REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR I916 143 



world will not give the people true freedom." And it has been said 

 of Professor Shaler that he not only preached good citizenship, but, 

 what was better, he never neglected his own political duty. While 

 we must properly look upon enlightened citizenship as a 365-day-a- 

 year undertaking, there is one day in each year, or two years, or 

 four years when a special duty is laid upon each citizen of the 

 state and nation, and in these times no one is better qualified to 

 exercise the right of suffrage than the geologist. A few weeks ago, 

 too, we learned that even in this great country of ours, where 

 eighteen million ballots were cast at a single election, individual 

 votes have not lost their power to influence the result. And how 

 true it is that education of the scientific type is essential to a correct 

 understanding of many of the issues of the day. 



In a leading editorial, the day before election, a nonpartisan writer 

 mentioned the discussion of prosperity as a campaign issue and 

 remarked that " Analysis of the interminable political arguments 

 about it would probably disclose that in the main they consist of 

 about 95 per cent imagination and exaggeration, in equal propor- 

 tions, 5 per cent of fact, and of unbiased opinion not a trace." 

 A low-grade ore of that composition surely needs a citizen who 

 is a scientist or engineer to make the necessary separation and 

 concentration. 



Take another political and economic issue that must be faced — 

 the length of the working day. Professor Lee, of Columbia, recently 

 emphasized the fact that the determination of the proper numbei 

 of hours of work is primarily a problem of physiology, although 

 too often economic and social considerations have been made para- 

 mount. Must we not agree with the physiologist, at least to the 

 extent of admitting that it is all too evident that here is a present-day 

 issue of large importance which deserves scientific rather than 

 political treatment? Or we may say, Here is a civic question that 

 demands the attention of citizens who have had scientific training. 

 Who can better weigh the opposing elements of this question — on 

 the one side the cumulative fatigue of the individual producer and 

 on the other the economic requirements of society as the consumer? 



To mention just one other of the larger issues of the moment, the 

 railroad question is one so intimately tied up with the geographic 

 relations of mineral resources that the geologist citizen is eminently 

 well qualified to consider how dependent is industrial opportunity 

 upon fair freight rates. When we realize that the railroad earnings 

 from the transportation of the raw products of the mine alone 

 exceed the earnings from passengers and also exceed the freight 



