American students of society and politics for the most part view “historicism”—the ascription to history of an overall direction and goal—with attitudes ranging from skepticism to overt hostility. In the general view, no valid propositions can be framed concerning matters so shrouded in darkness as the course and the end of history. Indeed it may well be asked, when we use such terms, whether we are referring to realities or merely to inventions of the imagination. Historicist theories are also said to tend to undermine concern for the individual; the needs of the present, living person are likely to shrink into apparent insignificance before the imagined events of a future age. On the part of those who in recent years have seen the bloody trails left by pretended ministers of historical missions, such misgivings are understandable.

Are social scientists and political thinkers at liberty, however, dogmatically to reject historicism? It is the purpose of this article to argue that they are not. For if history is without meaning, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that social and political affairs, which make up a large part of what we treat as history, are also without meaning. Why then should one study, or take part in, these affairs? What is at stake, in the last analysis, is our right—or duty—to regard the world we inhabit, not merely as alien material to be used or ignored as we please, but as a realm of being with which we are fundamentally united and in which, consequently, we are properly participants.

We mentioned in the previous issue the approaching end of our term as editors, and the American Political Science Association (APSA) Council—acting on recommendations of a search committee (chair: Joan Tronto) and President Carole Pateman—has now chosen our successors: another editorial team, based at the University of North Texas, and consisting of Professors Val Martinez-Ebers, John Ishiyama, Marijke Breuning, and Steve Forde. We look forward to passing the baton to this next group and will work, as Professor Lee Sigelman did with our group, to make the transition as seamless as possible. We expect them, following past practice, to offer a statement of editorial policy in the May 2012 issue of this journal.

If, for the moment, we can conceive of Uncle Sam as being Andrew Carnegie, of Carnegie's millions as unimproved real estate, and of Carnegie's intention to die poor, as Uncle Sam's liberal land policy, we can perhaps best picture to ourselves the public land administration in the United States in a nutshell. The government, like Carnegie, is unloading its vast wealth in a manner calculated to do the most good, and it is guarding itself continuously, although often futilely, from being imposed upon and cheated. The ownership of the public domain by the United States is of the highest possible title. There is no one to dispute the government's absolute ownership of it. There are no taxes to pay. The government is subject to no obligation to dispose of its land. It can keep or dispose of the land as it chooses.

In 1789 the United States government started as owner of practically all of the Northwest Territory. Later it acquired, what some geographers call the Southwest Territory, by further cession from the States. By purchase, discovery, annexation and conquest the United States acquired further holdings, so that with the exception of Texas and private holdings the government's fee simple title in the public domain extended from the thirteen colonies to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Atlantic Ocean on the east coast of Florida to the Pacific and the Arctic Oceans.

Thirteen major data sources for the study of American politics are examined with regard to their conceptual orientation, error structure, and inferential utility. A great deal of ephemera and measurement without theory is discovered. Few of the documents contain any serious discussion of error structure, although some do report “standard errors” based on naive sampling models. In addition to suggestions for improving the compilation of political statistics, recommendations for a basic minimum library of data sources for American politics are made: The Almanac of American Politics and the Statistical Abstract of the United States, followed by the Guide to U.S. Elections.

The legal or customary requirement that legislators reside in the districts they represent is one of the principal structural respects in which American legislatures differ from those of most other democracies. Our legislators and party leaders commonly defend the local residence rule by claiming that it ensures that each legislator will know the special problems and desires of his constituents and thus be equipped to represent them faithfully.

Some academic commentators, on the other hand, have argued that the rule is a prime cause of the parochialism which, they say, prevents Congress and state legislatures from formulating consistent and purposive general programs. These critics customarily contrast American practice unfavorably with that in Great Britain, where the last local residence rule for M.P.s was repealed in 1774. In Britain, the argument runs, the absence of the rule not only minimizes localism but, even more, it enables the national party leaders to allocate their personnel resources in the most effective way.