Page:Adolph Douai - Better Times (1877).djvu/5



ETTER TIMES! When will better times come? How can we bring them about? These are questions which agitate the mind of everybody. They have been answered in very different manner; yet to no avail. Times, instead of improving, grow worse. Hundreds of thousands have lost or are losing their dearly gotten property; as many more of the middle-class are hardly earning their expenses, and are growing poorer; a million or more of workingmen are out of work, and many of them have been so for years; many others expect to be so any day; many more work only on half-time, but all at greatly reduced wages. Cases of starvation are reported all over our country; suicides were never so frequent; crimes are being committed in the hope of finding food and a home in some prison; beggary, which formerly was almost unknown in this land of plenty, is a constantly growing evil; the number of persons who receive public charity has in some of our states increased tenfold within a dozen years, and is on the increase everywhere, while the spirit of benevolence is visibly on the wane, and gloom or despair is taking hold of the masses of the workers and driving them, in some places to riotous proceedings, even to bloodshed and plunder.

What is the cause of all this? We must know the cause, if we are to find the remedy. Some say it is depreciation of our currency; on the contrary, others say, it is that we have not greenbacks enough. Some will have it that our protective policy is the cause, and others, that our duties are not high enough. Some find the fault with the Republican party, others with the Democratic party, and others again charge several, or all of these agencies with the blame; or name still other causes.

We need not investigate how far, or, if any one of these