XIV
INTRODUCTION
labor of research is multiplied many fold, for the investi
gator of each special field must needs formulate even the
general social theories in terms of which the phenomena
under his immediate observation are to be interpreted.
For all these reasons the making of many books has
afforded comparatively little insight into the nature and
causes of American trade unionism. Those who know most
about the subject can scarcely be expected to furnish a de
tached view or to interpret the concrete facts in terms of
social science at large. Of those who have surveyed the move
ment from without, many have been disqualified by want
of knowledge or trammeled by narrowing preconceptions.
Some have poured forth a flood of pious sentiment, often
effective as homiletics but not particularly illuminating;
some have given a purely economic interpretation and been
thereby constrained to ignore important elements of their
problem ; others have thought it sufficient to show that cer
tain trade union activities do not jump with orthodox econ
omic theory or with received notions of property and free
contract. Others, still, have thought to achieve a purely
objective treatment by eschewing all interpretation. The
result of this last endeavor is a mass of narrative and
descriptive literature, useful enough as the raw material
of scientific inquiry, but, in its present form, valueless as
a basis for social action. Few, out of patient research, have
brought forth even a partial interpretation in causal terms.
Among this elect number Professor Hoxie will hold a high
and secure place. i
To the baffling subject with which his best work is so
closely identified, Professor Hoxie brought a very excep
tional equipment. Trained originally in the straitest sect of
cloister economics, he had the good fortune to escape its in
fluence before his teachers had succeeded in dulling his
appetite for reality. In the net result, indeed, he profited
even from the metaphysicians, for they did but sharpen a
keenly analytic mind upon the subtleties of marginal utili-
