Foreword
| Published date | 01 March 1951 |
| Author | Gordon S. Watkins |
| DOI | 10.1177/000271625127400101 |
| Date | 01 March 1951 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
FOREWORD
HISTORIANS
are
quite
likely
to
agree
that
one
of
the
most
significant
character-
istics
of
the
economic
development
of
the
United
States
during
the
first
half
of
the
twentieth
century
has
been
the
extraordinary
expansion
of
the
labor
movement.
Looking
in
retrospect
over
the
long
and
winding
road
which
organized
labor
has
traveled
since
its
feeble
beginnings
in
the
closing
years
of
the
eighteenth
century,
the
labor
economist
invariably
recalls
the
cyclical
expansion
and
decline
of
union-
ism
throughout
the
nineteenth
century
and
the
first
three
decades
of
the
twentieth.
The
history
of
American
trade
unionism
is
essentially
a
story
of
the
sensitive
re-
sponse
of
a
logical
social
movement
to
the
determining
factors
of
economic
life,
in
which
local,
regional,
and
national
trade
union
organizations
emerged
and
disap-
peared
with
discouraging
regularity
as
the
fortunes
of
industry,
business,
commerce,
and
finance
changed
in
the
conquest
of
a
vast
continent.
Untraditionally
and
unexpectedly,
the
vacillating
fortunes
of
labor,
especially
of
organized
labor,
changed
with
almost dramatic
suddenness
in
the
dead
center
of
the
worst
depression
the
United
States
has
encountered
in
more
than
a
century
of
recurrent
business
adversities.
This
was,
of
course,
only
indirectly
the
consequence
of
the
prolonged
depression
of
the
1930’s;
it
was
primarily-some
would
say
solely
-the
result
of
the
coming
into
long-sustained
power
of
a
federal
administration
notoriously
prolabor
in
its
attitudes
and
policies.
Whatever
its
principal
cause,
the
resurgence
of
the
labor
movement
beginning
with
the
mid-1930’s
constitutes
one
of
the
most
spectacular
facts
in
the
economic
history
of
the
United
States-
a
history
which
is
replete
with
extraordinary
developments.
Perhaps future
historians
will
look
back
and
characterize
this
significant
social
change
as
a
revolutionary
one.
Certainly
it
has
been
a
prelude
to
almost
universal
recognition
of
the
importance
of
labor
in
the
economic,
political,
and
social
life
of
the
Nation.
It
would
be
unsafe
to
declare
dogmatically
that
labor’s
long
struggle
for
a
place
in
the
economic
sun
is
completely
at
an
end.
Caution
here
is
dictated
by
the
fact
that
labor’s
new
millions
were
recruited
under
the
patronage
of
a
friendly
government
and
exceedingly
favorable
legislation,
and
its
strength
has
been
sustained
by
incessant
war
and
preparation
for
war.
What
might
happen
in
case
our
artificial
prosperity
should
again
yield
to
business
depression
it
is
difficult
to
prophesy.
There
is
every
reason
to
believe,
however,
that the
momentum
gath-
ered
by
organized
labor
and
the
collective
strength
it
has
at
long
last
attained
as-
sure
for
the
wage-earning
class
an
indisputable
place
in
the
direction
of
the
Ameri-
can
economy.
This
is
especially
so
in
view
of
the
rising
tide
of
mass
influence
and
power
throughout
the
world.
What
has
just
been
said
makes
a
volume
like
the
present,
which
purports
to
deal
with
the
positive
position
of
labor
in
our
economy,
an
extremely
important
one.
The
analyses
presented
in
the
following
pages
should
command
the
interest
of
all
thoughtful
persons
who
seek
to
understand
the
institutional
forces
that
condition
our
daily
lives
and
to
an
important
extent
forge
the
destiny
of
the
Republic
in
a
period
of
threatened
world
revolution.
The
principal
purpose
which
dominated
the
planning
of
the
present
volume
was
to
reveal
as
completely
as
space
would
allow
the
positive
and
constructive
position
of
labor
in
the
American
-economy.
Behind
this
purpose
was
the
conviction
that
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