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_A Short History of the American Labor Movement._ By MARY BEARD.
Harcourt, Brace and Howe, New York, 1920. Pp. 174.

This book is intended as a brief and simple story of the labor
movement in the United States in a single comprehensive volume of
moderate size for the busy citizen. It undertakes to emphasize the
nature and significance of the labor movement and the rise of trade
unions. There follows a discussion of the old tactics of labor, its
first political experience, and its final return to direct industrial
action. Some attention is given to the industrial panics, political
utopias, trade unionism, politics, schemes, and plans, which have
engaged the attention of the labor element during and since the Civil
War.

Discussing the situation during the Civil War, the author brings out
valuable information bearing on the history of the Negro in the United
States. According to the author, labor was forced to take a stand
against slavery because of the advanced opposition taken by the South.
Up to that time there had been no uniformity but a necessity for such
thereafter existed. This was especially true of the mill workers in
Massachusetts, among whom there were many abolitionists, while the
molders of Kentucky and Pennsylvania struggled for a compromise to
avoid bloodshed between the two sections by limiting slavery to the
area it then occupied. When manifesting opposition to the extension of
slavery into new territory however, the labor leaders were generally
opposed to the aggressive policy of the anti-slavery groups. They,
therefore, endeavored to take the question out of Congress. The war
finally became inevitable; but some of the labor leaders refused even
then to grow excited about slavery, believing that many of the bondmen
were better off than the starving wage workers of the free States.
Thus, indirectly they supported the institution in that they were
advancing the argument set forth by slaveholders during that great
crisis. The slave had his food, clothing, and shelter provided by his
master who took care of him in his old age, while under the factory
system workers earned hardly enough sometimes to eke out an existence.
In the end, however, organized labor abandoned its opposition or
neutral position and gave its support to save the Union.

* * * * *

_The United States and Latin America._ By JOHN HOLLADAY LATANE,
Ph.D.,