s Puffer _The Boy and his Gang_. The
brief but picturesque descriptions of individual gangs seem to indicate
that the play group tends to pass over into the gang when it comes into
conflict with other groups of like type or with the community. The fully
developed gang appears to possess a restricted membership, a natural
leader, a name--usually that of a leader or a locality--a body of
tradition, custom and a ritual, a rendezvous, a territorial area which
it holds as a sort of possession and defends against invasion by other
groups. Attention was early called, as by Mr. Brewster Adams in an
article _The Street Gang as a Factor in Politics_, to the facility with
which the gang graduates into a local political organization,
representing thus the sources of political power of the typical American
city.

Although the conflict of economic groups is not a new nor even a modern
phenomenon, no such permanent conflict groups as those represented by
capital and labor existed until recent times. Veblen has made an acute
observation upon this point. The American Federation of Labor, he
states, "is not organized for production but for bargaining." It is, in
effect, an organization for the strategic defeat of employers and rival
organizations, by recourse to enforced unemployment and obstruction; not
for the production of goods and services.[220]

Research in the labor problem by the Webbs in England and by Commons,
Hoxie, and others in this country has been primarily concerned with the
history and with the structure and functions of trade unions. At present
there is a tendency to investigate the human-nature aspects of the
causes of the industrial conflict. The current phrases "instincts in
industry," "the human factor in economics," "the psychology of the labor
movement," "industry, emotion, and unrest" indicate the change in
attitude. The essential struggle is seen to lie not in the conflict of
classes, intense and ruthless as it is, but more and more in the
fundamental struggle between a mechanical and impersonal system, on the
one hand, and the person with his wishes unsatisfied and insatiable on
the other. All attempts to put the relations of capital and labor upon a
moral basis have failed hitherto. The latest and most promising
experiment in this direction is the so-called labor courts established
by the Amalgamated Clothing Workers and their employees.

The literature upon sects and parties has been written for the most pa