INTRODUCTION
XV
tarianism. Falling next under the potent spell of Thorstein
Vehlen, he acquired the genetic standpoint, a wide acquain
tance with cultural history and an abiding interest in insti
tutional development. After this varied apprenticeship he
devoted himself for the space of more than ten years to an
intensive study of American trade unionism. The litera
ture of the subject, propagandist and scientific, union and
anti-union, he made his own ; but it was the living move
ment that chiefly held his interest. By painstaking analy
sis of documentary sources, by persistent attendance at
union and employers’ meetings, by personal interviews with
scores of union and employers’ leaders, above all by long
continued and intimate contact with unionists of many types,
he strove to ascertain the objective facts of unionism, to ex
plain the causes which have shaped the movement and
which are progressively changing it, to determine its drift,
and to define its meaning for the community life of which
it is a part. In the course of this study he was led into
many fields of inquiry—wage theory, socialism, pragmatic
philosophy, social psychology, employers’ associations and
scientific management. But unionism remained always his
central problem; to it he returned with fresh zest after each
excursus, and upon it all his other studies were made to
bear.
To expound Professor Hoxie’s trade union views at
length, or attempt a detailed appraisal, would far overpass
the reasonable limits of an introduction. It may be worth
while, however, to indicate his outlook and the main results
to which it led him. It has already been said that he ap
proached his subject from the genetic standpoint, by which
is meant that he aimed at a reasoned explanation of trade
unionism in terms of the efficient causes which have made
the movement what it is, and is becoming. Seen from this
Point of view a union is not so much an outward organi
zation as a like-minded group. The effectual bond which
unites a body of wageworkers is not a constitution and
