The National Academy of Sciences The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963 (1978) / Chapter Skim
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8. World War I and the Creation of the National Research Council
8. World War I and the Creation of the National Research Council
Pages 200-241
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From page 200... ...
It was George Ellery Hale's opinion, as he wrote Charles D Walcott a year before the end of President Remsen's term of office, that the new President, who should live in Washington or its immediate vicinity, must be a man of an optimistic and progressive type, committed in advance to a strong forward policy.
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From page 201... ...
On the morning of the third day of the semicentennial celebration in ~9~3, with sixty-three members assembled, Dr. William Henry Welch, the foremost pathologist in the nation, received a majority of the votes for President on the formal ballot, and his election was at once made unanimous.
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From page 202... ...
The streets, restaurants and cafes are crowded with people; the bands play only national airs, and the air everywhere echoes with the modest shouts of "Deutschland uber Alles." It is all quite thrilling, but a general European war is too horrible to contemplate, and it seems impossible that it will occur.3 ~ Simon Flexner and James Thomas Flexner, William Henry Welch and the Heroic Age of American Medicine (New York: Viking, ~94~)
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From page 203... ...
In February ~ 9 ~4 a request from President Woodrow Wilson arrived, signed with his characteristic complimentary close, "Cordially and sincerely yours," asking that an Academy member serve with representatives of the Department of Agriculture and the Smithsonian on a special commission to survey the condition of the fur seal herd in the Pribilof Islands. The President asked the commission to provide "the fullest possible information respecting the seal herd" on the Islands, acquired by the purchase of Alaska from Russia in ~867, Add.
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From page 204... ...
Shortly after Welch's return from abroad, President Wilson again called on the Academy, asking for a report on the possibility of controlling the landslides seriously interfering with the use of the recently completed Panama Canal. The French had abandoned an attempt to build the Canal in ~889, after ten years of effort, defeated by the near futility of trying to construct a sea-level channel across the mountainous isthmus and by the toll among the workers in the disease-ridden terrain.
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From page 205... ...
The Academy committee of nine, made up largely of engineers and geologists headed by geologist Charles R
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From page 206... ...
Becker, a medal—the only one of its kind at the disposal of the Academy then or later for "eminence in the application of science to the public welfare." Made possible by a trust fund set up in the name of industrialist Marcellus Hartley, the first awards, in April ~9~4, went to Goethals and Gorgas.9 The Academy, which had sought for four years to establish such an award, cordially welcomed the fund. As Elihu Thomson's medal committee explained, technical and scientific inventions usually earned their own rewards, but there were other applications of science not so recognized, and pointed to Spencer Baird's establishment in ~87~ of the Fish Commission, which, despite its vast importance to the nation, would not have entitled him to membership in the Academy.
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From page 207... ...
Abbot to Arthur L Day, December 28, ~9~2 (Carnegie Institution of Washington and California Institute of Technology, George Ellery Hale Papers: Microfilm Edison, ~968, Roll 26, Frames ~89-~9~)
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From page 208... ...
Upon his reelection as Foreign Secretary at the meeting on April ~9, ~9~6, Hale obtained Council and Academy assent to seek the cooperation of the engineering societies "in the work of the academy for the national welfare." With that, he presented a resolution to the Council urging that the President of the Academy be requested to inform the President of the United States that, in the event of a break in diplomatic relations with any other country, the Academy desires to place itself at the disposal of the Government for any services within its scope. The resolution carried, and, upon its unanimous approval by the Academy members present, Hale asked "that the Council be empowered to organize the Academy for the purpose of carrying out the resolution...." Later that day, at another meeting of the Council, id Telegram, July ~3, ~9~5 (Hale Microfilm, Roll 36, Frame 873)
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From page 209... ...
Hale had first called it the National Research Foundation were to comprise the "leading American investigators and engineers, representing Army, Navy, Smithsonian Institution, and various scientific bureaus of the Government, educational institutions and research endowments, and the research divisions of industrial and manufacturing establishments."~7 The approval of the plan, when presented to the Academy ~~ Minutes ot the (Jouncil," April ~ 9 ~ 6, p. ~ 75; "Minutes of the Academy," April ~ 9 ~ 6, pp.
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From page 210... ...
~32-~34. 's President Welch in his introductory essay to the annual Reportfor 1916—resuming a
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From page 211... ...
Construction of the four great ordnance plants for nitric acid production, authorized by the War Department in June ~9~', began after months of study of synthetic processes by the AcademyResearch Council committee, War Department, Department of Agriculture, and Bureau of Mines but was not completed until after the war.20 The United States continued to depend upon Chile. custom that had lapsed since Wolcott Gibbs's time said that it was President Wilson's request that the Academy "take the initiative in ascertaining and correlating the scientific resources of the country which might be depended upon for the solution of problems arising out of the movement for 'preparedness' against the possibility of war.
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From page 212... ...
Meanwhile, Hale had obtained the assurance of cooperation from the major scientific societies, universities, technological and medical institutions, and industrial research laboratories, and with that support he saw first the President's personal representative in the White House, Col. Edward M
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From page 213... ...
32, and for the cadre of forty-four at the end of the year, pp. 34-35; Flexner and Flexner, William Henry Welch, pp.
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From page 214... ...
The possible federal rival did not mar the meeting of the National Research Council in New York on September So, ~9~6, attended by nineteen of the thirty-four members appointed to the Research Council, among them members of the Academy, representatives of scientific societies, of federal agencies, of the Engineering Foundation, and of engineering societies. At that meeting the National Research Council was formally organized: Hale was named its permanent Chairman; Charles Walcott and Gano Dunn its ViceChairmen; John I
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From page 215... ...
B Cannon; Promotion of Industrial Research, ]
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From page 216... ...
Millikan, three early leaders of the National Research Council (Photograph courtesy the archives, California Institute of Technology)
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From page 217... ...
On April ~ 7, the second day of the annual meeting of the Academy, Welch presented his letter of resignation, noting in it his indebtedness to Home Secretary Day and Foreign Secretary Hale for carrying the burden of the conduct of Academy affairs during his term of office.35 Two months later, he was a major in the medical section of the Officers' Reserve Corps, attached to the Surgeon General's Office to 33 Welch to President Wilson, October 26, ~9~6, reported the successful launching of the Research Council (NAS Archives: ORG: NAS: Com on Organizing NRC)
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From page 218... ...
The election of Charles Walcott as Welch's successor was highly satisfactory to George Ellery Hale. With no ambition of his own for the office of President—his bent was in planning and organizing programs, rather than operating them Hale was pleased when the unanimous vote of the seventy-three members present on April 1' went to Walcott.37 CHARLES DOOLITTLE WALCOTT (1917—1923)
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From page 219... ...
That committee was the progenitor of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) in ~9~5.39 During his first three years as President of the Academy, he was also Vice-Chairman of the National Research Council, Chairman of the Research Council's Military Committee, Chairman of the Executive Committee of NACA, and chairman or an executive of almost thirty other wartime committees.40 Walcott was the last Academy President to serve the six-year term ot 39 For the involvement of Walcott and the Academy in the establishment and early years of NACA, seed.
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From page 220... ...
As one familiar with the office, Ira Remsen, at the meeting at which President Welch announced his resignation, proposed an amendment to reduce the term of the President and Vice-President from six to four years. In the spring of ~9~8 the amendment, changed to include all officers of the Academy, was adopted.42 Although the Academy was almost wholly engaged for the next two years in the activities of the Research Council, it spoke for science on one occasion, in the matter of the classification of scientific men for war service.
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From page 221... ...
By the end of that year, ~oo,ooo American soldiers were overseas and the nation was fully mobilized for war. The Academy and the Wartime Research Council On February 4, ~ 9 ~ 7, the day after this country severed diplomatic relations with Germany, Hale in Pasadena at once telegraphed President Wilson offering the services of the National Research Council.
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From page 222... ...
. For Welch's intercession on behalf of the NRC with members of the CND, see Flexner and Flexner, William Henry Welch, p.
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From page 223... ...
. that the efforts of the Research Council shall be uniformly directed to the encouragement of individual initiative in research work, and that cooperation and initiative, as understood by the Research Council, shall not be deemed to involve restrictions or limitations of any kind to be placed upon research workers.54 The action of the CND ended any thought of basic research.
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From page 224... ...
. The same letter reported Haleis effort to bring metallurgist and mining engineer Herbert Hoover into the Research Council.
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From page 225... ...
Mendenhall were at once commissioned in the Signal Corps to set up the new division.59 Almost as important to the operations of the Research Council as its 56 Hale to Walter S Gifford, March ~3, ~9~7 (NAS Archives: EXEC: CND: General)
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From page 226... ...
Through its members in the Washington office and at the branches set up in London, Paris, and Rome, the Research Information Committee was able to secure and exchange a large quantity of Allied and U.S. scientific, technical, and industrial information, "especially relating to war problems." The potentiality for the future of the committee's ties with international science made it a prized element in the Research Council.60 In the late fall of ~9~', with every unit organized and fully engaged, as Millikan reported, Hale returned from California with his family to an apartment in Washington.
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From page 227... ...
The other seven NRC divisions, their titles unchanged, then operated through a total of nine sections, thirty-two committees, twenty-six subcommittees, and fourteen special committees. In addition, the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Technology, where most of the special committees were located, also had twelve special consultants.65 The Research Information Committee had become the Research Information Service, with a full complement of Army, Navy, and federal bureau representatives.
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From page 228... ...
The committee ceased to function with the death of its Chairman in ~920.67 But the fledgling Industrial Research Section, renamed "research extension," and with changes suggested by industry, developed into a dynamic unit in the postwar Research Council.68 Funding of the Academy's War Effort Amid reorganization and plans for the future, the wartime work of the Research Council pressed on. Its operating expenses in the first eighteen months were initially met through the funds provided by the Engineering Foundation, private contributions to the Academy, arid donations of the Carnegie Corporation and Rockefeller Foundation, totaling $74,~oo.
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From page 229... ...
35) , said $~so,ooo of the President's fund was for the offices of the Research Information Committee, and in his Autobiography (pp.
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From page 230... ...
Although not perfected until after the introduction of the convoy system began to reduce the loss of ships, it proved its worth in the last months of sub-hunting. American teams also did important work on development of a device, pioneered by Paul Langevin, that used high frequency sound waves to detect a motionless submarine a mile or more away.73 Instrumented weather balloons providing weather data every two hours, upon which the aviation, artillery, and sound-ranging services in France came to depend, were developed for the Signal Corps' Meteorology Division.
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From page 231... ...
Some of them had great significance for the postwar years. Such, for example, were the advances made in high-grade optical glass for military instruments; the impact on the chemical industry of the large-scale nitrogen-fixation plants designed for the production of nitric acid; and the new chemistry devised for the Chemical Warfare Service through the joint research of physical, biological, organic, and analytical chemists.
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From page 232... ...
The resulting work, in a laboratory the Bureau established at American University in Washington, as well as in a number of universities and medical institutions, was transferred to the newly created Army Chemical Warfare Service in June ~9~8.78 The high incidence of "war neurosis" and shell shock, of trench foot and trench mouth, gas gangrene, pneumonia, and, above all, epidemic and pandemic influenza taxed the medical services in France as well as the medical research institutions at home. The estimate that the respiratory diseases accounted for 8z percent of all Army deaths caused by disease suggested promising directions for future research.79 A related field of medicine was the application of psychology to war problems.
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From page 233... ...
From the beginning, Hale had seen the Research Council not just as a temporary organization for a national emergency but as the vehicle for realizing "the future of the National Academy" he had projected in ~9~3. At the meeting of the Academy committee with Woodrow Wilson in April ~ 9 ~ 6, the President, he said, had "emphasized the fact that the chief national advantage of such cooperation and coordination fas the Research Council proposed]
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From page 234... ...
Hale's "Plan for the Promotion of Scientific and Industrial Research by the National Academy of Sciences and the National Research Council," which he was proposing for the postwar period, emerged in the fall of aged. The fifty-four-page prospectus was first presented to the trustees of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, from whom he sought the building and endowment the program would require, then laid before the Council of the Academy at its meeting, to which Millikan was invited, on December ~9, ~9~7.
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From page 235... ...
Accordingly, in the President's Executive Order, dated May ~ I, ~ 9 ~ 8, the National Academy of Sciences was "requested to perpetuate the National Research Council," whose functions would be 85 Hale to President Wilson, March 26, ~9~8, and enclosures (copies in NAS Archives: EXEC: Executive Orders & Directives: EO ~859: NRC)
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From page 236... ...
The concluding paragraph of the President's Order offered "the cordial collaboration of the scientific and technical branches of the Government, both military and civil." Their representatives, upon the nomination of the Academy, would be designated by the President as members of the Council "as heretofore, and the heads of the departments immediately concerned will continue to cooperate in every way that may be required." "The Order," Hale wrote President Wilson of the advance copy he received, "is entirely satisfactory to the National Academy of Sciences and the National Research Council."89 In the Annual Report that year he spoke of it "as supplementing .
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From page 237... ...
. 9~ Resolution of March 28, ~9~9, attached to letter, Secretary of the Carnegie Corporation to President Walcott, June At, ~9~9 (NAS Archives: FINANCE: Funds: Grants: Carnegie Corp of NY: Building & Endowment Fund)
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From page 238... ...
In addition to the obvious benefits to the fellows, their presence in the universities would have an equally salutary effect on the research atmosphere of the schools.93 In March ~9~9, the Academy and Research Council submitted to the Rockefeller Foundation a formal proposal for a "project for 92 George F Vincent to Millikan, February 5, ~9~8 (NAS Archives: FELLOWSHIPS: Research Fellowship Board: Physics & Chemistry: Beginning of Program)
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From page 239... ...
In anticipation, the Research Council had set up a Research Fellowship Board, headed by Simon Flexner of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, with Hale, Millikan, and Noyes among its members, to administer the funds. The National Research Fellowships, administered by the NRC over the next thirty years, were possibly the single most enduring and intrinsically important program to come out of the wartime Research Council.95 International Research Council A second far-reaching proposal was made by Hale as Foreign Secretary of the Academy and leader of the six Academy delegates to the Inter-Allied Conference on International Scientific Organizations in October ~9~8.96 Since June, when the Royal Society called the Conference, he had been working on a plan that would satisfy the immediate needs of the Allies for effective cooperation during the war.
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From page 240... ...
On November s6, ~9~8, at the second Inter-Allied Conference in Paris, the International Research Council was provisionally organized, with plans to take over at a later date the work of the international agencies on solar research, astronomy, and geophysics set up before the war.97 Interallied exchange of scientific data during the war was effected through the Research Information Service, now a major unit of the NRC, with its scientific attaches in London, Paris, and Rome. Hale saw that they too would have important functions in his postwar plans: Properly regarded the wrote]
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From page 241... ...
He was a frail man with an iron spirit, and, as he saw it, the war had prepared the way for the continuing promotion of research. His vision of the Research Council, representing the government, the major research agencies in the country, and the chief national scientific, technical, and engineering societies joined in the years ahead in a collective assault on scientific problems, was contagious.
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