEY AND LABOR. 185 



and duly met. The volume of trade had been so great 

 as to compel the utmost activity. All prospered ; 

 capitalists, agriculturists, manufacturers, merchants, 

 traders, carriers, workingmen, and laborers, all had 

 been fully employed ; all consumed liberally, paid 

 promptly, and were contented. Money would then 

 readily command an interest as high as eight, ten, and 

 twelve per cent. But the close of the war quickly 

 changed the course of all these operations. From the 

 armies, North and South, together with " the indus- 

 tries that ministered to the work of destruction," there 

 were thrown out of employment at least four millions 

 of persons, in very large part men, with two or more 

 dependents, whose means of subsistence were thus at 

 once terminated. 



Then followed the demoralization in all our indus- 

 tries, with the era of speculation and credit already 

 described. Soon the market of consumption by our 

 industrial classes was utterly lost and destroyed, ex- 

 cept as it was sustained from the diminished and 

 diminishing resources of those who still obtained em- 

 ployment, and by running in debt. Production did 

 not diminish, but rather increased, and solely for 

 speculation, creating a burden that soon became in- 

 supportable building a monstrous pyramid, stand- 

 ing on its apex, of idleness, unsaleable products, and 

 debts that could not be paid, until, in 1873, it became 

 too ponderous to be longer held up by money, credit, 

 or other means, when it fell, crushing the railroad and 

 municipal work in the common ruin. Ever since that 

 time there has been a wail, " This is the result of 

 contraction, the work of Hugh McCulloch and John 



