218 LAND AND LABOR. 



generally covers the ground and his authority so 

 unimpeachable, that its facts are commended to the 

 careful study of all. 



" There was a growth and development of business in the 

 northern and western portions of the United States, such as no 

 nation ever experienced before. There was building of new 

 mills, and enlarging old ones; there was adding tens of thou- 

 sands of spindles to the thousands already running ; there was 

 adding steam engines to aid water power, and the adoption of 

 new machinery, which increased to a fabulous extent the ca- 

 pacity to manufacture cotton and woolen fabrics. 



" There was the establishment of hundreds of banks the 

 building of thousands of miles of railroad settling new coun- 

 tries cutting down forests building cities in most distant 

 portions of the Republic and opening communication by rail- 

 road with the Pacific Coast. 



"The history of those ten years of industrial growth and 

 prosperity would fill many volumes. 



" Wages advanced as the industries increased. Workers in 

 iron, and steel, and brass, and wood, and stone were as greatly 

 in demand as workers in cotton and wool. The common coarse 

 domestic cottons sold for fifty and sixty cents a yard, and woolen 

 goods doubled, and trebled, and quadrupled in value. 



" Adding, as did these exorbitant prices, to the cost of living, 

 wages kept pace with the goods, and our wives and children 

 dressed better than before. The cost of the absolute necessa- 

 ries of life were also in keeping with woolen and cotton goods. 

 Flour, sugar, rice, coffee, tea, rents all kept pace in the great 

 inflation ; and families indulged not only in the necessaries, but 

 in the luxuries, and everybody had abundance. Never before 

 was there such apparent prosperity. There were no men want- 

 ing work who failed to find it ; and the laborer, even in the 

 most ordinary avocation of life, fixed his own price. 



"Mechanics commanded from three to six dollars a day; 

 common field laborers demanded and realized from two and 

 one half to three dollars; professional men doubled their 



