Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
Another indication of the general prosperity of the country is found in the
fact that the number of depositors in savings banks increased from 693,870
in 1860 to 4,258,893 in 1890, an increase of 513 per cent, and the amount
of deposits from $149,277,504 in 1860 to $1,524,844,506 in 1890, an
increase of 921 per cent. In 1891 the amount of deposits in savings banks
was $1,623,079,749. It is estimated that 90 per cent of these deposits
represent the savings of wage earners. The bank clearances for nine months
ending September 30, 1891, amounted to $41,049,390,08. For the same months
in 1892 they amounted to $45,189,601,947, an excess for the nine months of
$4,140,211,139.
There never has been a time in our history when work was so abundant or
when wages were as high, whether measured by the currency in which they are
paid or by their power to supply the necessaries and comforts of life. It
is true that the market prices of cotton and wheat have been low. It is one
of the unfavorable incidents of agriculture that the farmer can not produce
upon orders. He must sow and reap in ignorance of the aggregate production
of the year, and is peculiarly subject to the depreciation which follows
overproduction. But while the fact I have stated is true as to the crops
mentioned, the general average of prices has been such as to give to
agriculture a fair participation in the general prosperity. The value of
our total farm products has increased from $1,363,646,866 in 1860 to
$4,500,000,000 in 1891, as estimated by statisticians, an increase of 230
per cent. The number of hogs January 1, 1891, was 50,625,106 and their
value $210,193,925; on January 1, 1892, the number was 52,398,019 and the
value $241,031,415. On January 1, 1891, the number of cattle was 36,875,648
and the value $544,127,908; on January 1 ,1892, the number was 37,651,239
and the value $570,749,155.
If any are discontented with their state here, if any believe that wages or
prices, the returns for honest toil, are inadequate, they should not fail
to remember that there is no other country in the world where the
conditions that seem to them hard would not be accepted as highly
prosperous. The English agriculturist would be glad to exchange the returns
of his labor for those of the American farmer and the Manchester workmen
their wages for those of their fellows at Fall River.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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