No man can imagine, all the languages of the world cannot express, what
the people of the United States suffered from 1873 to 1879. Men who
considered themselves millionaires found that they were beggars; men
living in palaces, supposing they had enough to give sunshine to the
winter of their age, supposing they had enough to have all they loved
in affluence and comfort, suddenly found that they were mendicants with
bonds, stocks, mortgages, all turned to ashes in their aged, trembling
hands.
The chimneys grew cold, the fires in furnaces went out, the poor
families were turned adrift, and the highways of the United States were
crowded with tramps. Into the home of the poor crept the serpent of
temptation, and whispered in the ear of poverty the terrible word
"repudiation."