The past lies behind.

Allen, William R.

I add my belated welcome to this gathering of the Western Economic Association International. A friend of mine who did his doctoral work at the University of Washington has warned me that attending a matinee in Seattle in July means running the risk of missing the entire summer. But most of us do not live in beautiful Seattle, so we can now spend matinee-time indoors, happy in the awareness that we can then return to our homes to experience summer.

We all reasonably expect a convention of an economics society to be a fun experience. Economists have long been notorious for being fun types. In our frenetic revelry and merriment here, presumably most of you have been, thus far, sleepless in Seattle. It is not my purpose to sedate you. Indeed, for many of us, few things can be more entertaining and stimulating than a survey of the history of the organization.

Granted, not everyone shares such a preference. Lamentably, in this ahistorical, if not antihistorical, age, most economists under the age of 50 find any event prior to last Tuesday to be too antiquarian for consideration. Oddly, the undergraduate perspective may be a tad more patient and generous. A UCLA basketball star recently remarked that, "History is what happened before I was born - and who cares?" By that conception, the history of the Western Economic Association is, for me, very brief.

Still, after 75 years of existence of the Association, a sense of rightness and propriety calls for a bit of historical review. I shall try to tell the truth and nothing but the truth - but I shall not, in my ten minutes, attempt to tell the whole truth. My original version ran to 20 minutes; but I then deleted every other word, which not only makes the report blessedly shorter, but makes it, in its incoherency, sound even more profound. And so return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear.

During World War II, 1942-1945 (the war I won single-handed), there were no conferences. So this meeting of 1997 is the seventy-second orgy of the outfit - although because of instances of incapacity, Gary Becker is our seventy-fifth president. (You can see that the story has its complications, and you will have to concentrate real hard in the written examination which follows.)

It is to be expected that an organization, like an individual, will evolve and develop - for the better, we may hope - vet a life of 75 years. The Association has changed in various respects.

At the beginning of the Western Economic Association, it was not the Western Economic Association: The original name was the Pacific Coast Economic Association. Its first conference was held in 1922, in Portland, Oregon, with Alfred C. Schmitt as the first president. (To suggest a bit of perspective, the American Economic Review - not to be confused with the Association of the same name - was inaugurated in 1911, and the Southern Economic Journal started in 1935.)

It was not until 1951 that the state-certified title was changed to Western Economic Association. The official designation, issued by the California Secretary of State, pronounced that "the name, Western Economic Association, is not one which is likely to mislead the public...." The name may not mislead - although, in actuality, not all economists agree on just what economics is and should be - but the Secretary of State gave no assurance that no members of the Association would ever mislead the public.

Apparently, the beginning of the era of the new name was a probationary period. Or it took 20 years for the group to adjust to its new name. At any rate, in 1971, officers of the Association filed with California Little Brother a Certificate of Amendment of the Articles of Incorporation, firmly establishing the name, Western Economic Association.

It was at about this time - a time still remembered by the more decrepit among us - that the Association leadership quite deliberately expanded its effective geographic base. This was a development of some psychological and professional significance. There is no intended disrespect of our early predecessors in suggesting that the Association initially reflected a degree of provincialism. Indeed, it surely was appropriate that it be decidedly a regional group. The west coast was something of a Shangri-La, far removed from the established centers of professional stuffiness in the midwest and the east. Travel between those power centers and our exotic oasis was not easy: Until well after World War II - the big one I won - one flew for many hours in prop airliners of much noise and vibration, stopping in St. Louis for refueling, in order to go coast-to-coast. And in the fraternal pecking order, west coast economists were not universally held in highest regard. (It was thus in the spirit of a soul-saving missionary heading for largely virgin territory that I migrated to the west coast in 1952.)

But by 1970, circumstances, both of reputation and of technology, had changed. Some members of the Association - notably including Walter Mead, of the University of California, Santa Barbara - felt that if we were to welcome foreigners from the east to join us and pay dues and attend our conventions and contribute to our journal, then it was in order to consider them eligible to serve as our officers. And in 1974, our president was Karl Brunner, then of the University of Rochester, to be followed over the next years by several quite competent and accomplished - or at least promising - people from east of the Rockies. So, first the western United States, next the nation, then the world - since 1981, we have been the Western Economic Association International. Finally, we may anticipate, the universe.

The year 1974 saw another momentous development. All previous conferences had been held on university campuses. But in '74 we switched to hotels. Honorable people perhaps can differ on the wisdom of that change. It may actually be that some consider it to be progress to substitute chambermaids for coeds - and busboys for eds. (Possibly, in this era of coerced propriety, someone will consider that remark to be sinfully sexist. I encourage any such individual to direct complaints and criticisms to Eldon Dvorak: Let the master administrator earn his salary.)

Presumably, in an attempt to justify their existence, academic conventions must have learned papers delivered, each of which contributes mightily to making the world a better place. For many years, beginning in 1924, papers or precis were distributed in published conference proceedings. The proceedings proceeded for quite a long time. Finally, in 1962, the Western Economic Journal was born, with three annual issues. Within five years, the outpouring of professional profundity became great enough to elicit four issues each year. In 1974, the WEJ was rechristened Economic Inquiry, which is distributed to well over 2,000 members in the United States and beyond, along with more than 1,000 libraries.

The journal, which has been blessed by a series of highly able editors and co-editors, did not remain the sole published product. Contemporary Policy Issues first appeared in 1982. The name of that supplemental venture was changed in 1994 to Contemporary Economic Policy. It may be normal evolutionary process for issues to change into policy. (Incidentally, some may find psychological significance in originally designated names - whether of the outfit itself or of its journal or of the journal supplement - being only first approximations, to be modified some distance down the historical road.)

The chambermaids and busboys have had many to serve. In the 23 hotel conventions, from 1974 through last year, the average registration has been more than 1,300. The two largest numbers registered were in San Francisco at the 1976 and 1992 meetings, with well over 1,700 bodies. And the group has become truly international: Last year, 45 states were represented, along with seven Canadian provinces and 35 other countries from all parts of the world. Each of the 1,300 registered people attended more than 200 sessions and heard nearly 800 papers.

In an additional international facet of its program, the Association coordinates the conference of the Pacific Rim Allied Economic Organizations. The third PRAEO conference will be in Bangkok next January.

All this has been quite a massive undertaking. You well know the blood, sweat, and tears which go into preparing research papers. But perhaps not all of you have experienced the joys and thrills of putting together large conventions and publishing journals. Such administrative chores are not lightly fulfilled over a single weekend during television commercials. For well over a quarter of a century, Eldon Dvorak, of California State University, Long Beach, has served the Association in various capacities; beginning in 1974, he has carried the imposing title of Executive Vice President of the Association. Eldon has conducted his reign of terror not only systematically, but with innovative flair. In reminiscing about the history of our organization, James Buchanan has written to me of "... Eldon and Bonnie Dvorak's genuine entrepreneurship.... [T]he record [of the WEA] ... was, almost literally, created by the Dvoraks," Jim observes, "and the salute should be to their achievement, from which we all have benefited."

This lets a cat out of the bag. Shakespeare's wondrous play was entitled "Macbeth"; but the most conspicuous driving force in the story was Lady Macbeth. So when you think "Eldon" (as surely you often do), think also "Bonnie." She is decidedly the prettier of the two. And I am pleased to bow in genuine appreciation to the WEA office staff in Huntington Beach, who have taken good care of me in an hour of need. The bulk of the details I have here reviewed were collected by Linda Klepinger and her friends.

This, then, is my abbreviated story of the Western Economic Association International. I remind you of an aphorism of Oscar Wilde: "Anybody can make history," Oscar tells us. "Only a great man can write it."

Western Economic Association International Past President [1970-1971]. This is an unedited version of the paper Allen presented as part of the Association's 75th Anniversary Celebration at the Annual Conference in Seattle, July 11, 1997.

Allen: Professor Emeritus, University of California, Los Angeles, Phone 1-310-825-2241, Fax 1-310-825-9528, E-mail [email protected]