THE SOURCE OF PROSPERITY. 219 



charges, and church committees recommended of their own 

 accord increase of salaries to their pastors. 



" What days were these for America and Americans ! We 

 may well look back upon them with wonder and astonishment! 

 They grew upon us so rapidly that we never stopped to con- 

 sider that they might not always continue. But they had their 

 culmination. In 1873 the great storm which this unparalleled 

 expansion had been gathering burst upon the country, and from 

 that day to this things have been growing worse rather than 

 better." 



In this graphic narration of the great prosperity 

 that so quickly came upon us, one other marked feat- 

 ure of the time might very properly have received 

 special mention, viz. : that never before did all invest- 

 ments of capital in manufactures, transportation, dis- 

 tribution, or other legitimate enterprises, pay so great 

 an interest ; dividends upon actual earnings rarely 

 falling below ten or fifteen, and often exceeding fifty 

 per cent, per annum. 



It will be specially noted that no attempt is made 

 to show the cause of this marvellous "industrial 

 growth and prosperity." It is merely said that it 

 " grew upon us so rapidly that we never stopped to 

 consider." And it is equally true that we have not 

 yet stopped to consider either the cause of this sudden 

 and sweeping " prosperity," or the nearly equal sud- 

 denness, and as wide spread following, of the adversity 

 and distress that "from that day to this have been 

 growing worse rather than better/' No man can be 

 so foolish, and least of all men the one who so well 

 describes the facts of our great "industrial growth 

 and prosperity that would fill many volumes," as for 

 an instant to suppose, or, much more, to say, that 



