Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1891-02-07
DREAMS OF RICHES
Thousands of Workingmen in Chi.
cago Are Idle.
Roseate Illusions Of the Advantages
TO BE Gained by Migrating TO
the Worlds Fair City.

CHICAGO, H., Jan. 30.--For the mex
two years Chicago will be the Mecca 70
that class which is never satisfied with
its present circumstances, but is alway
looking for some Ell Dorado which viii
change the slow current OF its humdrun
existence to a Niagara of beatific EN-
ployment. Roseate dreams OF the i'm
mense advantages to be gained and th,
large fortunes to be made by an earl,
invasion Of the worlds fair city float il
the visions of thousands, from the dar
ing speculator down to the humber
workman. And in their eager desire t,
b~ first on the scene hundreds are rush
ing in, without any definite plans, anC
whose whole capital has been exhausted
in the effort to succeed. 1t is the old
story over again, though to lesser ex.
tent, of the mad rush to the gold field
of Australia, the Cape of Good Hope and
California, and it will be the old story
Of blighted hopes and wrecked lives.
That it will be bad thing for the city
is certainty, for 1t will overpopulate
it with people who, having nothing to
do, will be burden TO the char.
liable, or who, TO keep body and
soul together. will drift into
crime and fill the jails and the poor
house. Chicago had an experienks o.
this after the fire, when workingmen OF
all trades thought they were necessary
to rebuild the city, and the trains were
crowded with men flocking to place
where their wild ideas pictured fabulous
wages and unlimited work. They for.
get that the supply is limited by the
demand, and that the more laborers
there are looking for work the smaller
are the chances for getting good wages
for that work.
Looking at the situation from that
point OF view, it seems to be right to
raise warning voice and impress upon
the great army of mechanics and other
wage workers who are coming to Chi.
cago the folly of being in hurry, or,
in fact, of coming to the city at all
without some definite aim or certainty
Of employment The real fact OF the
matter is, there are enough mechanics
and laborers in Chicago at the present t
time to build the worlds fair and nearly
everything else that is likely TO be
wanted in connection with il.
There are any number of these men
in the city who are unable to get work,
and who, though honest and respectable
workingmen, are driven TO apply to the
police stations for shelter. At the Har.
rison street station the applicants have
averaged recently between fifty and
sixty night not Of the typical class of
dodgers, for the weather has been too
fine to drive them in, but of decent
men, whose only misfortune is that
they cannot get work. At Desplaines
street also much better class OF lodg-
ers has been noticed, people who are
willing to work, but who could not get
tho opportunity.
Already immigration agents abroad
are painting in glowing colors the
great advantages to be secured in Chi
cago by all classes at the worlds fair
time, and thousands of laborers and
mechanics will be induced to cross the
Atlantic and try their luck. That
this will be disastrous thing to the
city and to the artisans is a certainty,
and instead OF the exposition proving o
blessing it may be curse. If al,
classes will only go slowly there will
undoubtedly be many benefits to be OBJ
tanned by the holding of the fair, but
in the mad rush which is likely to en-.
sue to snatch the plums so many hands
on which IL ban1s~ ~''. -'i'' d. '>'' e'al" 'fiil