Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/868

 8$ 2 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

economic efficiency, in short, as the consummate product of legitimate industrial evolution, no man can advance valid objections. But against the trust as a con- stant disregarder of the necessary principles of fair play in business and of true Icmocracy in government, the people must be ever upon their guard.

It is a grave question how much reliance may be placed upon the regulative force of " potential competition " in preventing monopolistic limitation of output and extortion in prices. Unaided, this factor seems hardly able to do what the situation requires. Artificial that it, governmental regulation, however inevi- table, is felt by some to present grave dangers. For it would tend to increase rather than diminish the regretable corrupting influence of the trusts upon politics ; it would tend to cement rather than to loosen the bands which unite the boss and the magnate. Yet, however difficult of achievement such public regulation of the trusts may seem in the face of their present intrenched advantages, this heroic task must nevertheless be patiently and fearlessly faced by the American people, unless it is willing to expose itself to the unknown but manifold dangers of a socialistic experiment, which may be the price of failure or neglect in dealing with this problem.

Four things must be done in regulation of the trusts. First, we must stop discriminations by railroads. Then flooding a particular locality with goods offered at cut-throat prices for the sake of crushing competitors must be done away with. There is also the plan of selling one kind of goods at a cheap rate for the sake of driving out of business competitors who make only that class of goods. Finally, there is the " factor's agreement " the refusal by the trust to sell goods to a dealer at a living price unless he will promise not to buy any similar articles from a competitor. These steps will make a hard and up-hill road for democracy to travel ; but there is no possible doubt that it must travel by that route or go farther and fare worse. There is coming a long, hard fight in which honest wealth and honest labor will be on one side, and monopolies on the other ; and the powers of honesty are the greater. The peril will be great if this majority tries only to prohibit consolidation, or if, failing to prohibit and in despair of regulation, it shall revert to schemes of general nationalization of industries. JOHN BATES CLARK, in Century, October, 1904. E. B. W.

The Sociology of a New York City Block. Investigations as to the real character of the people swarming our tenements have hitherto been ineffective owing to a lack of unity of conception in regard to the matters to be learned. The writer of this monograph spent Saturday forenoons for three years in an attempt to study a New York city street according to a complete system of social prin- ciples. Throughout, the author follows the analysis and theory of Giddings's Inductive Sociology. For instance, the people in the block are classed, under the heading " Type of Character," in Giddings's four types the " forceful," " con- vivial," " austere," and the " rationally conscientious."

The people under consideration live on the upper East Side. They occupy fourteen five-story, " dumb-bell " tenements. The population of these fourteen houses varies from 800 to 900 souls, divided among 200 families. The causes of aggregation are found: for the Italians, in the new building being erected in the vicinity by their labor ; for the Jews, in the invitation of a German garment- worker who wanted to get near his market. The Irish and Germans left in the general movement from this quarter are diminishing.

As the results of this interesting piece of sociological work, set forth in eleven chapters, are statistical and descriptive, concerning families and houses in detail, only scattering excerpts can here be made.

Studying " like behavior," it was found that a large majority of the individuals in 144 families do not usually respond to stimuli simultaneously with their neigh- bors ; while a small majority of those in eleven families do. Most of the stimuli common to city life appeal to this whole community, but responses differ in various sections of the block. Tenement dwellers see many sights and hear many sounds, but each day, all year, the stimuli are the same. Hence like stimuli will produce like retults in time.

In " appreciation " of the American people, and humanity in general outside of their own nationality, the statistics show that the more or less naturalized