The Late Commercial Crisis [pp. 100-126]

THE LATE COMMERCIAL CRISIS.
to specify, came to light at the beginning and during the course
of the panic, with very much the same effect as tornadoes rising
upon a Chicago fire.
Interlocked with the foregoing, partly as cause and partly as
effect,-at all events intensifying them,-are the land speculations, stimulated by new railroad lines and centres, and the
immense recent growth of cities, consequent upon this, as compared with the rural population.
We have thus set forth the causes which urged and precipitated a panic of unmatched severity. We will now consider
for a moment, 1, The calamities proceeding from these causes
as they must have operated, had they produced no panic;
2, The superadded destruction and misery induced solely by the
effects of this superadded panic.
1. It was an inevitable result that many railroads, partly built,
should remain so for a long time to come; that the enlargements
and improvements, even of the oldest and most lucrative, should
be checked, if not stopped for a time; that re'pairs and outlays
of every kind upon them should for the time be reduced to the
lowest practicable point; that the business and income of the
best should for the time suffer whatever diminution might be
caused by the general decline of business and travel in the
country; that there should be a serious falling off in the revenues of the multitudes of persons dependent on income from
railway securities and debentures, or from moneys and credits
rendered unavailable by the suspension of so many houses whose
debts counted by millions and tens of millions; that the immense manufactures of locomotive engines, cars, iron rails, and
supplies of every kind for railways, should for the time suffer
enormous shrinkage or complete suspension; that the vast iron,
coal, and other mining business requisite for this and other great
industries now depressed, should suffer a sudden and disastrous
check.
Thus we have already a formidable array of persons thrown
out of their wonted employments and revenues, and so disabled
from procutring their customary supplies of the products of other
branches of industry. This in turn cripples these other employments, and lessens the demand for the labor, and thus the
earnings of other operatives and laborers. So the depressing
influence of the prostration of one great interest is endlessly
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[January,