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

THE BUREAU AND THE METRIC SYSTEM 209
Beyond all practical considerations—and they were many but not insuper-
able—the opposition appeared bound as much by emotional principles as
by practical ones: the common measures were soundly Anglo-Saxon in
origin; they had mystic biblical connotations; above all, they were a kind
of badge of our isolation from the aflairs of Europe.'23
The leading advocates of the metric system were of course the
scientists and scientific institutions of this country. Three times at the
turn of the century, in 1896, 1901, and 1903, they had mobilized to support
metric legislation introduced in Congress, only to see it faiL'24 During the
hearings in 1900 that led to the establishment of the National Bureau of
Standards, the subject of metric legislation came up but fortunately was not
pressed. - As Dr. Stratton confessed not long after, had Congress known
that the proposed bureau was favorable to the adoption of the metric system,
a great many there would have opposed its establishment.125
Evidence of Bureau interest in the metric system—and perhaps as a
demonstration of its application in the construction industry—appeared in
the seeming irregular dimensions (that is, in terms of feet and yards) of
North and South buildings and their laboratories, which resulted from their
computation in metrics.'25 Regrettably, no correspondence has been found
to indicate the reaction of either the architects or the builders to fitting con-
ventional materials to unaccustomed dimensions.
From its very beginning, the Bureau took an active part in supporting
metric legislation. It secured the cooperation of those who had assisted in
Two of the most dedicated of the antimetricists in the early century were Frederick
A. Halsey and Samuel Dale, spokesmen for the textile industry and authors of one of the
ablest of the antimetric books, The Metric Fallacy (New York: Van Nostrand, 1904).
For the considerable correspondence of Samuel Dale with the Bureau in the period
1904—23, see NBS Boxes 20, 21, 55, 58. Typical of the temper of antimetricists was the
remark of Samuel Russell, clerk to Senator William H. King of Utah, who wrote in an
8-page letter on the subject: "Metricitis, like socialism and Christian Science, is a
mental Aberration" (letter to Secretary of Commerce Hoover, Apr. 8, 1921, NBS Box
20, MS).
Letter, SWS to Secretary of Commerce and Labor, Apr. 4, 1904 (NBS Box 21, MS).
See also Hearings before Committee on Coinage, Weights, and Measures, Jan. 30, 1896
(L/C: QC91.U46), and Annual Report, Secretary of the Treasury, 1899, p. lxxvii.
A good account of early metric legislative efforts appears in William Hallock and
Herbert T. Wade, The Evolution of Weights and Measures and the Metric System
(New York: Macmillan, 1906), pp. 133—134. Still the most authoritative general work
available on weights and measures, it devoted more than half its 300 pages to the origin,
development, and uses of the metric system.
Hearings before the Committee on Coinage, Weights, and Measures, May 3, 1900, pp.
7—8; letter, SWS to E. L. Corthell, Minister of Public Works, Buenos Aires, Argentina,
Aug. 16, 1901 (NBS Box 21, MS).
126 See Rosa, "Plans of the new buildings * * Science, 17, 137 (1903); Cobleutz..
From the Life of a Researcher. 131.