Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/447

 REVIEWS 431

or diminish satisfaction. Few of us would deny that there is room for improvement in the management of hotels, but we are not all agreed that the use of a single language would be either cause or effect of wholly desirable social conditions. Few of us would deny that the people of the world should get together in a thousand ways not at present practicable. Not many of us can entertain without a shudder the thought of actually averaging ourselves in a mechanical federation of the world. We all believe in improving governmental efficiency. Most of us would prefer a regime of drum-head courts to a reign of such priggism as the officials in Mr. Wells's picture exhibit. As a rhetorical device for getting attention for social theorems that would attract no notice in the abstract, Utopias may still be available. We can discover nothing in this sample, however, that goes beyond good-natured satire of conditions which none would be so poor as to defend.

A. W. S.

The Labor Movement in America. By RICHARD T. ELY. New Edition, revised and enlarged. New York : The Macmillan Co. Pp. xvi + 399.

Although this book is nearly twenty years old, it is still timely, and it is to be hoped that the author will be able to carry out his purpose of enlarging its scope, and bringing the history down to date. At present we have no book that could be a satisfactory substi- tute for Professor Ely's volume.

A. W. S.