Page 473 - Invited Paper Session (IPS) - Volume 2

IPS355 Jean-Louis B.
Another controversy arose during 13 ISI session in The Hague when the
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General Assembly decided to create a Permanent Office, precisely in this city.
An ad hoc Committee was appointed and its rapporteur, the French Lucien
March, wrote that our institute cannot remain an exclusively academic
institution, while the movement of ideas and activities gives rise to ever more
pressing needs for statistical information. Some participants announced “the
suicide of our Society” since they feared that “the setting-up of a permanent
office would limit the independence of the ISI” (it was expected that the
operating costs of the permanent office would be covered by government
contributions). Fortunately, the existence of this office prevented the ISI from
exploding during the First World War: it was located in the Netherlands which
was a neutral country, but the President and one vice-president were from
allied countries while one other vice-president was German.
This role played by ISI could have changed when the League of Nations
7
(SDN) was set up after the signing of the Treaty of Peace in Versailles in 1919.
One of its first acts was to appoint an International Statistical Commission
8
which met in Paris in October 1920 with significant ISI participation . This
collaboration gave rise to difficult discussions; some ISI members believed that
a learned society should not have to work with an intergovernmental
organization on pain of losing its scientific freedom. Another point of view,
expressed by Willcox, ISI Vice-president from 1923 to 1947, was that during
this period the role of the ISI was that of a "semi-governmental" body. My
impression is that these problems have weakened the role of the ISI vis-à-vis
the official statistics between the two World Wars, but without compromising
its role as a forum for research in probability and mathematical statistics (e.g.
nd
the paper on theory of tests presented by Jerzy Neyman during the 22 ISI
session in London in 1934). The outbreak of the 2 Word War (1939) created
nd
th
a new crisis in the affairs of the ISI. The 24 session convened in Prague in
September 1938 closed prematurely because of Hitler’s ultimatum sent to the
Czechoslovak government. The occupation of the Netherlands by the German
forces put an end to all ISI activities; fortunately, the ISI office and its archives
were transferred to the Peace Palace which was an exterritorial place.
After the creation of the United Nations in October 1945, it was decided to
create the UN Statistical Division (UNSD) at the UN Headquarters. Otherwise,
the US government had invited five years ago the ISI to hold its 25 session in
th
Washington, DC, in 1940. Of course it was not possible to organize it. But the
Arrangements Committee set up in 1939 for that session merged with the UN,
the ISI and other bodies into an Arrangements Committee for International

7 The League of Nations is best known by its French acronym: SDN (for Société des Nations)
This Commission was chaired by the ISI President Luigi Bodio (Italy) and its Vice-president
8
Albert Delatour (France).
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