Present Tendencies in American Politics1

For the first time since its sessions began in 1904, the American Political Science Association was last year unable to hold its regular annual meeting. For fourteen years, in unbroken series, the association had brought its members together for conference and discussion; but last year, with more matter in its field engaging thought and provoking study than ever before, the association had to suspend its activities. This was due to circumstances so well known that the matter would be scarcely worth mentioning were it not that it exhibits a plight in which political science is apt to find itself whenever the ordinary course of events is interrupted by some great catastrophe.In President Lowell's standard work on Governments and Parties in Continental Europe, he remarks that to him “the State sometimes presents itself under the figure of a stage-coach with the horses running away. On the front a number of eager men are urging the most contrary advice on the driver, whose chief object is to keep his seat; while at the back a couple of old gentlemen with spy-glasses are carefully surveying the road already traversed.â€