Presidential Address

Abstract

This, the fiftieth annual meeting of our Association, has more than ordinary significance. Certainly it can be said that the Association has attained middle-age and the intellectual as well as the physical maturity to do proper credit to our years. We may, on this special occasion at least, regard with pardonable pride our record of growth, the recognition and development of our discipline in both teaching and research, the public service it has rendered, and its contribution to the forward progress of American political democracy. American political scientists, practitioners of what Aristotle rightly or wrongly described as the “master science,” have recognized, as did Plato and Aristotle, the surpassing importance of political problems in society and have experienced the difficulties which they foresaw in the effort to employ scientific methods and procedures in the solution of such problems. Beyond doubt, however, we move steadily forward. Our scientific and professional standards show constant improvement. Our store of knowledge is immense. Our almost feverish search for new data is incessant. We know almost all there is to know about the political infirmities of our patients except how to cure them. The state of domestic and world affairs keeps us humble.