Max Weber, Dr. Alfred Ploetz, and W.E.B. Du Bois.

This article presents translated passages from the Proceedings of the Conference of the German Sociological Society in Frankfurt, Germany on October 21, 1910. Max Weber and several other participants took part in a very sharp debate involving a paper presented by Alfred Ploetz on The Concepts of Race and Society. The translation has been limited to those portions of the conference containing direct exchanges between Ploetz and Weber, and omits the remarks of Ploetz's other critics. In the course of his discussion with Ploetz, Weber refers to his breakfast meeting with W. E. B. Du Bois in Saint Louis in 1904. Weber had been invited to the U.S. to present a paper at the Congress of Arts and Science as a part of the 1904 Universal Exposition in Saint Louis. Du Bois reports that he heard Weber's lecture during his student days in Germany in 1890's. Weber gave further evidence of his strong interest in Du Bois' work on the occasion of the publication in the Archiv of Du Bois' essay. A footnote will be found there in which the editor asks for comment from the readers and indicates his hope that other articles in this vein will presently be appearing. So far, no comments on the article were published in the year following its appearance.