26
DOC.
15
JUNE
1914
In contrast to
this,
the
following points
appear
in the draft
statutes:
1)
Each member
pays
10
M,
Berlin members
pay
twice
as
much.
2)
Elections
are
held
at
the
general assembly,
which takes
place
at
the
end of
April
in Berlin.
3)
Of
the
two
vice-presidents,
one
should have his residence within
the
greater
Berlin
area,
the other
outside of
greater
Berlin.
Among
the committee
members,
one
half
should reside in
greater
Berlin,
the other
outside of
greater
Berlin.
4)
The board
meetings
take
place
in Berlin.
You will admit
that
these
stipulations
can
hardly
be called
equal
duties and
equal rights
for all German
physicists,
especially
when
you
consider
more closely
the
practical
consequences.
As far
as
point
(1)
is concerned,
one
version
appears possible
to
me
that
would
live
up
to all
the
wishes
if, as
is
also
commonly done, a
distinction
is
made between
the contributions
to
the
society
as a
whole and those
to
the
individual
sections.
The former must
naturally
be
the
same
for all.
Each
district
association,
thus
also
the
Berlin
one,
determines for itself
a
special surcharge
in order
to
cover
its
own
costs.
Points
(2)
and
(4)
I
must describe
as
downright unacceptable
from
the
point
of
view
of equal
rights.
Elections
can
be held
only
after
previous
consultation
with
the other
voters,
and
you
cannot
expect
that the
physicists residing
outside
of
Berlin
will
travel
to
Berlin for
the
elections. If
they
do
not
do
so,
they
forgo
participation,
since
a
paper
ballot
presupposes
that
they
first
contact
the other
physicists
in
a
laborious
exchange
of
correspondence.
Point
(2)
would thus have the result that,
practically,
voting
would be done
exclusively by
the
Berlin
physicists.
The
same
applies
to point
(4).
The
board
members and
particularly
also
the
president
could
not
always
embark
on
the
possibly very long
trip to
Berlin,
especially
if it
happens
to
be,
as
intended,
at
the
end of
April,
therefore
during
the
semester. Thus here also the Berlin
vice-president
would be in
charge
in
practice.
As
with other
itinerant
conferences,
the
meetings
and
the
elections should
coincide
with the
society’s
annual
assembly,
and
the
really
active members who
attend the
meeting
would
then
participate
in
the
elections.[2]
I
consider point
(3)
less important, though
also not
encouraging regarding
the
discrimination
between Berliners and non-Berliners.
If
the
Berlin
physicists
wanting
to
decide
now
on
these statutes
can
relinquish
completely
all of Berlin’s
privileges by abandoning
the
4
points
I have
mentioned,
then
nothing will
stand
in
the
way
of
uniting
German
physicists
within
one
large
society.