CORRESPONDENCE. 
719 
Recently Eastern men quietly secured an amendment to onr 
constitution by which, instead of one, there should be three 
Vice-Presidents—first, an Eastern Vice-President, from the 
territory east of the eastern time line (Buffalo); second, one 
from the central area, and, thirdly, one from the West, thus 
adroitly securing perpetually to the East the senior or ruling 
Vice-Presidency, so that, no difference what may happen to the 
President, the Vice-Presidency renders the East secure in its 
control, with the Second and Third Vice-Presidents thrown out 
as “ sop ” to Western members. 
There is yet another possibility connected with the proposed 
selection of Boston as a meeting place to increase the distrust of 
Western members. An amendment to our constitution has 
been proposed to elect the President for a term of two years. 
If the meeting goes to Boston, the extreme easterly point avail¬ 
able, the Western attendance will be light; and, if the amend¬ 
ment passes, the first President elected under the new regime 
would, in all probability, be an Eastern man, and Western 
members would be prone to believe that in 1899 the meeting 
would go West, to return eastward in 1900, in good time for the 
election of a President for two more years. Such a course is 
readily attainable under our constitution, by which the Presi¬ 
dent, through his Executive Committee, which he selects, 
names the place of the meeting. 
With a record of 34 Eastern Presidents to one from beyond 
the Alleghanies, and with 29 Atlantic seaboard meetings, against 
5 trans-Alleghany meetings, it seems unfortunate that a cry of 
sectionalism should be first raised by Eastern members. 
The selection of the next meeting-place will, perhaps, in¬ 
fluence the action upon the proposed amendment to elect a 
President for two years. Few, if any. Western members favor 
it, and wherever the meeting shall be held it is to be hoped the 
amendment will be defeated. We have sufficient data since 
1890 (the date of the first trans-Alleghany meeting) to defeat the 
proposition on its merits. From 1890 to 1897 inclusive, five 
men have presided—three for one year each, one for two, and 
one for three successive years, without any tangible evidence 
being adduced of the superiority of a long over a short term of 
office. 
Our most available data for comparison are finance, publica¬ 
tions and membership. While our records are not perfectly 
clear, the following tabular data will be found approximately 
correct : 
