problem -- individual and collective bargaining, wages, hours,
unemployment, safety and health, social insurance, and ad-
ministration-it endeavors not so much to expound technical
questions of legality as to sketch the historical background of
the various labor problems, indicate the nature and extent of
each, and describe the legislative remedies which have been
applied. Throughout it is the principles of labor law, not the
details which may change from legislature to legislature, which
are emphasized. And this procedure has been followed be-
cause in a democracy it is the people themselves whose col-
lective opinion finally determines what the laws shall be and
how effectively they shall be enforced.

The work is intended to be both critical and constructive --
critical in that it points out the good and bad features of the
statutes, constructive in that it shows how, in the light of
experience, the good is being strengthened and the bad
remedied. Finally, it is in full recognition that a law is
really a law only to the extent to which it is enforced that
each chapter emphasizes efficient administration and that the
closing chapter is entirely devoted to this complex and all-
important problem.

In assembling facts and preparing chapters, assistance has
been given by many valued co-workers, including E. E. Witte,
Olin Ingraham, David J. Saposs, Anna Kalet, Margarett A.
Hobbs, and the following students: W. H. Burhop, Mark
Greene, Ora Harnish, A. P. Haake, Harry Jerome, Gladys
Owen, and Stewart Schrimshaw. For painstaking reading of
manuscript and proof, acknowledgment is due to Jean M.
Douglas and Solon De Leon. Our further thanks are extended
to the following persons, to whom various chapters were sub-
mitted and who have given valuable criticisms and suggestions
for improvement: Richard T. Ely and H. W. Ballantine of
the University of Wisconsin, Ernst Freund of Chicago Uni-
versity, Edwin V. O'Hara of the Oregon Industrial Welfare
Commission, Thomas I. Parkinson and Joseph P. Chamber-
lain of Columbia University, Louis D. Brandeis of Boston,
and Arthur N. Holcombe and Frank W. Taussig of Harvard
University.

JOHN R. COMMONS

JOHN B. ANDREWS

January, 1916