American government which cannot be solved without bringing together a large body of evidence: if there were no Political Science Associations, some of these problems must speedily be faced and an effort made to supply a rational basis for their discussion. The conjunction of work to do and of an organization suited to confront it seems to throw upon the Association a new duty.

Many of the American problems most in men's minds come home to only a portion of the American people: the labor question for instance, which is so absorbing in large cities and in the industrial regions, very little disturbs the rural population; the trust problem, though it affects the consumers all over the country, is especially lively in the centers of manufacture and distribution; the question of a subsidy applies chiefly to the seaboard ports and centers of ship-building. Furthermore, for all these questions there are special societies, like the American Economic Association, which have the machinery and the will to investigate them. The work of the Political Science Association must lie more in the direction of governmental problems-problems which have a widespread national significance. Among such questions, one which more and more insistently demands attention is how to deal with the spirit of lawlessness which is beginning to characterize us as a people. This disregard of law is sometimes due. to statutes which are too far ahead of the ethical demands of the day to make it likely that they will be enforced by officials chosen, as is commonly the case in the United States, by popular vote. Sometimes it is due to the feeling that the people make the laws, and when a considerable majority dislike them they may be disobeyed without moral responsibility; but the great part of the lawlessness which we all deplore comes from an indifference to violation of statutes upon the expediency of which there is no disagreement. Courts and juries are often affected by this indifference to law, with the result that criminals are treated with leniency or escape altogether. It is notorious that human life and property are becoming unsafe in some sections of our country, and unless checked by more rigorous methods of legal enforcement this spirit will result in making America a byword among civilized nations for disorder and barbarism. It has already resulted in the resort to extra-legal methods for the enforcement of particular portions of the law which are persistently broken. The resort to such methods naturally does not tend to effect a

permanent cure of the evil conditions which exist, but in the opinion of many of our thinking men is itself producing conditions which are worse than those it is sought to cure.

Positive infractions of law, if recorded, can be studied, and inferences may be drawn from the results; but unpunished violations, and still more the failure to comply with the conditions of law for instance, to report cases of contagious diseases or to inspect the condition of mine-workers-are outside of statistical inquiry and very difficult to reach by any methods. We do not see how this Association could bring to bear a body of facts which might affect public opinion on that side of the subject. At the other extremity of the question, however, stands the official machinery for dealing with lawbreakers, which in the last resort includes the courts; but a preliminary to the action of the prosecutor and judge is the action of the police. Undoubtedly one of the main causes of American lawlessness is the inadequate police protection generally accorded to the law-abiding people of the United States, and your committee have carefully considered whether the Association might not initiate an inquiry into the character and efficiency, or lack of efficiency, of this important part of our government. Such an inquiry would be especially timely in view of the fact that other civilized countries have a system which is more effective for the detection, the apprehension and the speedy trial of offenders than we are familiar with in the United States. Our first difficulty is that in the rural districts, which include nearly two-thirds of the population and more than ninety-nine one-hundredths of the area, there is practically no police system worthy of the name. Our existing method of detection of crime and apprehension of criminals, which has been inherited from England, and which places its main reliance on the county sheriff and the town constable, has shown itself to be of no real value in the conditions which now exist. It has been discarded in the land which gave it birth. It should be subjected to serious modifications in the land which adopted it, and which with few exceptions has permitted it to continue unmodified.

In the second place, although all the cities large and small have a police force, it is in most cities imperfect, and in some cities is believed to be actually in league with crime. It is true that during the nineteenth century important modifications were introduced into our municipal police system in the way of organization and discipline. So far as the frame of the present system is

concerned it leaves little to be desired; that is, we have a professional trained police which, with greater or less regularity, patrols the streets of cities by day as well as by night. But the operations of that force and the conduct of its members leave much to be desired. Charges of bribery, blackmail and corruption are persistently circulated with regard to the police of almost every city of the United States; while, in the opinion of many, crimes. which are reprobated by communities of the lowest moral sense compatible with what is believed to be civilization, are on the increase. The police problem is acute in almost every city, and appears to be no nearer solution, notwithstanding the many remedies to which resort has been had.

The trouble with the police, however, does not stand alone: it is allied with and supplemented by a very defective system of criminal justice, which through its effort to protect private rights and save the innocent from punishment has developed an elaborate and technical procedure with many opportunities for carrying the issue from one court to another; suspicion is often cast upon the probity of jurors, if not of judges, and the long delays accompanying many criminal trials bring the whole system into disrepute.

Although closely connected, the two subjects discussed above are separable: the first part is the legal system for the prevention of crime, and the detection and apprehension of criminals; the second, the system adopted for the prosecution and conviction of those charged with crime. Upon the first of these subjects much light can be thrown by the experience of European countries, which contrive to keep order in rural communities, in which understandings between the criminal and the guardian of the public are uncommon, and in which the esprit de corps of the police force is higher than in America. The system of criminal justice, on the other hand, is based upon constitutional provisions, protecting private rights, and is difficult to alter without sweeping constitutional changes, in which the experience of foreign countries would probably give little aid. Of the two subjects, the first is the simpler, the more concrete and the more pressing. We believe that a society acting without the suspicion of political or other bias is especially fitted to undertake such a piece of research.

We therefore make to the Council of the Political Science Association the following recommendations:

1. That it inaugurate, through the Association, an investigation of the American system of police protection and the administration of criminal justice.

2. That the investigation be devoted primarily to the methods of detecting crime and apprehending criminals, including the organization of the police; together with the system of keeping order in the last resort by the militia or by United States troops.

3. That for this purpose the Council create a Commission on American Police Administration, to be composed of ten members, all of whom need not necessarily be members of the Association.

4. That the Council, in conjunction with the Commission, devise means for raising the necessary funds to carry on a searching investigation in all the states of the Union and in all the cities, upon the subject for which the Commission is created.

5. That the Commission shall make annual reports to the Association of the progress of its work until completed.

6. That a final elaborate report shall be submitted, which shall include a body of recommendations for legislation likely to remedy the evils of the present system.

All of which is respectfully submitted,

F. J. GOODNOW,

A. B. HART,

W. W. WILLOUGHBY.

At a meeting of the Council held December 28 in Providence, the following members were present: Albert Shaw, J. A. Fairlie, H. A. Garfield, F. J. Goodnow, A. B. Hart, P. S. Reinsch, B. F. Shambaugh, W. W. Willoughby, G. G. Wilson, and, by invitation, the newly elected President of the Association, Mr. F. N. Judson, and the new members of the Council, Professors A. L. Lowell and Stephen Leacock.

Professor W. B. Munro, Mr. G. W. Scott, and Mr. Robert Whitten were appointed a committee to coöperate with similar committees of other associations with reference to the project of preparing an international catalogue of the current literature of the social sciences.

The standing committee on appointments to Boards and Commissions was instructed to consider any suggestions that might be made with reference to a better organization of par

ticular sections of the Association, and to authorize such action as might be deemed desirable.

The general question of instruction in Government in the secondary schools was discussed, and Professors Schaper, Reinsch, and Loeb were appointed a committee to make a preliminary investigation of existing conditions, and to report recommendations as to the action to be taken or investigation to be made, at the meeting of the Council in Madison, in December, 1907. Twenty-five dollars was appropriated for postage to be used by this committee.

It was decided that a regular meeting of the Council should be held each year in New York City upon the Saturday following Thanksgiving Day.