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

REVISING THE ORGANIC ACT 153
thought that the organic act might be made more specific. On the
other hand, this would be gained at the expense of flexibility.110
Unwilling to tamper with the basic act, Stratton suggested another
way around the problem. Because of their national eminence and their
connections, the Visiting Committee to the Bureau, then composed of Dr. Elihu
Thomson, Dr. Robert S. Woodward, Prof. Henry M. Howe, Prof. Arthur
G. Webster, and Prof. John F. Hayford, exerted considerable influence on
behalf of the Bureau in high places, as well as on its operations. Stratton
proposed to Secretary of Commerce and Labor Nagel that the Committee,
presently made up largely of scientific men, be increased from 5 to 8 or 10, to
include more representation for the new research interests of the Bureau:
"It is highly desirable that the technological and industrial interests be also
represented."
Neither an increase in the Committee nor a change in the organic act
proved necessary. What amounted to an amendment to the organic act was
sufficient. On March 4, 1913 Congress passed an act (37 Stat. 945) that
made the testing of industrial and commercial materials for the Government
a specific function of the Bureau:
Materials for fireproof buildings, other structural materials, and
all materials, other than materials for paving and for fuel, pur.
chased for and to be used by the government of the District of
Columbia, when necessary in the judgment of the commissioners
to be tested, shall be tested by the Bureau of Standards under the
same condition as similar testing is required to be done for the
United States Government.
In Dr. Stratton's view, this act for the benefit of the District of Columbia
formally justified the materials testing and public service testing involving
materials that the Bureau had been doing since 1904 for the Federal Govern.
ment, its establishments in this country, in Panama, and in its oversea
possessions.
That same month of 1913 the Wilson administration took office, the
Department of Commerce and Labor was split in two, and William C. Red.
field, soon to become a close friend of Dr. Stratton and one of the most ardent
supporters the Bureau has ever had, was appointed the new Secretary of
Commerce. Redfield at 55 had been in business and manufacturing most
of his life, was vice president of an engineering firm, author of a recent
book, The New Industrial Day (1912), and had been a Congressman for the
past 2 years when he became Secretary. An intense man, with strong con-
Letter, SWS to Secretary of Commerce and Labor, Nov. 14, 1912, and attached cor-
respondence (NBS Box 3, AG).
Ibid.