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

THE BUREAU TURNS TO WAR RESEARCH
THE
WAR YEARS
(1917—19)
The war began in faraway Europe on August 4, 1914 and for several months
the stock market and the American public were profoundly depressed. Then
the long battle line across northern France stabilized, rifle pits became
trenches, and as winter approached it appeared that the war had come to stay.
Its early threat to American security was countered 'by President Wilson's dec.
laration of neutrality; its threat to our economic stability dissipated as Amer-
ica became the arsenal of the Allies, supplying them with money, credits,
munitions, oil, chemicals, explosives, and foodstuffs.1
Pursuing neutrality, no Government agency made the slightest attempt
to interfere in the booming production of war materials until a congressional
act of August 1916, looking to a "future war of defense inferentially far
distant," set up the Council of National Defense. Composed of the
Secretaries of War, Navy, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, and Labor, it
was to make recommendations to the President "for the co-ordination of in.
dustries and resources for the national security and welfare." 2 Under no
pressure and without a directive, the Council marked time until after war was
declared, when its principal function was effectively assumed by the all-
powerful War Industries Board, under Bernard Baruch.
The first actual war.research agency of World War I was the National
Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), established by Congress in
March 1915 to initiate and direct scientific studies in problems of flight.
The Bureau of Standards, represented on the Committee by Dr. Stratton, was
asked to begin investigations at once of the physical factors in aeronautic
'Exclusive of neutral countries, exports to the Allies rose from $927 million in 1914 to
$3,013 million in 1916. Arthur C. Bining, The Rise of American Economic Life (New
York: Charles Scribner's, 1943), p. 564; William E. Leuchtenburg, The Perils of Pros-
perity, 1914—1932 (University of Chicago Press, 1958), p. 16.
2 First Annual Report, Council of National Defense, 1917—18, p. 6; Second Annual Report,
1918—19, p. 5.
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CHAPTER IV