Excerpt from The History and Problems of Organized Labor The aim of this volume is to present briefly the important facts in the history of organized labor in the United States, to analyze the chief problems which directly or indirectly affect the labor organizations of the present decade, and to evaluate the functions of organized labor in the industrial and political world. The history of American labor organizations presents to the observer a rapidly changing and almost bewildering picture of which few careful studies have been made. The government, ideals, practices, solidarity, and inter-relationships of such organizations have experienced, and are at present undergoing, a variety of transformations. It is the purpose of the writer to present to the student of industrial problems and to the general reader a straightforward study of the forces which have caused labor organizations to appear and to assume a variety of forms. The aim is not to justify or to condemn the practices and ideals of organized labor or of employers' associations, but to analyze the phenomena of which the practices and ideals are the visible manifestations. Labor organizations, employers' associations, strikes, boycotts, the demand for the closed shop, the sweating system, and the ideals and point of view of organized labor or of organized capital are evolved through the play of social forces working within the economic field. The modem labor problem cannot be understood, and certainly cannot be solved, until the underlying causative forces, new and old, physical and social, are laid bare. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.