THE PRESIDENT: I understand that the Secretary has some more business to present to the meeting.

THE SECRETARY: I have the following communication from 'Mr. J. R. Ockerson, Chief of the Department of Liberal Arts, World's Fair, St. Louis, which was presented to the Board of Direction recently, and by them referred to the nineteenth annual meeting of the Society for action.

ST. LOUIS, U. S. A., July 10, 1902.

DEAR SIR-I take great pleasure in sending to your Society certain printed matter relating to our great International Exposition which is to open in this city May 1, 1904.

This Department is making special efforts to secure a large display of exhibits illustrating the work of the engineer, which will fully demonstrate the importance of the profession through the large share it bears in the world's progress toward the highest utilization of the forces and materials of nature for the benefit of mankind.

It would be particularly gratifying to have the work of your members generously displayed among the exhibits in the form of models, plans, photographs, relief maps, literature, etc.

Will you kindly consider the propriety of having your Society take such steps as may be deemed necessary and proper to make a creditable exhibit of the work of your members?

Trusting that I may be favored with your coöperation in the interests of the profession, and that this communication will receive an early reply, I have the honor to be,

Yours very truly,

J. A. OCKERSON,

MR. GEO. K. CRANDALL,

Chief, Department of Liberal Arts,
Mem. Am. Soc. C. E.

Sec'y Connecticut Civil Engineers

and Surveyors Ass'n, New London, Conn.

THE PRESIDENT: Gentlemen, you hear this letter. Will you take any action.

MR. PUNDERFORD: I move, Mr. President, that it be referred to the next Board of Direction with power.

Motion seconded.

THE PRESIDENT: It is moved and seconded that the communication from the Chief of the Department of Liberal Arts of the World's Fair and Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company be referred to the Board of Direction.

THE SECRETARY: I would like to say in this connection that this is probably a very good time to ascertain if there are any

members who have any exhibits which they would wish to send to this World's Fair? It would be easier to get that information now than if we wait until there is a meeting of the Board of Direction. I know there are some members who have relief maps for instance, but whether they would be willing to send them is another question. A map of the Hartford bridge would be a very nice exhibit, and there may be other exhibits among our members which would be suitable to send, and I think the time to find this out is now when we have the men together. If there are any of our members who have anything of this kind that they would like to send, the officers of the Society would like to have them make it known.

MR. CADWELL: I would like to ask at what time an exhibit has to be delivered?

THE SECRETARY: The Fair is to be held in 1904.

MR. CADWELL: Well, do we have to have exhibits there by January 1st?

THE PRESIDENT: It probably opens some time in April or May. The exhibits probably have to be there by that time.

THE PRESIDENT: Gentlemen, it has been moved and seconded that the communication of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company be referred to the Board of Direction, with power to act. All in favor say "aye." It is a vote.

MR. TRACY: Mr. President, I have a matter of business that I would like to bring up because I think the discussion ought not to be influenced by this ballot, the report on which we are soon to have. You will remember that a year ago an amendment was offered by the Chairman of the Nominating Committee, which aimed to take the election of officers out of the hands of a few men, and to put it in the hands of the Society. As a member of that Nominating Committee, I was heartily in accord with that movement. It seems to me, however, after thinking it over, that that was really a jump from the fryingpan into the fire. It seems to me that under our plan a member is simply offered a choice within a very narrow limit. He must either find out who the leading candidates are, or else he must throw his ballot away, in which case you are just as badly off as you were before. That is, a few men in the Society are naming the candidates. In the second place, this method of election is almost sure, if not this year in succeeding years, to

throw the election of officers into this meeting, a thing which I do not think any of us want. Now, just as an illustration of how this works, I would like to quote some figures from the report of the ballots cast last year: Mr. A had 56 ballots for a certain office, of the ballots which were sent in from the members of the Society for such office, Mr. B had 39 and Mr. C had 22, so that Mr. A lacked several of a majority. That threw the election into the meeting, and the result that Mr. B and not Mr. A was elected, with the total number of 27 votes (the votes cast in this meeting being 12 less than the number of votes cast for Mr. A on the first ballot), shows, I think, that the plan at present in use does not aid at all in securing an expression of the preference of the Society; because, as was illustrated in that case, while Mr. A had a plurality, yet he was far from securing a majority, and the result was, as I said before, to throw the election into this meeting, which was just what the plan was devised to prevent if possible. Now I do not think that we can get at a proper amendment in this meeting, but it seems to me that a committee ought to be appointed to draw an amendment to the Constitution. Perhaps it's not right to keep tinkering with the Constitution, but I believe it is our business as Civil Engineers to get things right if we possibly can. I would like to see a committee appointed to prepare some sort of an amendment so that we would have an opportunity to know who the leading candidates are, and not be obliged, as is now often the case, to throw our votes away. I would suggest two or three ways in which this can be done. In the first place, we might make this first ballot a ballot for nominations. That is, we could send out nomination blanks, on which any member of the Society could nominate a member, whomsoever he might choose, for any office. Then, when these blanks are counted, we might proceed in one or two different ways. For instance, we might specify a certain number of votes that it should be necessary a member should receive in order to be a candidate at the election. If a man receives as many as ten that he should be considered as a candidate for office; and that those receiving less than that number should not be regarded as candidates. I think, on the whole, that is a very good method, because, here is a man who may not be known generally to the Society, but he may be a good man, thoroughly qualified,

and eight or ten of his friends can get together and, without any special wire-pulling, by just getting ten votes they can bring that man's name before the Society, and then the Society has the opportunity to accept or reject his candidacy as the members shall see fit; the choice being made from all of the candidates having more than ten votes in the nominating ballot.

The second method would be to take the two leading candidates and let them be the formal candidates for the final ballot. In that case there would be no question of an election by a majority and not by a plurality.

Then a third method would be to take three or four candidates, in which case you would have a plurality elect and not a majority. In two of these methods you would have a plurality; that is it would be possible in the first and third, but in any of them the election would never be thrown into this meeting. Each member of this Society would have a definite number of names, and would simply cross off from his ballot, of the names which were found eligible to run as candidates, such names as he wanted. I think it would simplify things a good deal and any one of these methods would have the advantage of relieving our annual meetings of having to go through with an election after the present elaborate system had failed to work.

THE PRESIDENT: Does anybody else care to discuss this question?

MR. TRACY: To bring this before the house I move that a committee be appointed to draw up an amendment to the Constitution in such a way so that it will permit the first ballot to be a ballot for the making of nominations for officers.

MR. KELLOGG: I would like to ask Mr. Tracy how the committee shall be appointed, by the present President, or by the incoming one, or by the house?

MR. TRACY: I should say by the present presiding officer. MR. KELLOGG: And to be appointed now or in the future? MR. TRACY: Now.

A MEMBER: I think the idea which the gentleman has just given is pretty good. It is true that under our present plan there is a great scattering of the votes. There are a good many candidates who have only one vote, and as Mr. Tracy says, these are practically thrown away. I should be heartily in favor of

any plan which would prevent that, and which at the same time would help to prevent the election being thrown into the meeting.

MR. BUNCE: I was the instigator of the change somewhat largely, and was also the Chairman of the Nominating Committee. The reason that I felt as I did, and the committee very generally agreed with me in that feeling, was that practically you put the choice of the officers of this Society in the hands of five men. That committee nominated three men for a place,— I think it was, and the result of the ballots last year confirmed our views of the matter entirely. It was the first man that we suggested in every case who was chosen by the ballots of the Society.

Another thing was that in certain cases we had the uncomfortable feeling of putting up men that we knew would be regarded simply as dummies. We had under the rules to put up so many men for an office, and yet we felt perfectly sure when we filled out the list that there was only one who stood any show of an election. For example, I would instance a case of Mr. Crandall. Mr. Crandall had been our Secretary and Treasurer for so many years that we knew it was the feeling of the Society that he should be kept in that position as long as he would hold it, and it seemed ridiculous for us to put up John Smith and somebody else as candidates for Secretary and Treasurer, when we knew that the members of the Society would look upon them as being put up there as dummies. It was that uncomfortable, unpleasant feeling upon our part, a feeling that all on that committee had that it was put in our hands to practically suggest the officers of this Society, and that is one reason why some change should be made. Personally, I am not at all wedded to that one idea. I am willing to have something else tried if it is going to be a success. seems to me, however, that we are jumping out of the fryingpan into the fire a little bit quick. We do not know yet what the result of this ballot to-day is. While there may be a large number of scattering votes, yet the result of that ballot may be that you have by your ballots chosen an officer for every position. I do not know. It seems to me that it would be just as well to have the result of this ballot disclosed before we take

It