They couldn't pay interest on their mortgaged farms, and they were seeking to find "the way out" by issuing paper money, or money from some cheap metal with which they could repudiate their debts.

Banks could not collect their loans, merchants could not get money for their goods, manufacturers were swamped by their pay-rolls and had to discharge their men.

Coxey was raising a great army of idle men to march on Washington and demand that the government should feed and clothe the people.
All my savings had long since gone, and from the high life in the Pie Boarding-House I had descended to my days of bread and water.

All men were in a common misery.

If a hobo managed to get a steak and cook it in the bushes by the railroad track, the smell of it would draw a score of hungry men into the circle of his firelight.