Social legislation and social activity

by American Academy of Political and Social Science

Report of the Academy Committee on the Sixth Annual Meeting.

SIXTH ANNUAL MEETING
OF THE
American Academy of Political and Social Science
Philadelphia, April 4 and 5, 1902
“SOCIAL LEGISLATION AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY”

The Sixth Annual Meeting not only met the expectations of your Committee, but was generally regarded by those who attended as completely fulfilling the high standards which were set by its predecessors. The sessions were largely attended by members from different parts of the country; in fact, the leading characteristic of this meeting was the large attendance from points at a considerable distance from Philadelphia. The Annual Meeting of the Academy has assumed the proportion of a national convention to consider the great economic and political questions that confront the country.

Before proceeding to an account of the individual sessions your Committee desires to express its thanks as well as those of the officers and members of the Academy to the Provost of the University of Pennsylvania, to the President and Directors of the Manufacturers’ Club and to the Committee of the Octavia Hill Association, whose co-operation was of great value in making the meeting a success.

The expenses of the Annual Meeting were met in part from an appropriation from the treasury of the Academy, but in the main by a special fund contributed by generous friends of the Academy. Your Committee desires especially to express its appreciation of the services of those who took active part in the meetings and whose contributions give to this volume its chief importance.

Session of Friday Afternoon, April 4.

Topic: “The Child Labor Problem.”

The President of the Academy, in formally opening the Annual Meeting, said

Members of the Academy, Ladies and Gentlemen.

It gives me great pleasure formally to open the Sixth Annual Meeting of the Academy. The series of meetings, beginning with the discussion of “The Foreign Policy of the United States,” four years ago, and taking up thereafter “Corporations and Public Welfare” and “America’s Race Problem,” has furnished us with a series of volumes which have come to be standard reference works on the subjects with which they deal. It is safe to say that the Sixth Annual Meeting, which is devoted to the subject of “Social Legislation and Social Activity,” will not fall behind the others, either in the interest of the topics or in the character of the discussions. These Annual Meetings of the Academy focus the best thought upon the questions which are in the foreground of public attention.