MORRIS PLOSCOWE. The Truth About Divorce. Pp. 315. New York: Hawthorn Books, 1955. $4.95

• Date: 01 March 1956
• DOI: 10.1177/000271625630400141
• Author: William M. Kephart
• Published date: 01 March 1956
• Subject Matter: Articles

163
tral hiring hall with a group of registered
From his professional beginnings as the-
men who have seniority and skill, an extra
by modern standards-rather poorly pre-
board for men who customarily work in
pared student of Tepoztlan, Redfield clearly
gangs and are used for replacement, and
emerges as a man always deeply concerned
a list of casual employees. A conscious
with the meaning of his activity, both for
effort was made to equalize earnings and
the world of scholarship and for the under-
divide work equally among the registered
standing of human existence.
employees and the extra board. During
In this book Redfield explores the vari-
the 1920’s, the hiring hall was under the
ous ways one may think about a small
control of the employers; since the 1934
community and the consequences of each
strike, the International Longshoremen’s
frame of reference.
Following an intro-
and Warehousemen’s Union has been a full
ductory chapter, he takes up the commu--
partner in its operation. The dispatchers
nity viewed as an ecological system, as a
in the hiring hall are chosen by the ILWU
social structure, as a set of life patterns
from its ranks. The governing body is the
for its members, as the product and crea-
Joint Labor Relations Committee composed
tor of a kind of person, as an outlook on
of equal numbers of union and employer
life or system of ideas, and as a history.
representatives.
He also considers the problem of the com-
The Seattle hiring hall plan is not the
munity as a member of a collection of com-
perfect
munities
answer; employers would prefer
or as a part of a larger commu-
a stabilized labor gang of superior men
nity and as a combination of opposite
rather than a rotating system including all
tendencies. He concludes with a discus-
workers. Somewhat the same criticism has
sion of the relation between the whole and
arisen in England under its dock labor
its parts. Each of these ways of thinking
scheme. Nevertheless, the results are...