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This paper presents a limited number of concepts that comprise social action theory. By establishing greater precision in defining the basic concepts as goals, values, norms, means, and social conditions, a reformulation of the "unit-act" is set forth. The interrelationships among these concepts for the manifestation of social volition are discussed in keeping with the voluntaristic orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a response to the comments made by scholar Tervor Lummis on the paper "Charles Booth and Labor Colonies in 1889-1905." Lummis directly or indirectly raises some general points, discussion of which was limited by lack of space in the original article. His position is unclear, especially on the relationship between scholar Charles Booth's views and those of his contemporaries. He seems to accept, if only by implication, that Edwardian legislation was molded by distinctive moral assumptions; that a major influence behind it was the discussion of policy by those whose social investigations had given them the status of acknowledged experts; and that in their views a preoccupation with the effects of environment on character can be seen. He appears at times to suggest that Booth, in spite of the deference paid to him and the constant reference to his work, was isolated from contemporary opinion by his greater objectivity. Nevertheless, Lummis does discuss Booth's influence, which he sees almost entirely in traditional terms: it ended the confusion between moral and social problems and supplied new economic criteria for the determination of policy.

This section provides an overview of several reports on the social work presented during the conference of the British Sociological Association in 1957. In her paper, The Development of Professional Social Work and its Place in the Welfare State, Una Cormack began by tracing the history of social work. She argued that social work as we know it was a response to problems posed by the industrial revolution. By the end of the last century the principles, and some of the skills and attitudes typical of modern social work were already widely accepted. But at the turn of the century a rift appeared between social work and social reform. As a result, many social services developed without any effective participation by social workers, and for many years social work was handicapped by its alienation from the main streams of thought and action. Some discussed social work in terms of social functions and professional roles, others in terms of occupational categories and the services within which social workers are employed, and others in terms of the skills and attitudes held to typify the professional social worker. Much of the discussion that followed was concerned with problems of status within the social services.

Hirschi and Stark (1969) reported very little relationship between religious involvement and adolescent delinquency. They concluded that religion is therefore "irrelevant to delinquency." The present paper offers an alternative interpretation of their findings and tests one of its implications. It is hypothesized that Hirschi and Stark's findings apply only to offenses against persons and property, and that a clear relationship between religion and delinquency should be found for "victimless' crimes. Data from high-school students in the Pacific Northwest replicate Hirschi and Stark's findings but also reveal a moderately strong relationship between religion and the use of marijuana and alcohol. Suggestions are made for further tests of the alternative interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social action is now receiving much emphasis in programs of community development. Hence, a sociological analysis of the process is both necessary and timely. In this paper a design for such an analysis is presented. It involves three aspects of the action process: (1) initiation, (2) legitimation, and (3) execution of the proposed action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with developing a means of studying social action, rather than attending only to structure. A county self-survey of health conditions is used as a test case. Certain assumptions and questions are specified and the flow of action is abstracted. On this basis, a model is developed. Five analytical components are seen: (1) convergence of interest, (2) establishment of an initiating set, (3) legitimation and sponsorship, (4) establishment of an executing set and mobilization of community resources, (5) fulfillment of a "charter." Each component is presented and discussed in some detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is one chapter from a larger study called "Success and Failure of Adult Probationers in Wisconsin." The problem is to compare the behavior of rural-farm probationers, rural-nonfarm probationers, and urban-nonfarm probationers with respect to certain traits in their history. These traits were age of conviction, factors in the family background, factors associated with the circumstances and conditions of the crime and of the trial, crime for which convicted, length of sentence, and period on probation. Rural- farm and urban-nonfarm differ most strikingly in their behavior on probation. The critical ratio of the standard error of difference to the actual difference between their mean violation rates was 6.8. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the role played by Henry George in offering to the public the appeal for social reform set out in ''Progress and Poverty." After the momentous task of writing the book had been finished, the discouraging one remained of finding some house to publish it. George submitted the manuscript to D. Appleton & Co., which had brought out the works of Herbert Spencer. With "Progress and Poverty" off his desk, George found time hanging heavily. The one circumstance added to the other induced him to start a four page "weekly journal of politics and opinion" called The State. Occasional contributions were made by some of his friends, but in the main George provided the copy. The new paper had been launched on April 5th, before the letter arrived from the Appleton Company rejecting to print the book. After this rejection, Tom George, the author's brother took over the job of finding a publisher. Leaving his home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the author's brother made the rounds in New York, acting under advisement of Professor William Swinton. Harper's turned it down unequivocally as being too revolutionary.

The article focuses on the limitations of holding to a strict fact-value dichotomy, given some of structural difficulties students of social problems encounter. Authors also attempted to extend and clarify the above analysis via a critical discussion of two papers concerned with the value problem in the sociology of deviance-by the well-known American sociologists, Howard S. Becker and Alvin Gouldner. In this article, authors are involved not only with theoretical implications and omissions of this debate but also more generally with its implications for social theory at large. Authors have argued throughout that the social structure will determine that what is truth for one group will not be truth for another. Authors further suggest that there is a clear rationale for close examination of the extent to which deviant values are inextricably linked with social structure, and that, with this as a major concern, one can elucidate one's conception of the way in which men define the world and the way the world actually is.

This article focuses on ideology and sociology in Soviet Union as of March 1970. The author is concerned not only to show how Marxism has been so adapted to the needs of Soviet Union's elites, but also to examine the impact in that country of western sociology. Not only have there been significant changes in the Soviet elite's use of Marxism but, in company with the development of sociology in western societies, the role of Marxism as a radical critique of industrial society has been replaced by a pragmatic empirical approach to social problems. In both societies, this change is related to the specialization of sociology, to its separation from philosophy and to the shift in emphasis which takes place when a subject becomes professionalized and moves from a speculative to a scientific discipline. After the October Revolution, the study of sociology in Soviet Union was strongly dependent on Marxist philosophy. Marxist sociology was synonymous with historical or economic materialism. But economic materialism is open to different interpretations. It has both a positivistic, empirical component, and a dogmatic one: the first emphasizes the priority of matter over mind and actual social relations, the second is didactic showing the course and predicting the direction of social change. In the U.S.S.R. both these tendencies have been adopted.

The article presents a list of publications received by the "Journal of Marriage and the Family." It includes "Social Problems: Dissensus and Deviation in an Industrial Society," by Russell R. Dynes and Alfred C. Clarke, "The Principal Nurse and Today's Family," by Doris Hasler and "Advances in Psychoanalysis," edited by Harold Kelman.

The purpose of this paper is to give a systematic account of the significance that antagonism among opinions of individuals has on the theory of social choice. We define an "intensity" of antagonism among individuals and an index of "possibility" of constructing social welfare functions, and show that when there is less antagonism in a society, then there is more "possibility" of constructing social welfare functions. Since antagonism is an opposite concept to similarity, this relation can be viewed as a formal realization of Arrow's assertion [1, Ch. 7] that sets preference similarity as the basis of social welfare judgement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article attempts to present a conceptual framework to be used in the study and analysis of the relationship between families and societies. The author states that social scientists and policy makers respond to the unanticipated social problems brought by economic growth and industrialization, and require empirical data based on family sociological research in order to provide humanistic social action policies. Social indicators, approaches to familial systems, and linkages between family and society are discussed.

A classification of motivations involved in family interaction problems give rise to a typology of pair problems. Treatment, specifiable for each problem type, may be maximized by appropriate structuring and control of the counseling session. Case record data are discussed as they relate to the utility of the conceptual scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The people of the South are making a more intelligent effort to find answers to their social questions than have been possible heretofore. Both federal and state, including some nonagricultural, institutions are making important contributions to an understanding of these questions. Steps to be taken include: 1. Helping the rural people in particular and the public generally to understand their social problems. 2. Southern institutions must lead the way to rural social progress in the region. Research is the most serious business of these institutions. For research to be the most effective instrument for rural progress it must not be made a side line to teaching or other functions. Teachers who undertake research must have sufficient relief from teaching loads to do it aggressively. 3. The research specialist must bring to his task a cultivated, scientific mind, a mastery of scientific method, and a social philosophy. 4. The rural sociologist must maintain something more than a speaking acquaintance, an effective working relationship, with the physical and biological sciences, must help organize the forces of Science, help develop a Science of Man in which man is the master of a favorable ecological balance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article profiles the editor of the journal "The Standard" Henry George. Henry George was not only the painstaking editor of "The Standard" but also the leader of a movement for social reform. Shortly after the presidential election in 1888, William Saunders, now a member of Parliament, came to America on business. He took Henry George back with him to England for a short holiday. George spoke before assemblages of ministers of various denominations, before the Knights of Labor, the Council of the Financial Reform Association and at several other important meetings. George did not accentuate the differences between Georgism and Marxism at the debate but spent most of the time assigned to him, in explaining his own social philosophy and economic ideas. George followed much the same tactics at the National Liberal Club in the debate he held with Legislator Samuel Smith, who defended established interests and attacked the Georgist program of land reform as immoral. But partial surcease from work came for a time when George with his family, and a group of English, Scottish, Irish and American friends, went to Paris to attend the land reform conference called together by Michael Flurscheim, an ironmaster of Baden.

This article focuses on the theory of sociology given by sociologist Talcott Parsons. The fate of the functional requisites in Parsonian sociology can be regarded as happy or sad according to one's theoretical predilections. It has been shown that in many respects the development and changes that have taken place in and around the concept have reflected the development and changes in Parson's theory of society. The caveat on theory-building expressed in the book "The Structure of Social Action," has held good over the years as of March 1970. This is especially the case with respect to the universal imperatives. They are not subject to change for they are not empirical realities; they are, however, real in their consequences for social systems and for the structure of social organization in terms of all human societies. Parsons has made and elaborated the important distinction between social and personality systems in such a fashion that old notions of the individual versus the society have been seen to be inadequate. This is particularly relevant here as it paves the way to an understanding of individual and social requisites of human society, though Parsons himself has not taken full advantage of the possibilities in this context.

This article deals with sociology in India. It does not attempt to review all the sociological work which is being done at present in India. The background of Indian sociology is outlined, some present styles of work are discussed and finally the place of Indian studies in British sociology is considered. Sociology was first introduced into Indian universities some forty years ago, in 1919 in Bombay, India-based University of Bombay. But the discipline grew very slowly thereafter. Much of the theoretical writing was devoted to presenting speculative schemes of social evolution and it was remote from the major intellectual controversies of the times. Empirical research was almost entirely descriptive and largely confined to the sphere of social work or social problems in the narrow sense. There are two particularly important reasons which account for the lack of progress. In the first place, Indian sociology, like other disciplines, was intellectually dependent upon British universities and since academic sociology in Great Britain itself developed slowly in this period it was hardly to be expected that it should burst into vigorous life in India. Secondly, while sociology is not necessarily subversive it is always likely to engender social criticism, in order to flourish it needs, in greater measure than many other disciplines, a general freedom of thought and it does not flourish under authoritarian, or colonial, governments.

This article presents information about three studies: "Heft 13: Die Neugestaltung des Dorfes," "Heft 17: Die Altersversicherung der bäuerlichen Bervölkerung," and "Heft 25: Verbesserung der Agrarstrukturund Ortsplanung." These three studies belong to an important West German series of monographs dealing with rural social problems. They are sponsored by the society "fur ländliche Sozialfragen" and edited by the well-known agricultural economist W. Abel. Two of the studies are concerned with the serious and much discussed problem of improving the agrarian structure in Western Germany. One factor which influences all these deliberations and gives the agrarian policy at the same time a strong social flavor is the necessity of settling and employing the stream of refugees from Eastern Germany, most of whom come from rural environments. Heft 25 deals with practically the same problems, giving emphasis, however, to the planning idea. The paper read by T. Tröscher contains an interesting map illustrating the need for enlarging small farms, on the one hand, and the actual enlargement projects, as they were in function in 1956-1957.

The author comments on several articles centering on pension funds in the May 1961 issue of "The Journal of Finance." The author argues that pension funds are instrumental to serving social purposes. It is explained that pension funds also have an impact on the financial markets, which in turn affect the entire U.S. economy. The author discusses four problem areas which will demonstrate the importance of pension funds in regards to welfare. The author examines what pension trusts reveal about the evolutionary stage of the U.S. capitalist system.

Information about several papers discussed during the International Union of Family Organization conference is presented. The attendees of the meeting discussed the economic and social problems faced by the modern families. They also tackle on the laws of several countries on the reciprocal rights of husband and wife. The reactions of the modern families on the legislative measures implemented in respective countries were also focused.

The article presents information on the critical attitude and social action. He who immerses himself in his immediate responsibilities and meets them well is not an escapist, even if he does not read all the news every day. The real escapists are those who run away from their assigned tasks and rush around worrying about every trouble which they glean from their morning paper, scattering their interests, frittering away their imaginative capacity, and squandering their intellectual resources. However, concentration does not mean closing one's mind. If academic studies amount to more than professional training, they must enable one to see and weigh alternatives, to respect choices, which differ from his, and to check and re-check his premises. One cannot do so without questioning oneself as well as others, authority as well as anarchy, the claims of tradition as well as of revolution. But in doing so one has to realize that there are insoluble problems, unanswerable questions, and extra-rational forces in human affairs.

The article focuses on rural sociological research and social policy. Rural sociologists, perhaps more than other social scientists, have a long tradition of belief that their work should be "applied," that is, their research should have an impact on social policy decisions relevant to pressing social problems. As recently as the 1972 annual meeting, this position was reiterated by the current president of the Rural Sociological Society Thomas Ford, who stated: "If there is anything that has set the Runt Sociological Society apart from organizations of other sociologists, it has been the deeply ingrained belief that sociology should be applied to the basic problems of rural society." In light of this belief, it is surprising to see that the most provoking and visible analysis of rural life comes from outside the social science academic community in general, and outside rural sociology in particular. Most sociological research is so trivial from a social policy perspective that art analysis of its impact would be meaningless. President Ford may also have been alluding to the problem of limited relevance when he made the following observation regarding the belief of rural sociologists in applied research. The failure to convert that belief into more effective action has at times made it appear more of a myth than a credo. Regardless of whether one accepts this particular characterization of rural sociology, few would deny that "Hard Tomatoes, Hard Times," has a visibility and therefore a potential for social policy impact shared by little if any rural sociological research.

The article deliberates on social service in the U.S. The central issue in welfare policy is clear and constant: how can the relatively affluent majority be persuaded to share its wealth and concern with those left behind in poverty. The Judeo-Christian ethic, the basic humanitarian orientation of most Americans, and a long tradition of private charity have convinced the majority of Americans that something must be done for the poor. This unpleasant situation is largely the result of the contradictory goals of the welfare agency. The overt purpose of the agency is to help their clients, but its latent function is to punish those who do not help themselves. Much of the change in the public service sector since the Second World War can be attributed, in a broad sense, to the increase in professionalism. Professionalism is, indeed, ubiquitous force in American society. The professional is the link between the knowledge and theoretical constructs developed in academia and the goals and realities of social action. In this regard, the professional has become all indispensable part of any large organization but his/her role is a unique one.

The article examines some of the economic and social problems faced by the family of the marquis of Stafford in the exploitation of their mineral wealth in England from 1780-1860. Inheritors of an empire of land in the west midlands and in the Scottish Highlands, heirs also to the great Bridgewater fortune, this family was deeply involved in many aspects of the emergent industrial economy. Its investments included road, canal, and railway construction; agricultural improvement was another outlet; it exploited its mineral wealth whenever it was found; it constructed furnaces and directly managed operations in every section of the iron industry. Its social prestige may have derived from its acres and its mansions, but a great deal of the family income had its source in the new sectors of the economy. For three decades in the nineteenth century it was probably the richest family in Great Britain. The relationship between the Staffords and the development of industry was at its most intimate on their estates in the west midlands.

The article assesses the social status of vagrants and vagabonds in England from 1598-1664. Vagabonds became the scapegoats for all social problems. They were carriers of rumor, sedition, and disease, and they infected others with their "licentious liberty." The threat posed by their needless idleness and reckless mobility seemed immediate and overwhelming. In spite of the continuing interest in poverty and the growing amount of work on migration in this period, however, historians have seldom been able to penetrate the haze of rhetorical abuse to see the vagabond as he was, to define his status, or assess the significance of his mobility. A recent survey of migrants in one English county has suggested that mobility among the lower strata of society was both long-distance and frequent, and the literary reactions to vagrancy would support this hypothesis. Information would be most valuable for large urban communities where vagrants were common. Here vagrants' passports were sometimes entered haphazardly in order books or council minutes along with other business.

The failure of common law to develop the principle of family responsibility and its subsequent statutory emergence in sixteenth century England provides the focus for examining the assumption that tensions between the family system and other institutions are unique to industrialized society. Analysis of historical data suggests needed qualification of this assumption and demonstrates the relationship of political and economic forces to the development of soda! welfare policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion is exploded that naive idealism motivates and sustains Peace Corps volunteers. Neither is the new respect for the spirit of service their sole satisfaction. Practical considerations include the opportunity to test oneself, to become independent, to search for more satisfying values, to cooperate rather than compete, to encourage the spread of democracy, and to satisfying the need to be needed and recognized. The expansion of volunteerism, as illustrated by new applications of the Peace Corps model, has powerful potential for reducing social problems in the United States and abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proneness to value bias of methodological theories involving nominal concepts is discussed and illustrated by references to family and other research. The dangers of making unwarranted assumptions and of reifying theory are emphasized. An outline is presented of steps necessary to avoid such problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The method of character education employed by the Communists, their system of developing socialist morality, and their childrearing practices are reviewed and commented upon in the light of practices and standards prevalent in the United States. The tremendous social problems that are confronting us present the greatest challenge that humanity has ever faced. These problems must be solved by individuals who have learned to live responsibly in a democracy. The ultimate hope of humanity lies in man's capacity to be concerned for others in such a way as to establish a human fellowship that will cross all lines of political difference, social class, race, sex, philosophy, and religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the use of the Fels Parent-Behavior Rating Scales in analyzing the social problems of parents in the U.S. Type of discipline implemented by parents to reduce the unpleasant behavior of children; Factors affecting the reliability of the rating scale; Accounts on the processes of cue writing and scaling.

Rural sociology as a scientific discipline is indigenous to the United States, in contrast to the European origins of other social sciences. The explanation lies in large pan in the contrasting rural conditions of the New and the Old Worlds during the latter pan of the 19th and early 20th Centuries. The New World was in fez went; the rapidity of settlement produced social disorganization and lack of organization; the land laws prescribed scattered settlement with consequent social and geographical isolation. There was general neglect of country problems. The "green risings" of farmers fighting severe depression, along with exploitative railroads, monopolies, and other middlemen, helped dramatize the rural social problems. The fortuitous association of three important figures crusading for country life (Theodore Roosevelt, Gifford Pinchot, and Sir Horace Plunkett) in a period of rural crisis resulted in the appointment of the Country Life Commission, the land-mark precursor to the rise of rural social science in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A manifestation of changing American rural society is the closer integration of rural and urban social systems. Under such conditions, it appears that the relationships of urban and rural social systems are crucial to understanding contemporary rural society. For example, a substantial part of our current "rural problems" may be viewed in terms of adjustment to American secular society. Considerations of this kind direct attention to the relationships of centralized and local social systems and particularly to the manner in which these types of systems are linked. In this, bureaucratic organization must be taken into account as well as the local structure. Mechanisms of linking centralized and local systems are considered in sonic detail including local advisory committees, voluntary associations, and surveys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the problem of rural migration and role of the European Society for Rural Sociology in the problem. The author of the article informs that it is for the purpose of creating a meeting ground for those interested in the welfare of the farm population that the European Society for Rural Sociology was founded. Probably the most tangible and measurable symptom of the unsettled conditions in Europe's countryside is rural migration; it is understandable, therefore, that this was chosen as the general theme of the first congress of the European Society for Rural Sociology. The extent of rural migration is so great that it must surely be counted as one of the principal social problems of our time. In Great Britain the present number of people in rural occupations has been estimated as about four-fifths of the prewar total. The author argues that in many countries there is a definite movement of people from agriculture into town employment. The causes of this trend have been classified into "push" and "pull" factors. The "push" comes from the fall in farm labor requirements, owing mainly to mechanization. In a well researched article the author gives necessary data regarding rural migration in Europe.

This article reports on certain findings of an investigation made to determine the impact of a sizeable industry on a rural area and presents a theoretical frame of reference for analyzing these findings. The purpose of the study was to test various hypotheses relating to industry as a practical solution to the social and economic problems of rural areas. The study showed that industrialization served to raise levels of living substantially but did not change social participation, social institutions, and farming endeavors to a great extent. The general conclusion of the study is that judgments regarding the impact of industrialization on a rural community can be made only after it has been determined whether or not industry will represent a new and unique situation. Prior judgments regarding the impact of industrialization on a rural community are hazardous. In a low-income community the economic impact of industrialization can be predicted. On the other hand, if industrialization represents only a slight situational change, because of previous experiences, social patterns will be disrupted minimally.

The article provides information about various documents related to sociology. "Programme of Concerted Practical Action in the Social Field of the United Nations and Specialized Agencies" released by the United Nations Economic and Social Council, and one of equal size on "The World Social Situation," are two United Nations publications which better than any others present materials of broad interest to social scientists. Resolution 535 (VI) of the General Assembly, which initiated this report, "Calls upon the Economic and Social Council to examine in detail... the social activities undertaken by the United Nations, together with the pertinent activities of the specialized agencies, in order to fulfill the various social tasks assigned to it by the Charter, and to take the necessary action to assure that efforts and resources are effectively concentrated upon those social problems the early solution of which can be promoted through international action, especially in the under-developed countries, both self-governing and non-self- governing. "Young Farmers' Clubs: Report of a Survey," by G. P. Hirsch, is a study of Young Farmers' Clubs in England and Wales and brings to the reader's attention the lusty spirit of enterprise and struggle for independence from national and county government which appears to characterize this youth movement in socialist Great Britain.

Puerto Rico's social problems which led to the passage of the 1941 Land Law are described. This act provided for the resettlement of landless farm workers (agregados) in new, "planned" communities. Each family is given a small plot of land for subsistence farming. A "community action plan" of mutual aid and sell-help among the settlers is encouraged. One highly successful and one less successful settlement were selected in each of three agricultural regions--the coffee area, the sugar-cane area, and the tobacco-and-minor-crops area. The pairs of communities were matched on as many factors as possible. Half of the settlers, randomly selected, were interviewed in each community. The degree of success of the communities was found to vary at a diminishing rate from the sugar-cane region to the tobacco-and-minor-crops area to the coffee region. For the most part, there was a high degree of satisfaction within resettlement communities. In the successful communities, the professional leaders had been most effective in stimulating natural leadership. The successful and unsuccessful sugar-cane communities were compared in detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Current use of the concept of marginality with reference to farm populations raises certain problems of interpretation. Three types of marginality may be distinguished: social welfare, cultural, and economic. Welfare marginality refers to a level of "decent living" and therefore constitutes a value judgment defining a social problem. Cultural marginality arises at those points at which a population is confronted with instable, ambiguous, or conflicting norms for conduct. The economic margin may refer either to grades or to units of population, and is conditioned upon social definitions of standards of living. The distinction between margin returns and average per capita returns is essential for clarity. The nature of the distribution of resources, rates of population growth, skills, and abilities affects per capita returns. Inequalities which raise returns in the short-run may have unanticipated long-time results. Social structures and their supporting sentiments exert a significant influence upon mobility in response to economic conditions. Because of this a social equilibrium is of a different order from, and does not necessarily correspond to, an economic equilibrium. Studies in rural sociology have made important contributions to the analysis of this problem; the outlook for further analytical research is promising. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural sociology should be an integral part of the extension structure, not merely an accessory. Its brief obligation to extension work is to help orient the whole program. The trend in extension work from solitary activity of specialists to a group or clinical approach provides a new opportunity to make this contribution. Rural sociology should contribute also some of its careful research attitudes and analytical methods to extension work. Finally, rural sociology, in cooperation with other fields should approach the solution of what laymen call "social problems." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents various research works related to rural sociology. A Virginia study describes occupational characteristics of one-half of the rural relief population as recorded in case records in 13 sample counties. Of workers under 25 years of age, 41 per cent of the females and 35 per cent of the males had never been employed as long as four consecutive weeks on a single job. Another Virginia bulletin deals with the mobility of the heads of rural relief households. It was found that 64 per cent of the heads of families had lived all their lives, and 73 per cent had lived for 20 years or more, in the county of present residence. "Farmers on Relief and rehabilitation" is based on a study of the relief case records of 53,000 farm operator and farm laborer families in 300 counties, receiving relief grants or rehabilitation advances in June 1935. "The People of the Drought States" is the title of a bulletin prepared in the Division of Farm Population and Rural Life and appearing as second of a series of three Works Progress Administration publications concerning the Great Plains States. A Works Progress Administration bulletin presents an analysis of records of work histories and itineraries of 500 unattached migratory-casual workers registered for relief in transient bureaus in 13 cities in 1933 and 1934.

This article presents information on rural social research in the southern States of the U.S. In the South there is a farm tenant problem. Natural resources are ruthlessly destroyed and land is misused. The South is aware of the biracial composition of its population, the people in turn realize to their great chagrin, illiteracy is broadcast in the area and people are familiar with the low per capita incomes of rural and urban, white and colored. The article explores the factors and conditions associated with these problems and their interrelationship. Modern scientific research has entered the social and economic fields. Research and fact-finding agencies are penetrating these complexities and are attempting to get at the roots of the social and economic ills of the region. Southern educational institutions are at a point of transition. The radio, the automobile, and the paved road, agencies of mass impression and communication, have opened new channels that run counter to the old isolationistic and individualistic framework. In the last few years the Federal government has initiated two research agencies that have accomplished substantial results in the South, the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Rural Research Unit of the W.P.A.

This article deals with the spatial and occupational mobility of the rural population of the U.S. It is concerned with the study of those movements of families and individuals by which they attempt to orient themselves geographically and occupationally. While, at times, mobility may become a social problem, it is more likely to be found as an accompaniment of important changes in the structure or function of the social and economic system. As such, mobility may be either the cause or the effect of a problem situation. Field studies of mobility are of particular value in establishing differentials with respect to the mobility of families and individuals.

In this article the author comments on the new edition of Henry George's book entitled "Progress and Poverty." The remarks that the two world wars, were the cause of land reform societies in European countries disbanding, perhaps, also, many connected with them died on the field of battle. There was a vigorous one in Germany before the First World War, but when the author inquired about it on his visit to Berlin in 1921, he could find no one who had been connected with it. Since the end of the second world war, there has been a revival of interest in the movement in European countries, but there no information about the extent to which the book is circulated and read. Before the First World War, in England there were societies for the taxation of land values, which were to a great extent, meetings of saints, with little or no desire on the part of the adherents to go out and find sinners and convert them. The author remarks that "Progress and Poverty" supplies the readers with a complete reply to Marxism and State Socialism of any brand.

In this article the author argues that a conference has become part of the routine of diplomatic life. There is, however, a danger of its becoming something of a political and diplomatic habit. One conference that should be remembered by the diplomatists of this generation is that which took place at Vienna in 1815, for the agenda at that conference was not unlike the one perplexing the minds of the men of this time. The men who participated in the Congress of Vienoe were schooled diplomatists, save perhaps in the case of Castleteagh. Another conference held to consider the peace of Europe and the security of her States was held at Berlin in 1870, when all the leading ministers and diplomatists of the governments gathered to make a settlement of the disputes then rife. Bismarck was host on that occasion. The details that had to be considered took little time to arrange satisfactorily, and the documents for the settlement were signed within a month. The author remarks that the trouble today is that there is not a man at the head of affairs who knows the history of Europe and her problems.

The article focuses on the impacts of technological changes in business leadership. according to the author in the present time the convention of attacking the problem of poverty by remolding distribution has given way to the policy of attacking poverty by increasing production. During the last century and one-half, fashion in policy for attacking poverty has come full circle. The problem of what determined the division of income among classes and, climaxed by the Marxian analysis, what this might do to the relationship among classes and what might be done to it took the center of the stage. There were always those who claimed that poverty could be alleviated only by increasing production. The pessimistic aspects of classical analysis and the views of Marxian enthusiasts came to dominate, however, reaching their peak of popularity after the difficulties of the early Nineteen Thirties. More recent experience has brought the circle around. English postwar attempts to eliminate poverty by redistribution ran bead on into the brutal fact that there must be a larger income to distribute if the poor are to become less poor.

The article focuses on the land tax program launched. Another clear indication of how political leader Henry George and the Radical land program were linked in 1884 can be found in a speech by C.A. Fyffe, the author of the land tax resolution adopted by the National Liberal Federation in 1889. Fyffe, as Liberal candidate for Oxford, addressed the Oxford Reform Club in November, 1884. His speech was full of paraphrases and quotations from Progress and Poverty. Eighteen eighty-four was the year, then, in which the British public discovered that Chamberlain was giving aid and comfort to George's scheme for confiscation and plunder. Political leader Joseph Chamberlain's 1885 campaign for the "unauthorized programme" of the Radicals merely dotted the "t's" and crossed the "t's" of that discovery. Both what Chamberlain said in his denials and what he failed to say point clearly to two conclusions. The first is that the Radical goal with respect to hind and to over-all social reform was virtually the same as George's.

The article focuses on Henry George's analysis of the social conditions in Great Britain. The discussion must be introduced by a brief outline of the manner in which the American social philosopher was drawn into the maelstrom of British reform. The work "Progress and Poverty" had stated the social problem from a worldwide point of view. For a first hand knowledge of conditions in society he had, of course, leaned heavily on his experiences and observations in the United States; what he had to say about the rest of the world was drawn from secondary sources. But clearly George was from the beginning interested not merely in carrying his message to the British Isles through the circulation there of his book, but in using Great Britain as a proving ground for his theories. The magnet that drew George Britain-ward was the current revolt of the Irish peasants. The pull of the British situation was evident in Progress and Poverty itself; for George declared that while writing the chapter "Inferences from Facts" he had been "looking over the literature of Irish misery.

The article presents information related to writer H.G. Wells. Except for his more fantastic short stories and novels, H.G. Wells is an almost forgotten literary figure. And with the possible exception of his "Outline of History" there is little to remind people that Wells was more than just a master story-teller, he was a serious essayist in the fields of economics and sociology. If people examine those studies (particularly the early ones, which he wrote as a social scientist), they can see in them the same spirit and consciousness that animates the contemporary scientific worker. Within the sciences today there are two significant movements. The social scientist is turning to the work of his colleagues in the physical sciences with the aim of acquainting himself with the logic behind the constructs of those sciences. Side by side with this development is the increasing awareness of the physical scientists that their work is involving them, as scientists, in the fields of social action. The committees of atomic scientists are symptomatic of this movement and of the fact that advances within the field of atomic energy have been a catalyst on this particular action.

The article focuses on the political planning in Great Britain after second world war. The author remarks that although, British statesman Winston Churchill summed up Britain's postwar program in three words, "work, food and houses," swift, definite answers to the issues involved are difficult to discover. A satisfactory rehousing program, for instance, cannot be evolved overnight, the supply of food is complicated by the entangling agreements and pledges between British farmers, foreign suppliers, Ottawa Agreement nations and Lend-Lease countries, and the provision of work rests upon favorable conditions of national and international finance and trade. Parliamentary leaders continue to emphasize the need of restoring economic equilibrium between pent-up demand and short supplies, between the distorted structure of wartime industry and peacetime requirements, between the distribution of war debts and the continuance of peacetime trade. Many of the British plans for peacetime, as for example those concerning improved social security, education and health, represent the culmination of a process which began long before this conflict.