Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1878-10-03


depreciation in values. But does
some one say. my neignbor has made
money and accumulated property. |
am not as we'll off to-day as | was five
years ago, or ten years ago Not so,
my friend ! As rule you have all
made money. The distinction is that
your neighbor has saved something,
while you perhaps have spent all, or
lost all In attempting to combine too
many branches OF business sometimes
perchance in an attempt ut speculation,
"uyln5 worthless patent and giving
your note for it, or in some other way
attempting to grow rich sud Ieml J, for
5ettul ot the old maxim 1.-The more
taste. the less speed. y 1t is all wrong,
Is unjust to charge your miSfortunes
to agriculture, or the contraction of
the currency, or the extortions Of mid
die men, or anything else OF this kind
As an indication of the changed con
dltlon OF affairs and explanatory of
the fact that We are more l;be, al in our
expenditures now than We were sumo
years ago and that the lizard times
SO called are more the result ST incrcas
ed disbursements than decreased in
come, take this item clipped from the
Polk County Press Of September II,
1878:
1T is safe to say that 4, 600 people
from the St. Croix valley, visited the
State Fair at st. Paul, last week At
an average cost to each person of S15 :
90, the amount expended for this lux,
ury would aggregate $50, 600. This
does not inciu lie the amount that the
pickpockets took. y
do not say that this expenditure
was not wise, but | may be permitted
to say that it seems little incongruous
to claim that section OF country that
can spend $50, 600 in cash for attend
ing State Fair is in the last throes of
financial dissolution.
Admit that John Doe has and can
prosper at farming, at numbering or
merchandising, and there remains no
reason why Richard Roe may not also
prosper i'll the same business, and
insist upon it that the great majority
have prospered. You have improved
your farms, increased your stock, add
ed to your buildings, bought new and
better tools and machinery, have built
roads and bridges, churches and school
houses--and if there is any good rea
son why you should not be happy and
contented as ever you were, or as the
average mortal ever can be, | should
like to know it.
Whosoever will hold out his hand
to every fortune teller that may chance
to come along, or run after every peri
patetic doctor that inficts himself upon
community, or will read all the ad-
vertisements of the patent medicine
men, and accept and act upon all they
say, ought not to be surprised when he
finds himself beginning to believe that
himself and his family are great inva-
lids, and that the chief end Of man is
to furnish material for hospitals and
graveyards
l presume you have hoard of such
pcople-possibly may have seen some
they are always little out of sorts
yesterday the liver was too torpid or
too active the day before the spleen
was gorged, or the blood was out of
order, or the stomach was misplaced
everlastingly complaining and seeming
to take "A sort of doleful satisfaction in
nursing and recording every twinge of
pain. How qnacks and pretenders do
thrive and fatten upon such patients
The possible ailments they have are
magnified thousand fold, their ambi-
ton to be great sufferers is judiciously
nursed and fattered until the ten dol
lars. or possibly. twenty-five dollars
consultation fec and liberal sum for
worthless. if not injurious, medicine is
most cheerfully paid. The picture is
not overdrawn, nor is it altogether an
inapt illustration of 1.-THE times, :" for
too many of us have grown to be
chronic grumblers and dose ourselves
with every prescription prepared by
1t is most singular and anomalous
condition Of affairs that with money
never before so abundant or so widely
distributed, eagerly seeking investment
at the rate of nearly million of dol
lars per day in four per cent bonds,
that we should hear the cry of ''hard
times depression in business and lack
Of employment. [ don't pretend to
know all the why's and wherefores of
this condition of affairs but do know
that many of the proposed theories
fail to explain the facts, and that many
of the proposed remedies will only az
gravate the symptoms. There is no
fallacy more common in the discussions
Of the problems in social science than
that which accepts succession for effect.
It is however none the less the very
shallowest kind of false reasoning.
Let me illustrate.
1t has been argued thot labor saving
machinery is responsible for the hard
times, and with zeal not according to
knowledge, some of the more advanc-
ed advocates Of this theory have com.
menced the work of reform by des-
troying various kinds of improved
farm machinery
They are most profound reasoners.
This is the argument
In the last ten years labor saving
machinery has doubled Business of
all kinds is more depressed now than
it was ten years ago. Therefore, the