222 LAND AND LABOR. 



salaries to their pastors," Then, also, came an imme- 

 diate rise in prices for all that entered into the use 

 and consumption of man. " The common domestic 

 cottons sold for fifty and sixty cents a yard, and wool- 

 en goods doubled, trebled, and quadrupled in value. 

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

 the great advance" and all investments of capital in 

 industrial enterprises paid large dividends ; some even 

 as much as one hundred per cent, per annum. Well 

 might the lecturer exclaim, " What days were these 

 for America and Americans ! " for " never before was 

 there such real prosperity." 



The motive power that produced these results was 

 the labor of the masses, and the incidents of that pe- 

 riod of prosperity followed each other in the exact 

 order here indicated with the immutable certainty of 

 cause and effect. 



Our lecturer further said : "In 1873 the great 

 storm which this unparalleled expansion had been 

 gathering burst upon the country." Here commences 

 the great fallacies into which he, in common with 

 most others, have fallen. The beginning of the storm 

 was not in 1873, nor even its culmination, which is 

 not yet reached. It was upon us in force in 1867, and 

 constantly gained in fury till 1873. It is true that 

 in that year the storm which had been raging for 

 seven years brought down some of our tallest steeples ; 

 this caused the general panic. But previous to the 

 fall of these towers thousands of other structures had 

 been brought to the earth whose foundations were as 

 well laid, and whose edifices were as useful to the so- 

 ciety which surrounded them, as the tallest of the 



