Farmers and Workers in American Politics
by Stuart A. Rice, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Sociology. New York, Columbia University, 1924. 231 pp.
It is an old saying that "Politics makes strange bed-fellows." In the work under review a scientific attempt is made along original lines to determine the character of the more or less incongruous alliances between farmers and workers which have occured during the past few years in American politics.
As is well known, a major political contest never involves a single line of cleavage between voters favorable and voters opposed, to a single issue. On the contrary the voters represent many shades of opinion upon the principle issue and innumerable positions upon an indefinite number of other issues involved through habit, inference, connotation or innuendo in the selection of the public officials being voted for. This often prevents the outcome of a political contest from being a clear and unmistakable mandate to the successful candidates. The component forces which have worked together to elevate them to office are often so numerous and so difficult to ascertain with exactitude that the interpretation of the result is difficult in the extreme. This situation gives rise therefore to a Somewhat impressionistic art of political interpretation which is based upon numerous conversations with gentlemen who held numerous conversations with other gentlemen, all of which at length are condensed into a political communique. Such communiques differ enormously in value, according as the journalist or political soothsayer who issues them is discriminating and skillful in his gathering and compounding of impressions, or credulous, biased and clumsy in his work. At best the political soothsayer (Anglo-Saxon soth, true) is hampered by the lack of instruments of precision and a technique capable of affording some check upon the innumerable personal equations and subjective factors which are encountered in his" work.
The author of this volume by "the use of various ingenious devices of statistical exploration has made a "pioneer contribution at this particular point. He has elaborated a significant list of correspondences between political opinion as registered by elections and roll-calls on the one hand, and various measurable social conditions and vocational affiliations on the other. He finds, for example, that in Minnesota the small village, of which "Gopher Prairie" may serve as a fair sample, is demonstrably the seat of conservative political attitudes to a greater degree than either the large cities or the open country. This is evident by the fact that Henrik Shipstead received little more than half the percentage of the total vote in the small in- corporated villa'ges which he received in the open country, and but two-thirds the support which the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul gave him. Another point of interest—the ex- planation of which is not altogether clear— is that his strength increased steadily as one passed from corn-raising counties, to counties where oats and wheat were the principal crops. Election returns are correlated in other cases with the value of farm property per farm and with geographical location.
One prodigious piece of investigation reported in chapter 6 involved the examination of 95,000 individual votes cast during 1057 rollcalls in twenty-one recent sessions of American legislatures, with a view to learning the extent to which farmer members and labor members respectively formed cohesive political blocs in the several legislatures, and furthermore the extent to which these blocs were in agreement upon the various types of issues which came up for decision.
Even if it should prove that political interpretation must rely in general upon the same methods in the future as in the past, nevertheless the increasing utilization of coefficients of correlation and other devices of statistical exploration and analysis, such as are found in this pioneer study, cannot but result in a real advance in understanding the intricate bearing of political alignments and political verdicts.
The Journal, of Educational Psychology for February contains an article by Professor Stuart A. Rice of the Sociology Department entitled "The Distribution of Intelligence Among College Students."
The Harvard Alumni Bulletin for Januarv Bth, 1925, contains "The Relations of College to Life," an address made by President E. M. Hopkins at the Harvard Union, December 4tb, 1924. The same bulletin contains an editorial on President Hopkins' address entitled "President Hopkins gives us sound doctrine.'"
"American and British Novels of Today, 1890-1924," a bibliography, has been compiled by former Professor F. H. H. Adler now of the department of English, Adelbert College.
"Bibliographical Essays, a tribute to Wilbeforce Eames" privately printed at Harvard University Press in a limited edition, contains a chapter "Isaac Eddy, Printer—Engraver" by Harold G. Rugg. This same volume contains another chapter "Analytical Methods in Bibliography applied to Daniel Webster's speech at Worcester in 1832" by Mr. C. B. Clapp, formerly of the Dartmouth College Library.
