The Good Old Days--They Were Terrible!By: Otto Bettmann The Good Old Dayswere they really good? On the surface they appear to be soespecially the period to which this term is most often applied, the years from the end of the Civil War to the early 1900s. This period of history has receded into a benevolent haze, leaving us with the image of an ebullient, carefree America, the fun and charm of the Gilded Age, the Gay Nineties. But this gaiety was only a brittle veneer that covered