Evening star., 1934-05-27

INDUSTRIAL workers are the people" about
whom the Secretary of Labor writes. She
has worked for them all her adult life
and is now engaged in the long, hard fight
4 against their unemployment. She does
not, like Stuart Chase and many other
writer's, denounce the machine. She sees in
it, on the contrary. the means of the workers
release from those desperate times when just
to keep body and soul together was an achieve
ment." But the machine is monster which
must be controlled and made to do the will
of intelligent human beings, who also have "a
sense of right and wrong" The control of the
machine type of industry Is important not only
to the wage earners, but to our whole modern
civilization. Increasingly, we have recognized
the fact that labor-Saving machinery be
used to save labor at the same time to build
up high standard of living, and to utilize
increasing proportion of our population not IN
the production of consumption goods but in
the distribution of goods and personal services
and more particularly in the distribution and
performance of social and cultural services"
Under the heading The Backdrop," Miss
Perkins begins her discussion of the workers in
industry today with a sketch of the growth OF
American industry in the remote yesterdays,
from the time when the settlers in the Ply
mouth Colony built fort and cleared portion
of the forest for planting. In the eight sections
of the book are set forth the multiple and
complex problems of the industrial worker and
the origin and history of these problems. Some
of the problems are concerned with pauperism,
foreign-born population and Slums industrial
hazards, the effect of war on the worker. women
in industry, wage rates and minimum wage
laws, standards of living white-collar workers,
.hild labor rest periods deadening routine work.
old-age pensions, the integration of wage
earners with the whole life of the community,
and, looming above everything else unemploy-
ment, both ordinary unemployment and the
superunemployment which has resulted from
the depression. Some of the events in industrial
history which have brought important results
as regards the workers are mentioned, among
them the work of Jane Addams at Hull House.
the publication of The Jungle" by Upton Sim
clair. the Triangle fire. the Cherry Mine
plosion, the creation Of the Department of
Labor, the attainment of woman suffrage and
various surveys and Investigations such as the
Pittsburgh survey, 1911, and the Russell Sage
Foundation investigation 1924. More than half
of the book is given to conditions following the
financial crash of 1929 and the succeeding new
deal. Miss Perkins closes her book with q
significant anecdote. In a threatened strike
last Summer in practically the only industry
OF manufacturing town, the excited employer
and the N. r. A. negotiator had almost reached
an agreement and vote Of the workers to
be taken, when the employer exclaimed: But
why should they vote?'''It's my factory isn't it?
pay their wages, don't I? Why should they
VOTE ask you?" The negotiator a prominent
industrialist, echoed thoughtfully: why should
they vote? - Yes why should they vote? "".
Well suppose just because this is America!"
THE CHINESE: THEIR HISTORY AND CUL,-
TURE. BY Kenneth Scott Latourette,
Vols. New York: The Macmillan Co.
THIS wide-spreadmg survey of China's his
tory and cultural accomplishment Is to
the many little surface -skimming books about
China as Pearl Bucks Good Earth" is to Ann
Bridges "Peking Picnic" Dr. Latourette is
professor OF missions and Oriental history at
Yale University. He knows China and he also
knows what are the complicated influences
which shape the history of any country. The
hrst OF these influences, geography, has been
especially important in the case of both China
proper and its outlying sections, Tibet, the
new dominion (Sinkiang), Mongolia and Man.
churia. With the nineteenth century, the nat
ural barriers of China were penetrated by the
West and by Japan, "reorganized on Occidental
models" and the result has been disorganiza-
tion and revolution" It Is unthinkable that
this condition should be permanent, that China
should be entirely dsintegrated Her popula-
ton comprises nearly fourth of the human
race, and has more uniformity in culture than
politically The philosophy, art and literature
of China have been original and have eXerted
important influence upon other Eastern
peoples. Her economic and political structures,
not highly esteemed today, have in the past
been successful when measured by the area
and the number of people governed"
DR.. Latourette follows his discussion of geo.
graphical influences by a summary covering
most of the first volume, of the nations his
tory, from the beginnings, before BIC 221, the
formation of the empire, and the Chin and
Han dynasties (BC 221-AD 22O), to the for
nation of Manchoukuo in 1888. The second
volume contains chapters population, with
al1reic Of tna ocio Of he