The Yellowstone journal. [volume] (Miles City, Mont.) 1893-1901, 1893-12-30
Saturday. December 30. 1893.
THE LESSON OF THE YEAR.

The impartial and philosophical OBJ
server of events. as he sits down Ia
chronicle the things that have been.
must hi justice To the departing year.
admit that il was mot wholly ore If dis
aster. for. while for u few months the
whole country was wrackcd with a tinan-
cial epilepsy. tine Ike OF which no living
man remembers ana though today all
are poorer in the worlds goods thar
when the year now dying. burst upon us.
full of happy a~nticipations for thefutnrc.
still those who have the intelligence 10
look backward from effect to cause have
not lived this year iii vain. These have
learned a great and lasting lesson from
that greatest and most effective of teach
ers-Experience. They have learned
that Extravaganza and Poverty go al
most hand in hand. led heedlessiy on
ward by that will o the wisp" the
world calls Credit. whose existence is so
ephemeral that the eager hand rarely.
. if ever grasps il. though lured by its
diif Inn al IL q
gerous gsound. Some tinancier has said
that Crtiit is the bridge over which all
tho bus ness o. the world is carried-but
the experience Of the past six months
has TIA aght countless thousands of men
that a business that does not too far
oyerlIang the true foundation of capital
is worth. year in and year out. more than
one Of many times its volume that has
to be trundled backward and forward
over the bridge of credit. paying toll in
the shape of interest at every turn.
Whatever of calamity and disaster Old
1893 may be accountable for. and in
truth the account is heavy. let the old
wreck be credited with this one thing:
That he has taught us to wear old
clothes when we could not honestly af-
ford to buy new. That he has shown us
the folly of irving to keep socially
abreast of those whose incomes were
larger than our own and who under the
same p Ii that impelled all alike. were
trying to rival their superiors in wealth.
AA"tt IL IiaS "it't " u iii'Et W.
zeal conclusion that a man with 5000
capital cannot safely do a business of
$l0O.0Go a year. and that he has at last
made il clear to the most purblind that
though credit is easy and money plenty.
no one loans without expecting payment
of both principal and interest. and that
the day of settlement. however long de
ferred. must come in the end. and when.
as in the past summer all want settle
ment at once. then it the legal coin of
the realm is not Forthcoming. the pound
of flesh must be.
1t is but beating old straw to say that
nine-tenths of the enterprising citizens
of this county who today are broke
can lay their financial disaster to the
ease with which they could borrow
money. Men who IA year ago were in
what the future might bring. are today
bankrupt because the approach TO the
Bridge of Credit was open. easy and
alluring. Had the gates been closed to
them, there would be no distress in the
households today. and no anxiety for the
future. The lesson has been roughly
demonstrated. but if it is thoroughly
learned. it is learned cheaply. for what
industry and enterprise has done. it can
do again. and property, though coy, will
return and lend her cheerful presence to
the scene. Then let the maledictions
that may be showered on the fading
form of the dying year. be tempered
all this evil has come some lasting good
to all who are wise enough TO apply it.