In feverish eagerness the boys spent their time wandering from shop to shop, from work to works, making short stays, frequently of only one or two weeks, in search of the new El Dorado. Indentures were thrown to the winds; places where useful trades could be learned were left behind; entreaties of employers were rejected; parents were often treated with indifference. The persistence with which the boys took up the trail to the great machine shops and to the great national factories or to any other place where the processes were repetitive and the contracts ran into millions, can be compared almost to the rush to the Klondyke....

Fearful that such large earnings would only be temporary, they apparently determined to make hay while the sun shone. They began to assume the independence which their comparatively large incomes seemed to justify. They sometimes became reckless, spendthrift and extravagant. The gambling instinct was kindled, the longing for adventure became acute. The boys became restless and unstable in the works. Avarice begat avarice, until, in some cases, the boys set such a value on their labor as to make them appear almost ridiculous.[249]

Even certain labor organizations, which are generally bitterly opposed to all such plans, advocated attention to schemes of compulsory saving or deferred payment, as a means of preventing the waste of abnormally high wages.[250]