Book Reviews : Last Man In: Racial Access to Union Power. By SCOTT GREER. (Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1959. Pp. 189. $4.00.)

• DOI: 10.1177/106591296001300325
• Author: Bernard Hennessy
• Published date: 01 September 1960
• Date: 01 September 1960
• Subject Matter: Articles

811

theories

of

international

relations.

These

innovations

should

be

encouraged

because

they

draw

attention

to

fundamental

questions

concerning

both

the

tasks

and

nature

of

international

relations

as

an

organized

study

and

the

charac-

ter

of

the

subject-matter

phenomena.

The

Fox

volume

is

a

welcome

addition

to

the

literature

and

it

will

have

a

useful

place

among

other

books

yet

to

come

in

this

emerging

specialty.

CHARLES

A.

MCCLELLAND

San

Francisco

State

College

Last

Man

In:

Racial

Access

to

Union

Power.

By

SCOTT

GREER.

(Glencoe,

Ill.:

The

Free

Press,

1959.

Pp.

189.

$4.00.)

Last

Man

In

is

a

hard

book

to

read.

Hard

to

read

because

the

author

pre-

sents

much

clinical

sociology

in

antiseptic

prose

and

because

the

publishers

have

not

done

one

thing

for

the

readers’

ease or

convenience.

To

dispose

of

the

publisher

first

-

since

publishers

are

unquestionably

the

lesser

of

the

writer-producer

team.

The

Free

Press

has

in

this

case

made

a

book

cheaply

but

not

made

it

cheap.

A

photo-typewritten

printing

process

is

used,

resulting

in

a

monotony

of

type

form

and

a

ragged

right

margin.

The

footnoting

is

part

of

the

bibliography,

without

page

citations,

and

there

is

no

index.

For

this

little

book

(168

pages

of

text)

the

public

is

asked

to

pay

four

dollars.

The

Free

Press

has

published

many

good

works

without

hope

of

Oggandray

sales,

but

I

think

that

the

academic

world

should

not

let

it

get

away

with

productions

such

as

this.

Let’s

have

a

readable

and

convenient-to-use

book

even

if

we

have

to

pay

fifty

cents

or a

dollar

more.

Greer’s

book

comes

at

a

time

when

much

attention

is

focused

on

the

Amer-

ican

labor

movement, and

when

there

are

many

and

apparent

cracks

in

what

David

Truman

would

call

its

democratic

mold.

The

electrical

workers’

local

of

Washington,

D.C.,

is

currently

embarrassing

a

whole

assortment

of

political

powers

and

potentates,

from

the

Vice

President

of

the

United

States

to

the

Treasurer

of

the

Democratic

National

Committee,

for

its

lily-white

hiring

poli-

cies.

George

Meany

is

so

upset

he

has

threatened

to

recruit

scabs

if

necessary

to

break

the

union

policy.

Meanwhile

Negro

labor

leaders

are

planning

to

set

up

a

Negro

American

Trade

Union

Council,

within

the

present

labor

movement

structure,

to

eliminate

what

they

describe

as

second-class

status

even

in

the

&dquo;good&dquo;

unions.

Greer’s

book

will

be

food

for

the

serious

thoughts

of

reformers

even

if,

because

of

its

style,

it

may

never

be

the

stuff

of

their

propaganda.

The

data

come

from

an

intensive

study

of

twenty-eight

international

unions

in

Los

Angeles

County

in

1950.

These

unions

comprised

about

40

per

cent

of

the

total

union

membership

of

the

County

and

were

chosen

to

include

a

large

proportion

of

the

&dquo;ethnic&dquo;

union

members.

Ethnic

members

are

Mexicans

(his

term)

and

Negroes.

His

attempt

is

&dquo;to

describe

a

particular

area

of

social

behavior

[i.e.,

race

re-

lations

in

the

framework

of

the

functional

necessities

of

the

union

as

an

organi-

zation]

...

in

such

a

form

as

to

allow

its

use

for

testing

general

theories

of

social