Measures for Progress: A History of the National Bureau of Standards

AN AUTUMN FIRE AND A CONSUMERS' CRUSADE 87
inexpensive working standards for the use of State, county, and city sealers
and put them in the hands of several manufacturers. Thus sealers for the
first time could buy sets of standard weights, measures, and scales specifically
designed for their use and send them to the Bureau to be verified and certi-
fied.65 But it was not enough. The old standards had been around a long
time and there was no rush to acquire the new sets. The States had to be
stirred up.
Dr. Stratton's first proposal to the Governors of the States in 1903
for a meeting of State sealers fell through, it was said, for lack of State
travel funds. In November 1904, shortly after moving out of downtown
Washington and into the new buildings on Connecticut Avenue, Stratton
renewed the invitation. Although there were few acceptances, he was deter-
mined to hold the meeting anyway.
The first conference, meeting in January 1905, with representatives
from seven States and the District of Columbia, disclosed that in most of
these States the laws relating to weights and measures were "exceedingly
lax * * * with nothing obligatory" or were "practically a dead letter,"
that the State sealer's office was usually unsalaried, and the duties of county
sealers were often imposed on the county treasurer or even the superin-
tendent of schools. In more than one State, the county and city sealers
were not compelled to procure standards, and several of the State repre-
sentatives knew nothing about their State standards or even where they
were to be found In one State Hassler's standards had been destroyed by
fire some years earlier and the $550 necessary to replace them had never
been appropriated. in another instance the standards were said to be
"hoary with age from long confinement in the dingy and dark recesses of
the basement of the capitol."
The consequence of this almost studied disinterest, it was admitted,
had long made fraud and trickery in weights and measures commonplace in
most of the States represented at the conference. And as Dr. Stratton com-
mented: "Remarkable as have been the statements made today we have not
heard the worst, as there are States in which absolutely nothing is done and
which are not represented here today." The Bureau agreed to host further
meetings in order to discuss means for securing uniform laws and inspection
of commercial weights and measures.66
At the second conference, in April 1906, it was decided to set up
a permanent organization of State officials, make the conference an annual
event to discuss the testing and sealing of commercial weights and measures,
"Letter report, Fischer to 0. H. Tittmann, Supt., U.S. C. & G.S., June 15, 1901 (Stratton
Papers, Box 12); NBS Annual Report 1904, pp. 6—7.
""Conference on the weights and measures of the United States * * * January 16 and
17, 1905," NBS M4 (1905), pp. 26, 27, 31, 40, 42. See the voluminous correspondence
with. State officials in NBS Box 18, 1W, 1901—11.