Journal of Social Science (Volume 25) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: which simply establish our own theories. A careful examination of the reports of the various bureaus of the United States proves conclusively that the men in charge, as a rule, recognize this fact. The critics of their work are usually men who dislike the results thereof, and "have no other course open to them than to criticise methods and men. So far there has been no successful attack upon the work of the various bureaus, and this is because the conclusions stated by the officers in charge have been simply statistical deductions and not opinions, not theories, but the results of actual investigation; and so far, also, there has been no successful refutation of any important statistical deductions of the older bureaus of the country, except maybe in two or three instances, and there the officers themselves have discovered the error, and frankly stated it to the public. The old idea of securing information to coincide with certain views, or to establish theories, has passed away, and the importance of exact knowledge is now clearly realized. Labor leaders formerly felt it incumbent upon the labor bureaus to advance and to advocate doctrines, or to present schemes for the amelioration of bad conditions or the adjustment of profits. To-day, these leaders all understand that the workingmen's interests are best served by a study of all the facts relating to production, and the conditions surrounding it. When bureaus of statistics of labor were first organized, the idea prevailed among labor men, and in their organizations, that the province of these bureaus was to discuss principles and methods of reform, and to urge them upon legislators, thereby making official lobbyists of the bureaus. The complications arising from this view did much to retard the growth or progress of t...