142 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
gives some additional strength to the hypothesis of a racial affinity between the Berbers and most European nations of the present day. EDWARD WESTERMARCK, in F oik-Lore, March, 1905. E. B. W.
Social Life in the United States. M. Paul Ghio opened the discussion of this subject before the Paris Society of Sociology by affirming that the essential character of American life is furnished by the Economic struggle. In the United States the mania for acquiring wealth absorbs both intelligence and initiative. The American democracy, which is free from mixture with the institutions of the old regime, has not proved that democratic institutions assure true equality among citizens. This is due to the principle of authority which flows from economic oppression.
Sentiments of revolt against untoward industrial conditions manifest them- selves less in a militant socialism than in an individualistic anarchism, which finds in America a field favorable to its development.
M. Louis Vigouroux, in continuing the discussion, called attention to the need of prudence in carefully defining the subject which one intends to treat, when speaking of America, in view of the vast differences in the social characteristics of the population in different and remote sections of the country. He agreed with the preceding speaker that in the United States the possession of wealth confers a more irresistible power than in other societies either past or present.
While there are legally no decorations in the United States, yet the insignia of fraternal organizations, and the magnificence of gold lace and towering plumes with which their leaders adorn themselves, form a social equivalent.
It is just to observe that in the midst of this: active practical society, eager for riches and material satisfactions, an intellectual and artistic movement traces itself very distinctly. All who have resorted to American universities have cherished very favorable impressions of them. The instruction is very broad and very independent, and every worthy source is freely drawn upon without bias ; close touch is kept with the work done in Europe, and one feels that from this society, already in a state of fermentation, there will proceed some day, and that not a distant one, a rich intellectual, scientific, and artistic production. Morover, this will be a normal phenomenon. M. Vigouroux recollects that the Greek civili- zation followed the development of the wealth and commerce of Athens, and it is not to be expected that art and letters will flourish in a country without resources. The prestige of the artist, the author, or the savant in America is as yet not to be compared with that enjoyed by these classes among us.
Many of the immigrants in America who have come from repressive and tyrannical states, find themselves ill-prepared for life in a land where so large a part is still left to individual initiative and to personal merit. The result is that in New York and Chicago there are quarters where poverty reaches a degree never met with in France.
In connection with the labor problem, the efforts of the skilled workmen to effect organizations among the unskilled is worthy of note, as well as the ingenious invention of the union label to designate products turned out by union workmen. In regard to the effect of American trade unions upon the laborer, it is evident that the organization has benefited those within it, and consequently, in spite of assertions to the contrary, has contributed toward the amelioration of the lot of unorganized laborers, whether by causing a direct rise of wages for the same duration of labor in certain occupations, or in others by a mitigation of the lowering of wages resulting from the development of machinery and of immigration.
Of the political customs of the United States M. Vigouroux has a few words to say. To his mind two principal causes favor corruption: (i) the multiplicity of elections (municipal, school, judicial, state, national) has given rise to a class of professional politicians, for the mass of the citizens are not able to leave their occupations every moment to go and intrigue, harangue, and vote from one end of the year to the other; (2) immigrants are allowed to vote before they are able to become assimilated with the political institutions of democracy. PAUL GHIO et Louis VIGOUROUX, " La vie sociale aux tats-Unis," Revue Internationale de sociologie, April, 1905. E. B. W.
