Fort Mill times. [volume] (Fort Mill, S.C.) 1892-current, 1908-04-09
MANY OUT OF WORK.
THE LABOR CONDITIONS ARE
MOST DISTRESSING.
thousands OF Wage Farmers Ar,
Thrown Out OF Employment ny
Distressed Industrial Conditions.

Distressed Industrial Conditions.
A Washington Dispatch says the
most serious problem now confront
Ing the country is the unpreced srted
number Of idle work people in every
city OF any considerable size through.
out the land. In New York alone
according to the latest statistics
nearly 100000 are without employ-
ment and with no visible means of
support except what comes through n
precarious sort of charity.
or this number over 100000 are
reported as belonging " The various
labor organizations, the rest being
nonunion work people. The condi-
tion or The laboring class is almost
II not quite. as bad In Chicago
Not city, In fact, either in the
Northern or Central Western states
Is exempt from this anomalous state
or things. Even in the extreme
Northwest there is a surplus of un-
employed labor.
Efforts have been made to relieve
the city Of New York of It's congested
idle working people. but SO far all
enorts have proven futile. Recently
the editor OF the Christian Herald
sent letters to the governors of over
twenty states inquiring II 1t would
he possible to replace unskilled with
skilled labor. and saying that he
could supply two thousand skilled
iaborers at moments notice. With
out single exception. the governors
replied to his letters to che effect
that their states have more idle work
Ing people OF their own than they
could provide with employment.
The situation is frightful, and CON
sidering the enormous crops made
last year and the vast wealth OF the
country, 1t is strangely anomalous.
Added to this general impression In
the business world, by which q mil
lion and half OF work people have
been thrown out OF employment, Is
the fact that the cost of living has
not decreased to any appreciable OK
tent. Such a condition OF things
would seem to be prophetic OF q reign
of terror.
No work and hunger that cannot
be appeased by honest toll make peo-
pie desperate. They are ripe for re-
volution of for anything that will
keep the wolf OF starvation from their
doors. And yet nothing is being
done to relieve the situation. The
thouble Is. what can be done? All
hot te g., nIt l.
innocent h ave to suffer for the wrong
doing of the guilty.
Business heretofore conducted i'm
properly. II not dishonesty. In It's
return to honest channels of output
and trade has left these unemployed
stranded and with nothing to stave
of starvation. They are the suffer
dishonest methods were responsible
for the panic that has wrought such
widespread ruin.
The South, being an agricultural
country. is fortunately exempt in a
large measure from this dreadful con-
dition of labor glut, although in the
larger cities we have more unemploy-
ed p eople that they care to see. 1t Is
possible that the farmers OF the
South. who at this time OF the year
need help. could relieve to some ex-
tent the congestion in other sections
of the country. But the greatest diff
ficulty in the way would be the fact
that the great majority of the unem-
ployed are artisans OF one calling or
another and know probably nothing
about farm work.