1915] William J. Gies 271 



Section 2. Council. — A. The four officers and three additional 

 members to be elected shall constitute the Council. 



B. No two members of the Council may be from the same Institu- 

 tion. 



Section 3. Nominating Committee. — Nine members from nine 

 different institutions shall comprise the Nominating Committee. 



Last November a number of members of the Society endorsed a 

 proposal to amend Sect. 2 (above), by striking out sub-sect. B, 

 The Chief reason for this proposal was the opinion that the restric- 

 tion (See. 2, B) " is unnecessarily troublesome in the selection of 

 members of the Council." This reason would have been sufficient 

 to commend the proposed amendment, if more important considera- 

 tions had not stood in the way. Some of those who disagreed with 

 the proponents of this Suggestion considered that the adoption of the 

 proposed amendment would facilitate the selection of any number of 

 the seven members of the Council from any one group of workers, 

 and thus would discourage continuance of the present democratic and 

 highly satisfactory method of selecting officials from widely scat- 

 tered groups of workers (" institutions "). One of those who for- 

 mally opposed the adoption of the proposed amendment wrote (in 

 part) as follows, in an open letter to the members of the Biochem. 

 Society : 



The executive affairs of the Society should obviously be in charge 

 of the most representative members. The Society is conducted, on 

 the representative principle, for the benefit of the many and not of a 

 few. To urge that "the executive conduct of the Society should be 

 in the hands of the ablest members " is to say, in effect, that a small 

 number of the most eminent members of the Society, in two or three 

 Centers of activity, should be continuously in charge of its management ; 

 and to express belief, besides, that they would give to such executive 

 work the time and attention the duties deserved. Yet everybody knows 

 of the invincible apathy among our ablest investigators regarding 

 activity in behalf of the scientific societies. . . . The " ablest men " are 

 usually the most indifferent to the practical activities of the societies 

 of which they are members. Their time is "too valuable" to be 

 wasted on " executive trifles." The constitutional requirement which 

 it is proposed to amend, tends to place the ablest and most worthy of 

 the younger and more active members in the official positions — the 

 members most competent, usually, to voice the prevailing sentiments 



