55 6 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
way that there would be room for the sociologists to get together at a time during the session when the economic papers would be of a sort not necessarily of interest to the sociologists. Whether we should throw logic to the winds and organize a section of the Economic Association, simply for the practical reason that most of us are members of that body, and in gen- eral would prefer concentration of interests rather than division ; or whether we should organize a parallel society like the Historical or the Political Science Association ; or whether we should disregard the older societies altogether these are questions of detail about which I should be ready to acquiesce in the views of the majority. My present opinion is, however, that it would be most advisable to make our first step as above suggested.
Professor E. A. Ross wrote as follows :
For three or four years I have thought the time was ripe for American
sociologists to come together and thresh out their differences I should
therefore heartily welcome the project for some sort of national association, and believe that such an association could do a great deal to clarify our minds, acquaint us with one another's opinions, and exalt the dignity of sociology in the public eye. Sociology has grown up through one-idea thinkers, each of whom has worked his idea for all that it is worth clear across the field. Now, however, there is a get-together spirit abroad, and a continuance of the isolation of the past cannot but prove a damage to the development of our science.
This correspondence resulted, after communication with the officers of the American Economic Association, in the following circular letter, which was sent to about three hundred persons throughout the country supposed to be interested in sociology:
WASHINGTON, D. C, December 2, 1905. DEAR SIR :
You are invited to attend a conference of persons interested in sociology which will be held at Baltimore during the coming sessions of the American Economic Association and of the American Political Science Association, to discuss the advisability of forming a national sociological association designed to perform for sociologists services similar to those rendered for economists by the Economic Association, and for those interested in politi- cal science by the Political Science Association.
Sociologists have been so largely accustomed to working along divergent lines, and so frequently hold radically different views, that there seems to be peculiar justification for some sort of an organization which shall bring together at regular intervals those interested in the same group of problems, and permit of that interchange of ideas and comparison of projects which in
