When we look into the statistics which seem to
show a general increase of business during the war, we find that
in point of fact this increase was highly specialized. All those
industries that dealt with the physical necessities of life and
all those that dealt peculiarly with armies flourished amazingly.
And yet there is another side to the story, for there were other
industries that were set back and some that almost, if not
entirely, disappeared. A good instance is the manufacture of
cotton cloth. When the war opened, 200,000 hands were employed
in this manufacture in New England. With the sealing up of the
South and the failure of the cotton supply, their work
temporarily ceased. What became of the workmen? Briefly, one of
three things happened: some went into other trades, such as
munitions, in which the war had created an abnormal demand for
labor; a great number of them became soldiers; and many of them
went West and became farmers or miners. Furthermore, many whose
trades were not injured by the war left their jobs and fled
westward to escape conscription. Their places were left open to
be filled by operatives from the injured trades. In one or
another of these ways the laborer who was thrown out of work was
generally able to recover employment.
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