October 15, 1886.] 



8CIENCJE. 



353 



bearing sands and its curious topography, one 

 element of tlie latter being the continuation of 

 certain of its water-courses southward under the 

 sea for a Httle distance from shore ; and Russell 

 has confirmed the suggestion that the streams 

 cut their right banks more than the left, as if in 

 obedience to von Baer's law. Merrill briefly re- 

 fers to the archaean rocks at the western end of 

 the island, and devotes more space to sections of 

 the jDrobably cretaceous and tertiary clays and 

 sands of the northern shore, and to the drift. He 

 emphasizes the thinness of the till at many points 

 along the range of hills or 'backbone' of the 

 island, and ascribes a good part of their height to 

 the upheaval of the bedded deposits, which largely 

 compose them, by the thrust of the ice. Thus 

 marine fossils may be lifted to greater elevation 

 above the sea than can be ascribed to continental 

 emergence. All along the north shore of the 

 island, the bedded gravels, sands, and clays are 

 found upheaved, and thrown into a series of dis- 

 tinct folds at right angles to the line of glacial 

 advance. On Gardiner's Island the folds are re- 

 markably prominent in the form of numerous 

 parallel ridges, trending east-north-east. This re- 

 calls Johnstrup's explanation of the distortion of 

 cretaceous beds on the Danish islands of Moen 

 and Riigen by the thrust of Scandinavian ice, 

 and the observations of Credner and others on 

 the distorted subglacial beds of northern Ger- 

 many. The bays on the northern side of Long 

 Island are thought to be excavations made by 

 lobes of ice projecting for a time beyond the gen- 

 eral line of glacial front. The highest hills of 

 the ' backbone ' are in line with these bays, as if 

 gaining in height by the excess of pressure there ; 

 and channels, also in line with the bays, break 

 through the hills, as if they had been kept open 

 by the discharge of water from the ice. 



ELY'S LABOR MOVEMENT IN AMERICA. 

 That curiously heterogeneous mass of circum- 

 stances and events which is included under the 

 general designation ' labor movement ' has given 

 rise to a large literature, much of it polemic, some 

 historical and critical, some constructive. It has 

 engaged the attention and study of many scholars, 

 and perhaps of all the more progressive students 

 and teachers of economics and political science. 

 Among the latter, none has been more painstaking 

 in his research, nor more frequent in his writings, 

 than Prof. Richard T. Ely of Johns Hopkins uni- 

 versity. During the past few years, numerous 

 articles and several books have issued from his pen ; 

 and the book before us is partly the outgrowth of 



The labor movement in America. By Richard T. Ely. 

 New York, Crowell, 188t). 12». 



its predecessors, and partly the forerunner, as the 

 author tells us m his preface, of a larger work, to 

 be entitled ' History of labor in the new world.' 



It immediately occurs to us to ask. What does 

 Professor Ely mean exactly by the labor move- 

 ment, what is his attitude toward it, and what 

 does he tell us about it ? Fortunately, the style 

 and tone of the book, as well as its definite state- 

 ments of opinion, permit us to answer all these 

 questions clearly. Stripped of its accessories, the 

 labor movement, in its broadest terms, is ' the 

 effort of men to live the life of men ' (p. 3). This 

 sententiovis aphorism might mean a great many 

 things, inasmuch as it affords great latitude of 

 interpretation. But Professor Ely sharpens it to 

 a point, and interprets it as having an economic 

 significance truly, but, beyond and including that, 

 an ethical import. " It is for self and others. It 

 is the realization of the ethical aim expressed in 

 that command which contains the secret of all true 

 progress, ' Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy- 

 self.' . . . It is an attempt to bring to pass the idea 

 of human development which has animated sages, 

 prophets, and poets of all ages, — the idea that a 

 time must come vvhen warfare of aU kinds shall 

 cease ; and when a peaceful organization of society 

 shall find a place within its framework for the best 

 growth of each personality, and shall abolish all 

 servitude, in which one ' but subserves another's 

 gain ' " (pp. 3, 4). 



In contemplating this ideal state, a veritable 

 heaven. Professor Ely grows very enthusiastic, 

 and well he may. On studying the details of the 

 movement which he says has this laudable end in 

 view, however, Vi^e are forced to pause, and in- 

 quire whether the tendency is really what Profes- 

 sor Ely thinks it is. We are tempted to believe 

 that he has committed the not uncommon scien- 

 tific error of reading his theory into the facts, 

 instead of deducing it from them. He tells us that 

 the socialist and anarchist organizations have cast 

 off Christianity, and indeed religion generally, yet 

 he preaches Christian ethics as the remedy for the 

 wrongs of which they complain. While not over- 

 clear on this point, yet he seems to uphold the ex- 

 tremists in their contention that all the evils of the 

 present state of society are due to private property 

 and the lack of proper co-operation in production 

 and distribution. But Aristotle, somewhat un- 

 fashionable nowadays perhaps, saw deeper than 

 that, and said plainly that the evils ascribed to 

 the institution of private property really flowed 

 from the wickedness of human nature (Politics, 

 Jowett's translation, p. 35). And just here ^-e 

 would ask all these labor agitators, sincere and 

 insincere, and their allies among professed econo- 

 mists, to consider whether then- suggested remedies 



