The morning star and Catholic messenger., 1877-02-11
TWO PRINCIPAL CAUSES OF DEPRES
SION
PATENTS AND CITIES THE CURSE OF THE
COUNTRY.

COUNTRY.
Gath," the Washington correspondent
OF the Cincinnati Enquirer, has had an in-
terview with the Hon. j. o. Wbitehouse,
Democratic member of Congress from
Poughkeepsie, New York. Mr.. Whitehouse
is QUO of the largest man anufacturers of shoes
and boots in the country, and even in these
dui! times employs over six hundred
hands, men ard women. He owns some OF
the best property at Poughkeepsie and is
thoroughly familiar with banking, pro.
duction, legislation ard machinery:
THE CAUSE OF OUR DEPRESSION.
"'The cauee of the continued depression
of thrngs in this country, and to q relative
degree throughout the world" said Mr.
Whitehouse, sis the revolution in liviEg.
brought about by patent machinery, aud
the accumulation of people i'll towns and
cities"
"These are parts of the same thing" said I.
"They are. The manufactures aud
trade made the towns. They grew by the
influx of people from the farms and foreign
parts, until the Eastern and Middle States
were at standstili in all but the towns.
The war and speculative spirit gave an
immense impettfs to all kinds of building,
particularly houses, conveniences, civic
their way, the inventive spirit was expand
ed, and we can now manufacture far more
than we consume. We are glutted by the
accumulation of goods, and the workmen
replaced by the genius of invention"
/ asked him if that was our whole trOu-
BILE. He said:
at is our great trouble. The remedy
for it is to thin out the cities and the man :
featuring partI. We can do nothing
against the Inventive proper sity either by
laws or counsel. Bat the East Is not as
we'll off as the West. We must have more
sailors, miners, and hunters. l am satisfied
tEat politics can do nothing for our surplus
p pppnIaton IN all the New Euglaud and
Middle StatC0."
THE TOWNS DEvOURING THE COUNTRY.
Dir. Whtehouse then stated as general
proposition that in twenty years thete had
been no increase Of farmers aud farm labor
in the Eastern and Middle States, and he
gave the following exemplfcation of the
fact:
a. The State of New York has seventy
one manufacturing and trading cities and
towns. They had a population in 1850 of
/ ,169, ,4O4 persons. By the year 1870 they
had increased to ,262 Alb, Thus in tweuty
years the urban, man ufacturiDg population
had grown l ll3 O09. And in the same
period of twenty years the whole of the re-
mainder of the States population had only
grown l72 356 sonls. The towns and cities
were eating up the country. Aud if you
put into that list of seventy one places
other manufacturing boroughs and villages
which 1 have not considered, may say that
| there has been no rural growth whatever
in twenty years!"
50 God made the country, and it stays
where it was. Man goes on making the
towns, How is it elsewhere ~
lit is worse in New England. Take
M3EsacInpattS. | her
six t0wns have increased SS per cert and
her rural parts only per cent. III popuia-
ton. There are bat 81, ,l96 people more in
the county parts of Massachusetts than
tGGve were in 1850. In New York State
the percentage OF growth is 95 per cent. for
the to|Ls aud pei cent. for all the remain
der OF TIE State"
lis not Vermpnt au tx 'apIiDn, wheri,
the agricultural interest appears to be
p G;auOuntR ~
No. Her eighteen towns have 81 :}75
pe0pie mJre than in 1850, while ihele are
fewer people in the remainder Of the State
by Ia 9G4 The rural decrease Is 5 per cent.
and the town increase 7G per cent. IN tweOty
years"
These figures were staggering, and he
made them more 80.
Sir" he said, "take nine States, six in
New England, and the States of New York,
Pannsylvania and New Jersey. There are
297 cities and mani nnfacturing towns in these
nine States. They have increased 2.6I8,-
667 souls in twenty years, or prior to 1870.
They have increased 81 per cent. But look
at the country parts, or all of that vast
territory outside of 297 towns. There the
increase is only - per cent. or, in persons,
| O53 OLA human beings. There is posi-
tive decrease Of 8 per cent. in the rural
population of New Hampshire, while her
iIiVe towns have grown 76 per cent. 1t is
only l2 per cent. in Connecticut of rural
increase, and that State has more than
double her rural population. New Jersey
has grown 300, ,JI4 in her thirty three
towns, ard only Il6 G27 in all tho TEST of
the State These fgures, he said, had
been carefully coilated from the census.
He then went into the
EFFECT OF PATENTS ON PRODUCTION.
"Tla effect of patents to ncutralize the
labor of human beings rlust have been
| tremendous in the past ten years. The
worst of it was that oil the ingenuity came
into comnatiti"~ "iCh labor just after the
war, when we were overstocked with peo-
pie IN the towns, collected there in response
to war market. Can You guess how