January 30, 1920] 



SCIENCE 



115 



SCIENCE AND POLITICS 



At the St. Louis meeting of the American 

 Association for the Advancement of Science, 

 the council passed the following resolution : 



That sectional officers avoid placing on their 

 programs papers relating to acute political ques- 

 tions on which public opinion is divided. 



I know nothing of the circumstances lead- 

 ing to this resolution. If papers offered to 

 the sections were inspired by partisan politics 

 rather than by science, they would deserve 

 condemnation and exclusion. But the reso- 

 lution does not refer to such papers; it im- 

 plies that scientific men should not discuss 

 matters relating to acute political questions 

 on which public opinion is divided. To one 

 who believes that in the present chaos of con- 

 flicting opinions and purposes the finger of 

 science should point the way to safety, this 

 seems almost incredibly stupid. I am of 

 course aware that a scientific man who tries 

 to throw the light of truth on the field of 

 political discussion is not imKkely to be 

 abused for his pains. He may find honest 

 people doubting his integrity or his intelli- 

 gence. He himself is only too well aware of 

 his liability to error. But in the face of all 

 this, he must and should persevere, knowing- 

 well that his feet are set upon the path of 

 progress. T. D. A. Cockerell 



TjNrVERSITT OF COLORADO, 



January 14, 1920 



QUOTATIONS 



THE DUES OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION 

 AND THE SALARIES OF SCIENTIFIC MEN 



The revised constitution of the American 

 Association for the Advancement of Science, 

 as presented at the Baltimore meeting, was 

 adopted at St. Louis with only one substantial 

 change — an increase of the annual dues to five 

 doUars. This change had been recommended, 

 after careful consideration, by the committee 

 on policy and the council and was adopted by 

 unanimous vote at the opening general session 

 of the association. The increase in the dues 

 only meets the general situation. All the ex- 

 penses of the association have increased in 

 some such proportion, except the salaries of 



the officers, and it would be unfair to them and 

 a bad example to other institutions, to retain 

 nominal salaries paid in deipreciated dollars. 

 This has been done in the case of teachers in 

 many institutions of learning and for scien- 

 tific men in the sei-vice of the government, 

 while commensurate with the increased cost of 

 living have been the increases in wages for 

 many of the working classes, and of the earn- 

 ings of most professional and business men. 



Institutions of learning and the scientific 

 bureaus of the government have suffered 

 alarming losses from their staffs. At the pres- 

 ent time many men of science are hesitating 

 between loyalty to their institutions and re- 

 search work, on the one hand, and duty to their 

 families and the attraction of new opportuni- 

 ties, on the other. In one government bureau 

 three men are now holding open offers of 

 twenty to thirty thousand dollars a year to see 

 whether the Congress will increase their salar- 

 ies to six or eight thousand. 



If men are driven aiway from positions where 

 they are using their ability and their training 

 for the general good, and if those who remain 

 are compelled to use time that should be de- 

 voted to research or teaching to earning money 

 from outside sources, the future of science and 

 with it the welfare of the nation will be jeop- 

 ardized. A generation might pass before there 

 would be recovery from the resulting demorali- 

 zation. It would be indeed humiliating to 

 conquer Germany in war and then permit it to 

 surpass us in the arts of peace. 



It is certainly unfortunate that the Ameri- 

 can Association should be compelled to in- 

 crease its dues, as measured in dollars, at a 

 time when all costs are advancing to such an 

 extent that those living on fixed salaries find 

 it extremely difficult to make both ends meet. 

 It would, however, be a still more serious mis- 

 fortune to permit the work of the association 

 and its publications to be crippled. These are 

 important factors in the advancement of sci- 

 ence and in impressing on the general public 

 the place of science in modern civilization and 

 the need of maintaining research work for the 

 national welfare. 



The meetings of the association and the 



