Labor Problems. by Gordon S. WatkinsReview by: Walter T. WatsonAmerican Journal of Sociology, Vol. 36, No. 3 (Nov., 1930), pp. 478-480Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2767288 .

Accessed: 21/12/2014 13:22

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access toAmerican Journal of Sociology.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Sun, 21 Dec 2014 13:22:34 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

478 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

The practicability of such a neighborhood unit from the economic point of view is given careful consideration in the third monograph in connec- tion with the discussion of the economics of land subdivision. According to Mr. Whitten, the neighborhood unit plan is a much more economical form of land subdivision than is the usual rectangular subdivision with standard street and block sizes. The street improvement cost per lot in the standard plan is 76 per cent greater than in the neighborhood plan. More- over in the neighborhood layout, considerable land that is customarily used for streets can be devoted to parks or playgrounds, and this reduced width and number of streets would not bring about any appreciable loss of circulation facility.

Another advantage which is possible in the neighborhood unit is the in- creased amount of sunlight that can be made available for dwellings when such factors as the direction of streets and the orientation of buildings are given proper consideration. In the second monograph the problem of sun- light for urban residential sections is carefully discussed and minimum standards are worked out which are shown to be feasible provided this matter is not neglected when making plans for the development of unbuilt areas.

Whether or not it is possible to develop neighborliness among city dwellers by providing a physical layout adapted for this purpose, there can be no doubt that the neighborhood plan of land subdivision described in this volume would add a great deal to the comfort and well being of those living in such well-planned districts. The so-called garden city enterprises and other experiments with new residential developments have proceeded far enough to demonstrate what can be accomplished through intelligent planning of unbuilt areas. But this still leaves unsolved the problem of cities already built up and encumbered with a physical structure that can- not without enormous expense be modified to meet the requirements of the present age.

The entire volume gives evidence of painstaking and scholarly work, contains much information about problems of city building gathered from many sources, and is well illustrated with photographs, maps, and plans. It is a book of real interest to both community organizers and city planners.

J. F. STEINER TULANE UNIVERSITY

Labor Problems. By GORDON S. WATKINS. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1929. PP. xvi+726. $3.50. "Fifteen million persons participated in strikes in United States be-

tween I 9I 6 and I92 7." "On an average at least a million and a half indus-

This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Sun, 21 Dec 2014 13:22:34 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

BOOK REVIEWS 479

trial wage-earners in United States are constantly unemployed, taking poor and prosperous years together." "More than 23,000 fatal accidents occur annually in American industry-twice as many proportionately as in any other country in the world." "The earnings of child workers in United States average about three dollars a week." "Of more than 5,ooo,oo0 Americans above the age of sixty-five, 4,ooo,ooo have not ac- cumulated sufficient income to provide the barest necessities."

To the reader familiar with studies in the labor field, there is nothing new in these statements. Viewed as independent and isolated facts there may be nothing challenging in them. But when the list is indefinitely ex- tended and runs the interesting gamut from accidents, blind-alley occupa- tions, Canadian commuters, and division of labor, through Henry Ford, I.W.W., and Japanese, to socialism, turnover, urbanization, visiting nurses, walking delegates, and yellow-dog contracts, the reader is literally com- pelled to stop, look, and, if he be prepared to listen, to weigh carefully Pro- fessor Watkins' sobering conclusions: "At no time in the history of mod- ern capitalism has there been greater danger of developing machine tech- nology regardless of its immediate effect upon the workers than today."

But Professor Watkins in Labor Problems (first printing of revised edi- tion, eighth printing in all) has done more than comb the records, mass data, marshal competing points of view, and leap at conclusions. He has painstakingly classified his facts either as "survey of labor problems" or "approaches to a solution," and has thrown them clearly against a kaleido- scopic, old-world background, an emergent factory system in America, and the so-called "new industrial revolution" now in progress in United States, and the occasion for rewriting his earlier (I922) Introduction to the Study of Labor Problems. Moreover, he has done all this so well that Labor Problems seems destined once more to pre-empt the field. Yet, somehow, the work falls short of the mark, and the reviewer is tempted to say, "As text in labor economics, 'Yes'; as syllabus or even as student ref- erence for a course in-say-the sociology of the industrial worker, 'No.'"

One feels that the author does not penetrate beyond externals; that "conditions," "factors," and social history do not tell the real story; that significant leads are ignored; that the trail of Durkheim, Cooley, Parker, Williams, Hiller-even Anderson, Zorbaugh, Atkins and Lasswell, Yoder, Donovan-might, if followed, yield a more tangible and searching concep- tion of the labor problem than Professor Watkins has given, i.e., "larger problem of progressively improving the standard of life for the mass" by attacking "those negative conditions ('pathological conditions') in indus- try that hinder the fulfillment of a larger life." To the reviewer it would seem that progressive overcoming of "conditions" might involve progres-

This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Sun, 21 Dec 2014 13:22:34 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

480 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

sive worlds of misery for it is definition of things, as well as things them- selves, that is finally decisive.

There is a group of assumptions (sometimes, be it said, specifically con- tradicted, sometimes merely quoted, but none the less definitely incorpo- rated in the text) which concern the "invasion of the machine" and the dis- satisfaction of the worker. The point seems to be that the machine-feeder becomes ipso facto a machine because he tends one, the extent of the "re- duction" of the worker's personality varying directly with the minuteness of his task and the amount of routine and repetition required. But there are, on one hand, too many dissatisfied "craftsmen" (who make all of a thing) and, on the other, too many contented machine workers (who make part of a thing) to clinch the argument. Moreover, artists, bankers, and professional men find life stale and objectless at times. There is, it may be added, no monotonous "specialization" (p. 582) or monotonous "work" (pp. 89, 590), and a moment's reflection will show that "routine" (pp. i i i, II4, 231, 270, 298) and "monotony" are never synonymous terms. Work is monotonous or the opposite to a worker, but the occupation (p. 246) it- self is never inherently monotonous or inherently interesting.

What, after these severely critical statements, is the significance of Labor Problems and how would a sociologist use it? Perhaps the answer is that the book belongs in the library of the overworked professor who, confronted with the daily problem of accumulating scattered materials, alternated economics, law, and labor history, with sociology, hating him- self for being cast between the Scylla devil of meeting his class and the Charybdis sea of straying from his field; yet profoundly grateful, the while, to Professor Watkins for the most inclusive and illuminating list of short historical summaries, challenging facts, and convenient bibliogra- phies which the labor problem literature affords.

WALTER T. WATSON SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY

Labor and Capital in National Politics. By HARWOOD LAWRENCE CHILDS. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, I930. PPI. Xiii+286.

It used to be the orthodox belief that lobbying was a thoroughly vicious form of behavior, to be controlled by statutory regulations or frightened out of existence by political homiletics. Only recently have we begun to realize that such powerful groups as the Chamber of Commerce and the American Federation of Labor are an integral part of the political order,

This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Sun, 21 Dec 2014 13:22:34 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions