Milford chronicle., 1903-11-27

day ,oiN
4ily:: one fact TO be LAND tfch,' 'sHea
o.her fact TO be "land poor" Many and
many man has been hurled against Il
financial vail and his business life
squeezed cut in the bankruptcy court
not because he did not own a fortune,
but because BE could not make market-
able at the time the securities he pos
sassed. Many years ago a prominent
railroad man was taking Thanksgiving
dinner at our home in Brooklyn. Dur
ing a wall; that afternoon our guest
made statement which will never
leave MY memory. de Witt" said he
to my father, for they We're old school
friends. If live one year more ! shall
be worth million dollars; if three
years, three millions. But if die
within six molths my estate and in
vestments are in such an inYolved con
dition that l shall be worth practically
nothing" lie died within six months,
and his fears In reference to his estate
were verified. Now, or country has to
be thankful for its blessings gPOgraph
ical during the past year II has also
to be thankful because it has been
blessed induStrially. Never since our
government was founded have there
been greater larvests or a vaster tide
Of transportation west to east and east
to west; never tine when our fac
tories have been so OverwOrECd; never
a time when there has been so much
money to spend and in circulation;
never time when labor has been re-
ceiving so much for its services. So
OvercrOwded are some Of the factories
with orders that. though they may
work night and day, they cannot sup
ply the demand for shoes. gloves, hats,
linen, hosiery and overcoats and UNI
brellas, wagons and automobiles and
all the necessities and luXuries of life.
The only scarcity today in the business
world is the scarcity of men. Work?
There is plenty Of work for every hon
est man capable of doing any mechan-
ical work who is not a shirk. loafer
or an incapable. Today ought we not
to be thankful that every man is able
to earn his bread by the sweat of his
brow-that work. blessed work. is with
in the grasp of all?
Our Industrial Prosperity.
The opportunities Industrial with /
which this Thanksgiving day Of 1908
has been blessed are the more to be /
appreciated because they have for a
dark background the financial panics .
of 1895 and 1895 and 1897. In busi-
ness so extensive and diversified as I
ours there have been losses and perils .
and OminOus disturbances, but we have
survived them. and the general trend
has been prosperous. They tell us that
our laborers receive two and One-half
times as much as those Of England.
three times as much as in France, four
times as much as in Germany, FIVE
times as much as in Russia and six
times as much as in Italy. They tell
us that in some parts Of Europe the
peasants wear wooden shoes and that
there are countries where the wives
and mothers and daughters Of farmers
are sometimes hltched together as cat
tie to drag the plows through the fields.
They tell us that in India capitalist
can hire a clerk or a laborer for 4 cents
q day to work for fourteen long hours.
and upon that cents per day the poor
wretch has to board himself He lives
for the most part upon daily handful
Of rice. and when a time Of scarcity
comes unless charity saves him he
starves to death. But. though foreign
labor may receive but a mere pittance
for its services. some OF US can remem-
Der, during the panic days Of 1896,
when hundreds and thousands Of men
here could not get work at any price.
We remember when at night the floors
Of the Chicago station houses were
with a half starved unkempt
mass Of humanity. striving in every
way to get work and yet unable to find
It. II you have not fathomed any Of
the deep miseries OF those dark years,