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274 Annals Am. Acad. Pol. & Soc. Sci. vii (1951)

handle is hein.cow/anamacp0274 and id is 1 raw text is: 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 bdlieve, 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 vii

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