Year: 1873




tton-Rsw the Crisis shssla Ne Met.


The communications published in to-day's
HERAI.D from various quarters in relation to
the financial and business situation are not of
an encouraging character. From Oswego we
learn that there is general disarrangement
of business in that locality; that some fail
ures have taken place that there has been
reduction of operatives in the large houses,
and that great suffering in the approaching
winter is anticipated in consequence. In
Philadelphia, we are told, thirty-two thou
sand workingmen are thrown out of employ
ment while business generally is paralyzed
and it is uncertain where the trouble may
STOP At Hornellsville the factories have
already placed their hands upon one-quarter
| time, with a reduction of wages, and the
stringency is so severely felt that still further


trouble may be anticipated. In Pittsburg
| and Altoona reduction of the force of all
| the principal factories has been made and
many persons have thus been thrown out of
employment Much distress is reported to
prevail in Alabama, and the South generally
is known to be suffering severely from the
effects of the recent stringency. From
Rhode Island the report is no more
encouraging and the winter sets in
with every prospect of hard time
for the poor man all over the United States.
In New York we already see that much suffer-
ing exists, and this will no doubt be aggra-
waited as the season ADVANCES. We are likely
to have many thousands of men lying idle,
unable to earn subsistence for their families,
and relying upon public charity for their sup
port If charity should fail them, as it too
frequently does, they will be driven to CRIME
and hence we are likely to find the criminal
records, as well as the pauper records, increase
largely during the early months of the ap-
preaching winter.


These are stern facts, and we are bound to
look them squarely in the face. We cannot
drive off the inevitable distress that must fol-
low in the wake of the recent financial disas-
ters by simply closing our eyes and refusing
to see it. When our financial troubles first
commenced with the explosion of some of the
most impudent of the buchu banking bubbles
and the suspension of some of the most pre-
tentious OF the buchu operators we did our
best to confne the panic to the class with
which it originated and which was the
most directly responsible for its occur
renee. But the spirit which had given
success to these charlatans had, unfor-
tunately, spread into our more legitimate
business circles, and it soon became evident
that the mischief could not be confined within
such circumscribed limits. The passion for
large and rapidly accumulated fortunes which |
grew out of the corruptions of the war times |
had rendered our merchants and manufac- |
turers discontented with the steady profits of a |
legitimate business and had induced them to |
rush madly on in the career Of debt and |
speculation. Houses which had been re- |
garded as among the frmest and steadiest in |
the world fell to pieces, and now we see
factory after factory closing its doors
or cutting down its force, and the stiffness
of death falls upon much Of that
machinery whose din is the sweet voice of
hope to thousands Of families in every section
of the Union. As the financial trouble has
spread beyond the purely speculative circles
into the legitimate business Of the country it
would be as reprehensible now to ignore its
reality as it would have been reprehensible
before to aid in its extension. We cannot |
avert disaster by persuading ourselves and en-
deavoring to persuade others that it does not
exist. We might to-day assert that the |
failures Of the Spragues is only tenn
porary calamity; that the difficulties of
the Clafins can be easily overcome that the
stoppage of manufactures in this State, in
mere bagatelle; but the keen frost of winter
will soon be upon Us, and freezing, starving
thousands would soon give our words the lie.


We must prepare ourselves for want among
large portion Of our population; probably
for hard times and privatons more or less
severe for much larger class. These are
penalties which we shall be called upon to
pay for the sins OF avarice, pride and false
hood. We have been living beyond our
means, claiming for ourselves wealth we
have not possessed, and seeking to impose
upon the world by false pretences. Many
of our merchant princes, as they have
delighted to be called, have been
as arrant frauds as our buchu bankers, our
buchu stock -jobbers and our buchu railroad
kings. They have been trading upon fcti-
tious capital, and while plunging madly into
debt have been swallowing up in extravagant
living more money than they could hope to
realize out of the largest profits. 1t was as
inevitable that an end should come to all this
false show as that the counterfeiter or forger
should at last be detected in his crimes A
sound and wholesome credit is the soul Of
business No country could be great
and prosperous without it. If we were
to cripple trade to actual capital we
should destroy the commerce Of the world.
But credit, to be safe and legitimate, must bear