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The article presents an address by E. U. Condon, director of Research for the Corning Glass Company in Corning, New York, about the relationship between scientists and the U.S. federal government. His discussion focuses on how the federal government supports and obstructs American science and scientists.

The article looks at some general trends that are observable during the first half of the twentieth century. Nearly all scientific research was done in the universities. The decline of international science before the first world war is described. From 1919 to 1934 there was a fifteen year period in which science was unhampered by national boundaries, in which many great advances were made and in which cooperation of all kinds flourished so well that this was not a subject for special comment. This was the period that American science began to mature.

The article presents the author's experience regarding the political abuse of the personnel security system to blight the relations of the loyal American scientists and their government. The author explains about being under steady political attack for seven years and argues that the American government should make honorable amends to beleaguered scientists.