PREFACE 
The book here presented is the result of an effort to 
reproduce as faithfully as possible the notes and lectures 
on Trade Unionism used by Robert F. Hoxie during his 
last year of teaching in the University of Chicago, and to 
combine them with some of his chapters previously pub 
lished. 
This material had been prepared by him without thought 
of publication in this form. Only lack of time prevented the 
reorganization of it and much rewriting before it was 
again used in the classroom when in the fall of 1915 he 
resumed teaching after a year of study and investigation of 
the relations of labor and scientific management. In view 
of these facts it was a question whether the notes could be 
published without injustice to one in whom the love of 
thoroughness and perfection was a ruling passion. But 
doubt on this point was set at rest by those to whom a first 
copy of the manuscript was submitted, who were unani 
mously of the opinion that notwithstanding its incomplete 
ness and the fact that its author would have made great 
changes before embodying any portion of it in the book 
on Trade Unionism, to which he looked forward as the 
main work of coming years, there was in the notes value 
which altogether justified their publication. 
Largely owing to the method of study and teaching which 
Mr. Downey, in the Introduction, has described and to the 
nature of the social laboratory which Trade Unionism 
offers, it has not been possible to use all the notes, nor to 
present without gaps the systematic treatment of the sub 
ject and its whole foundation of evidence which the class 
received and which a reader of the completed text would