People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 July 1893 — A DISMAL OUTLOOK. [ARTICLE]

A DISMAL OUTLOOK.

Am Ei’Jaaperlie Tells JK tbe (•edition of Ike Werh> ln<men of CokirMkh An from Denver, Colo., to his brother in Rensselaer, gives the following report of the condition of affairs in Colorado as he finds it front actual experience? Dear Brotßbil: This is a black time for Colorado, and what is worse the clouds that overhang the horizon threaten to get lower and stronger. By the shtitdtlg Of smelters and ndines; and thh ciittlttg Of forces by railroad companies between 75,0 d() ahd itJOjOOO ineh arb thrown but of erijpldyment, afid aS I £ass along the street (for I am not at work either) I see from two to six working men on every corner. Last week I was in the Boulder valley (thirty miles distant) to get work at haying. I found plenty of hay and more plenty of men; in fact they were most plenty. Every place we heard the same story, viz., “so many mines and prospectors have come from the mountains that there are more men than work.” I have heard from all parts of the state and the news is just the same. I have done one day’sOwork since the 3rd inst., and that was strawberry picking yesterday, and I and a friend slept “out” within two miles of the patch or we wouldn’t have got that. But that kind of work is done, too. Some may wonder how silver mining affects the western states so disastrously. A large number of the mines produce both gold and silver, and if silver is worth nothing so much of the work goes for naught. The goldbug papers say, “Now is the time for Colorado to develop her agricultural resources.” That is just like the man after having his pork stolen, who said, “Well, now I shall live on beef” but didn’t have the wherewithal to purchase the beef. The people of this state havn’t the “wherewithal” to develope the corn and wheat resources of the state. Before the above resources can be developed irrigation ditches too numerous to mention must be built and water costs 4(200 per season for one hundred inches of water. The present silver crisis has set hundreds of men to “counting ties” some to tramping the dusty highways and others to standing on the street corners and sleeping with trees or sky for comforts. At the Depver hay markket, one day last week, one man asked a dozen farmers for work and got none. One of the farmers said to him, °I don’t want a hand, but I do want to know your price per day. ” The wouldbe laborer said 11.25 per day and board. The farmet said “you will not get it this year, and only yesterday thirty men were at my house asking for work. Some offered to work at a dollar a day, some for 75 cents and some for 50 cents, while some pleaded with tears in their eyes for work in order to support themselves and their dear ones at home.”