A New Deal Popular Bookshelf: How Much Social Realism, How Much Social Science, How Much Grinding Grist?

A New Deal Popular Bookshelf: How Much Social Realism, How Much Social Science, How MuchGrinding Grist?Author(s): Howard W. OdumSource: Social Forces, Vol. 12, No. 4 (May, 1934), pp. 601-606Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2569726 .

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LIBRARY AND WORKSHOP 6oi

finally to a truly rational interpretation of his world. Robinson has given a master- ful interpretation of the personality and ideas of this man who saw farther and did more even than Locke to set the world free from intellectual slavery to the vapor- ings of the tom tom beaters. To him Hume and Voltaire owed a great debt, and through them the rest of mankind. I am inclined to think this is the best of all analyses of Bayle the sceptic.

IV

Three more general studies lie in the fields of education, economics, and politics. The four complete papers on education by La Chalotais (national education), Turgot (preparing individuals for citizenship), Diderot (Plan for a Russian University), and Condorcet (Report on Public Instruction), together with the editor and translator's introduction, con- stitute the most enlightening presentation of the function of education in a common- wealth that the eighteenth century affords us. These views had their echo in various "'plans" early in our own national history,

and are still of great importance for the student of modern social theory. Cole has given a thorough and well documented analysis of the early mercantilist doctrines from 1453 on, but with especial emphasis upon the teachings of Lafemmas and Mont- chretien. One of the most useful things about this excellent chapter in the history of economic theory is that it does not treat the theory in a vacuum, but connects mercantilist thought up closely with political practice. Soltau's review of political thought in the past century is less rigor- ously documented, but it is strong on perspective and synthetic generalization. It also has the great virtue of making the theory live in the midst of events. Most of the study centers around the struggle that political and social France made in the nineteenth century to escape from au- thoritarianism-both secular and clerical -to republicanism, and then from republicanism towards democracy and socialism. The book ends on the note of the Syndica- list challenge to the state. It is indeed a thrilling period, well dramatized by the author.

A NEW DEAL POPULAR BOOKSHELF: HOW MUCH SOCIAL REALISM, HOW MUCH SOCIAL SCIENCE, HOW MUCH GRINDING GRIST?

HOWARD W. ODUM

University of North Carolina

Rarely, if ever, have the publishers pre- sented to the public such an array of varied discussions of current social situations as have appeared during the early 1930's.

This list must stand as one of the charac- teristic Americana in the midst of all the amazing changes and developments of the period. Yet I must record quite frankly an utter incapacity to classify such a kaleidoscopic wealth of books into any consistent categories or to do more than

pass them in review as a modern emergency New Deal bookshelf to which intelligent students must turn if they are to comprehend even the greater part of what is going on in the modern world. What at first appeared as a promising task of review becomes primarily an uncritical list- ing, partly by titles, partly by subject and emphasis, partly by publishers, and partly as mere exhibits in the appraisal of a critical and dramatic period.



6o0 SOCIAL FORCES

About this civilization of the early I930'S there appeared everywhere certain agreements which bordered upon unanim- ity. Starting with the common premises of depression, emergency, confusion, change, technology, chaos, prevailing characterizations, often profound and brilliant, strangely enough somehow appear trite and commonplace. Perhaps this is due partly to multiplication and repetition, partly to a sort of publishing opportunism, and partly to the actualities of confusion. Or perhaps there was such stark realism, such profound depths and range of change and revolution that the common language was inadequate. There was Professor Alfred North Whitehead in the most interesting of all his books, Ad- venture of Ideas (Macmillan) stating that "mankind is now in one of its rare moods of shifting its outlook," or Professor H. A. Overstreet in We Move in New Directions (Norton), assuming that the present is of the character of those periods when "new civilizations are born. The coming to birth of a civilization is by far the most significant event that is occurring today."

There was, to cite another type, Brif- fault's verdict that the Coles' The Intelli- gent Man's Review of Europe Today (Knopf) "can be read with the same zest as a sensational novel by all who are sufficiently intelligent to realize that the current history of our times is more sensational than any fiction." Then there is the opinion of Ortega in his Revolt of the Masses (Norton) that "for the very reason that we are un- able to have directly complete knowledge of reality, there is nothing for us but arbi- trarily to construct a reality, to suppose that things are happening after a certain fashion." Thus samplings to indicate a sort of "all things to all men" American picture, limited only by talent, imagina- tion, demand, publishers.

It sometimes appears that the sociolo-

gist faces a continuing dilemma in these latter days of social reconstruction in which his own literature seems all but ignored and he himself seems to view afar off a social evolution so accelerated by technology that it has produced the most momen- tous drama of survival struggle that has yet tested the enduring qualities of Ameri- can civilization. In literature and in organization, in national conferences and programs of recovery administration, the sociologists nowhere appear in leading roles. Moreover, their annual meetings and their new textbooks up to I933, when viewed from the perspective of years to come, might well reflect little of any living dramatic picture of social emergency or social revolution, with certain notable exceptions, such as Lumley's Propaganda Menace (Century), Todd's Industry and Society (Holt), and Groves' Marriage (Holt). Few, if any, of the four score ranking"New Deal" volumes of the early I930'S, with the exception of Recent Social Trends and the accompanying monographs, have been produced by sociologists, nor have the Trends volumes appeared, after their first pre-recovery administration reception, to have played a very significant part in the deliberations and planning of the New Deal. Nor are the sociologists contributing their quota to the current periodical general literature of the emergency period, while their contributions submitted to the sociological jourrials leave much to be desired.

The question naturally arises as to what significance attaches to this general con- clusion: Will the sociologists presently augment their contributions at a time when the more popular and superficial inven- tories of the time have been outmoded? Are they now, through reading, research, action, gathering materials of great value, refusing to be stampeded into the current demand for quick writing? Is their failure



LIBRARY AND WORKSHOP 603

due to the public's boycott of the "high- brow," or "academic" and jargonistic type of writing? Publishers, travelling hither and yon over the country, insist that the sociologists do not seem to be in touch with life; they also admit, however, that they want books venturing predictions about the future and essaying positive conclusions on the state of the nation. Or is it the public's demand for economic and technological interpretation which precludes an abiding interest in real social synthesis? Or do the sociologists still follow the Sumner-Keller dictum that contemporary data are not available for the authentic study of society? Is it possible that the sociologists have been bound down by either over-specialized fields of work or the over-emphasis upon the methodology and the scientific nature of their work? Is it possible, therefore, that they are not competent to cope with the social emergency? Or, still again, can it be that the sociologists, seeing no sure way out of the present emergency and being skeptical of the New Deal, abide their time for criticism and suggestion? Or, recognizing the ineffectuality of his past systematization, conceptualism, and methodology, is he casting around for ways of revitalizing his science? Or is it something of all of these and yet something more?

A part of the answer to these questions is found in the complexity of the American dilemma. The public was discouraged, but it was also eager to know more. And as usual there were multiplied theories and plans and schematic panaceas without end and often without reason. Strangely enough the same basic facts and situations were the foundation for extraordinarily diverse conclusions by a still more extraordinarily uneven talent. To all and sundry leaders and thinkers, liberals and intel- lectuals, students and planners, pioneers

in experimentation, patriots and philan- thropists, artists and literateurs, here was the perfect problem setting, the perfect social laboratory, the perfect theme, with abundance of material for achieving master work.

Call the long roll of those who sought to characterize, to interpret, to mold, to transform, to guide the nation. Inven- tory all of those who see in the American picture the ways of general economic theory or of single unit theories of cause and cure. There was no gainsaying that the materials and setting approximated the perfect laboratory and observatory: There was power as the definitive index of the future; there were energy and price as the foci of all action and guidance; there was land and only land as the real wealth of the nation; there were gold and money, currency stabilization and inflation; fluc- tuation of the dollar, gold dollar or com- modity dollar; silver issue or gold stand- ard; the international flow of gold and money, with its complicating problems of tariff, international trade, and intercul- tural relationships. Thus, Henderson's The Economic Consequences of Power (Day); Polakov%js The Power Age (Covici, Friede); Scott's Introduction to Technocracy (John Day); Loeb's Life in a Technocracy (Viking); Blackett's Planned Money (Appleton-Cen- tury); Atkins' Gold and Your Money (Mc- Bride); Brandt's Dollars and Sense, White's Fiat Money Inflation in France (Appleton- Century).

The same evidences and backgrounds provided the basis for new pictures of nationalism, featuring the contrast between nationalism and internationalism, war and peace, as the definitive elements of contemporary society. Or there were more specialized definitive elements: profits and competition; prices and purchasing power; production and distribution; con- sumers and exchange; "social credit" and



604 SOCIAL FORCES

national dividends. Again there were those who featured the present drama as the supreme test of capitalism; others who saw in it its doom; those who saw new opportunities for state capitalism and for state socialism and those who saw in the present emergency the supreme test of democracy; and still others who saw in it democracy's undoing. Thus, Nichols' Cry Havoc! and Crowther's America Self- Contained (Doubleday); Bonn's The Crisis of Capitalism in America (John Day); Mc- Dougall's World Chaos (Covici, Friede); Bouckle's Degenerate Democracy (Crowell); Fairchild's Profits or Prosperity (Harper); James' The Road to Recovery (Harper); Fels' This Changing World (Houghton).

There were many who saw new and un- precedented opportunities in the rise of new governments which would reach such composite power as had not hitherto been recorded. Thus, 'there lies within our grasp the most humane, the most beauti- ful, the most majestic civilization ever fashioned by any people." So George S. Counts in Dare the School Build a New Social Order (John Day) and so another of the younger educators, Harold Rugg in The Great Technology (John Day) and Culture and Education in America (Harcourt). So also Mary R. Beard in America through Women's Eyes (Macmillan) and so President Roosevelt in Looking Forward and On Our Way (John Day) and so Eleanor Roosevelt in It's Up to the Women (Stokes).

Or to note other contrasts, the same facts are pointed to indicate that fascism is the way out; that fascism is not the way out; that fascism is imminent; that fascism is unlikely in America. And similarly, revolution is the best way on, revolution is the worst way on; revolution is imminent, revolution is impossible in the Ameri- can setting. To some the evidence pointed toward complete world chaos; to others world reconstruction; to some toward the

destruction of civilization; to others toward new heights of human adequacy. Thus, Strachey's The Menace of Fascism (Covici Friede); Angel's From Chaos to Control, (Appleton-Century); McDougall's World Chaos (Covici, Friede); Hallgren's Seeds of Revolt (Knopf); Sullivan's The Roosevelt Revolution (Viking); Salter's The World's EconomicCrisis (Appleton-Century).

Contributing to these and many other pictures of dilemma were the reputed break- down of religious and moral sanction, the lack of authentic moral codes, the lack of authentic formal bodies of knowledge, and the consequent inevitable confusion. The saving way out of this was, according to this school of thinkers, to be found only in the revitalization of religion and echics, the remaking of humanism, the rediscovery of values. And among the evidences for the search after values were the concepts that machines were killing men, that the chief mode of progress was nothing less than tragedy, that there must be a new equilibrium and orientation. Thus, Tufts' great book America's Social Morality (Holt); Housleiter's The Machine Un- chained (Appleton-Century); Ortega's The Revolt of the Masses (Norton); Orton's America in Search of Culture (Little, Brown); Lombroso's The Tragedies of Progress, (Dut- ton); Brooks' Our Present Discontents (Holt).

Finally, there was abundant evidence, according to its several interpretations, to see in the American picture a nation getting better, a nation getting worse; and more particularly to show the real picture of America as one not of good or bad, of better or worse, but one whose dilemmas were centered rather around complexities and difficulties. Thus, Beard's The Future Comes (Macmillan) and America Faces the Future (Houghton); Overstreet's We Move in New Directions (Norton); Rugg's The Great Technology; Roosevelt's



LIBRARY AND. WORKSHOP

On Our Way and Looking Forward (John Day); Price's We Have Recovered Before (Harper); Cole's A Guide Through World Chaos (Knopf); thus, Berle and Means' The Modern Corporation and Private Property (Macmillan); Epstein's Insecurity (Smith and Haas); Adams' Our Economic Revolution (Oklahoma).

Classified by publishers, here then are some of the more recent volumes up to early I934:

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY: America through Wom- en's Eyes, edited by Mary R. Beard; The Modern Cor- poration and Private Property, by Adolf A. Berle, Jr., and Gardiner C. Means; Progressive Social Action, by Edwin T. Devine; Our Movie Made Children, by Henry James Forman; Social Planning and Adult Education, by John W. Herring; My American Friends, by L. P. Jacks; The New Agriculture, by Orville Merton Kile; Machine Age in the Hills, by Malcolm Ross; The Causes of War: Economic, Industrial, Racial, Religious, Scientific, and Political, by Sir Arthur Salter and others; The Frame- work of an Ordered Society by Sir Arthur Salter; American Business Leaders: A Study in Social Origins and Social Stratification, by F. W. Taussig and C. S. Joslyn; The Future Comes, by Charles A. Beard; The Shape of Things to Come, by H. G. Wells; The Economics of Recovery, by Leonard P. Ayres; Foristry: An Economic Challenge, by Arthur Newton Pack; Adventure of Ideas, by Alfred North Whitehead.

THE JOHN DAY COMPANY: The Crisis of Capitalism in America, by M. J. Bonn; Dollars and Sense, by Irving Brant; The Farmer Is Doomed, by Louis M. Hacker; The Economic Consequences of Power Production, by Fred Henderson; Money Power and Human Life, by Fred Hen- derson; What Is American? by Frank Ernest Hill; Edu- cation for a New Era: A Call to Leadership, by A. Gor- don Melvin; Looking Forward and On Our Way, by Franklin D. Roosevelt; The Great Technology: Social Chaos and the Public Mind, by Harold Rugg; Introduc- tion to Technocracy, by -Howard Scott and others; Our Obsolcte Constitution, by William Kay Wallace.

THE APPLETON-CENTURY COMPANY: The Machine Unchained, by Leo Housleiter; Science in the Changing World, edited by Mary Adams; Fiat Money Inflation in France, by Andrew D. White; From Chaos to Control, by Sir Norman Angel; Leisure in the Modern World, by C. Delisle Burns; The Propaganda Menace, by Frederick E. Lumley; The World's Economic Crisis-And the Way of Escape, by Arthur Salter and others; Planned Money, by Sir Basil P. Blackett.

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY: Our Present Discon-

tents, by Collin Brooks; Man in the Modern Age, by K. Jaspers; The Conflict of the Individual and the Mass in the Modern World, by Everett Dean Martin; Industry and Society: A Sociological Appraisal of Modern Indcs- trialism, by Arthur James Todd; The Significance of Sections in American History, by Frederick Jackson Turner.

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS: The March of Democracy. The Rise of the Union, by James Truslow Adams; The March of Democracy. Vol. II. From Civil War to World Poxer, by James Truslow Adams; Over Here, by Mark Sullivan; In Place of Profit: Social Incentives in the Soviet Union, by Harry F. Ward; The Financial After- math of War, by Sir Josiah Stamp.

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY: The People's Choice, by Herbert Agar; Labor Problems in American Industry, by Carroll R. Daugherty; This Changing World. As I see Its Trend and Pnrpose, by Samuel S. Fels; America Faces the Future, edited by Charles A. Beard.

W. W. NORTON AND COMPANY: Social Credit, by G. H. Douglas; The Revolt of the Masses, by Jose Ortega y Gasset; We Move in New Directions, by H. A. Over- street; The New Party Politics, by A. N. Holcombe.

HARPER AND BROTHERS: Profits or Prosperity, by Henry Pratt Fairchild; The Road to Recovery, by F. Cyril James; We have Recovered Before, by Walter W. Price.

CovicI, FRIEDE: World Chaos, by William McDou- gall; The Menace of Fascism, by John Strachey; The Power Age, by Walter N. Polakov.

THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY: LaisseZ Faire and After, by 0. Fred Bouckle; Degenerate Democracy, by Henry S. McKee.

THE VIKING PRESS: Life in a Technocracy. What It Might Be Like, by Harold Loeb; The Limitations of Science, by J. W. N. Sullivan; The Roosevelt Revolution, by Ernest K. Lindley.

HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY: Law and the Social Order. Essays in Legal Philosophy, by Morris R. Cohen; America As Americans See It, edited by Fred J. Dingel.

ROBERT L. MCBRIDE: Gold and Your Money, by Willard E. Atkins; The Puppet Show on the Potomac, by Rufus Dort, II.

ALFRED A. KNOPF: The Intelligent Man's Review of Europe Today, by G. D. H. Cole and Margaret Cole; A Guide Through World Chaos, by G. D. H. Cole; Seeds of Revolt, by Mauritz A. Hallgren.

DOUBLEDAY, DORAN AND COMPANY: Cry Havoc! by Beverley Nichols; America Self-Contained, by Samuel Crowther.

From the WILLIAMS AND WILKINS COMPANY come

Our Mineral Civilization, by Thomas T. Read; and twenty other little volumes in the Century of Prog- ress Series, which they have aptly called "A Major Adventure in Nation-Wide Education."



6o6 SOCIAL FORCES

Other publishcrs with shorter lists include: HAR-

RISON SMITH AND ROBERT HAAS: Insecurity: A Chal- lknge to America. A Study of Social Insurance in the United States and Abroad, by Abraham Epstein; THE

BusiNEss BOURSE: A Primer of "New Deal" Economics, by J. Gcorge Frederick; LITTLB, BROWN AND COM- PANY: America in Search of Culture, by William Aylott Orton; E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY: The Tragedies of Progress, by Gina Lombroso; WILMARK: The Ameri- can Scene, by Edwin C. Hill; L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY:

Racketeering in Washington, by Raymond Clapper; CENTRAL BOOK COMPANY: The National Industrial Re-

covery Act: An Analysis, by Benjamin S. Kirsh in collaboration with Harold Roland Shapiro.

The University presses have also been busy with contemporary problems. THE NEW YORK UNIVER-

SITY PRESS presents The Obligation of Universities to the Social Order; THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS,

Our Economic Revolution, by Arthur B. Adams; and THE UNVERSITY OF MINNESOTA PRESS, Farm Relief and

the Domestic Allotment Plan, by M. L. Wilson. COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS: Displacement of Men

by Machines, by Elizabeth Faulkner Baker; This Troubled World, by John Drinkwater.

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS: Ten Thousand

Out of Work, by Ewan Clague and Webster Powell;

Voluntary Allotment, by Edward S. Mead and Bern- hard Ostrolenk.

THE UNVERSITY OP NORTH CAROLINA PRESS: Democ-

racy in Crisis, by Harold J. Laski; Human Aspects of Un- employment and Relief, by James Mickel Williams.

Finally, McGRAw-HILL have continued the Re- cent Social Trends series which, besides the two main volumes, now includes the following monographs:

Communication Agencies and Social Life, by Malcolm M. Willey; Rural Social Trends, by Edmund de S. Brunner; Problems of Education in the United States, by Charles H. Judd; Trends in Public Administration, by Leonard D. White; The Metropolitan Community, by R. D. Mc- Kenzie; The Arts in American Life, by Frederick P. Kep- pel and R. L. Duffus; Population Trends in the United States, by Warren S. Thompson and P. K. Whelpton; Women in the Twentieth Century, by S. P. Breckinridge; Health and Environment, by Edgar Sydenstricker; Americans at Play, by Jesse F. Steiner; Labor in the National Life, by Leo Wolman; Growth of the Federal Government-s9i5-s932, by Carroll H. Wooddy; Races and Ethnic Groups in American Life, by T. J. Woofter, Jr.

SOCIA WORK YEAR BooK, 1933. Second Issue. Edited by Fred S. Hall. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, I933. 68o pp. $4.00.

As in the Social Work Year Book, 1929, the I933 issue covers both social work and related activities, although, according to

the editorial preface, it departs somewhat from the original plan "to record the developments and events of the period between successive issues" because the general descriptions rather than the problems of each particular field seemed to be regarded by users and reviewers as of the most value. "For this reason," states Mr. Hall, "the present issue makes no attempt to record particularly the occurrences of the years since I97.9. It gives instead a picture of the present situation, by that change of policy becoming less of a 'year book' and more like a concise encyclopedia, periodically revised. Though most articles indicate briefly the effect of the current economic depression, emphasis has been placed primarily upon the more permanent organization of social work and the programs related to it." (Preface, p. 7)

Accordingly, the Social Work Year Book, 1933, complements, as well as supplements, that of I92.9. In many cases, probably the majority, the same subjects are treated. At the same time, in the I933 edition many new topics are introduced, others are relisted or treated under broader and more general captions, while still others are listed only and reference made to their analysis in the I92.9 volume. For ex- ample, adult probation has been superseded by probation in general, while a new topic on the adult offender has.been added. Furthermore, where topics are repeated, a fresh point of view is given, not only by means of the shifting emphasis from problems to programs and trends, but, in many cases, through the assignment of topics to different authors. However, despite these changes in authorship, many of the same names remain among the notable list of not less than I75 authorities and specialists who have contributed articles. In this connection, it is interesting to note, too, that the Advisory Com- mittee remains practically the same, there



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A New Deal Popular Bookshelf: How Much Social Realism, How Much Social Science, How Much Grinding Grist?