The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1891-02-06
DREAMS OF RICHES
Thousands of Workingmen in Chi
cago Are Idle.
Roseate illusions of tho Advantages
to Be Gained by Migrating to
the Worlds Fair City.

CHICAGO, ILL.,, Jan. 30.--For the next
two years Chicago will be the Mecca for
that class which is never satisfied with
its present circumstances. but is always
looking for some Ell Dorado which will
change the slow current of its humdrum
existence to a Niagara of beatific en-
ploymenS Roseate dreams OF the inn
mense advantages to be gained and tho
large fortunes to be made by an early
invasion OF the worlds :air city float in
the visions OF thousands, isom the dar-
ing speculator down to the humb. r
workman. And in their eager desire to
be first on the scene hundreds are rash-
ing in, without any definite plans, ana
whose whole capital has been exhausted
in tho effort to succeed. 1t is the old
story over again, though to lesser ex-
tent, OF the mad rush to the gold fields
of Australia, the Cape of Good Hope and
California, and it will be the old story
Of bkghted hopes and wrecked lives.
That it will be bad thing for tho city
is q certainty, for it will overpopulate
1t 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 experience of
this after the fire. when workingmen OF
all trades thought they were necessary
to rebuild tho city, and the trains were
crowded with men focking to a place
whore 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
time to build the worlds fair and nearly
everything else that is likely to be
wanted In connection with it.
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 Desplaincs
street also much better class OF lodg-
ers has been noticed, people who are
willing to work, but who could not get
the 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 tho
Atlantic and try their luck That
this will be q disastrous thing to the
city and to the artisans is certainty,
and instead of the exposition proving a
blessing it may be curse. If all
classes will only 20 slowly there will
undoubtedly be many benefits to be OBJ
tained by the holding of the fair, but
in the mad rush which is likely to en-
sue to snatch the plums SO many hands
will be stretched out that not only will
the fruit he destroyed, but the branch
on which 1T hangs.