Year: 1876

WORD TO OHIO.


If the people of OHIO and of the West
ern States in general could but know
how much harder we of the East suffer
than they do, from the pinching of hard
times, they would certainly cease to
envy US, and possibly might pity u.s.
Because we have protested against their
plan of curing imitation with initiation
and remedying depreciation with depre-
citation, they need not think we are lying
on a bed of roses. We can tell them
that our condition at the East is far
worse than theirs. The great CONNER
cial, manufacturing, and financial inter
ests on this side of the Alleghanies re-
main still in the shock and palsy of the
panic of September, 1873, while the
great agricultural West is already well
along on the right road to recovery. AS
long ago as the year 1868, the people of
Ohio began to mend their condition. 1t
was abont that time they were made
aware that in some way uninaginabIe to
most of them they had got rid Of a good
part of that superabundant currency
that had made times so flush before, and
got rid, besides, of all their surplus
crops of one third of their cattle, and
still were owning more than they could
pay; in short, that instead OF being rich,
as they had fondIy believed, they were,
in fact, poor. Dearth and debt were
upon them in naked and hard reality.
Recognizing this, the Ohio farmers began
to turn from the evil of their ways
and those illusions of wealth that had
cheated them long, and betOok them, in
their own manly way-they and their
sons and hired men-to delving and
saving. And now for seven good years
they have been recovering by hard work
and close saving, what in the seven
years that went before was lost by lux
ury and ease sometimes caused by indo-
lence and waste


With us of the East, unhappily, the
case has been quite different. Our older
communities, stronger in accumulated
capital than those of the West, were
able to hold out five years longer than
they, only to come down in the end by
a harder fall. 1t was not until the
'panic" of 1878 came, that we began to
realiza our true condition. 1t is hardly
yet revealed to us. The two years and
more that have elapsed since then have
on:y partly developed it, and done little
if anything toward remedying it, The
most hopeful are respondent, and the
wisest are the most doubtful, and all
are asking one another: "Where will
all this end, and when will il stop! We
have not even the satisfaction OF kno y
ing that we have touched bottom"
But Ohio touched bottom seven years
ago. So much the better for her. Her
people had only seven years OF untlirift
to atone for; we have twelve. During
seven years at most the illusion lasted
which hls cheated the whole country of
its substance while showing it a shadow;
during twelve years that illusion lasted
here; aud whereas Ohio has already
gone seven years journey ON the road
to solvency and prosperity, most of the
Eastern States have yes to take the first
step in that direction


The statistical report of Ohio for the
year 1858 shows that i'll the year 1867 the
productive industry Of the State had
fallen to its lowest point And every
body will remember that it was in 1868
that the people there sent up TO heaven
that loud cry for "nore greenbacks"-a
cry wrung from them by the pressure of
poverty and debt that for TIE first time
realized by their senses. and for which,
Irrational as it was, they must not be
blamed, since the cheating Republican
device that had plundered them was too
cunning for the common mind at once
TO detect. At thar time they had almost
ceased to clear up forest land 10 make
farms for the growing popn!ation, as
before the war they had been acciIs-
toned - DO TO the extent of 800 009
acres yearly. Fields were in bad tilth,
barns and cribs were empty, buildings
and fences in decay, cattle enormously
reduced in numbers, and nearly an the
money ''gone East" to pay debts. From
that date, however, things began to
mend, and seven years then ending, that
bad been made TO seein so fat, have been
followed by seven Others that have been
really so.


The people of Ohio went to work.
Not in single year could they get back
in'o the old ways, but in that year, 1865,
they made famous beginning. lt must
be admitted they ceased not to complain
the while. In the sweat of their brows
they called on Greenbacks for help, but
while invoking that Hercules OF finance,