SELECTIONS AND DOCUMENTS IN ECONOMICS EDITED BY WILLIAM Z. RIPLEY, PH.D. PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS, HARVARD UNIVERSITY SELECTIONS AND DOCUMENTS IN ECONOMICS TRUSTS, POOLS AND CORPORATIONS By William Z. Ripley, Ph.D., Professor of Economics, Harvard University TRADE UNIONISM AND LABOR PROBLEMS By John R. Commons, Professor of Political SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIAL PROGRESS SELECTED READINGS IN PUBLIC FINANCE By Charles J. Bullock, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Economics, Harvard University RAILWAY PROBLEMS By William Z. Ripley, Ph.D., Professor of SELECTED READINGS IN ECONOMICS By Charles J. Bullock, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Economics, Harvard University ECONOMIC HISTORY OF THE UNITED By Guy Stevens Callender, Professor of Political HD 6483 Copy A TRADE UNIONISM AND LABOR PROBLEMS EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY JOHN R. COMMONS PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN COPYRIGHT, 1905 BY JOHN R. COMMONS ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 514.6 The Athenæum Press PREFACE This book is intended to do for the study of labor unions and labor problems what Ripley's "Trusts, Pools and Corporations has done for the study of capital and its organization; and the preface to Dr. Ripley's book states the purpose of this book. It is "intended to be more than a mere collection of economic reprints," and is "planned for use specifically as a text-book; not merely as a handy volume for reference, or as a collection of original documents. . . . It denotes a deliberate attempt at the application to the teaching of economics of the case system, so long successful in our law schools. With this end in view, each chapter is intended to illustrate a single, definite, typical phase of the general subject. The primary motive is to further the interests of sound economic teaching, with especial reference to the study of concrete problems of great public and private interest. A difficulty in the substitution of present-day social and economic studies for the good old-fashioned linguistic ones, or for the modern sciences, a difficulty especially peculiar to descriptive economics as differentiated from economic theory, — has always been to secure data sufficiently concrete, definite, and convenient to form a basis for analysis, discussion, and criticism. . . . The first requisite, therefore, for the successful conduct of economic instruction in the descriptive field is to provide raw material; which in discussion, supplementary to the general lectures, may be worked over in detail in the class room." Selected, as these chapters are, mainly from the economic journals, it has not always been possible to restrict each chapter to a case illustrating a single phase or topic of the general subject. It has therefore been necessary to furnish in the Introduction and the Index a set of cross references by which the student may bring together the several illustrations of each phase. In this way it is hoped that two objects may be secured: first, |