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A Sensational Meeting in Atlantic City.

President W. C. Alpers, of Cleveland, delivered an address before the A. Ph. A. that stirred up a hornet's nest and developed a situation of great dramatic intensity lasting throughout the entire week. A delegation from the women's suffrage convention, seeking to commit the association to the principle of equal suffrage, stirred up a good deal of fun. A fight over time and place resulted in the selection of Indianapolis for next year. Messrs. Holzhauer, Cliffe, and Christensen were nominated for the presidency. A forward step was taken in the appointment of a committee on research to stimulate and co-ordinate scientific investigation throughout the United States. The boards and the colleges held meetings in Philadelphia and kept in step with advancing requirements.

By HARRY B. MASON.

Down at Atlantic City last month, during the meeting of the American Pharmaceutical Association, there was an aeroplane chap by the name of Jacquith giving people fifteen-minute flights at the modest price of fifteen dollars. He could be seen almost any time flying up over the Boardwalk, and he attracted a good deal of attention. But most of the members

didn't need to patronize Monsieur Jacquith after they had heard President Alpers' address. They went up in the air without any further assistance.

Apparently it was some address!

Dr. W. C. Alpers, Dean of the Cleveland School of Pharmacy. who, in his capacity as president, delivered an address that created little less than a sensation.

Unfortunately I didn't hear it, but I heard an awful lot about it. The fear of a railroad strike kept me in Detroit until Monday afternoon, and I reached Atlantic City just as the first general session was adjourning. From then on, all during lunch, all through the afternoon, and all the evening, I was buttonholed right and left and given a great variety of

versions of Dr. Alpers' epoch-making contribution to the unrest of nations.

A SUBMARINE TORPEDO.

One man said it was a treacherous torpedo shot from a German submarine. The next fellow said it was a bold frontal attack that the

association needed, and that it would do the old guard good. Between these two extremes were all sorts of opinions, and it was very difficult for a man up a tree to get any sort of a clear and unbiased view of the situation. The address itself could not be seen. There were only two copies in existence, and both had been turned over to the committee on the president's address for the use of its members. They were kept under lock and key, and were only brought out when the doors and windows were fastened and the committee was holding its midnight sessions and talking in stage whis

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pers.

And certainly the committee had a fine job cut out for it!

Dr. James H. Beal, one of the most experienced and capable men in the association, was the chairman, and the other members were M. I. Wilbert, S. C. Henry, R. D. Lyman, and L. C. Hopp. The address required nearly two hours to deliver. It comprised something like seventeen or eighteen thousand words. It bore a multitude of recommendations of one kind and another. And it contained high explosives on every page.

It had to be handled with great skill and care, and Dr. Beal and his associates labored every night from 9 or 10 o'clock until the wee small hours endeavoring to harmonize their own opinions and to bring order out of chaos. What was the address all about anyway?

WHAT DR. ALPERS RECOMMENDED.

Well, it called for a general "house-cleaning" in the affairs of the association. The actual recommendations made by Dr. Alpers were many of them, it seemed, not open to objection. What some of the most earnest members of the organization complained of was a certain spirit of acrimony that ran through the address. They insisted, furthermore, that it contained exaggerations and misstatements. Words like "hypocrites" and "bankruptcy" were used-and these words, even though employed properly, are very likely to be caught up by an audience, and afterwards emphasized in the newspapers, in such fashion as to distort the original meaning altogether. As nearly as I could discover, the important opinions and recommendations contained in the address were as follows:

THE "SYSTEM" ATTACKED.

Dr. Alpers was careful to make no charges against any officer, but to attack what he called the "system" that had grown up during the years. The council had too much power. It was, furthermore, too large and unwieldy in membership, and there should be a small executive committee substituted for it. If the council is kept as it is at present, provision should be made so that a member cannot be reëlected until he has been out of office at least a year. Some of the officers of the association hold two or more jobs, and there is consequently too much concentration of responsibility and too much continuance in office of the same set of people.

As for the National Formulary, the policy of the organization, said Dr. Alpers, is all wrong. The association should not make money by means of this book but should consider it a public trust. The book should be distributed free to members and sold at the cost price to others. Text-book authors should not be made to pay for the use of it.

Proceeding next to discuss the finances of the organization, Dr. Alpers pointed out the fact that there had been an annual deficit of three or four thousand dollars during the last few years, and that something should be done to stem the tide. Salaries should be reduced. Traveling expenses of officers should be cut out. In years when financial deficits exist, the officers should be made to stand a horizontal reduction in salaries. If the present officers

refuse to work at a lower rate, there are plenty of other men who can be secured to fill the jobs. To overcome the existing financial loss, the president suggested that the membership of the organization be greatly increased, and he thought a membership chairman, with salary, should be appointed to conduct vigorous and systematic campaigns by mail.

DR. BEAL'S REPLY.

I am assured by those who heard the address that the foregoing pretty accurately represents the sum and substance of Dr. Alpers' recommendations. Dr. Beal's committee, however, when it finally brought in its report at the last general session, considered few or none of these recommendations, but addressed itself to the task of clearing away what it called "the misstatements of fact" in the address. Dr. Beal occupied the floor for nearly forty minutes, and his arraignment of Dr. Alpers was at some points exceedingly incisive and bitter. Dr. Alpers sat immediately in front of him and never flinched. It was a dramatic situation that will not soon be forgotten by those who were present. Dr. Beal's voice and hands both trembled at frequent intervals as he proceeded,

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the one hand, and Dr. Alpers on the other. carrying on their transactions in every case by correspondence, should agree on a proper revision of the address, and that the latter, when it had finally been modified to suit the committee, and if necessary the council, should then, and not until then, be printed in the official Journal, along with the report of the committee.

As for the recommendations made in the address, and given in brief form in the foregoing paragraphs, the committee asked to be continued in office so that it could consider them at leisure during the coming year and report definitely and at length at the next annual meeting.

Joseph W. England, who, as chairman of the committee on pubication, has general supervision over the publications of the association.

was

What the committee recommended finally voted, but not until after some fireworks had been exploded by Jacob Diner, Theodore J. Bradley, R. D. Lyman, and Prof. J. P. Remington.

DR. ALPERS IN DEFENSE.

Dr. Alpers finally took the floor in his own defense and made an admirable speech. It seemed to me distinctly conciliatory. If there were inaccuracies in his address-if there were exaggerations-he was entirely willing to have them corrected. He had no charges to make against any individual officer of the association, but what he was attacking was the "system" that had grown up without anybody's connivance and almost without recognition. He had no desire to hurt the association. On

the contrary, he wanted to build it up. But surgery was sometimes the only remedial agent that would effect a cure, and whenever he saw an evil it had been the practice of a lifetime to attack it openly and boldly, without regard for the feelings of any individual, and also without regard to the effect upon his own fortunes.

Thus ended a situation tense with interest and at times instinct with disaster. Something in the way of editorial comment on Dr. Alpers' address, and on the general subject of reorganization which it suggested, will be found elsewhere in the present issue of the BULLETIN.

FOR OR AGAINST SUFFRAGE?

Next in dramatic interest to the Alpers-Beaf episode was the picturesque entrance of a delegation from the National Suffrage Association -if that is the correct title. This association was holding its annual convention down the Boardwalk a block or two away, and one afternoon four large, important-looking women came down the aisle and stood in a row before President Alpers' rostrum. Dr. Wolfe was the spokesman. She talked very briefly, but what she asked was the adoption of a resolution which would commit the A. Ph. A. to the principle of equal suffrage.

Finishing her remarks, she laid the resolution down on the desk, bowed very gracefully. and then she and her associates marched grandly down the aisle and out of the room.

Scarcely had the women left the convention hall when the fun began. Jacob Diner, amid great laughter, moved that the resolution be referred to the council, which would have the effect of putting off action for another year. Dr. Whelpley caused a still greater measure of fun when he moved an amendment that it be referred to the House of Delegates, but Dr. W. C. Anderson brought down the house when in a flight of oratory he declared that the proper place to refer the resolution was to the women's section.

But the fun by this time had gone far enough. One serious-minded member protested against such levity, and insisted that the association should then and there consider the resolution and either approve or disapprove of it. Chas. Merrell, of Cincinnati, thereupon took the floor and asserted that if the A. Ph. A. wanted to be broken up effectually, the best way to do it would be to meddle with equal suffrage, politics, prohibition, or the European

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war. At that the whole matter was quickly settled by referring the resolution to the House of Delegates, and thus ended a very interesting breathing-spell during a week of hard and continuous labor.

WHERE SHALL WE GO?

Another interesting incident developed over the selection of a meeting place for next year. Invitations had been received from Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Kineo, Me., Omaha, Tampa, Atlantic City, Hawaii, and Havana. Nearly an hour was consumed in settling the matter. but the real competition was between Kineo, Indianapolis, and Cincinnati.

The women were all plugging for Kineo. They had buttonholed every member personally during the last day or two, and they were all in the meeting hall when the subject came up for consideration. They nearly carried the day. On a rising vote Kineo was defeated by only a few noses. Then ensued a fight between Cincinnati and Indianapolis, and the convention had to listen to a lot of oratory describing the charms of these two American cities. Finally Indianapolis was selected by a close vote. As a matter of fact, the members felt instinctively that inasmuch as the association had gone to the extreme western coast last year, and the extreme eastern coast this year, it should strike somewhere near the center of population next year. Either Cincinnati or Indianapolis was the logical place. Our own

conviction is that the A. Ph. A. ought to go to Atlantic City every other year, and then make its appeal to local membership by going somewhere else during the alternate years. Most of the members combine vacation with business, and when they attend an annual convention they want some of the vacation pleasures. Atlantic City is an ideal place for a national convention.

A DELIGHTFUL WEEK.

This year the attendance was rather less than usual, and this was probably due to the fact that a universal railroad strike was threatened on the very day when the convention was to open. This frightened away nearly all the members from the middle West and far West. The result was an attendance of three or four hundred people instead of possibly five or six hundred. But there were a good many new faces at that, while most of the old guard was of course in attendance.

The week was a delightful one. There was the ever-present attraction of a wonderful beach. There was the Boardwalk with its innumerable fascinations. There were theaters and movies, and hotels and entertainment piers of a hundred different kinds. The whole place breathed an atmosphere of delight and relaxation, and even at that the business sessions didn't seem to suffer very much.

"Uncle John" Patton was there for the first time in many years. Teeters and Kuever were

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