National Academies Press: OpenBook
« Previous: COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Suggested Citation:"HISTORY AND ORGANIZATION." National Research Council. 1923. The Organization and Activities of the Committee on Scientific Research of the State Council of Defense of California: Bulletin of the National Research Council. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9559.
×
Page 4
Suggested Citation:"HISTORY AND ORGANIZATION." National Research Council. 1923. The Organization and Activities of the Committee on Scientific Research of the State Council of Defense of California: Bulletin of the National Research Council. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9559.
×
Page 5
Suggested Citation:"HISTORY AND ORGANIZATION." National Research Council. 1923. The Organization and Activities of the Committee on Scientific Research of the State Council of Defense of California: Bulletin of the National Research Council. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9559.
×
Page 6
Suggested Citation:"HISTORY AND ORGANIZATION." National Research Council. 1923. The Organization and Activities of the Committee on Scientific Research of the State Council of Defense of California: Bulletin of the National Research Council. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9559.
×
Page 7

Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

4 C4LIPORNId COMMITTEE ON SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH I. HISTORY AND ORGANIZATION For some years prior to 1914 there had been on the Pacific Coast a Pacific Coast Association of Scientific Societies comprising; a union of most of the scientific organizations of that region. With the appointment of the Committee of One Hundred on Research of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1913, a Pacific Coast Subcommittee of this larger Committee was formed for the purpose of studying means for promoting scientific research in this region so remote from the other centers of scientific life of this country. These steps, together with the preparations necessary for the'San Francisco meeting of the American Association in connec- tion with the Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915, led to the formation in 1914 of a Pacific Division of the American Asso- ciation. An organization of the scientific interests of the Pacific Coast for the general purposes of the advancement of science had thus been built up before the entry of America into the war. A meeting of the Pacific Division of the American Association had been appointed at Stanford University for April 5-7, 1917, and with the development of the international crisis at that time the major interest of this meeting centered upon means by which scientific men of the Pacific Coast could contribute their services to the national cause. At the Stanford meeting, in order to meet the impending emer- gency of the war, the Pacific (Joast Subcommittee of the Committee of One Hundred on Research was enlarged by the abolition of repre- sentatives of the Pacific Coast sections of national scientific societies, of local societies, and of sections of the Pacific Division of the Ameri- can Association. This body came to be known as the Pacific Coast Research Conference. The Pacific Coast Subcommittee of the Com- mittee of One Hundred on Research of the American Association became the Executive Committee of this Conference. The Pacific Coast Research Conference at once offered its services to the Committee on Scientific Research which had just been ap- pointed by the California State Council of Defense, and also to Councils of Defense in other Pacific Coast~States through the follow- ing resolution: "WHEREAS, It is the opinion of this Committee that the im- portant scientific problems before men of science today are those problems relating to preparation for war which require scientific research; GTUEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, That this Committee rep- resenting the scientific interest of the Pacific Division of the

ORGANIZATION AND ACTIVITIES: GOODSPEED ~ American Association for the Advancement of Science, offer to the State Council of Defense already formed in California, and to such other similar state or national organizations as may be organized, the full support and assistance of this Committee, in so far as it may be desired for the direction of research, upon problems arising out of a condition of prepa- rat~on for war. On April 6 this resolution was transmitted to the, Committee on Scientific Research of the State Council of Defense for California. The offer was accepted by the California State Council of Defense and special committees of the Conference were authorized to submit programs of investigations deemed necessary. In order to facilitate control and administration, the Committee on Scientific Research of the California State Council of Defense was enlarged by the addition of the members of the Executive Committee of the Pacific Coast Research Conference and of the directors of the state scientific and technical bureaus, and the control of the special committees of the Conference was turned over directly to the Committee on Scientific Research of the California!State Council of Defense. The Confer- ence retained a general advisory relation to the scientific work of the Coast. National relationships were promptly established by the Cali- fornia Committee on Scientific Research immediately placing itself in touch with the National Research Council at Washington and the two bodies co-operated throughout the war. Thus scientific work in California during the war was related directly to the interest in re- search which had been cleveloped previously on the Pacific Coast with the increasing co-ordination of scientific activities of the region. In an early report submitted to the State Council of Defense by its Committee on Scientific Research on April 18, the recommendations of the special committees upon important investigations were em- bodied, and the Committee on Scientific Research defined its purposes and outlined its plan for organizing the investigations rendered par- ticularly important by the emergency, in this way: "The Research Committee, in conference with representa- tives of the scientific societies, is concerned with all matters relating to research which may be applied to problems of de- fense, offense, or the needs of the state and nation in the present emergency. The committee is assumed to have sev- eral functions which may be stated as follows: (~) To serve as a research board ready to receive from any division of the State Council of Defense matters for scientific investigation, urgently requiring attention at this time; (2) To use the whole range of scientific research for the development of new sources of supply or new forces to be made available for present needs;

6 CALIFORNIA COMMITTEE ON SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH (3) To bring about co-operation between phases of engi- neering or applied science, contacts of which are mainly by way of the fundamental scientific principles upon which the application is based." "Your Committee, in undertaking to secure an estimate of the problems of scientific research in which the State of Cali- fornia or the Nation may have an urgent interest, found already organized and ready with offers of co-operation the Pacific Coast Research Committee of the American Associa- tion for the Advancement of Science, which at its meeting in conference with representatives from scientific societies affili- ated with the Pacific Division of the American Association for the Advancement of Science at the Leland Stanford Junior University on April 5-7, 1917, made a tender of services and perfected its organization. Your committee has voted to ac- ce it the offer of co-operation and looks to this body to organize the several investigations deemed imperative The above Pacific Coast Research (committee has proceeded with great activity, and, in consultation with your committee, has ap- pointed a number of subcommittees, constituted of the most eminent men in the fields of science in our locality. These subcommittees are the following: Committee on Astronomical and Mathematical In- ~restigations. Committee on Botanical l:nvestigations. (committee on Chemical Research. Committee on Economics. Committee on Engineering and Inattentions. Committee on Entomological Investigations. Committee on Geology and Mineral Resources. Subcommittee on Iron Ore. Subcommittee on Alkalis. (committee on Medical Research. (committee on Occupational Selection. Petroleum Commission. Committee on Physical Investigations. Committee on Psychological Investigations. ()ommittee on Zoological Investigations. Your committee has received detailed reports from each one of these subcommittees giving full information of inves- tigation already in progress, of existing facilities and re- sources available to the State, and has accompanied these reports with a statement of financial needs not covered by existing facilities or sums of money. The sum total of the money required is estimated to be $106,750' for the first year and $35,250 for the second year. Your committee recommends that these sums of money be included in the State Emergency Fund to be made available for expenditure by action of the State Board of Control and the Comptroller

ORGANIZATION AND ACTIVITIES: GOODSPE~D 7 to be disbursed and in the manner prescribed by these agents of the State upon estimates of need furnished by your Com- mittee on Scientific Research." Later these estimates were revised and on May 15 the following budget was approved subject to certification of the emergency char- acter of the various items by the Governor as Chairman of the estate Council of Defense. Chemical Investigations ...... Botanical Investigations .... Psychological Investigations Medical Investigations ..... Entomological Tn~Testigations Zoological Investigations ............... Office Maintenance ........... .... $42,000 1,000 245 3,500 ... 10,000 10,000 1,550 $6S,295 Early in June, 1917, a sum of $3,900 was made available for office expenses and for investigations upon native rubber and upon taurin as a possible cure for tuberculosis, and for certain zoological investi- gations. Later $32,000 was appropriated for use upon other inves- tigations approved in the budget adopted by the Committee, the funds being sent to the Comptroller of the University of California to act as trustee. The ending of the recent war found the Committee on Scientific Research of the State Council of Defense for California with a num- ber of the more active and important of its research projects still under way, and by a redistribution of remaining funds it was possible to provide for the completion of the unfinished work. In the major- ity of cases preliminary reports of the results obtained have been published for the various research projects, either directly by the State Council of Defense or in various scientific periodicals. A list of these papers and reports is appended. In the statements which follow, the work of the special committees is summarized.

Next: ACTIVITIES OF SPECIAL COMMITTEES »
The Organization and Activities of the Committee on Scientific Research of the State Council of Defense of California: Bulletin of the National Research Council Get This Book
×
MyNAP members save 10% online.
Login or Register to save!
  1. ×

    Welcome to OpenBook!

    You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

    Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

    No Thanks Take a Tour »
  2. ×

    Show this book's table of contents, where you can jump to any chapter by name.

    « Back Next »
  3. ×

    ...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

    « Back Next »
  4. ×

    Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

    « Back Next »
  5. ×

    To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter.

    « Back Next »
  6. ×

    Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

    « Back Next »
  7. ×

    View our suggested citation for this chapter.

    « Back Next »
  8. ×

    Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

    « Back Next »
Stay Connected!